Your city, your voice. Subscribe on YouTube. Checkmate. Good info is a good thing. The Broadway Curve project is in the works. Prepare for lane closures and detours. Stay ahead of the curve at iTracurve.com. We all want to get to our destination safely, so be aware of everything happening around you whenever walking, riding, or rolling along our streets. Most pedestrian and bike crashes happen when drivers are turning. Scan the street for wheels and feet when turning or entering intersections. Hello, I'm Phoenix City Councilwoman Kesha Haj Washington and I want to let you know about the city's parks and recreation master plan. The master plan defines the community's vision and guides the department's direction to create safe and enjoyable parks for our children's and family. The plan will look at all of our parks from East Lake to Newestro. We will also take a look at our recreational amenities such as a mural smid recreation center and the South Phoenix Youth Center. Our goal is to address equity of access for our residents. Part of the master plan process is receiving feedback from you, our residents. I invite you to take part in the community workshops and surveys that will be made available throughout the next 18 months. Creating spaces for all Phoenicians to enjoy is our goal. You can learn more Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. N. I love you. I love you. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Oh yeah. Hey. Hey. Yeah. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. N. Phoenix isn't just a city. It's a community. Diverse, vibrant, and always moving forward. At Phoenix TV, we bring you inside city hall and beyond. From the services you rely on to the stories that connect us all. Watch live meetings, local stories, and updates that matter to you. Phoenix TV, your city, your voice. Subscribe on YouTube. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. All All right, good evening. Good evening, everybody. Welcome to Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport, America's friendliest airport. >> I hope you are are looking at me and seeing a well-rested gentleman, and that's because I happen to be a part of the amazing delegation that went to Ta Taipei. Uh, and we came back on Starlex Flight 26. We are so proud to welcome our partners and our friends from Starulex Airlines. Please join me in welcoming them. Uh at the start of the order, we have some distinguished guests with us today and I would love to uh to have the opportunity to uh introduce them. First uh and foremost, the leader of our delegation, uh Phoenix Mayor Kate Ggo, the CEO of Starlock Airlines, Glenn Chai, is with us today. Glenn Phoenix Vice Mayor Kesha Hajj Washington is with us. Thanks for joining us. Vice Mayor Director General of Taipei Economic and Cultural Office of Los Angeles. Amino Chi is with us. Welcome. Phoenix City Councilwoman Ann O'Brien of District 1 is with us. She joined us on the delegation. Welcome. The head of airline partnerships for American Airlines, Jeff Ogar is with us. Jeff, managing director of partnerships and international at Alaska Airlines, Alex Judson, president and CEO of the Greater Phoenix Economic Council. Christine Mackey is with us. Chris, president and CEO of Visit Phoenix and the chair of the Phoenix Aviation Advisory Board, uh, Ron Price. Ron, we have a a number of other uh important stakeholders with us. So, if you'll bear with me, it's very important that I introduce them because they are so important to the success that we're celebrating today. Uh, from our Phoenix City Manager's Office, we have Phoenix City Manager Ed Zurker. Ed assistant city manager Lorie Bae is with us assistant city manager Ginger Spencer. Thank you for joining us. Ginger deputy city manager and my boss. So it's important we all give him a a big round of of applause here. Frank McHune is with us. Frank. Uh, we also had a number of our Phoenix Aviation Advisory board members joining us on this delegation trip. Ruben Alonzo, Sandy Ferna, and Sharon Wong were with us. Please join me in thanking them and welcoming them to this evening. The city of Phoenix uh community and economic development director Ryan Tulhill is here. Ryan. And then I'm really proud to uh acknowledge a number of my team members who are here in leadership positions. We have assistant uh aviation director, chief oper operations officer uh Sarah Deery is with us. Sarah, there she is. Our assistant director and chief revenue officer, Roxanne Favers, is with us. She also oversees our air service development program. Roxan, an assistant director and chief development officer helping to make our airports work. Uh Dber Malik is with us. Dober. Um the first impression at Sky Harbor is always critically important, especially to our international guests who are traveling to our state and our city for the very first time. And we have very important partners here at Sky Harbor Airport that make that first impression possible. I'd love to welcome our G customs and border protection team, port director Marisella Perez is with us. Thank you, Marisella. And we have uh Chiefs Bernardet Garcia and Wano Sario with us. Thank you both. What a what a wonderful welcome you had today. Thank you. I also want to thank leadership uh from a number of other groups that have really helped to make today possible, including the Greater Phoenix Economic Council, uh the Arizona Office of Tourism, Arizona Lodging and Tourism Association, uh and the Support Sky Harbor Coalition to name just a few. The Arizona Commerce Authority also is with us. We're so grateful to all of you. It takes a team to make an event like this happen. Uh please join me in giving everybody a round of applause who I didn't acknowledge. Well, now it's my distinct pleasure to uh introduce and welcome to the podium for remarks our leader, Mayor Kate Ggo. Mayor, the friendliest island and the friendliest airport are now connected. Taipei, welcome to Phoenix. Director General Chi, leaders of the Starlux Airline, we are so happy at this partnership. Starlux was the first airline to announce international service between Asia and the city of Phoenix and we are so pleased that today has come. So, welcome to Phoenix. We are also thrilled to welcome the chairman of the airline, but he is not with us because he is on mandatory rest because he was the captain of our plane. A very special flight. The city of Phoenix has been sister cities with Taipei for 47 years and we have benefited so much together from incredible cultural partnerships, great food to economic activity. As many of you know, I have been talking about non-stop service between Asia and Phoenix for a decade. Uh Mr. Brown can attest to that. We've been talking about that and now we are so pleased to have wonderful partnerships. Taipei could not be a more important partner to us and the country of Taiwan. In Phoenix, we are proud to be home to the largest foreign direct investment in our country's history, which is Taiwan semiconductors investment in the city of Phoenix. Just one of one of the many ways that the city of Phoenix has benefited from our partnership with Taiwan. So, we are so thankful to the government of Taiwan. We were just hosted by the president and vice president and they expressed the deep affection. The president of Taiwan shared that Phoenix and Taiwan are like brothers, almost so close that we're twins and this really shows that important friendship. So, Director General, thank you for all you have done for the people of Phoenix. And we are excited that the people of Phoenix will get to visit Taipei. I hope it will be a gateway for any Asian vacation. Everyone in Phoenix should want a selfie with Taipei 101, the incredibly tall building, or to have the the wonderful cuisine, the great dumplings, to visit the night markets, to enjoy the wonderful urban hiking. We are two cities with beautiful mountains in our cities, but theirs are much greener than ours. So, I hope so many people who have not had a chance to visit Taipei will take the wonderful service we now offer out of Sky Harbor. Starlux is a new airline with brand new planes and great friendly friendly staff. So, we look forward to filling your planes and to this deep deep partnership. It's time to start thinking about your your next vacation and Taiwan should be at the top of your list. We also believe this will be a gateway across Asia that there will be so many other destinations you will want to travel to, but starting in Taiwan and then when you return, thanks to our great team at Customs and Border Patrol, you'll have the the fastest and most friendly welcome when you come back. We have the best team with our customs here. So, thank you for the partnership and we are lucky to have Chad Makovsky and his great team leading Sky Harbor. They worked so long and hard to make this happen. So, to Roxanne, Lexi, Sabine, and our entire Phoenix Aviation team, everyone who worked on this deal. Thank you so much. This deal was a long time coming. Christine Mackey and I traveled to Taiwan in October of 2019 and invi met with Glenn. Think about how long ago that was. And Glenn tells us his team has been looking at our numbers ever since. So, we appreciate you investing in Phoenix and and making this decision. When we went to visit Starlux, the chairman actually wasn't there because he was out testing planes to buy them. And uh he bought planes that have a lot of parts made in Phoenix. So, lots of wins there. But as you can see from all the awards they've won, Starlux is a top tier airline and we are very excited to have you serving the people of Phoenix. Uh the mayor of Taipei asked me to send greetings to everyone and encourage you to visit. Uh he wanted me to recommend the stinky tofu. I have not tried it, so I cannot personally recommend it. But for our brave adventurers, there's incredible culinary diversity in the country of Taiwan and city of Taipei. So whether you're traveling for business or for pleasure, we hope that you have an incredible time. I was honored to lead the delegation with Annne O'Brien, our council woman for District 1, who is our sister city lead with Taipei. And and Councilwoman, thank you for all of the great work we have done together. We met with aerospace, uh, tourism, obviously semiconductors, and a big week for Taiwan and the United States. There is no city that benefits more in the United States from the partnership with Taiwan. And, uh, that partnership is getting dramatically bigger. So, uh, really exciting time to our vice mayor who serves the airport district. Thank you for your support and passion. And then I want to do a special thank you to David Drenin on my team who helped make this partnership happen and and deepens our relationship with Taiwan. So we're excited to fill Alaska and American Airlines seats with people coming through Starlux to Phoenix and and do the reverse. And this just really is a beautiful day for our incredible sister city partnership with Taipei. So Starlux, welcome to Phoenix. Thank you so much for those great remarks. Uh, Mayor, um, what what an amazing day. And I actually forgot and I'm remiss and I want to apologize. A very important leader with Starlux is with us and I I failed to introduce him. Uh Simon Lou, chief strategy officer for Starlex Airlines is with us. Simon, thank you. You've been a great partner. Uh so next up uh to to say a few words, uh it's my uh distinct pleasure to introduce uh the director general of Taipei and economic cultural office of Los Angeles, Aminochi. Amino, the honorable Kate Ggo, mayor of the Phoenix, and Mr. Glen Chang, CEO of the Starlocks Airlines. Ladies and gentlemen, good evening. It is my great honor to represent the government of Taiwan here in this vibrant valley of the sun to celebrate the Starlock Airlines inaugural flight between Taipei and Phoenix. This is more than just a new route. It is also a meaningful milestone in the close partnership between Taiwan and the United States. Mayor Ggo has just laid a delegation to Taiwan and taken this inaugural flight from Taipei to Phoenix. I believe this journey has made everyone feel that distance between our two sides is closer than ever. Arizona has become one of Taiwan's key partners in the global semiconductor industry and Phoenix is now a cherished second home for many Taiwan n families. The direct flights responded to the growing demands for business technology and the tenant exchanges. It strengthens supply chains resilience and connects two important technology hubs seamlessly. Beyond business, we also look forward to tourism opportunity this route will bring. Taiwan offers a worldclass cuisine, rich culture, and a stunning national scenery. Arizona Grand Canyon and deserts are equally captivating. Through Starlocks airlines excellent service, we warmly welcome friends from Arizona to experience Taiwan's warms, hospitality, and incredible culture. I sincerely thank the Starbucks Airlines team for their vision and the Arizona and Phoenix government for their support. And this new route is a testament to the strong partnership uh a strong partnership between Taiwan and United States. and I look forward to the shared success you were faster. Finally, I wish Starlux Airlines Taipei Phoenix route full flights, smooth operation and the step journey. Thank you so much. >> Thank you, Director General Chi. Um, so you know, we at Sky Harbor are are very fortunate to uh have strong relationships with the airlines that serve our community. Uh and none is uh more strong than the one uh we have with our largest airline here, American Airlines. They continue to be the largest carrier of our community with more than 200 daily departures to nearly 100 non-stop destinations around the US. And this connection that they've now forged with Star uh Starlock really takes our relationship to a whole new level. So, it's my uh distinct privilege to introduce a leader who's played a really key role in developing this airline partnership and making today possible. Please join me in welcoming to the stage, Mr. Jeff Olgar. So, on behalf of American Airlines and our 130,000 team members, I just want to congratulate Starlux on the launch of your new service between Phoenix and Taipei. So, partnerships to us are about really three things. creating long-term mutual benefit for our customers, expanding our networks, and really benefiting the communities we serve here in Phoenix, in Taipei, and around the world. So, I I want to share a little story about how tonight came to be um and the power of these partnerships. So, it was almost a year ago to the day I went in my calendar and I looked and it was I think a year ago Thursday was having dinner with the Starlux team and we were hashing out how we were going to do an airline partnership and we're having a a good time and good conversations and we said, "What if we just instead of connecting your Ontario flight to our Phoenix hub, why don't you just fly to Phoenix? Just do that." And we just, you know, it was just an idea. So to be here 51 weeks later and to see the the beautiful Starlux Airline commit, I it just it it's humbling and incredible to see this happen. I mean, we proudly call Phoenix a hub and a home. We serve more than 100 destinations across the US and Mexico. We connect our two networks between the United States and Asia with 300 peak daily departures. And it's just really incredibly gratifying and humbling. I also want to brag about Starlux a little. When it comes to partnerships, it's not just where you fly. Do you have the kind of product that our customers are going to value? And do you have people who share the values that we have at American Airlines? I'm thrilled to have Alex here from Alaska Airlines, one of our really tremendous partners. And I'm even more thrilled to have a new partner here today in Starlux. It's an incredible team. The product is first class, whether it be the the seat or the food or the in-flight entertainment. But you know what makes it great? It's not any of those things. It's the people. The people on the flight. It was an incredible experience. I had the the privilege to visit the Starlux team in Taipei last year. They they showed me their beautiful city and and I agree the the hills are a lot greener there. Um I did some running. It was a lot steeper than Dallas Fort Worth tends to be. But even more than than the partnership and and all of that, what I value is you're all my friends. We have formed not just a partnership, but a friendship. And I think the the people in Phoenix are going to see just what a wonderful, wonderful carrier Starlux is, and they're going to love flying the airline. for our advantage members here in Phoenix and around the world. We are looking at ways to really give you more access to Taipei to Asia when you're flying routes served by this partnership to to give you what you expect from American Airlines uh and really broaden that. So Glenn, Simon, the whole Starlock team, congratulations on launching this service. I can't wait to build this partnership and and develop it for the future. Thank you. Thank you, Jeff. Uh, and and speaking of Alaska Airlines and the partnership there, we're really grateful to have the Alaska team with us, uh, airlines team with us as well. Joining us today is managing director of partnerships and international at Alaska Airlines, Mr. Alex Judson. Alex, hi everyone. Good evening. First of all, congratulations to Starlux. Um, we are so pleased for this moment and so excited for the milestone you're celebrating. Um, Alaska's partnership with Starlux began around three years ago. It was April of 2023 and Starlock had just started their first flight to the west coast of the US to Los Angeles. And, you know, we just were so pleased because we got this opportunity to work with such an amazing new airline. And you know from the beginning we we noticed this shared commitment the shared commitment to exceptional service to premium guest care and this natural bridge that was created between Taipei and the West Coast and now Phoenix. Today this milestone complements an already incredible network that Starlock is building whether to Seattle to San Francisco to Los Angeles Ontario and Phoenix. And this new service is a win. It's it's a win for travelers. It's a win for all the airlines here today and it's a win for the communities that we serve. One of the ways we at Alaska measure the strength of our partnerships is by asking our guests. So, we send them surveys after they've traveled on our partners. I want to share with you a few verbatim comments that our Atmos Rewards members have shared about traveling on Starlux. First, Starlux provided a next level travel experience. They truly lived up to their Skyras five-star rating. Here's another one. Best service and food I've ever had in business class. To be honest, that one hurt a little. We were pretty jealous. These aren't just compliments. They are reflections of the care that the Starlux team puts into every detail of every flight. Here's to a partnership that continues to raise the bar and to many successful flights ahead. Congratulations Starlux and congratulations, Phoenix. Thank you. Thank you so much for being with us, Alex. Uh those are great comments and and I would echo that. That was my experience as well. So, not the part about your your service, but the part about Starlux, the service was fantastic. U. So, at this time, I'm extremely honored to welcome our distinguished guests from Starlux uh Airlines. We're incredibly grateful to you all, as you know, for your commitment to connecting our two great cities and our communities for a vibrant future. Uh we really appreciated all of their efforts through uh the past couple of years as we've worked to develop this. Your local team has been amazing to work with. Uh and it's now my distinct pleasure to introduce the uh president and CEO of Starulex Airlines, Mr. Glenn Chai. uh May Galgo and Vice Mayor Haj Washington and Jeff from our both a very important partnership in the states and Jeff from American Alliance and Alex from Alaska Alliance. Distinguished guest, good evening. We are so honored to have you with us today to celebrate the debut of our finished Taipei flight. Actually, back to uh 2019 when Starux was still in the early stage, we've seen the great tourism and business potential of Phoenix. So, we've had this city in our network plans from the very beginning. After five years of preparations, the route was officially confirmed last year and Finn actually offers very strong potential in both business and tourism. It has emerged as a major hub for innovation driven by the rapid expansion of technology companies. This dynamic growth highlights Finn's uh unique ability to combine to reason with technological u advancement. Through this new route, Starbucks Airlines helps to further strengthen business and tourism ties between Phoenix and Taiwan. Star Airlines is pleased to partner with American Allies. Travelers from more than 40 US cities can seamlessly connect to Taiwan and our war flights to 26 Asian destinations. With uh this co um elaborations, we aim to build a more convenient, efficient transfer network attracting both business travelers and connecting passengers traveling between Finn and Asia. Finally, I would like to uh once again thanks all our distinguished guests and passengers for joining us at today's inaugural ceremony. Star Airlines will still uh continue to pursue the excellency and innovation delivering uh safe and premium traveling experience for every each passengers. We look forward welcoming you on board very soon. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you, Glenn. And uh I I wasn't going to say this, but I I thought about it and I I feel I must. Um I owe you a actually a personal debt of gratitude because your starting this service created an opportunity for me to form a new partnership and friendship. And what uh my uh team doesn't know is that on the last day right before we got on your flight, I got to spend the afternoon with the president and CEO of the Taipei airport. And uh we got to have a very good discussion about the airport and what they're working on, their challenges, their successes. I got to share about our challenges and successes. Uh a lot of similarities. We have parallel runways. We both have two terminals. We're working on building a third. Uh we, you know, we both have challenges with roadway constraints and and and it was a a wonderful experience to have that opportunity to visit with them. And I've I've got new partnerships thanks to you. So, thank you very much, sir. I appreciate it. I also just want to in in closing comments just wanted to mention how big a deal this really is and I think you probably sense that just in the discussion we had but the airport's most recent economic impact study shows that international flights contribute more than $3.4 billion uh to the local economy each year and this flight is expected to generate over 170 million each year statewide. So this this service is a very big deal. Thank you so very much. Well, this concludes our formal comments. Uh now we're going to move on to the next uh uh portion of the ceremony where we're going to do a ribbon cutting. And I'm going to introduce each uh person who will come uh to the area. We have your your names marked out here. Uh and we're going to assist you with that as we bring out the ribbon, the official ribbon. First up, president and CEO of Visit Phoenix, Ron Price. Please come up. You're going to be on stage left. President and CEO of the Greater Phoenix Economic Council. Chris Mackey right over here, managing director of partnerships and international at Alaska Airlines, Alex Judson. Good afternoon. I will call to order our March 24th policy meeting of the Phoenix City Council. Will the clerk call the role? >> Councilwoman Wardo >> here. >> Councilwoman Hernandez here. >> Councilwoman O'Brien >> here. Councilwoman Pastor, Councilman Robinson >> here, >> Councilwoman Stark, Councilman Wearing, >> Vice Mayor Hutch, Washington >> here. >> Mayor Ggo >> here. >> Can we read the 24-hour paragraph? >> Yes, Mayor. The title of the following ordinance number on the agenda, was available to the public at least 24 hours prior to this council meeting, and therefore may be read by title or agenda item only, ordinance numbered S52677. >> Wonderful. Thank you. We are going to go straight into agenda item one and we'll have council information and follow-up requests after the agendaized information. But do want to acknowledge we are celebrating two council women's birthdays this week. Councilwoman Hernandez and Councilwoman Gordado. So we'll be so we'll have good news for their birthday starting with ASU Health. It's a very special day for us at the Phoenix City Council. We're going to make our largest ever direct investment of Phoenix dollars into a single bioscience project. It's a worthy one in ASU Health, which will include ASU's ASU's new medical school in the bioscience corps. This is a a really exciting series of projects. Appreciate Dr. Crow really engaging with the city. We are incredible leaders in areas like semiconductors and we wanted to make sure that we took that leadership and put it into new areas including bioscience and healthcare. We are also addressing something we hear from our residents all the time about the need for more doctors, nurses, public health professionals. We need good information to make decisions and we're going to be able to address that all in one project. Our voters have been enormously supportive of this. Two and a half years ago, our voters allocated and supported $12 million in bond fundings for ASU Health, and today we'll vote on another 38 million from the Biosciences, Sports Facilities, and Tourism Fund. We believe projects like this are essential to Phoenix's future. And one of the reasons we're able to support it financially is because last year when the state sought to take more from the biosciences sports facility and tourism fund for renovations at Chasefield, we worked very hard to get a meaningful cap on our contribution to the renovations. So thankful to my colleagues for their work on that issue. We were able to win there and because of that we can support projects like ASU Health and a new medical school. And no worries, the Diamondbacks got the funding they need to stay in Arizona and in downtown Phoenix. ASU Health will also help us support knowledgebased tourism with the world's leading experts coming to the heart of our downtown to share expertise and exchange ideas. It will help us build on the great leadership we already have in medical devices and wearables with so many companies from GE to Gore that are already doing great work in the city of Phoenix. We'll be able to produce more doctors for our community, focusing on preparing a new kind of physician, one who is fluent in technology, data, and innovation, and one who will make Phoenix residents healthier. We also, I think unanimously at the City Council, love our nurses and are excited to continue to support their great education. With this proposed agreement, we've made sure that ASU Health tackles many challenges in the medical world, but it will place special emphasis on issues that matter to us in Phoenix. We unfortunately just lost a firefighter to occupational cancer. This will work on cancer surveillance and outcomes for firefighters and other high-risisk occupations, especially meaningful since we've lost more than 130 city employees to occupational cancer in the last 5 years. We'll be able to tackle women's health issues such as integrative care focusing on parameopausal and menopausal care. This is probably the one that's I've gotten the most feedback from in the community with so many women just sharing pretty horrifying stories about challenges they've faced in healthcare and and what this could mean for them. ASU researchers will also help us be able to understand and better prepared for medical challenges related to extreme heat and some of the medical challenges that lead to people experiencing homelessness. The partnership between the city of Phoenix and ASU over the last two decades has produced remarkable results and it's made both the city and ASU better. Of all the great collaborations this partnership has generated, it's this project that I'm most excited about because of the ability it has to change how we think about medicine and because it will make a meaningful difference in the lives of our residents in Phoenix and the lives of people around the world. And now I'm excited to turn it over to our community and economic development director, Ryan Tuhill. >> Thank you, Madame Mayor, members of council. Great to be with you today for uh to present this truly transformational investment in Phoenix's future. We're presenting the ASU Health Headquarters, uh which will be home to ASU's John Shufeld School of Medicine and Medical Engineering. Uh the project will be located in the Phoenix Bioscience Corps in downtown Phoenix and it uh really represents the next phase of growth of our bioscience ecosystem. Uh it reflects years of intentional investment in the city uh by the city and our partners uh to create a internationally competitive hub for research uh medicine, education and innovation. Uh the mayor mentioned many of the benefits uh that this um project will bring to the city. So I won't recap all those, but today we're asking council's authorization uh for the city to contribute $50 million to support the construction of a new state-of-the-art academic building. And additionally, the city will lease land to ASU under an existing intergovernmental agreement. and the specific terms of this those agreements in this project will be discussed later in the presentation. Um I'm joined today by my colleague Xandon Keading, a deputy community and economic development director. Uh we also are in uh pleased to have three members of the ASU team here. Dr. Shireen Gabriel, executive vice president for ASU Health, Dr. Holly Lismbby, founding dean and of the John Shufeld School of Medicine and Medical Engineering. and Rick Neymar, ex ass associate vice president of program development and enterprise planning. And with that, I'll turn it over to ASU and then we'll have um our uh city team followup. Thank you. >> Thank you, Ryan, and thank you, mayor, and members of the council for the opportunity to present to you today. We are incredibly grateful for your support and your excitement and we're excited to bring ASU Health to downtown Phoenix. So I think as everybody knows ASU is a charter-driven public university in service of the community. Our charter dictates that we measure ourselves not by who we exclude but by who we include and how they succeed and advance translational research and discovery of public good. Our charter also indicates as you can see in the yellow there that ASU assumes fundamental responsibility for the overall health of the communities we serve. That's why we're here at ASU Health. Let's see if this right. Oh, there we go. A little bit delayed. So, that's a pretty bold statement, especially when you look at the broad landscape. The US spends more than twice as much on health care as other highincome countries. Yet, we rate the lowest, as you can see us in the little red circle there, among peers in health outcomes and in lifespan. So shown here is our performance with respect to premature death rates, a critically important health outcome. And when we bring this a bit closer to home, the picture becomes a bit more urgent. Arizona ranks, I know the mayor does not like these numbers, uh, ranks in or near the bottom quartile for nearly every health metric you choose. including ranking 34th overall uh for health systems performance, 49th for prevention and treatment, 42nd for access and affordability, 43rd in women's health, and 50th for adult and youth mental health. So, lots of work for us to do. So, how are we approaching this um in women's health? I mean in ASU Health that's really the reason we created uh ASU Health. It was in response to the Arizona Board of Regions Arizona Healthy Tomorrow initiative. And our focus at ASU Health is twofold. To address critical health care workforce shortages and to improve health outcomes and system performance. We're doing this in four specific ways. creating a digitally fluent and resilient health workforce. So, we're not only growing the workforce, but we're changing the kind of workforce uh we're developing, advancing translational research and innovation, transforming health data into knowledge to inform health decisions so we can all make better decisions for ourselves, for our families, for our communities, and of course, improving access and affordable quality care for everyone. And like everything at ASU, our work is powered by innovation, AI, technology, and engineering. And our work isn't done alone. It's done through collaborations and partnerships. Um, this schematic shows how ASU Health was designed. The first our first two and a half years. I think uh we were here near the beginning of that time talking about this vision but our first two and a half years were focused on standing up foundational assets, foundational programs and I'm going to just comment on the two most significant of these. We designed and launched the John Shufeld School of Medicine and Medical Engineering. We attained preliminary credit accredititation and look forward to welcoming our first cohort of medical students this summer. We secured a nine-figure endowed naming gift and multiple scholarship gifts. We executed an agreement with a leading local health system, Honor Health, making them the primary clinical affiliate for the Shufeld Medical School. And we recruited and hired an outstanding founding dean, Dr. Holly Lenby, who you will uh hear from in just a minute or two. We also created the school of technology for public health, training students to be bilingual in public health and technology by teaching the core principles of public health together with elements of engineering, technology, and design. That school launched in the fall of 2025 and is rapidly expanding with a targeted enrollment of 425 by 2030. The school's signature program, the public health technology cores, is launching in the summer of 26 to serve local communities, including the city of Phoenix and Maricopa County. The school has already secured 7 million in NIH grants and has led or co-led 75 million in submitted grant proposals. So, they are off and running. As with the medical school, we recruited and hired an outstanding founding dean, Dr. Joti Pathbeck. We also stood up. Let's see if we've got that here. Sorry. Um I'm looking for the observatory. We also stood up the health observatory which is which functions as a real time early warning system and data integration and analytic analytics hub. Thank you. There it is. led by executive director Dr. Dave Engelthaler who we recruited from Tgen North. Its primary objective is to transform disperate health data into actionable health information to enable policy makers such as yourselves, health systems, and the public to identify, track, and mitigate health threats in Arizona. It's backwards. All right. ASU Health. Um, this is fine. >> You want that? >> Yeah. Sorry about that. It's not cooperating. I want the big one. So, just to let you know that ASU Health with all of its assets and the new schools and the new entities that we're creating is essentially interwoven into the fabric of the entire university. We're connecting these new assets that we've designed and built with our existing powerhouses from the College of Health Solutions and the Edson College of Nursing, the deans of whom are right behind me over here and the School of Life Sciences and the IRA A Fulton Schools of Engineering, the largest in the nation. In fact, virtually every corner of ASU and many community and cross- sector partners now contribute to this health ecosystem. I'm going to skip over these. There we go. One of the most exciting capabilities ASU Health can offer is the ability to transform complex data into better decisions that improve health for individuals, for families, for communities. by bringing together the data integration, predictive modeling, and analytic cap capabilities of our health observatory with the data visualization and simulation capabilities of the decision theater. We're creating an interactive health data environment that enables individuals and families and groups to access, understand, and use health data to more effectively care for themselves and others. organizations communities neighborhoods to make informed decisions to improve the health and safety of their people. And by providing the ability to test and model strategies, simulate interventions, conduct scenario planning, sort of ask whatif types of questions in order to understand the potential outcomes of decisions before they're made. This firstofits-kind decision support tool provides a new level of insight into health rellated choices, allowing for more informed, effective, and transparent decision making and improved health outcomes. So with that, it's my pleasure to turn the floor over to Dean Holly Lizenby. She will outline how ASU Health is addressing some of the specific challenges the mayor alluded to facing the city of Phoenix employees and residents. Thank you for your attention. >> Mayor, council members, thank you for the opportunity to address you today. ASU is proud to be Phoenix's research partner in delivering better outcomes for the people living in this city. As a part of this agreement uh and guided by the leadership of the mayor and council, we will focus our efforts on some key areas of research that we will advance in partnership with the city. These areas of research fall into three themes or pillars. The first pillar is city employee health and safety. The second pillar is urban public health resilience and the third pillar is health programs for the Phoenix population. I'm going to uh start with the first pillar uh city employee health and safety or you might also call this protecting the people who protect Phoenix. Our firefighters and police officers run towards danger so that others don't have to. ASU is working side by side with the Phoenix Police and Fire departments to protect their health. We provide health screening for cancer, heart disease, and mineral health, catching problems early before they become crises. We're developing targeted approaches to reduce cancer risk for firefighters and identifying biological warning signs of disease before symptoms even start. We use data and predictive modeling to help city leaders make smarter decisions about where to focus limited resources. This type of work saves lives and it saves money. Regarding the second pillar, urban public health resilience, let's start by talking about heat and health. Phoenix is ground zero for our nation's heat crisis. ASU has more than 150 researchers and $13 million in active research funding dedicated to this specific challenge. Professor Dave Hondula is not just an ASU faculty member. He's he serves as the city's director of heat response and mitigation. This demonstrates a direct collaboration between university research and city action. We're launching a new center for of excellence for heat preparedness led by some the same team that helped the city and Maricopa County identify which neighborhoods are most at risk and develop better policies. Our approach is practical to identify who's at most risk uh as a consequence of where they live, their employment, their age, their health, and their access to resources and then use that information to design intervention. We're already optimizing where cooling centers are located, improving heat relief networks, and informing safer housing and infrastructure design across Phoenix based on the these learnings. You can see on the slide, one of the tools that we use, that's Andy. Uh it's the first in the world um breathing, sweating mannequin that helps us study the impacts of extreme heat on the on the human body so that our work is grounded in real science. Staying with that pillar of urban public health resilience, I'd like to now talk about homelessness and health. Homelessness is not just a housing crisis. It's also a health crisis. And ASU is working on both aspects of this problem. We work directly with community organizations to deliver health screening and clinical services to people who are currently unhoused. We we developed the first ever dementia screening and memory clinic program designed specifically for older adults experiencing homelessness, a population that's often overlooked in the health system. And our predictive tools help the city identify who's at greatest risk before crises occur so that resources can be deployed proactively rather than reactively. Another aspect of urban public health resilience is mental health and substance use disorders and addiction. With 74 million in active research and more than 125 projects underway, this is one of our largest areas of partnership and among the most urgent for Phoenix. We work closely with the Maricopa County Behavioral Health Consortium and the Phoenix Fire and Police Departments to improve how the city responds to mental health crisis. We use data to understand patterns such as patterns of opioid overdoses so we can identify where the fi system is falling short and work together to fix it. We're helping first responders connect people to the right level of care more quickly, reducing strain on emergency systems and getting residents the help they need sooner. And we're advancing new approaches to treatment, including mobile apps, medical devices, and evidence-based interventions for chronic pain and addiction. Turning to the third pillar, health programs to support the Phoenix population. I'd like to say a few words about women's health. More than 85 researchers and 42 million in active funding and 71 projects are all focused on improving the health of women across the lifespan. We're at the forefront of FIME, which is the use of technology to improve care in areas like maternal health, menopause, heart disease, and cancer, where women have been traditionally underserved. As an example, the nurseled mom and baby mobile health center brings care directly into Phoenix communities, meeting families where they are instead of where it's convenient for the health system. And we focus on the full picture of family health, including child development, emotional resilience, and long-term well-being for parents and children alike. We do this backed by a network of more than 400 partners through the maternal and child health translational research network connecting research, clinical practice, and community- based solutions at scale. In closing, mayor, mayor, council members, we are deeply grateful for your leadership and the trust that you have placed in ASU. The work that I've described today is not theoretical. It reflects efforts we are committed to delivering on in Phoenix for Phoenix. Thank you. And I now hand it over to my colleague Rick Neymar. >> Thank you, Dean Lesmb, mayor, members of the council. Really happy to be here today to talk to you a little bit about uh what we're physically doing to accommodate all of this. Um, just like anything we do at ASU, um, we're already doing a lot of aca academic work, research, and community programs, before we even build the big building to house all of it. So, as the saying goes, we're uh flying the plane uh we're building the plane while we're flying it. So, um, hang on. Uh, as Dr. Gabriel mentioned uh our first cohort of medical students uh medical and medical engineering students starts this summer. Um they'll be starting out at the Marcato. The class is 36 students and uh we're renovating space. We kicked the Barrett Honors College out and moved them to Arizona center so that we could make way for this first cohort of uh medical med medical engineering students. Uh the great thing about it is it's coll-located with our existing uh simulation spaces that our nursing students use and so it's really well located at the Marcato but as we grow we're not going to be able to uh keep keep things there. Um so uh the school u of technology for public health students have also already started in downtown Phoenix space and the cohort right now is small but they plan to grow very big. So uh um we need to accommodate them with growth. And the health observatory uh that was described is also already operational with a small team uh working out of the 850 PBC building which is an ASU Waxford City of Phoenix uh collaborative building. So we're really excited that they're there. So um we need to accommodate all of this. And so the way we decided to do it is to pick this triangular site in yellow at the Phoenix uh bioscience courts between Filillmore and Pierce Streets and between fourth and fifth streets. Uh why did we pick that site? It's just a couple of blocks north of the Marcato. It's just a couple of blocks east of our existing health buildings where we have roughly 10,000 students studying in the health professions. and it's a couple of blocks south of the 850 PBC building where we will be housing all of our ASU health research in downtown or or certainly most of it. And you can see I stuck a second building there because we are uh working right now with Wexford to try to uh begin the process of uh launching a second building. The first building is like 85% full now. So we're really excited. You're going to get two buildings out of this or maybe three. Um so um when uh the building um that we're building looks like this um and this is a view looking northeast from the southwest corner of Filillmore and Fourth Street. It's approximately 175,000 square feet and will cost over $200 million. The main entrances will be on Filillmore and Fifth Filillmore and then another main entrance on Fifth Street which I'll show you. Uh the building's going to include a welcoming interactive lobby that has health information on display, large learning studios, an outdoor garden, uh a medical technology innovation suite in which companies can bring new technologies in so that our engineered physician trainees can test and tinker with them and also develop their own innovative ideas to advance uh medicine and health. Um the building will also include a medical library and study spaces, modern medical and nursing simulation spaces. So uh the nurses are going to get state-of-the-art brand new uh uh simulation as the medical students will as well. Um and a and this is very interesting and doesn't exist really anywhere yet. a state-of-the-art virtual skills lab where students will learn subjects like anatomy through immersive media technologies rather than working with donor bodies as an example. So, um this is uh the evening view uh on the other side of the building and you can see there's an entrance there in the middle. And the reason why we put an entrance on Fifth Street is we do believe Fifth Street will continue to be an important north south corridor uh for pedestrians and others to connect through the entire PBC. and and the most recent PBC master plan really helped us to uh to understand that better. So, um while we're designing uh it still, this is at least an early rendering of what the first floor lobby might look like. It shows a little bit about how we want to bring health information to the community in an accessible way so that people can better understand their personal health as well as the health trends in the community, the state and beyond. Um, so that's what we hope to build and Xandon's going to tell you the business terms that uh we have come to that we're recommending today. >> Thank you Rick, mayor, members of the city council. So the parcel that we're talking about, it's at the northeast corner of Fourth Street and Filillmore Street. It is part of the PBC uh the overall uh Phoenix Bioscience core property. This is kind of the northern uh portion as we we look at it, but it's really pretty centrally located within the overall uh uh PBC. Um it's a little bit over an acre of a site. uh 9/10en of that is a city-owned piece and then the remainder is an ASU uh owned piece or Arizona border regents owned piece that they are bringing into the the project to just give a little bit more square footage on the overall um parcel. the the site is subject to an existing intergovernmental agreement or IGA that we have with the Arizona Board of Regents. Um that gives us the ability to work with ASU and gives ASU the ability to look at future developments. This is the same IGA that brought us the Waxford building um and gives those certain rights uh to uh ASU to develop um on the property. That is what sets the lease terms for this agreement. So, it sets it at a 30-year lease. Uh, there would be no rent for the first eight years of that lease, but then after that, there would be rent that would be generated that would go into the city's bio fund. And that fund is used u by the city for uh projects and future development on the on the PBC throughout the entire uh campus. So, some of those terms, this would result in a new IGA that focuses on the funding piece. um and the city participation in that in the funding and the overall project. So approximately 12 million um as mayor you noted earlier uh is dedicated through the 2023 uh bond program and then approximately 38 million would be uh dedicated through the sports facility biosciences and tourism fund. Um ASU has also committed to allow the city to use the facility for up to two events per uh per year uh at no use charge. So it gives the city a benefit. It's going to be a beautiful building. We'll be able to use it for some uh some great events there. And then ASU has also agreed to to with uh to work with the city on certain research opportunities. And that's where those three pillars come in that Dean Lisenby uh talked about earlier. Those three pillars are kind of the the base of what we would work with ASU on there. These items would be built into the agreement but with some flexibility because over time I think we know that uh our needs are going to change the you know public health needs are going to change. Um but certainly there's really some focus on those three items of city employee health and safety innovation. um really making sure that we're addressing uh city of Phoenix employees health needs um urban public health and resilience. We're a major city. There's a lot of opportunity for research there and for us to do some great things um in in that realm and then also health programs to support the Phoenix population. We're a unique city with some of the heat challenges among other things here and some of the women's health opportunities. So being able to focus on uh those items as well. Um, with that, I'm going to hand it to, uh, Mr. Tuhill to finish the presentation. >> At this time, uh, mayor, members of council, staff would recommend that, um, you authorize a city manager to enter into an intergovernmental agreement with the Arizona Board of Regents to execute, uh, the lease, uh, terms, uh, pursuant to our existing, um, IGA contract 142599. Um, further we request authorization uh for the new IGA and that the city treasurer for the city treasurer to accept funds and for the city controller to disperse funds. With that, madame mayor, members of council, that's the conclusion of our presentation. We're happy and available to answer any questions you may have at this time. Thank you. >> Wonderful. Well, thank you for this really exciting presentation. This is a very powerful partnership that meets the city's needs and will help our broader community. It's so tangible how we can see the ability to save lives from issues ranging from heat to occupational cancer. A huge thank you to the board of regents who have put healthc care for Arizona at the forefront. Also want to acknowledge our predecessors at the city of Phoenix, including Mayor Phil Gordon who helped bring ASU to our downtown. Uh it feels a little bit to me like a reunion of COVID era because the college of nursing and health innovation um and uh several of the other programs really helped us get through co 19 and we feel so much more we feel better prepared knowing that we'll have additional assets in place. Huge thank you to all of the ASU senior leadership who are here. Also want to acknowledge the Flynn Foundation including uh Tammy who are here with us. After the downturn in the economy in 2008, we really said we were going to focus on areas of excellence. One of which was healthcare and bioscience and the Flynn Foundation's bioscience roadmap is a pretty clear line to where we are today. So thank you for that. I see uh Dr. Dr. Mity Crover who's one of the leaders of FEMA a exciting to be putting investments in in technology that will help women. There's so many of these things like my little smart ring where the default setting is for, you know, these are designed for 30-year-old 40-year-old men who are Caucasian and now we're going to be designing medical devices for our entire population. I hope that'll be a huge generator of opportunity, better healthcare, but also great jobs in Phoenix. So very exciting to see what we're happening here. We also have uh two incredible leaders who are with us who I'll call first in public comment. Uh Scarlet Spring who represents the board of regions today and and helps lead our Phoenix Bioscience Corps and then our a bio leader Joan Corba Walker will be after her. So Scarlet, will you start off our our public comment today followed by Joan and then we'll go to virtual public comment and hear from our firefighters and Brian Willingham. >> Thank you, Mayor and Council. I just want to make three key points today. The first is that the Phoenix Bioscience Corps is a collaborative environment and it is the only place in the state where we have the necessary six elements for a healthy innovation cluster. That's academia. It's clinical and hospital partners. It's your industry collaboration. Of course, it's a healthy entrepreneur and investor. It's government entities like the NIH and in its community. And at the PBC, we purposfully engage with all six of them regarding collaboration. Number two, ASU Health is going beyond, has been mentioned today, of just producing and helping us narrow the healthc care shortage. It is actually putting that thoughtful, that techsavvy physician and workforce person into the field because, as we know, technology is abound, but really turning those into solutions is very, very difficult. And then finally and importantly, ASU health becomes a magnet for industry and academic collaboration. For example, where you have a resident and a medical engineer who will be observing with a surgeon come up with a solution, then work with a partner, a Gore, a Medtronic of what a first generation solution could look at, and then they reiterate and iterate until that's ready for a company or ready to be outlicicensed to a partner. That's our opportunity and ASU Health is that magnetic pull that fosters research and industry intersection and really supports our global differentiation in our ecosystem. So, I want to thank you today for building on this ASU health and congratulations to the city of Phoenix and its leadership because while there are multiple cities that have many uh medical schools, Phoenix joins three cities in the US of having that. Thank you. And and please thank the board of regents for the healthy Arizona healthy tomorrow initiative. It was not just something on paper. It is very real and >> today is a >> Thank you, mayor. >> major point in that. >> Wonderful. Thank you. Any questions for Scarlet? >> All right, Joan, if if we could hear from you and then we'll go to virtual comment with Brian. >> Madame Mayor, members of the council, my name is Joan Kerver Walker. I've been a Phoenix resident in since 1992. I have two businesses in the city of Phoenix. I remember what Phoenix looked like when I came here in 1992. We had one medical school. We had smaller hospitals. And our population, the city of Phoenix was the 10th largest city in the country, not the fifth. So when we talk about this new golden age of healthcare, this new era of health innovation, we have to have the people that are trained to deliver it. And more importantly, we have to have the technologies that are going to take us to that next level. ASU Health is bringing together all of the different disciplines to make the next generation of healthc care premiering in Phoenix. So this investment follows one of the biggest investments that the city made in the early 2000s which was creating the PPC. And now we move forward and we are the second fastest growing job creator in the country in life science jobs. And this is our opportunity to continue to build to get to number one. And with that, madame mayor, if the council has any questions. >> Thank you so much. Really important partnership and Phoenix is so proud to be partners with a bio. So thank you. We'll next go to Brian online and then Rebecca Sun and Shine in person. >> Hi, Mayor Ggo. This is Brian Willingham, president of United Phoenix Firefighters. I appreciate the ability to comment today. Also wanted to say thank the the rest of council and city manager Ed Zurker, Lorie Bay, and all of staff. Um, I have so much to say and such limited time to say it, but I let me just try to be brief and hit the major points. Um, for one, I I wanted to back up just for a moment. Mayor, thank you for mentioning our firefighter we lost last week. Robbie Oliver, I just wanted to say his name is was a special family member to us as they all are. And these losses are incredibly difficult and they leave an incredible impact on our on our firefighters even as they work. It's very difficult to go through these things. So, I wanted to thank you for mentioning his name and talking about him. um briefly to talk about uh this this new program, this this new concept. Uh I don't know exactly how it all fits in to be totally blunt, but I'm very grateful. anytime we can look at data to support moving forward uh on all these issues from cancer, mental health, long-term impacts of the job, PTSD specifically has plagued our fire department and just crushed some of our members suffering and silence as it has PD and our dispatchers too. So to study this stuff, to understand it, to improve it, that means a lot to me personally and I know it will mean a lot to our members. As all of you know, we have an incredible relationship with Vincere Cancer Center. I think these things will marry up very well. This will help our ability to to write grants and get federal funding for programs to study and to to improve upon cancer mitigation and so many other things. I'm very excited about this. I really greatly appreciate the dean and her words as well as uh Mr. Neymar. We're very much looking forward to working with all of you as well as our council and our mayor to develop the best programs possible to collect data and use that data efficiently and effectively and uh to do that in this day and age especially when other departments are are going backwards and other cities are seeing major cuts. This is really super powerful and I don't want to miss the opportunity to thank you mayor, thank the city manager and every single person who played a role in this. We'll figure out how to make all these relationships work with our existing relationship with Vincere who by the way they they are we are the number one the absolute we're running the best cancer program in the country and we're just going to build upon that and use this in in a positive way to do all that. So once again, I am incredibly in support of this as I'm planning for my own retirement in the next few years. This warms my heart that we're going to be able to do stuff like this for future members and really set them up for success and reduce our cancer rates and reduce PTSD and hopefully someday eliminate these things altogether. So again, much gratitude, incredibly grateful from our organization. Thank you. >> Thank you so much. a nice win for our first responders and and thank you for your partnership on this. We'll go next to Dr. Sun and Shine followed by Don Papa. Okay. Uh for those who couldn't hear, uh Dr. Sunshine yields her time, but is in support of the item. Uh uh Dom next followed by uh Sarah Lizen. >> Thanks, Vice Mayor. Thanks, Mayor, Vice Mayor, members of council. Good afternoon. Uh my name is Don Papa. I'm the senior director for the Phoenix Community Alliance, a 40-year-old advocacy organization focused on downtown Phoenix. We represent more than 300 business and community institutions and civic leaders who are deeply invested in the advancement of the city's urban core. And what an urban core it has become. The deliberate, sustained investments of this mayor and this council have made downtown Phoenix over the years are paying off in ways that are impossible to ignore right now. I think we all know in the next couple of weeks, downtown Phoenix will host the Women's Final Four, serve as a hub for Arizona Tech Week, and host Forbes 30 under 30. Three marquee national events that don't come to cities that aren't ready for them. They come here because you built something worth showing off. Our 300 plus members feel that every day and we don't take it for granted. Which is why we are here today in strong support of the ASU health program and facility. The project is the next chapter in that same story. A facility dedicated to health, education, medical innovation, and workforce training doesn't just add a building to our skyline. It adds talent. It adds foot traffic. It adds economic activity and it adds long-term institutional commitment to our neighborhoods. It signals to the country that downtown Phoenix is not just a place to visit. It's a place to invest. It's a place to learn and it's a place to build a career. Our education partnerships committee has been clear in its 2026 public policy agenda that we support investment in higher education facilities that drive workforce development in greater downtown Phoenix. and this project delivers on that in a profound way. Phoenix Community Alliance is proud to stand in strong support and we thank you for your leadership on this. Thank you. Thank you so much. And actually our next speaker will be virtual online. It'll be uh Kyle with Wixford. >> Hi, Mayor and Council. This is Kyle Jardine with Wexford Science and Technology. I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in support of ASU health today. I will start by saying count is the currency of innovation and the talent that will grow from ASU health is going to be wonderful and a huge benefit to downtown Phoenix scenics. Um, I would not be here if it weren't for the investments made by the city in ASU's downtown campus over the past few decades. And as that continues, we will continue to see additional talent be brought to the city, grow here, uh, love their time here, spend money here, and and continue to support. So, I am grateful for this consideration and what's been being put forward uh and and know that it's going to pay off uh in huge dividends going forward. Thank you. >> Thank you so much for that important testimony. I believe that concludes public comment. So, I will turn next to our vice mayor for comments and a motion. >> Thank you, mayor. Before I formally make the motion, I want to take a moment to highlight how significant ASU Health will be to our city and especially for District 8. ASU Health represents the intentional and transformational investment that we in the city of Phoenix have been working towards bringing innovation, education, and opportunity directly into our community. I am personally um very proud to have helped lead the efforts around the 2023 GOB bond program that helped make this possible. This is exactly the type of projects voters had in mind when they supported that investment and I thank each and every one of them for their overwhelming support of our bond initiative. This project also highlights the importance of strong partnerships. Committed to seeing this come to fruition, I had the opportunity to advocate directly with the governor's office to help secure speed bond funding which will which brought $325 million towards advancing projects like this. That collaboration between the city and the state is critical to delivering results at this scale. ASU Health will undoubtedly change our city and our state for the better. Through this agreement, we are moving forward with with ASU Health in downtown Phoenix. For District 8 and for Phoenix as a whole, this is a major investment that will bring a new medical school, workforce training programs, and cutting edge innovation in areas like public health and technology. It positions our city as a leader in addressing some of the most pressing challenges we face from public health to heat resilience to behavioral health. Most importantly, this is an investment in people, creating opportunities, improving outcomes, and building a healthier, more resilient community. This means jobs, educational pathways, and access to opportunities that truly changes lives. What I appreciate most is this is not just a building. This is about creating a space that connects our community where residents can engage, learn, and benefit from the resource being developed there. I had the opportunity to visit visit sites with a similar vision. And as a proud Sundevil, I know that ASU does not do anything halfway. And ASU Health will undoubtedly exceed our expectations and metrics of success. In line with its charter, ASU Health will focus on the overall health of the community it serves, offering solutions for the problems of today and for those in the future, and provide access to quality health care for more of our residents. With this investment, Phoenix will continue to be a leader in occupational health, heat resilience, datainformed responses to addressing homelessness, innovative solutions to treating mental health and substance abuse, and advancing women's health research, and so many more. This is a smart investment of city resources, leveraging our funding to bring in a much larger commitment and long-term impact. The return on investment will be worth it. Through our partnership with ASU, we are advancing a vision that brings together healthcare, education, innovation in a way that directly benefits our residents. I want I too want to extend my heartfelt gratitude to everyone who has played a role in getting this project to this point and I am beyond excited about what it means for the future of District 8 and the city of Phoenix. With that, I move that we accept the recommendation approve item number one. >> Second. >> Second. >> We have a motion and a second. And we'll do continued council comments. Councilman O'Brien. >> Thank you, Mayor. I'd like to um thank all the amazing leaders who made this possible. And that is to include also former mayor Phil Gordon um and current president Michael Crowe. A deal that started on a napkin a few decades ago. This collaboration will help chie achieve the best physical and mental health results for Phoenix residents and families. We are facing a healthc care workforce crisis that our residents feel every time they struggle to find a doctor taking new patients, every time an emergency department is stretched thin and every time a family can't find a specialist nearby. We are short nearly 60% of the primary care physicians our population needs and our nursing shortage ranks among the most severe in the country. Today's investment changes the trajectory by placing a worldclass health innovation hub in the heart of downtown Phoenix. And I want to take a moment to explain why this matters to every Phoenix resident. The John Shufelt School of Medicine and Medical Engineering will produce a new kind of doctor who can treat patients today and redesign how care is delivered tomorrow. Students will learn to look at the human body and the health care system to understand how all the parts work together to identify what doesn't work and to design something better. That may be using technology for homebound patients to access care without traveling to a hospital. and maybe something like a small patch that people can wear to monitor their blood sugar and alert them if something is wrong before they develop diabetes. It's about thinking like an engineer and using technology to solve problems in healthcare. For a state facing serious shortage of healthare workers and a city as large and diverse as Phoenix, that combination is exactly what is needed. As we invest in this facility, we have an opportunity to ensure women's health care is a core priority of the research, education, and community health programs. This provides a real chance to close gaps in how our health care system serves women. It would be nice to just go to one building and see a doctor or two doctors in the same office instead of going to six or seven um as someone who just dealt with some health issues. So, I I very much look forward to making strides there. But I'm also incredibly pleased to see the city employee and safety innovation pillar included in this partnership. Our first responders too often carry an invisible weight of what they witnessed home with them and our health care system hasn't done enough to meet that need. I'm excited to see ASU health developmental health programs built specifically for the men and women who protect Phoenix. The benefits extend across our entire community. Patients will gain access to more providers and more innovative care. Students will find new pathways into high demand careers in medicine, engineering, and public health. City employees and residents will benefit from expanded resources and programs. And with ASU's commitment to community engagement in the building itself, this will truly be a shared asset for our city. the investment. This investment positions Phoenix to lead in the future of healthcare innovation. Thank you all so much. Thank you, Mayor. >> Thank you. I'll go to Councilwoman Gordado next and then Councilwoman Hernandez. >> Thank you, Mayor. I just wanted to start by thanking our city staff and our partners at ASU for the work that has gone into bringing this forward. This is a significant investment in downtown Phoenix and in the future of health innovation and workforce development in our city. What stands out to me is the focus on public health resilience and the opportunity to better support our residents and our workforce through this partnership. This is kind this is the kind of collaboration that helps move Phoenix forward in a meaningful way. As we move ahead, I would like to ask staff to coordinate this work in tandem with the city's ongoing efforts to study heat in Phoenix, specifically to include the impacts on city employees, contract workers, and our broader community. That data will be critical as we prepare for future heat related emergency declarations and ensure we are protecting people across the board. And I want to take a moment to also thank our assistant city manager Ginger Spencer and the comm community in the community and economic development department for moving this forward and their work on this item. And for me personally, this is very important. I live in Mville. My residents in Mville, as we know, we have plenty of heat islands um in that area. When it was 95 degrees in certain parts of Phoenix on Friday, it was 108 in Mville. So, definitely um summer has definitely started in in Mville. Um so, we we see the needs, we see what's happening. We have um so many workers uh city employees um that live in that area as well. also hoping um to see those coordinations happen. But incredibly grateful for the work that has been going on on this and you know also thanks to our vice mayor for all of her hard work on on the go bond um a couple years ago and very um happy and proud to be able to support this item. Thank you, mayor. >> Thank you, Counciloman Hernandez. >> Thank you, mayor. Um, first thank you so much to C mayor, council, uh, city of Phoenix staff and ASU and all the partners involved in making this project happen and a reality. Um, when I was looking at the scorecard, uh, it's very troublesome because these are factors that lead to life expectancy for our residents and that's something that, um, we've been grappling with for the for years just from when I stepped into this work. So, um, you know, I I I'm a firm believer that where you live shouldn't affect your life expectancy and changing a trajectory to really have data to drive home solutions that this is how we build thriving communities for our entire city, for our residents, for our employees. So, this is really exciting project. Um I do agree and echo that the pillars mentioned and presented um are very critical needs from our occupational uh cancer research that we're going to do to uh help our firefighters. Um the heat and homelessness tie is going to be so critical to continue that that research and that studying. Um and then really excited to see and happy that there's maternal health specifically in here. um you know that's an area that hasn't got as much investment and attention in it. Um especially in the maternal mortality rate and the direct effect on black women in particular that they are impacted four times greater by maternal mortality outcomes than every other um community. So really looking forward to research that's done on this area to really eradicate and how can we truly build solutions um that are going to not only extend the lives of our residents but really create the environments that they can um have to thrive. Um so I'm also looking to following along the reports annually on this project and just seeing uh the great work continue. So really excited to support this today. Um and just really what this type of project really will mean for the entire city of Phoenix um for from our employees to our residents and everyone in between. So thank you so much. >> Thank you so much, Councilman Robinson. >> Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Mayor. Um I want to echo what my colleagues have already said. Thank you very much. you know, this is a win-win scenario for not just the citizens of Phoenix, but for the actually for the entire region. Um, it is, you know, it's going to be great for economic development. It's going to be wonderful for a public service, public service improvement. And we have to um acknowledge the fact that there is so much that medicine can do for our lives, for everyone's lives to uplift, to improve. And this is the time, this is the place. And as several of my um colleagues mentioned, you know, this was generated on a napkin at a restaurant a couple decades ago, and we are moving forward with it, and I'm glad to be a part of that. And the last thing I will mention is that the mayor is sporting maroon and gold today. I don't know if anyone noticed that. She's an honorary sunundevil today. So, but with that, um, you know, really happy to support this in so many ways because it is best for the city of Phoenix and for the for the entire region. So, thank you very much and looking forward to supporting it. Thank you, mayor, for the time. >> Thank you. Councilman Robinson is Sunundevil faculty. Although Councilman Wearing has the most Sunundevil degrees with our triple Sunundevil here, Councilwoman Pastor forks up. As you can see, I'm an ASU alumni uh through the education uh field. But um I actually want to really thank Phil Gordon for his vision. Um, but I also have a little bit of a past or history with also Terry Goddard in really looking at how downtown should feel and look like of the future. And so I want to also give uh thanks and grace to him of that vision and then Phil making it happen. Um, it takes a collective and it takes a village in order for things like this to happen and there's a number of people to thank. Um, but I also want to thank the mayor and the vice mayor and my colleagues for also continuing the vision and making um these spaces and the go bond uh to make this type of place happen because what it does it brings jobs, it brings education. It brings research. It brings innovation. It brings science. That's what we need in our city right now. We need all those connectors to happen. What it also does because there's we all know that there are certain zip codes within our districts and each one of us has these zip codes in our districts where there's a a sense of disconnect to health care. That's where we find heart disease, we find diabetes, we find blood pressure, we find stress, uh anxiety, some of it call it PTSD, but it's kind of everyday life of work of working families and working families of working two jobs and trying to figure out how they're going to move forward, but also not getting the care that they need uh in order to move forward and the health that they need. and then all of a sudden it becomes an emergency. So I am actually grateful at the fact that this is happening is happening within the space that I can take a vote and say yes. The other piece is that um Pillar One Pillar One um the city of Phoenix was actually really ahead of their time and made an impact uh throughout the whole state to start Pillar One in the arena of public safety, cancer and and a little bit of heart disease. But in pillar one, I actually in this process of the whole first responder piece of the cancer and the data and looking at it, I also know that there are additional city employees that are exposed like our groundskeepers right now that are exposed to the chemicals that they are spraying and the pesticide that on our parks grounds. There also uh some of our maintenance workers. So there's a whole category of other workers that I would like to include in this space and gather data to look at what we're doing or what we're putting out in our environment and how then can we make it better for our city employees. Um pillar two, heat and health is very important. Um, and this is really nice to know that two million have been earmarked for this because we're in the cutting edge right now of this and and being able to know what data to collect. We're collecting data, but what additional data do we need? Um, and I think that's important. Um, this was brought up to me, I want to say, at one of our meetings from one of our constituents. And then it was brought up to me and again by another um, uh, provider was telling me how uh, dementia and memory uh, care is rising at a rapid rate in particular in our homeless population. and that we're finding uh the story was that someone was missing. A woman was missing an uh older she was missing. The husband was looking for her. This woman had no identity, had nothing on her. She was sitting at Cass. For whatever reason, and I think the story is from ASU, but for whatever reason, um, the husband decided to go to Cass and look for his wife and found her and said, "Oh my gosh, I found you." Meanwhile, she had no clue where she was. And someone was taking care of her at Cass. So these are the stories and the impact that ASU will be making as we go through research and innovation and see what's going to happen. Now the fun part is all the latest technology, all the cool tools, uh what works, what doesn't work. Uh but we have to invest. Um and we're facing this today, the mental health, substance and addiction crisis. We're seeing it on the grounds today. We're seeing we're being impacted. um all the way around and this would help us also uh in our space of housing. um looking at that programs that we need to build. Uh there are programs but I always ask for quality programs and be able to see impact and my area women's health and as the mayor mentioned uh uh the area of menopause uh uh I I think I'm entering that area and uh my hot flashes man you better watch out. But uh this this to me is one of the spaces of most important because we're underlooked. And this is a space where I think as our population of knowing the number of women in the in our our population and we outnumber at this time that we need to spend some research and money on us and making sure that our home because we run our homes is healthy. And so all these pillars mean something to me and um I am just excited to get this started and if we can Rick will say let's move rapidly um and make let's make sure all the zoning's in place and let's go um and hopefully we can. So I want to thank everybody that has been part of this. I want to thank those that have given because it takes an investor to give in order to make some uh some of our dreams come true. And I also want to thank the federal government for uh our congressional delegates for also understanding the importance of this. So thank you to everybody and uh I appreciate you. Thank you so much. And I want to correct a statistic I gave earlier where I conflated a couple statistics. We have lost hundreds of people to heat related causes in Phoenix. And then we have 130 plus city employees who have been diagnosed with occupational cancer. Unfortunately, we've lost a few of them to cancer. Uh primarily firefighters, but but not exclusively. So, just wanted to correct myself on that. Any additional comments or questions? Wonderful. Today's a >> what? >> My question is when is a groundbreaking? I was just teasing. >> All right, Rick. We have an answer to that. April 9th, 8 o'clock in the morning. >> See you there. >> Wonderful. Well, today is a transformational day for the city of Phoenix and our partnership with ASU. Roll call. >> Yes. >> Hernandez, >> yes. >> O'Brien, >> yes. >> Pastor, >> yes. >> Robinson, >> yes. >> Wearing, >> yes. >> Hajj Washington, >> yes. >> Diego, >> yes. passes 8-0. >> Go Devils. >> By unanimous vote, we are investing 50 million in ASU Health. Congratulations. >> All right, the good news continues with agenda item two, which is the final four. City of Phoenix is ready to welcome fans and host the NCAA Women's Final Four for the first time in Arizona history. This championship builds on our success and commitment to supporting major events. Phoenix wins with big impacts for the local community. From thought leadership discussions to youth initiatives like Read to the Final Four, we're going to deliver lasting impressions that long beyond the championship. The NCAA Women's Final Four Legacy Project will deliver vital renovations to the Washington Activity Center in District 5, and I look forward to that unveiling. As is the case of all of our major sports events, our incredible team will ensure that the city events are zero waste. I'm excited to showcase our culture, our sunny weather, and our friendly hospitality. Thank you to Jay, Jerry, our incredible convention center team, and everyone who has supported this exciting event, including our major events team. And I will turn it over to Cynthia to introduce the item. Good afternoon, mayor, members of the city council. We're excited to be here with you today with all exciting things about the quickly approaching NCAA events and activities. With me today is Phoenix Convention Center Director Jerry Harper, our special citywide major events administrator Eric George, and CEO uh of the Arizona Sports and Events Alliance, Jay Perry. And with that, I will go ahead and turn it over to Jay. Mayor, thank you for the introduction. We are so excited about the 2024 2026 women's final four. Um, so thank you to you and members of council for the opportunity to give you some highlights um of the women's final four that will tip off next week in downtown Phoenix. So the NCAA awarded the bid in 2020 and with that followed a little bit of a hiatus and then diligent planning over the last 18 months. So we are now at game time. As you said, I want to mention the amazing teamwork that's happened with this event. Um, a shout out to our city of Phoenix uh employees, staff members that have been amazing. ASU as our host institution, Mortgage Matchup Center as our host venue, NCAA personnel have come to town every month for the last 18 months for this event, downtown Phoenix, Inc., the airport, and many, many more around the valley and the state. As you mentioned, this is the first time we're hosting this iconic event, and it really is an incredible platform, an incredible opportunity for Phoenix and our state. It's the first time it's in the West since 2012, which was hosted in Denver. And frankly, this is the perfect time to be hosting this in Phoenix with the spotlight and the tremendous exposure, excitement, and engagement that's happening for women's basketball. With every major event, we want to make sure that we're really maximizing the opportunity. And so, first and foremost, showcasing Phoenix and Arizona with a global commercial. Second, driving immediate, but also long-term economic impact. And third, and equally important, making sure that we're creating community programs that will strengthen our comm communities and also provide that lasting legacy. So, March Madness, we've all heard about it. Hopefully, we've all been filling out our brackets and getting excited about this. It tipped off on March 18th. And what I will tell you is since then, 68 teams have been competing at universities across the country. There have been 52 game broadcasts across the ESPN family of networks. And the storyline is all roads lead to Phoenix. And what we want to make sure is with all of our major events, we're definitely elevating the event and putting Phoenix in that positive light, right? As innovative, as inclusive, as progressive. And so here are just a few of the first that are going to happen with our event next week. The high school symposium um which is listed there is an opportunity for high school athletes to come together with their families and hear directly from the NCAA on what their potential college journey could be. So it's a highly educational opportunity that's happening for the first time here in Phoenix. There is the enormous bracket wall which is on the side of the barristister building. If you haven't seen it, you need to take a look. It's already turned into a lot of selfies and it's right outside Mortgage Matchup Center. And the exciting part is that this is the first major event in Arizona where all the fan events have been free. This is the F-word and we are excited that they are all free. And this is a global event and this is really really important. Last year fans came from all 50 states and 23 countries when Tampa hosted. So, we expect that and more in Phoenix next week. Viewership was the third highest since 1996, and the broadcast was seen in over 135 countries. Well, that's very, very impressive. This year, it will be even bigger. ESPN has been planning for two years. They'll have 300 employees on the ground producing the event, nine production trucks, and it will be broadcast in over 200 countries. This is a snapshot of game week. You have this in front of you because it is way too small to read. These are the highlighted programs, there are probably 50 other events going on around the city in support of the women's final four. And what you see here is that in addition to final four activities, we will also have a full slate of Diamondbacks. They will have their home openers and then games all week long. So downtown will be alive with visitors. This is a picture of the campus which uh incorporates Hance Park to the north and Mortgage Matchup to the south. Six main venues around downtown and 10 hotels will host the teams, the fans, the coaches, and the NCAA. We want to touch on a few highlights of our community programs. The first one is Read to the Final Four. This started with over 12,000 third graders around the state at 190 schools reading in their bracket style competition and 75% of those schools were title one. It is all now whittleled down to the final four schools will be celebrated the Phoenix Convention Center next week and we will crown the champion winning school. So really excited about that third grade reading initiative because we know that's a critical age for those youngsters to have those skills to advance in school but also in their lives. Business Connect, you've heard about this program before. We instituted it with Super Bowl 57 in 2023. There's over a 100 event ready businesses that are ready to support the women's final four and excited to roll out the red carpet for all of our event producers. sustainability. We certainly have heard that from this council, many of you individually, and many of our uh major event supporters. So, we want to make sure that again, we're looking at how we can minimize the environmental impact of major events. As you mentioned, the city has set a zero waste uh collections goal for Phoenix Convention Center, which is a major bar to set. And we'll also look at our material recovery, our food recovery, as well as our community green engagement programs. Uh we just wrapped up a college uh campus greening program with GCU yesterday, and we will have a downtown Phoenix cleanup this Saturday. You are all invited to join in. All of you, all y'all can come to the downtown Phoenix cleanup on Saturday morning. Um and again of course we'll measure the impact after the fact. The legacy project for every final four there's a legacy project. Um the NCA feels very strongly about having a very significant um event to point to. And so obviously in 2024 for the men's final four that was at East Lake. And then in 2017 it was at Harman Park. So, we are excited to really do a takeover of the Washington Activity Center. It will be unveiled next Wednesday and it is a complete makeover. Um, and I want to thank Council Member Gardado for your input, for your engagement, and for your support throughout this process. We know it's going to be a really great um space for our community going forward. So, thank you. And then volunteers. We absolutely could not do these major events without our community engagement and it's such a source of pride for our residents. So, we'll have over a thousand volunteers um that'll roll out next week across the valley starting with when folks touch down at Sky Harbor Airport, they will roll out the red carpet there and then throughout the downtown footprint. And it's a really special opportunity for them to tell their story about Phoenix and about Arizona and what they love and provide wayfinding and just a welcome to Arizona because that's something we've really become known for. The last program I'm going to talk about is our CEO forum, which you've probably heard us speak of before. We want to use the platform of the women's final four to drive economic development and of course support the incredible positive momentum that's going on around business growth. Um, we've done this for major events in the past. At the men's final four in 2024, we had se 38 CEOs in attendance. That led to 15 new projects that ACA and our other economic development partners are working on. Um, one noteworthy was Comey Co. opened their state-of-the-art facility in January of this year. And so that is just proof points of how these major events can have real economic impact in a very long tale on them. This year we'll be hosting 24 CEOs um and telling them the story of Arizona and Phoenix and why this is such a pro business environment. So with that, I'm going to turn it over to Eric George to take us through the events. >> Thank you, Jay. Mayor, members of the council, as Jay said, I'm going to kind of walk through some of the exciting events that we have coming to downtown and and to our city for visitors and for our community alike. First, I wanted to mention Women's Final Four Turney Town presented by Capitol 1. This will be at the convention center as you see April 2nd through the 5th. This is a free event, as Jay said, the f-word. Uh all these fan events are free for those members of our community who aren't able to attend the games at Mortgage Matchup Center. Turntown is the opportunity to interact with many of the NCA's partners, sponsors, lots of giveaways, games, fun for the whole family. Inside Churnney Town is Beyond the Baseline. Beyond the Baseline is a group of panels with business and community leaders. We'll be talking about sports, basketball, and business. And those will be opportunities for people to come in and hear those experts speak at a variety of topics. And takes place again inside Churnneytown at the convention center over the course of those several days. Uh a first that for us here in Phoenix as Jay mentioned on that previous slide is for it all fest. This is a uh tailgate style block party style event that will take place on Third Street, the Canyon on Third in between the West and North buildings of the convention center. This event is going to include lots of other games and a basketball court activation as well as viewing parties for the men's games as well as the games that are taking place inside the arena. So, for those folks who don't have a ticket, come out and hang out at Fort All Fest and be able to enjoy the festivities there. Women's Final Four Bounce. Uh, for those of you who may remember a similar event at Men's Final Four in 2017 or 2024, very exciting one. This is where we'll have 3,000 young people dribbling basketballs through the city. They'll be going from Heritage Square over to the convention center and then they get to enjoy Turntown. They get a free shirt, free basketball. Um lots of fun and engaging opportunities for uh these young people and their families. And that takes place Saturday, April 4th. Uh and the fun continues on Saturday, Super Saturday practice over at Marriage Matchup Center. Again, this is a free event to attend. Um this is an opportunity to be up close and personal with those championship participating teams. Um and see those players up close as they prepare for the championship game the following day. Super Saturday concert that evening will take place up at Hance Park and the headliner is uh Kelani and there will be a very festive atmosphere and exciting time for anyone who wants to come check out the concert again. That's at H Park and Saturday evening. In addition to all the fan events, we also welcome the coaches uh from across the country. So there's a convention some of the business aspect that comes with all the fan events and the games and that is the WBCA convention. The women's basketball coaches association will bring thousands of coaches from all over the country to spend time learning, engaging, networking uh with their peers across the country. It's their their chance to all get together and and talk about the industry. So that'll take place at the convention center as well. A couple of quick note before you go for any uh members of the comm community who might be wondering uh we want to talk a little bit about some of the best practices and how to get to some of these events. Uh Valley Metro light rail is always a suggestion uh for any event in our downtown specifically when it comes to Mortgage Matchup Center. If uh anyone isn't familiar they have an existing partnership with Valley Metro. So with the tickets to the games at mortgage matchup center or the free ticket you do have to claim a ticket for the super Saturday practice that proof becomes your light rail ticket. So there is no additional fair required if you have a ticket including the free one to the events at mortgage matchup center. In addition to that park ph uh you may remember was a uh a tool that we launched at a previous major event that really has was so successful we've made evergreen. So folks, visitors uh or locals alike can reserve their parking in advance at parkph.com to make sure that there it's hassle-free as they come in downtown and park to attend all of the events. So that's something that is readily available all the time, not just for the events, but really throughout the year. Lastly, just wanted to share um the information here for social media followers or other additional information. If people are looking for uh additional ways to find more information about the women's final four and all of the exciting events, uh they can have that information here. And that will conclude our presentation, but happy to take any questions. >> Thank you so much. It's so exciting and we just can't wait to welcome so many great sports fans to our city. Councilwoman Gordado, followed by the vice mayor. >> Thank you, Mayor. Just want to take a moment to thank the NCAA, the local organizing committee, and our city staff for this incredible work to bring the women's final four to Phoenix. This is a major moment for our city, and it's exciting to see so many events that will bring energy, opportunity, and visibility to our community. I I still remember the day when they did the announcement for the for the project um at the Washington Activity Center and a lot of the neighborhood leaders were there and it was interesting when they saw me walk in um they said that must be there must be really good news coming to us. Um, and I just remember like seeing their faces the moment that it was revealed. Um, that the legacy project was going to be done in district 5 at the Washington Activity Center with such neighbors that are so amazing um neighbors that take care of their park. Um I know that um we've just redone um that park a couple of years ago and for them to be able to see this and there's a mural that's going up as well that represents um what this community embodies um I just think it's a huge honor um Jay just want to thank you so much um for the joy that you're going to bring um to all of our families that live in live in that area. Um, I I know that when we did this in Mville, it was in it was incredible. And now we see the Mville Community Center that gets used all the time when it comes to basketball. And I think the same thing is going to happen here. It's something that the community has been asking for. So, we're incredibly um grateful for all of the hard work and everything that's going to happen here. This investment is refurbishing the indoor and outdoor courts will have a lasting impact for our youth and families long after the game is over. It means more access, better facilities, and real opportunity right in our neighborhoods. That's that's what legacy should look like, investing in our communities and in our next generation. Um, want to thank our deputy city manager, Cynthia Aguilar, and the Phoenix Convention Center for all of your guys's hard work as well and just can't wait for next week. So, thank you guys so so much. >> Thank you, Vice Mayor. >> Thank you, Mayor. I too wanted to say thank you to Cynthia, Jerry, Eric, and Jay for your leadership on this matter. I just also want to take an opportunity to underscore the how important this item is as we continue to showcase Phoenix on the national stage. As we get ready to host the women's final four, we already know what events like this can do for our city. The last time Phoenix hosted the final four, it generated more than $324 million in economic impact. By 2024, that number grew to more than 429 million for our region. Those are real dollars flowing into our local businesses, our hotels, our restaurants, and supporting working families across this city. But I also think this moment is about more than economic impact. It is about the future of women's sports. We are witnessing, I believe, a powerful shift. Women athletes are drawing larger crowds, securing greater investment, and also receiving the recognition they have long deserved. Events like the women's final four are not just about games. They are platforms that elevate women athletes, inspire the next generation of young girls, and signal that cities like Phoenix are ready to lead in this new era of sports. I was especially proud to participate in the mural unveiling where we featured four local high school um female basketball players. And I think this shows that we are ready to re meet the moment. I really am proud of the fact that city uh city Phoenix values both opportunity and equity in sports. Um, for the city of District 8, this is more than a single weekend. It's about long-term economic growth, expanding our tourism industry and continue to position Phoenix as a premier destination for major events. I am very proud to support this and excited to for what this means for our local economy and the legacy that we are helping to build. I just have one question as we get ready to bring the figurative heat. We are also dealing with the literal heat. Do we have do you want to share a little bit for those residents that are concerned about um possibly partaking in all of the wonderful activities that you have slated for this weekend in terms of um I to address that? I know we want them to take the to mitigate like go ahead >> mayor members of the council vice mayor Haj Washington um I think there are a number of things that we're doing and having conversations with our partners at the NCAA to address just that topic um to include having water stations at the outdoor events to make sure people stay hydrated uh and to make sure that there are opportunities to get into cool areas so for example at the for it all fest that's taking place outside the convention center the convention center doors will remain open even after the Turntown events have have ended for the evening. So those people who are staying later into the day will still have opportunities to seek air conditioning and get inside the convention center for that event as well. So whether they're at the parks or taking part in any of the other events, there will be opportunities to make sure that residents and visitors are staying cool. >> Thank you for ensuring our participant safety. And I also just want to say thank you in advance to all of our um city staff that will be interacting with individuals throughout this weekend. As you as you've shown, we will have quite a bit, not this weekend, next weekend, quite a bit of things going on. And we want to just uh I also want to say thank you in advance for all of our public facing as well as those behind the scenes um that are helping to ensure that we continue to pres make uh the best presentation we can possible on this stage. And again, thank you for having such great activities in our community. And I love the f word when it comes to community right now. Um, affordability continues to be a concern we hear day in day after throughout our time. So to have activities that allow our community to participate in something, it makes them feel like it's not people descending upon us. It is us welcoming people into our community. So I really am appreciative of the um range of activities that are free for our community members. So thank you all for all of your efforts in this. Thank you, Mayor. >> Thank you, Vice Mayor. Councilwoman Hernandez. >> Thank you, Mayor. Um, just want to great choice on the concert headliner. As soon as that was announced, I got a lot of messages of interest that people are people in my circle are going. So, just wanted to throw that fun in there. That great choice on the headliner. Thank you Mayor. >> Who else? Did you council pastor or Sure. Woohoo. Thank you for all the effort. Thank you for everything. It's always it takes time and energy and a uh a group of people to see the vision and make it happen. Jay, you've been in this ever since I've entered every event. There's Jay's name and uh I appreciate the fact that you're able to bring uh the big vision to Phoenix uh because we benefit from it. most importantly the community benefits from it and that's what uh one of the biggest benefits I enjoy having these big events of course all this couldn't happen without our convention staff and the the partnership in the city and of course uh our deputy city manager Cynthia uh being in the mix of it and making sure all the eyes are dotted and the tees are crossed and uh the administrative and management uh team and everybody else that invests in all this there because there I know the behind the scenes of everybody uh coming in and investing and making sure it happens. What I like most the best once again it's highlighting women and it's highlighting women in a way that is demonstrating that we can play sports that we can compete and that we are all uh our spirits are here of of our community and family because that's what supports uh women in sports and it takes a community in order to lift them to where they get. And a lot of the time the community they're coming from is not a community of influence. It's also a community of poverty. And for them to be able to get out is what is the most important to me and see their stories and be able to influence others. So once again, woohoo. I'm so happy this is happening and I will be all over the place in the final four. Councilwoman O'Brien. >> Thank you, Mayor. I want to thank um Jay, you especially for keeping uh Phoenix on the national stage, in the spotlight. Uh to all the city staff and the volunteers who help to make this um happen, all these mega events, this is incredibly exciting. And I do I know all of my colleagues have said it, but I do also want to underscore the fact that this is so exciting to have it finally be a women's event. Um I can't tell you how wonderful and heartwarming it is to get to see these incredible women athletes. The mural with our our local athletes is amazing. What beautiful young women, the artists too as well. So again, just thank you not only to all of you sitting at this table, but to all the volunteers it takes to highlight to Phoenix and these incredible athletes. Thank you again. >> Thank you. We are coming off WNBA all-star and I gather while we were in this meeting, the WNBA board of governors ratified a great collective bargaining agreement that'll do much more compensation for women. So, we're hopeful that this will also lead to great things for NCAA and the recognition these incredible athletes deserve. Any additional comments, Jay, any closing wisdom for us? >> None. >> Awesome. >> I mean, mayor, just thank you for the support. It really it makes it possible, but it also um it's just so fulfilling to have everybody be a part of this. So, we thank you. >> Wonderful. And please give our thanks to the entire local organizing committee and all of our sponsors and partners. We are so excited the NCAA picked us and we will see you out in the community. Wonderful. Thank you all. All right. We now head to the trial budget and we are excited to highlight some new investments including a $15 million housing trust fund and some wonderful investments in child care. So, I will turn it over to our deputy city manager, Amber Williamson, to introduce the item. Thank you, mayor, members of the counciling community. Um, not sure this is going to be as exciting as the previous presentation, but we'll try with the budget. Um, I don't have much to say. excited to be here to present to you a proposed balanced budget with available resources to do some exciting things for the community and propose for our city employees. So, I want to thank our city manager, all of you for your leadership and the budget research department. So, without further ado, I'm going to hand it over to our budget director, Aaron Mertz, to walk through the presentation. >> All right, mayor, members of council, thank you for the opportunity today to present the fiscal year 2026 27 city manager trial budget. This is an important step in our budget development process. It follows up on the general fund status and multi-year forecast from just a month ago. And so I'll start this presentation by doing a brief recap from that presentation uh and provide you a little bit of an update on some additional uh number crunching we've been able to do. Then we'll talk about the proposed general fund additions and set aides. We'll also talk about position conversions and proposed non-general fund additions. And then finally, we'll talk about community engagement that we have coming up. and next steps in the budget process. So, as I mentioned, we were here just a month ago with the proposed or the preliminary, excuse me, general fund status. If you recall, at that time, our projected surplus was $155 million in total, but $62 million in available resources after you account for a $75 million set aside needed to keep us balanced in fiscal year 2027 2028, as well as $18 million that was needed to replace expiring American Rescue Plan Act funds that has been funding Office of Homeless Solution Operations, as well as a little bit of funding for two parks that we have coming online. And if you recall, the the breakdown between the resources there was $36 million in ongoing resources at that time, $26 million in one-time resources. Um, we've completed our 7 plus5 technical review process that we do every year. A really important process. Gives us another chance to further refine our numbers, try and get our forecasting as accurate as we can. And so, I'm happy to report that the projected surplus has increased a bit since that time. now is $163 million, $70 million in available resources overall. Uh you can see the breakdown here between ongoing and one-time resources, $43 million in ongoing and $27 million in one-time resources. And then you can see the big picture breakdown of our total anticipated resources versus our planned expenditures and how that leads to the surplus that we're discussing. Now, before I get into the trial budget, I just want to cover a couple of um big picture budget considerations. And the first is geopolitical impacts. And just a few days, I believe after the trial or excuse me, the general fund status and multi-year forecast presentation, the war with Iran broke out. Um, one of the items that obviously has been asked about quite a bit is about the impact on fuel prices and how the city handles that. And this is an area where I really have to thank our public works department who's provided some really great information on this. So at any given time the city has about a month's worth of fuel supply that's diesel and unled. Um the pricing is really dependent around on the pricing I should say right around the days of delivery. Right? So we have seen some cost increases. Um, part of the difficulty in in forecasting the impact of this long term is that we don't know where this conflict is going, right? And so the longer that that conflict goes on, uh, the more impact we'll feel. That really gets to this other point here, which is really we're monitoring the broader economic impacts. Um, again, for now in the trial budget, we've not adjusted the budget in any way to reflect that. It's something we'll monitor closely. Um hopefully the the conflict uh ends soon and there's no broader impact for us, but it's something that we can continue to monitor. It's similar to the next bullet point here where we continue to monitor state legislative impacts. Uh if you recall at the multi-year forecast presentation, there was a number of pieces of legislation that we were closely following given their significant impact on the city. I'm happy to report that many of those have uh have not left the legislature, have not made it forward. There are still a few number uh of items that we are monitoring. HB430 and it's similar House Concurrent resolution that would freeze fee increases through fiscal year 2930 as an example. Um likewise there is not resolution yet on tax conformity and if you recall our trial budget assumes full tax conformity. So those discussions are continuing again we'll continue to monitor them. Um but those those are something to keep in mind. Another item I want to just really call out is is the importance of building a sustainable budget for the future. I think this trial budget models that and really this is an area where the mayor and the council deserve a lot of credit uh for the leadership that you've shown. It comes out in a number of ways, right? One of those is about um really considering the impact of how do we balance our ongoing versus one-time resources. And again, I think the council has really shown um how to how to take those both into consideration and build a sustainable budget going forward. Likewise, mayor and council, you've used strategic set aides to ensure that we stay balanced, not just next year as required by city charter and state law, but ensuring that we have a balanced budget going forward. One other item I want to make sure I reference is that this year we included the preliminary 5-year CIP in the trial budget budget. It is a attachment E and I welcome our residents to to make sure that they review that um document really important document that highlights the significant investments that we are making as a city in the city's infrastructure. over 11 billion over a 5year period, just under $3 billion in next year alone. That includes our 2023 geo bond program. Um it includes again key areas whether it's water infrastructure, aviation, really across the board. Again, huge investments that are being made. So again, I I welcome our residents to check out that document. Now, with that said, I'll I'll talk a little bit about the trial budget and how it's organized is by key community priorities that uh the council has identified over the past year. And so the first area is community health and safety where you'll see a $1.2 million investment. Children, youth, and families is the next category and allocate $7.3 million. Homeless service continuity, again, this is our replacement of expiring ARPA funds, $18.4 million. Housing affordability has an investment of $6.6 million. Planning and development customer service enhancement is uh our last category here at $ 1.5 million. And then we also have an employee compensation set aside that is included in the trial budget. Employee uh negotiations are continuing with our labor units. That amount is $53 million. It's a mix of ongoing and one-time funds. And then as we discussed, there is a set aside that we are proposing to balance fiscal year 2027 28 at $75 million. So I'll spend a little bit of time walking through each of the items included in each of these categories. Again, the first category, community health and safety, $1.2 million. Um, and the first item is the community safety plan enhancements. This is $500,000 in one-time funding specifically in the 27th Avenue community safety plan area. This will allow additional street lighting and street lighting improvements to be made. Um, this is an area where a lot of progress has been made. The city has invested resources in the past. So, I think the hope is that this investment will continue the progress that's been made. The next item you see is parks lighting enhancements. Again, $500,000 in one-time funds at five different parks. This is Buffalo Ridge, Moon Valley, Sueno, Western Star, and Laria Rodriguez parks. This will add enhanced playground lighting, parks, perimeter lighting again to to increase both safety and just the overall user experience for visitors to our city parks. And then I mentioned before we have two parks facilities coming online next year. One is a 2023 geo bond project. That's the Estabbon Park Recreation Center. And then loan loan mountain park, excuse me, up in district 2 is likewise coming online. So, we have included ongoing funds for those two facilities. The next category is children, youth, and families. And the main item in this category is a $5 million ongoing set aside to uh attempt to find ways to make child care more affordable for Phoenix families. So, this is an area where I think staff will continue to work with coun will begin working with council over the coming year to work out the details of this program. But again, $5 million in ongoing resources will be available to support those efforts. The next item is flexible emergency financial assistance. This is a $ 1.5 million one-time investment. The is really designed to try and um address Phoenix residents who are experiencing financial crisis. So, preventing housing and food insecurity. This program will work out of our human resources, family service centers. Um it'll also include um case management and support to help folks who who are in need of this assistance. This helps replace some expiring federal funding as well as federal funding that has has had additional restrictions put on it. For example, um SNAP benefits and restrictions on on refugee use of those funds. So hopefully this will be a a real resource, excuse me, for our residents. The next item is enhanced teen programming. And so this is really a a teen prevention um focused item that will work with our parks and recreation department. There are a couple of different components. Some of this will be focused toward additional um tutoring opportunities for teens. Some of it is overall just enhanced teen programming, whether that's uh after school in the summers. This also allows the South Phoenix Youth Center to remain open on Saturdays now from 10:00 a.m. to 4 pm. Um, and then it also includes some efforts to to keep parks programs affordable at community centers. So, allowing families to be able to to afford and be able to enjoy the different parks programs that we have out there. And the final item you see is a Choya Library parking lease. Choya Library is located next to Metro Center Mall, which is obviously going through a significant redevelopment. Um, so the parking options there have been impacted. This item, just over $300,000 in ongoing funds, will allow a permanent parking solution and allow folks to continue to enjoy Choya Library. The next item, homeless service continuity, $18.4 million, again replacing expiring American Rescue Plan Act funds. And the the bulk of the funding here, just under $13 million, is going toward shelter operations. So, that's both our city-owned shelters such as the Phoenix Navigation Center, um the Safe Outdoor Space, which you see pictured here, um and as well as our nonprofit shelters as well, North Mountain Healing Center, Rio Fresco, and other shelters that we support. Those shelters support almost 1,600 people nightly. So, it's really a significant um investment and resource in our community. The next item is $1.5 million to continue heat relief funding. So, this is our 247 um heat relief site during the summers as well as extended uh hour cooling centers as well. That continues through this funding as does key the keys to change organizations key campus operational support. $1.5 million in ongoing funds to support the Brian Garcia Welcome Center. Uh this also ensures that the area around the key campus remains uh clean and in good repair and it also ensures that we can safely and securely store client property. And then finally, this category includes $2.5 million in ongoing funds for a master lease program. So this program is designed for the city to establish master leases with landlords that we would then subleasase out to individuals exiting homelessness. Um there will also be on-site services for these folks. And there's really dual benefit then that it serves as transitional housing uh for folks who are exiting homelessness. It also frees up shelter beds um in our city and nonprofit shelters. The next item here is housing affordability. And mayor, as you mentioned, uh the housing trust fund is the focus here. The goal was to try and get that fund to $10 million in resources, but with this onetime investment of $6.6 million, we can bring that to $15 million total. Really represents a significant investment in housing affordability efforts. This funding includes a couple of specific items. $2 million specifically for affordable housing fee waiverss to try and expedite house affordable housing development. may be some opportunities to leverage these funds with state low-income housing tax credits as well. So, that is $2 million there and then $1 million for pre-approved housing plans. And the idea behind this component is to um have essentially pre-esigned single family home plans that are consistent with the character of our city's villages. Again, make it a little bit easier for folks who are trying to build homes and increase the supply of housing in the city. Um and then the remaining funding would be used in accordance with the housing trust fund policy that was established by council earlier this year. Planning and development customer service enhancements are is the next category. This is a $ 1.5 million one-time investment. There really two components to this one. The first is focused on Phoenix City Hall itself and the customer service desk. Um trying to find ways to optimize the experience for folks who are coming into city hall to have their plans reviewed and get work done. So, uh, planning and development will work with, uh, the public works department on making those improvements. The other component of this is on broader customer service and process improvement initiatives. Really trying to highlight the range of services that planning and development offers and making sure that our customers are able and able to to make use of those. Again, this is one-time funds of $ 1.5 million. Again, I mentioned before the trial budget includes $53 million in employee compensation set aides to ensure that we remain competitive in the marketplace and it includes the $75 million set aside to keep us balanced in fiscal year 2728. Uh the trial budget includes just under 70 uh positions in critical position conversions. These are primarily temporary positions that are being converted to ongoing and these are situations where no additional funding is needed. So you'll see that in the trial budget document uh no dollars are associated with this. That is because we've already accounted for those using existing department resources. You'll also notice there are a few net new positions uh including the fire special hazards unit. This uh unit is able to have its staffing built out a bit thanks to the increase in the spe excuse me in the hazmat and fire protection fee that was passed earlier this year by council. that'll help take care of um some of the significant development that is occurring within the city, whether that's up north around TSMC or elsewhere within Phoenix. You'll also see uh new positions in law to try and bring inhouse uh litigation that was pre previously being outsourced to outside council in the city's self- insurance reserve trust. We believe that that work can be done more efficiently and actually save us some money by bringing that in house. Finally, I want to point out that we do have a small non-general fund addition in the aviation department, just over $1 million and eight FTEEs. This spans a number of different areas including um international airline operations, water quality monitoring, capital project management, technology needs, and other administrative needs. Community engagement is really such a vital part of our process here at the city. And I think this is one where, you know, we we like to toot our own horn a little bit because we really go above and beyond to try and bring comm the community into this process and and give them an opportunity uh to to share what their priorities are. There's a number of different ways to participate. I encourage residents to go to phoenix.gov/budget to check out all of those ways. But first and foremost is our community budget hearings which begin just a week from today. Uh there are 12 community budget hearings overall. We have several um hearings that will be held in Spanish. We have several that are held here in council chambers as virtual hybrid meetings. So folks can come in person or they can connect virtually as well. Again, you can see the other options there, emailing us, call us, follow us on social media. Again, we really want to make an effort to bring the community's voice uh into this process. We make a lot of efforts to to make sure that we get the word out. We do a really significant amount of advertising uh including on social media on Spanish language radio through the city's uh service newsletter, the pay newsletter and other items you see there. That community feedback is is not just important in name, but we actually make sure that we will bring it back to you mayor and council before the city manager's uh proposed budget and again during the city man or excuse me during the council budget decision so residents can know that their comments truly are being heard by the mayor and council. As far as next steps in the budget process, May 5th is when I will be back next to prop or to uh propose to have the city manager's proposed budget, excuse me. And then May 19th, the council budget decision is the first vote by the council on the budget. We then have two legally required additional votes. So June 3rd, we'll be back for the tenative adoption. And then June 17th for the final adoption. That's the third and final vote on the budget. And then on July 1st, we come back for the property tax levy adoption. And that brings us to the end of the budget process. This also concludes my presentation. And I would be happy to answer any questions. >> Wonderful. We'll start with Councilwoman O'Brien. >> Thank you so much, Mayor. I appreciate Thank you again for all of your work, Aaron, Amber, and all of staff because I know every department works diligently all year long. Um the budget process is not just a couple of months in the spring. But I do want to acknowledge a couple points. Um, development costs often get passed down to homeowners and renters and so every dollar compounds into unattainable housing prices for everyone, but especially for our citizens at 80% or below the area median income. So, I want to thank the city staff for proposing a $2 million program to help wave and reduce the permitting fees for developing for developers looking to build affordable housing projects for those residents who are already rent burdened. And I also want to acknowledge and thank the planning department staff who are working to expedite the permitting process because we know time is money and the 1.5 million in one-time costs will ensure we accomplish that goal. Together, these things will increase the um well, sorry, together these things will reduce costs and barriers to affordable housing and increase our housing stock. Um I look forward to working with staff, the development community, and my council colleagues to continue finding ways to increase housing on all levels. I look forward to having um the budget presented to our community members starting at the end of this month, uh I believe in district one. So, we're very excited to to have that presentation and get our community um feedback. Thank you also for including the library at uh parking at Choya. That is incredibly important to go from a mall parking lot to um no lot because Metro Center is no more. We are getting the Metropolitan. So, I appreciate that. I look forward to um working with my colleagues on on this budget as well as staff. Thank you. >> Thank you. We'll go to Councilman Wearing next. Uh thank you, mayor. Uh first, for everybody who watches these meetings, uh I have no doubt the projections will probably be exactly what you say because your track record for the last 13 or maybe 14 years, I forget now, uh has been so stellar. So, uh we are in a uh much better position than some of our colleagues around the valley in knowing exactly how much money we'll have. That is extremely helpful to have at the outset rather than be guessing and then come up short or something. I did have a couple questions though. Um uh the first is you know we we spent a lot of time some of you guys weren't here but maybe seven eight nine years ago in planning trying to get it so that people didn't have to come in nearly as often or could do a lot you know it used to be you had to take 14 trips I'm doing this from memory and seven eight nine years ago maybe you remember Ed I think it was like average was like 14 trips down or something and we were trying to cut that back dramatically. I appreciate what you're saying about investing in the actual physical structure, but shouldn't we have way less actual foot traffic given what we did and claim success in previous years? Maybe you don't know off the top of your heads, but if you could get back to me at the very least. >> No, Council, thank you for that. That's a a good question. It illustrates something that we've discovered. uh assistant city manager Lori Ba and planning director Josh um Benerk have been out on a listening tour and so part of this is informed by what they've heard from the community I think gets to your question so I'll ask Lori to explain a little more >> yeah and mayor members of the council council on Wearing that is a great question and really what we're looking to do is to find the right balance of service levels both for individuals who want to come into city hall and and receive service because there are some benefits to doing that and and getting things worked out right there in person and then there are also virtual services and and online u based services that we want and need to continue to provide. So we're looking to actually do both and meet the needs of the customers whichever level that is. So um so yes and yes. >> Okay. Well I appreciate mayor I appreciate that answer because frankly I'm the dinosaur who friends are like why are you driving down there? Well I like to do things in face to face. I think sometimes that moves things along but okay fair. I appreciate that. Second, the employee compensation. So the 53 million is to handle what comes out of labor negotiations and raises and so forth. So you've already kind of got a number and then you still have to work out the details. Is that fair? >> Yes. Mayor, members of council, Councilman Wearing, that's correct. >> Okay. Thank you. Uh and Aaron, you uh talk slightly faster, not a criticism, than some of your predecessors, including Amber. And I'm old, so there are a couple things happening there that I I might have missed it. I heard the word north. It was about the um maybe not specifically but the fire special hazards unit I had requested because of response times in district 2. Uh so we were going to convert Ed I know you're aware and Lori as well. Um some of the I think they were on shift for eight hours that was going to become the full 24hour shifts. Is that this or but that's included. That's still moving forward. Correct. >> Yes. Mayor, members of the council, Councilman Wearing, that is different but still moving forward. >> Okay. I heard him say north somewhere in there and it was going kind of fast. So, I want to make sure. Um, >> and Council Ming, I just add I think it's what you bring up an important point. There is a lot of um budget activity that the council acted on last year >> for the fire service that we're not talking about this year because it's already approved, but it is still being implemented. We are still hiring firefighters. We are still opening stations and that will continue throughout this fiscal year. I think Lori, even this this year, maybe into next year to fulfill the budgeting that you did last year. So, thank you for bringing that up because I think it's important for the community to know. We're still absorbing that action about the fire department, particularly what you said about up north and some of those um units. >> And mayor, I expect I I want to make sure that was folded in. I'm grateful. I don't mean to gloss over the lights at the Buffalo Ridge Park, but the priority for me was getting the response times and everything. I want to make sure that was in there. Um, and I'm glad that it was addressed even it wasn't specifically highlighted in this uh, presentation. So, thank you. Those are my questions. Mayor, >> wonderful. Thank you. Uh, mentioned earlier, very excited about the investments in the housing trust fund. We're really putting housing affordability at the forefront. The, uh, we've earlier spent a council meeting very focused on energy affordability and now also moving forward on child care affordability. I think it's a real priority for us up here, whether it be folks who've done early childhood fellowships or just parents who've struggled with that ourselves. We know if your kids aren't safe, you can't be focused on anything else. We uh know it's a real struggle and so many parents in our community can't find quality care that they can afford. Sometimes that means they leave the workforce and sometimes it means uh kids end up in not ideal environments. So this will be a, should we approve it, an investment in our economy, our productivity and getting talented people to enter and stay in our workforce. Also a strong vote of support for the child care professionals and showing how important they are to our community. Uh should we move forward with this investment in homelessness, it will really make a permanent shift in how we at the city of Phoenix view homelessness. It used to be something where we would pass through federal funds but not do a lot of ongoing opportunity or ongoing funding. In the ideal form of government, the state and county would be taking on certain roles, but we are stepping up and in filling a real need should we move forward in this. And then very important that we invest in competitive compensation for our workforce. Ultimately, the city is a group of people providing services and we got to make sure we have great competitive salaries so that we can deliver the very best in services. So, looking forward to hearing from the community. Uh we have some great community advocates here who might tell us about um some opportunities to invest in the financial assistance side including those who serve our uh refugee populations and others. And we're really looking forward to that feedback as well. We cannot solve all of the problems created in Washington DC, but we can make some targeted investments that we hope will make a big difference in the daily lives of our community members. And then I'll just go Vice Mayor, Council Gordonado, Council Hernandez. >> Thank you, Mayor. Um, thank you again both to Amber and Erin. As um Councilman Wearin mentioned, you guys have a stellar track record and I'm excited to see that we have not just um the ability to implement the things that we have done really well, but now we have an opportunity to grow. Um I think that the budget is a is one of the most important responsibilities that we have as a council member and I think this is a proposal that delivers a balanced and responsible budget while continuing to invest in the services that our residents rely on every day. Um, what really stands out to me is this budget reflects both stability and forwardthinking investment. We are making strategic or we're proposing strategic decisions in infrastructure, investments in infrastructure, city services, and long-term projects that will shape Phoenix for years to come. I just want to take a moment to highlight the continued focus on housing. I am beyond excited to see the proposed investments in the housing trust fund and prop and the proposal to roll out a master leasing program. I think this is very important. Um, anyone that has spent any time talking with me knows u that I have given them the spiel about we don't receive our fair share of housing choice vouchers. And to me, this is a city taking a step from identifying a problem that was created on our by our federal partners to us taking some ownership and taking the initiative to make change for our residents. Um, so I am truly hopeful that our community will see the benefit in this and speak out in support of the master leasing program. This is where we can help take provide more units for individuals who need housing. Um, I believe that both of these tools, the housing trust fund is also an area that I have been a continued advocate for and I am beyond delighted to see the proposed investment to bring it up to an amount where we can make could make start to make some serious investments in our community because I believe that these are critical tools that will help us expand access to affordable housing and provide more immediate support for residents experiencing housing instability and these are real and tangible solutions to help move people into safe and stable housing. I also am very happy to see the um proposal for the ex um flexible emergency financial assistance as well as childcare support. The data that we have collected from other programs show how many Phoenicians are unfortunately rent and utility burden. So this is helping us provide again more real and tangible solution for our residents. As more and more individuals become disillusioned with government, I think we are showing that we here at the city of Phoenix can identify priorities and make tangible changes in their in their everyday lives. And because I am represent district 8 very proudly, I'm also delighted to see the proposed investments that directly impact the district like funding allocated for the geo bond projects at Estabbon Park, improved lighting for the Hilaria Rodriguez Park, and the expansion of programming hours at the South Phoenix Youth Center. Those are truly the kind of investments that strengthen our neighborhoods, support our young people, and create safe, active community spaces. Just as important, this process is centered on community voice. And I did leave leeway to say that I hope the community sees the value because I do want to lead with that. Um, with budget hearings happen across the city, including district 8, we are making sure that residents have the opportunity to weigh in and help guide our priorities. For me, this is about making sure our budget reflects the real needs of our community house of our communities, housing, youth investment, infrastructure, and economic opportunities. And we are not just planning for today, but for the long-term um future of Phoenix. I am very impressed to say that we are making meaningful investments while also accounting for wage increases to help us remain competitive and keep our employees on the upward track and also add in needed position. I had the opportunity to attend NLC last week. And as other cities are grappling with cuts, we are able to expand our offerings, present new programs to address residents needs, and also ensure that our employees are provided with opportunity for advancement. So I am very proud to say I'm in support of this budget. I look forward to continue this conversation. There was one thing that wasn't added here, but we have talked about it. I just wanted to just because the work was done, I wanted to give an opportunity to share a little bit about that. One of the questions I did ask was about um the solid waste increase um and wondering whether or not there was an avenue of taking some of the surplus. Um what would be the net impact of taking uh some of the surplus to help um I want to say pay down that um propo the proposed solid waste increase and I know that the recommendation has been shared with me and I just wanted to give staff an opportunity to explain that. Welcome Felipe. You're welcome. >> Good afternoon, mayor, members of the council, vice mayor. Great question. So, we did um based on your question earlier, look at the analysis of what one-time money could do to help the solid waste fund. Unfortunately, because it is one-time money, um it does not help the ongoing expenses that we talked about in terms of labor, infrastructure, and equipment. And so, what would happen is if we infuse the onetime money into the fund immediately after, we would experience that deficit again. And that would also trigger um a larger need for an increase more so than what we're asking for today. >> Okay. Thank you for that. I just thought it was important to identify was a for allow you opportunity to priv provide that explanation because we did do the work. We did look into it. I've attended the community meetings. I've heard the feedback. Um as expected, not a lot of people are enthused about the opportunity of paying a little bit more for solid waste. So, um, I did want to at least make sure it was clear that we did look into it and we realize that it probably would not have the impact that we would have hoped for, but I do believe we're still looking into some other options to uh, address the concern. So, thank you for for that. Those are all of my questions. Mayor, thank you so much. >> Thank you so much. We'll go to Councilman Gordado and then Councilman Hernandez. >> Thank you, Mayor. I just wanted to start by thanking our staff for the strong and disciplined work on this budget. It reflects a responsible process that keeps Phoenix on solid financial footing while making smart strategic investments in our community. And we are looking at very um difficult moments um from our federal government and for us to be able to invest in programs that are valuable and that are important to our community. I think it's important and hopefully our community can see that. um the investments that we're still making. Um being able to keep our workforce whole, making sure, you know, that our workers feel valued, that they feel um that we are doing everything that we can um to make them feel appreciated. And with inflation and everything else going on, it is important to stay competitive, it is important um to keep our employees. So, making sure that we continue um to honor the work, the classing comp study is important. So, thank you guys so much for that as you guys continue to work on that. To me, that's very important. Um, the emergency financial assistance program is also important. Um, we were very um fortunate um to have to have President Biden as our president when we got all the ARPA dollars and for us to be able to invest at least a little bit more in into that area to making sure that we continue to help our community. Uh I think times are horrible at at this moment. People continue to get priced out of their homes and um with every everything else is it, you know, situation doesn't seem to get better. Um especially um in our workingass community. So very excited about that and what we were able to do. And as a mom, something else that's very important to me as a mom that struggled u with daycare for my own two children and trying to figure out what is the what what is where is the best place for them. I can definitely identify with a lot of those mothers that continue to struggle um for child care for their children. Um, one of the things that we saw in 2020, um, was that majority of the folks that were living leaving leaving their professions were women, um, to be able to take care of their children and that was heartbreaking in itself, um, just cuz they were either going to work to pay for daycare or they were able to stay home with their children. With that being said, I again want to continue to highlight the investments in children, youth, and families. We know childcare costs are one of the biggest pressures on working families and setting aside meaningful resources to help bring these costs down is a big step forward. This along with support for youth programs and family stability shows we are prioritizing the long-term success of our community. This is about making sure families stay afloat, kids have opportunities, and our city continues to move in the right direction. Again, thank you so much to our city manager, Ed Zurker, deputy city manager, Amber Williamson, our budget director. Thank you so much, Erin. You're doing amazing. Yes, you do speak a little bit fast, but that's okay. I I love the accuracy and and the way you presented um this this budget. Um, so just want to thank everyone for their dedication, for their leadership and continued commitment to deliver for our community and always looking of the values of this council and for you guys to be able to deliver on our values. That's incredibly important. So very grateful for the work that's being done and I can't wait to be able to vote for this and being able to get to get out to our our meetings in the district um to be able um to get also feedback for from all of our residents. Thank you. >> Thank you, Counciloman Hernandez. >> Thank you, Mayor and Amber. I don't know why you didn't think this was going to be an exciting item. There's so many exciting things in this. Um at least some of us will nerd out on the numbers, but um and I first want to echo what um council member Wearing mentioned like a lot of our neighboring cities are not in the same fiscal fiscally sound position that the city of Phoenix in. So, I think that's just a testament of your leadership and your entire department um on how you look at budgets and the work that you are doing to make sure that we the city of Phoenix are in a fiscally sound position um as we see some impacts in other cities and they are struggling with uh not being in the same uh position that we are. So, just hats off to you and just really thank you both um for putting together this presentation um and for all the hard work that you do throughout the year just to get get us all ready and get the community ready for budget season. Um the work does not go unnoticed. I do not think you speak too fast. I think we're good. Um but I have some questions and comments about the proposed trial budget. Uh first I'm you know really glad to hear that we are making investments into supporting teenagers and our youth at our community centers um in investing in our in the youth is has now quickly become a top priority for the district 7 office. Um however I also know that the youth and education is not funded at the levels that it should be. Uh youth across the city they need more resources. We really need to be investing in them. Um and it's really concerning for my team that investments in the youth and education office remain uh lower than where we feel that they should be. Um so my first question is what work have we done to identify funding for case management programs um or mental health support programs and mentorship programs for our teens and our youth at our community centers. Thank you. you, Councilwoman Hernandez, mayor, members of the council. Um, I am not the expert on that, so I guess I would ask if we have anybody here from the human services department who could speak to that. >> Okay. I mean, sounds like maybe might be a follow-up item because I also would like to get the uh list of programs that we currently have at those community centers. Um, that would be super helpful as we move more forward in the budget process. Councilwoman Hernandez, I know we have our human services director, Jacqueline here, and I hopefully she can answer that question. Thank you. >> Thank you. Uh, Mayor, uh, Councilwoman Hernandez, members of council, to answer your question, um, although we do not have a case management staff embedded in the parks and recreation uh, community centers, what we do is partner, um, with other city departments on individualized needs for families. And so we're able to do that resource navigation to be able to get families to those who are providing uh direct mental health um services out there in our community. >> Okay. Thank you. Um and that was just brought on something that I know I visited one of the community centers in the district and they are having a lot of our teens and our youth go there for programming um that are you know the families are working families. So, uh I know like food insecurity is a big issue. So, case management, you know, I would love to see like the just the expanded making sure that our children that are going to the community centers also have proper food. I will say that uh this amazing staff is sometimes um investing into the youth out of their own pockets to make sure that those kids are not hungry um and they have snacks and food when they do participate in our city program. So um just really interested in that and thank you for answering that. Um it is important to note that we in when we invest in programs that support our youth especially those historically marginalized um youth we are ending the pipeline to criminalization uh path. Uh we are choosing opportunity over neglect. Every dollar that we invest in our youth and our young people is a declaration to them that their lives, their potential um and their future matters to all of us. And stronger investments means healthier kids, which means stronger families and safer, more vibrant communities for all of us across the city of Phoenix. So that's why it is so important for us to support our youth. Um so that we're not just helping them succeed, but we are really those are the leaders of our future, right? They're our future leadership so that these investments into them really are helping us build the city that we all deserve, including our young people. Um so thank you for that. Uh another opportunity for funding allocations for youth as investment is in the youth and education offices literally h literacy hubs. Um those hubs uh support us reaching our literacy goals and recently really learned and for those of you that don't know uh our third grade levels in the city of Phoenix are at 27% uh which means that 27% of our of our uh students are reading at their grade level. Um, as a city, I really believe we need to step up and help our schools fill that gap where they are being uh failed by the state, the majority party, the state legislature that continues to uh impact their funding that goes into our public schools. Um, so how much I mean this is my question. How much money would it take to fully fund literacy hubs? Uh, mayor, members of the council, Councilwoman Hernandez, I don't think we know that number off the top of my head, but we can certainly look into that and get information from our youth and education office about that. >> Okay, that's perfect. If you can bring that back um, as we move in the process, I think our first when we come back for the budget, it'll be May, May 2nd. Um, that would be great. if we can get those numbers. Um I hope to really work with, you know, my fellow council members to make sure that we are putting every resource we can into literacy hubs and to um really help our youth um in this year's budget. Um I also would like to echo that I'm super excited for the housing trust fund investments. Uh housing has been a top pri priority uh since I went into this work. Um and it's one of the top priorities for our constituency, for our residents in district 7. Uh this past week we had a community budget town hall and we did an activity in there and housing was a department that the residents prioritize to receive the most investments from our city budget. Um and so as our trust fund gets going and it gets moving and we start making a broader impact um I really look forward to seeing the community impacts that are going to directly come from the housing trust fund. Um I also would like to thank vice mayor for all the advocacy that she has done. um alongside me and the housing trust fund. I feel like sometimes we're broken records like we need more money in the in the housing trust fund, but this is really a tool that is going to help us make sure that we want to address affordability and housing is a solution and the probably the biggest solution to homelessness. So, we cannot solve one without the other. So, I'm really excited um to look forward to that and to find more creative ways on how we can invest into um the housing trust fund and into just housing options overall. So, exciting on that. Um also really glad to hear that we have set aside 1.5 million to support refugees and families need through the flexible funds that are going to be available um if the budget is passed. Um, I guess I would say when the budget when the budget is passed. Um, but you know, I would like to see if there's an opportunity to increase the allocation on this item. Um, including support for uh other services that this community is directly impacted under immigration impacts. Um, and if there's a possibility return also with more information on that, would that be a sorry, would that be a possibility to get more information on that? Okay. Thank you. Um, and just a few more quick questions. Um, I'm seeing that we are studying 5 million aside for childcare affordability, which is great. In this last year, I actually learned that child care can impact a family's income by taking up anywhere between 12 to 30% of their monthly income. So, in addition to the high prices of of rent or mortgage payments, right, this is two items can take up a family's entire monthly check. Um, so I know that that is super concerning for the reasons that we've heard from the mayor and and councilwoman Gardado. Um, so that is great investment. It's time we move forward with that. Um, and while while we're making this investment, uh, can you tell me what additional investments or the investments we are currently making into free or lowcost city operated prek programs? Do you want Head Start or the airport early childhood? >> Well, I know we're doing the airport. Um I mean maybe both. I think state I think we cover Head Start as a city. >> We have federal partnership >> or federal partnership. >> Yeah. Mayor, members of council, um yeah, in addition to Head Start, I'd have to actually turn to our other partners here to get information on other programs that we're offering. certainly information we could gather up and and provide to you after the meeting though. >> Sounds good, Erin. I like it. >> Erin's going to be busy. >> Yeah, I'm keeping them busy. Um, and you know, one of the great things also that uh my constituents have voiced is as they've been learning about the community assistance program. They really, really love this program. um they would love to see this program get more investments and um get more support in our budget in our community town hall that we did around the budget last week. Uh this was also one of the highest uh identified areas that they want to see uh expansion of services in. Um it's support I mean it has support across the board. It was it might have been it was pretty popular. Uh so this is uh you know something that I would love to see how we can work on finding more um resources and money to invest into this program for future expansions. Um it's really doing a lot of really good work. Um so comm residents love it. They know about it. They love it and they're now recognizing um that that is a very critical service for for the community. Um and finally last week I know that the news about Cesar Chavez engagement in sexual violence and and um shook us all or shocked a lot of us. Uh we are however grateful to the farm workers and the women who were part of the larger uh struggle for civil and labor rights in the c in this across this country. Um, I know that we are having a conversation in tomorrow's formal council meeting on what to do, uh, on what the process is going to look like moving forward, um, to, uh, rename, uh streets buildings plazas um that are currently named after him. But removing his name is not going to stop the sexual and domestic violence from happening in our communities. um we need real investments and you know ways that we are uh going to prevent domestic violence and uh sexual assault from happening. Um we need some real investments into those programs. Uh what I I'm going to add this to the list of things that you probably have to come back to me with, but can we get a can I get a report from uh staff on what programs we are currently um funding that support ending domestic violence and sexual violence against women and girls. That would be great. All right. Well, that is all my questions and comments. Thank you, mayor. And just once again, thank you so much for the hard work on bringing us a presenting a budget that is fiscally sound and compared to some of our other cities. Um, and just looking forward to the continued process and working with with staff and my and the mayor and my fellow council members um as we go through the process. So, thank you. >> Thank you so much, Councilwoman Pastor or Okay, Counciloman Wearing and then Councilwoman Pastor. Uh just two things about uh what Councilwoman Hernandez said. One, I said faster, Erin, not too fast. Sorry. But the second thing is wholeheartedly agree on the domestic violence front. We've talked about that at public safety. It's just horrific. Worked a lot on that in the past. So, anything I can do to chime in, anything we can do to find to reduce that and frankly increase the penalties for perpetrators to prevent them from doing it again would be something I'd like to see. I think that's the first we ever agree on the DAS. >> Dang. Write it down in the record that this is the first time wearing and I probably agree on the DAS. >> I thought you hated the Dodgers, too. Or is that someone else? >> We were almost We almost made it. We almost made it. It's going to be a long baseball season. >> Counciloman Bastor and then Roland Harris will be our first public comment. >> Thank you. Um, I want to thank everybody for the budget and I know how tedious this can be and how to get get to this point. I actually would like it broken down even further. Uh, it's a very high level uh conversation, but I would like it uh community health safety. I would like to know exactly how much money is going to these areas. Um I think it's important so that we we understand uh where it's going and for what purpose. Um and so I don't know if that would and I would like it before the budget hearings. >> Um pastor if I can mayor members of the council included in the trial budget council report is an attachment. It has a breakdown of how that 1.2 million is allocated for community health and safety including in the supplemental. So, there is information in your report that and we can go over all of that with you if you would like separately. Um, but the information is included or we can walk through some of those additional supplements now if you'd like. >> No, I would like what I would actually like is where it says community health and safety 1.2 million where it says commu community safety plan enhancements one time. I would like to know how much is being dedicated there. I think it's very important for the public. Councilwoman Pastor, the 500,000 is dedicated for the community safety plan. >> I'm talking about when we go out to the budget hearings, I would like this to be um I would like to have the parentheses of 500,000 in that space only because I think it's good for the community to know where the money is going. >> Absolutely. That's that's all I'm I'm just >> just clearing up some stuff that I think community needs to understand what the purpose and why. Um and same with each category uh children, youth and families, homeless service uh continuum housing affordability like how much would be going into uh affordable housing fee waiverss. Um also planning and development um employee compensation and set aides as that's obvious that one's clear. Um but these areas so that uh people that have add advocated for some items can see that their items are in here. Um, and the refugee peace, does that go under children, youth, and families? And if it does, where? >> Yes, mayor, members of council, councilwoman pastor. Yes, that item is under the children, youth, and families category, I believe. >> So, you'd find that in the in the flexible >> in the flexible That's right. In the flexible uh emergency financial assistance, excuse me. Right. So that that includes the refugee assistance as well. >> And that's 1.5 million. >> Okay. All right. So that I think that would be great for the community to understand since they're here to know where it falls and how much. >> Thank you, Councilwoman. Just to clarify, yeah, the the t the tabloid that we we will distribute at our community budget hearings includes a big picture summary, but then an itemized list as well of all the items that we've discussed today. So it'll call out the specific dollar amounts and each of these items that have been proposed. Okay. So when you present at the budgets then that will be there. Okay. I just think it's hard just let's make it nice and simple for and transparent for the community. That's that's my point. >> Absolutely. >> Um and then what happens when community comes out and starts to request some items since pretty much majority of this budget or our surplus and onetime funds has been allocated. What happens? Councilwoman Pastor May or members of the council. So each year we'll take the proposed trial budget out to the community. We'll listen to the residents, collect that feedback. Our city manager will then make recommendations for the city manager's proposed budget on May 5th. That could include adjustments to what you see proposed today to account for that community feedback. >> Okay. All right. That's all my questions. Thank you. >> Thank you. We'll now go to public comment. Roland is first, followed by Melanie. Hello. Um, first I'd like to thank uh Lori Bay for continuing to be a woman of higher integrity and uh her hard work that she's done doing to try to protect these youth in this community. Um, unfortunately this city has been felling the youth. Uh, we have you guys funded an old program that's felling the youth on the southside right now. Um Lori went and fought hard to found to find funding to do the youth crime prevention. Unfortunately, people like Nancy Harrison award that funding to that grant to a nonprofit foundation that has nothing to do with youth. It was awarded to uh Father's First or Father's Matters LLC. Has nothing to do with youth. Had never had any youth work. Um, so we continue to wonder why our funds are falling short. Um, and I want to commend Lori on finding this $500,000 to go towards the youth right now, but to be honest, I think it's going to fail as well. Um, so I'm here today to make a formal request in this city to do direct funding to the Jacob Michael Harris Foundation so we can protect these youth cuz everything that the city is trying to do and all these funds that keep going obviously ain't going where they're supposed to go. If you gave $500,000 grant to Father's Matters LLC and their main work is to mentor fathers to be better fathers, has nothing to do with youth crime prevention. Um, and we put in for that grant and it hurt that uh cuz we fought like hell. We worked like hell with Lori to get that funding even to find funding for youth and for it to go not to youth is a slap in the face. Um, I buried my son 7 years ago, so I know the hole in the heart that that leaves. And I am determined and dedicated to this work in these youth of the city of Phoenix. So no other parent has to fill that emptiness in their heart. Thank you, C. >> Vice Mayor, >> can I ask a quick question for you? >> Yes. >> Thank you. Can you explain a little bit more about what type of programs you would like to see the city of Phoenix fund, whether or not it's through your organization or something else? >> Well, considering most of the uh programs that you guys suggesting came directly from me, I mean, I can offer you a lot. I'm the one who suggested opening the community centers later for the kids to go to. I'm the one that suggested that we offer counseling at these community centers for these youth. I'm the one who suggested offering free meals to these kids at these community centers. I want to also ask that we offer more support towards parents, parents that can't afford to send their kids to these community centers and make these community centers free since they already pay for these community centers with their tax dollars. >> So, you would like to see us invest? I'm just trying to write down some of the list of things. So, um, the extended South I also am a fan of the South Phoenix Youth Center. I use that for all of my programming as well on Saturdays. So, I've also advocated jointly for you with you on that. But you would like to see more counseling, meals, um, free activities. I was just trying to get a list of the things that you would like to see us do >> cuz I mean, you came to to our event last year, Kesha, the basketball tournament. Yes. And we we put that event on that's completely free to the youth to completely free to the community with a shoestring budget. So, I mean, if you guys can come up with $500,000, I mean, you guys can make everything completely free to these kids. There's no reason that parents should have to pay to use a community center that they've already paid for with their tax dollars. I mean, in these communities here, being from these communities, also coaching in a nonprofit basketball league where you're seeing kids that I personally had to go in my pocket and buy basketball shoes for because their parents could only barely afford to put their kid in that basketball league. So we we shouldn't have to have parents in this city make a decision on do our child eat today, do we pay power today, do we pay water today, or do we put something in our kids, put our kids on a program that they can be safe in, which is why I created this foundation, which is why every program that is provided by this foundation will be free to this community and is free to this community because I don't want a parent to have to make that detoice. Do I worry about if my kids out here getting in trouble, running with a gang, getting high on drugs, but yet then if I can't sell them in the community center because community center's closed. I can't sell the community center because I can't afford the community center. I can't put them in a summer basketball league because I can't afford it. >> Thank you for that. I so I I captured it and I do understand the concerns about affordability and I just wanted to make sure I understood what are some of the action items that you wanted and I think I have them. So, thank you so much for your time and your testimony today. Thank you. Uh, next will be Melanie Reyes, followed by Jamie. >> Hi. Good afternoon, Mayor, Vice Mayor, and Council. I'm Melanie Reyes, uh, with the International Rescue Committee. Um while we fully support the the city's efforts to include refugee um needs in the city budget and we're so very appreciative, we also today wanted to underscore the challenges that refugee families are facing right now. Since 1994, organizations like the IRC have partnered with community stakeholders across Arizona to welcome refugees, individuals and families who have fled life-threatening persecution and conflict, and who have been lawfully admitted to uh the United States. They undergo extensive vetting before arrival, are authorized to work immediately, and over time become lawful permanent residents and citizens. For decades, refugee families have contributed to Arizona's economy, filled critical workforce shortages, and strengthened the fabric of our communities. But today, many refugee families are living with fear and instability due to recent and unprecedented federal policy changes. We are seeing cuts to SNAP and Medicaid impacting families without green cards, including vulnerable children. Refugees in other states are already being called in for reinterviews that could see their refugee protections terminated and we are seeing increased risks for those navigating the le their legal path citizenship. One of the most important urgent needs is legal services. Adjusting immigration status is not optional. It is essential to accessing benefits, maintaining stability and avoiding detention or deportation. Yet families face real barriers, including the associated costs and lack of access to qualified support. Without targeted investment in legal services, community education, and basic needs, many families will remain at risk despite their eligibility for support, leaving families to make high stakes decisions in uncertainty of having to weigh immediate needs like food and rent against longerterm needs like legal services and employment support. We thank you for the city's support of refugee communities and for this opportunity to speak on their behalf. >> Thank you so much, Melanie. Any questions for Melanie? Councilman Hernandez. >> Thank you, Mayor. Um, and thank you so much for for sharing that. Um, can you I kind of want to go back to the piece about the just the overall impact. I know you mentioned a lot of like the SNAP benefit interruption and the legal the need for legal support um but what I mean within what we're seeing right through this administration through the federal administration how what kind of support I mean how how is this I'm trying to figure out how to frame that question the everyday issues that are impacting the refugee community, right? It sounds like there's not a lot of support for this particular community and it seems like they're being impacted at some of the highest rates through this administration through a couple of the items that you just specifically named. >> Yes. So, some of my colleagues will be speaking in more detail to that, but um just want to highlight that there are three main policies that are impacting um refugee communities and um other or eligible population. That's HR1 um which eliminates SNAP benefits, Medicaid, ACA, Medicare, and CHIPS uh for refugees without green cards. Um there was a memo released in November uh that uh essentially um says that um all refugees uh from 2021 to 2025 um will be re-reviewed, their cases will be re-reviewed given that they have um already gone through the all of this process. And then uh a third memo on February 18th um which essentially put refugees at risk who have not adjusted to LPR after one year um at risk for arrest, detention, and deportation. So, this is just to say that all of this can cannot um the enforcement piece and the risk for detention um can't can't be divorced from um the impact enforcement has um on basic needs, right? Um and my colleague will definitely get into more detail on that, but um it's it's a very complex environment right now. there is a lot of fear within our communities to come forward for things that they are already eligible for. Um so the city's work on um support and protection of these communities is is really very important. Um and we look forward to working as closely as possible um across many areas. >> Thank you. Thank you, mayor. >> Thank you. Thank you so much. Jamie is next, followed by Caitlyn. Thank you, Mayor, Vice Mayor, and the council. My name is Jamie Flesner. I'm with the International Rescue Committee. I'm speaking in alignment with um our previous speaker here. What I want to focus on is what refugee families are experiencing in the day-to-day, what it takes for them to actually access support and remain stable. Right now, fear and confusion are the major barriers. Many families are unsure about which policies apply to them, whether it's safe to even seek services, um how changes to the federal programs affect their eligibility for those programs. And as a result, a lot of the families who do qualify sometimes don't come forward at all. This is why community education is critical. Families need clear, accurate information in the languages that they understand about their rights, available resources, and how to safely navigate the systems. So then they are empowered to make informed decisions for their own families. Community education cannot stop with the families. It must also reach refugee serving stakeholders including government agencies, faith-based organizations, social service providers, and those who often lack the up-to-date guidance on rapidly evolving policies and need support to server serve these communities effectively. We're also seeing an increased need for basic support, so food, health care, housing assistance, employment services, and mental health support. As families navigate all these uncertainties, employment remains key to stability, but many families need additional support connecting to jobs and working with employers who clearly understand their circumstances. Finally, community- based organizations with the expertise of serving refugees play a central role. They're often the first point of contact and are essential for outreach, service delivery, and building trust. And we're seeing a declining capacity among these um organizations with expertise at the very time the community needs more or the community needs are um in increasing. Thank you for your time and consideration. >> Thank you. Caitlyn is next followed by Deon. >> Hi Mayor, vice mayor, council. Thank you. I'm Caitlyn. I am with Lutheran Social Services of the Southwest on behalf of our refugee and immigration department. I have come to acknowledge and support the funding that you all have provided for refugee human services and request continued financial support for legal services, community education and outreach and for basic needs. We have grave concerns with multiple bills and policies coming from the federal administration, including HR1, which cuts SNAP and Medicaid for refugees, Operation Paris, which re-reviews any refugees lawfully admitted under the Biden administration, and the February 18th memo, which calls to arrest and detain refugees who have not yet adjusted their status. These policies and enforcement practices are generating fear in our communities and creating a literal humanitarian crisis by increasing basic needs. This includes 9,000 refugees who have been admitted to Arizona over the past few years, 6,000 of whom were resettled in Phoenix. Resettlement agencies are well equipped to meet these needs. We know how to do this work, but our funding has been significantly reduced. Our agencies need continued financial support to help refugees navigate the everanging legal immigration landscape. We need funding to educate our refugee community and help them navigate complicated systems and make sure they know how to access those resources. And finally, they need help meeting their basic needs like food and healthcare. These are childrens with these are families with children. These are families some of the most vulnerable in our community. So, we thank you for your support and we humbly ask you continue funding to prevent a significant crisis um to the most vulnerable families who legally and lawfully immigrated here to the US. Thank you. >> Thank you for that testimony. Devon is next followed by Shade. >> Good afternoon, Mayor, Vice Mayor, and Council. I want to thank you for inviting me. My name is Devon Robinson. I am a practicing immigration attorney. I represent Arizona Immigrant and Refugee Services as well as the Robinson Law Firm. I've been working with refugees since 2005. Um, working mostly in the shadows. Today is the first time I've ever stepped foot in this building and I appreciate the opportunity to speak. Um, but I'm working with real refugees dealing with real issues. The first issue is I do from work authorization to removal proceedings. I've done everything that you can possibly imagine under the immigration umbrella and I've never seen the influx of changes with the immigration laws and policies that surround refugees. Refugees were invited to America. They're pillars of this community. They've been working since I've been involved in refugees since 2005. They've been doing a lot of work and contributing to society. But what I'm noticing is a lot of employers are forcing refugees to resign or they're just terminating employment due to the changes in policy. I'm hoping and I'm praying that this particular panel will help with funding education. I believe there's two key areas to immigration that needs to be funded. Education. IM refugees need to understand what their rights and responsibilities are. They need seminars, but we can't do those for free. I went back and I looked over the last 5 months, I've done over 200 adjustment of status for free. I've been trying to give back as much as I can. My law firm has been trying to help as much as we can, but we need the big players like you guys to step in and help and give as much help you can to help these refugees because they're afraid. They don't want to step foot in buildings, law enforcement, but they need to be educated on laws outside of immigration. For example, if they're in a domestic disturbance or traffic stop, that can land them in removal proceedings. And I just want to appreciate the opportunity to come speak and I accept my colleagues for their participation as well because we've been fighting this battle for a very long time and now we need your help and we hope that you will help us. Please. Thank you. >> Thank you so much, Vice Mayor. >> Thank you, Mayor. I just wanted to say to Attorney Robinson, as someone who's also represented those in need for free, I understand and I just want to commend you for that work. Thank you for what you do. >> Mayor, I have a question for him. >> Devon, would you mind coming back? That uh one of our councilwoman has a question for you if you don't mind. >> My apologies. I've never been here before. So, >> well, we don't usually we're very interested in your testimony, so it's good news when you get a question. >> No problem. >> Yeah. No, thank you so much. And just as an immigration attorney, right, can you share a little bit about the complexities in your traditional immigration work and how complex it is when it's working with refugee on immigration work? Like is there a distinction um because of certain regulations? Just to give you a snapshot, when a when a refugee resettles in America, their work authorization and social security is waiting for them before they get here. So, they're already eligible to work. They come within, I would say, within the first 90 days or so. Most of them do find employment. That's what separates them for most individuals that are in this quandrum of immigration issues at the moment. um the new policy changes are hurting them a lot because now filing for adjustment of status under I485, you have to do what's called a medical evaluation. Well, a lot of our refugees come to America with some pre-existing health issues. So, when they go to do that I693 medical evaluation, unfortunately, it could range from $50 to $550. Most refugee families are on an average of 3 to seven. So you can imagine if you times that by 5 67 they opt to just wait. But unfortunately due to policy changes they can't wait. When that one year and one day hits unfortunately they should have already applied. And we have a huge population that have not applied for their adjustment of status. So I've been trying to give back in my own way to help them petition for that adjustment of status. But just to let let everyone know now when you apply for adjustment of status an interview will be be called. So you will be interviewed on not only on your ability to adjust but also have you been utilizing public benefits. So that's also comes into scrutiny and a lot of refugees are very afraid and I just want to speak for the voiceless. I want to give them an opportunity to know that there there are people out there trying to fight for them and help for them. Thank you. Thank you Mayor. >> Great job. Come back tomorrow. >> Uh, Shade is next. >> Good afternoon, Mayor Deputy Mayor and Council. My name is Shade. I'm the um director of refugee program for Calic Charity Community Services. Today I'm going to be talking more about how we can collaborative and focus together. Um, Finn continue to be a welcoming city but we are seeing a growing pressure now in Ker especially in avoiding avoidable housing, food and medical for our refugee and these are the our family are actually needed. Um we also see a critical basic support during the transition in accessing SNAPS because of the new nor benefit because of the new law. Um the SNAP benefit for our refugee have been cut and now um all my colleagues here we are struggling now in how to provide food for um the refugee that are here. Also we are finding that because of the medical the family are not being stable right now because they don't have housing. they don't have food and there's no medical for them. So it kind of disrupt the family um focus right now. Um when this support are in place the resource is clear family find employment the children are succeeding in school and our community grow stronger. Uh I want to emphasize that um refugee they bring resilience, skill and strong desire to contribute to the city of Phoenix and they contribute to the partnership and if we strengthen it together we we can actually build a stronger community for the refugee. Um thank you. Any question? >> Thank you. Any questions? Great uh testimony. Really appreciate that. and check in with our team. I believe that's all of our speakers. Uh very powerful testimony. Thank you all for your uh end lending your expertise. With that, I think that ends this agenda item unless you have a concluding comment. Otherwise, we'll see people at our community budget hearings. Wonderful. Thank you to the budget and research team and city manager team. And then we will now go to the final portion of our meeting, which is council information and follow-up request. Uh does anyone have a council information and follow-up request? Okay, not seeing none, we are adjourned is going on. We have some neighborhoods who are very active with neighborhood leaders that we talk to on a weekly basis. Uh, and we got others who