[Music] and welcome to the glendale city council workshop session of february 22nd 2022 this meeting is now called to order mayor wires has an excused absence from this workshop the mayor is currently advocating for thank you the mayor is currently advocating for glendale at a meeting with greater phoenix economic council and nasa regarding nasa's possibility placement of a data and reasoning fabric center in our region thank you mayor i will now conduct an attendance roll call please signify by saying president council member clark here council member hugh all right here council member thomas off here council member turner president vice mayor's president and council member malnar is on his way miss bauer will you please introduce item number one please 360 degree virtual tour to help promote glendale as a premier travel and business destination good afternoon vice mayor aldama members of the council uh here today for our workshop we're very excited to bring to you um what we think is a really a great uh body of work that's been put on by our been put together by our vcb and so with that i'm going to turn over to jim burke our director of public facilities recreation and special events and he'll be assisted by danielle dutch our convention visitor bureau administrator thank you thank you thank you mr phelps good morning vice mayor members of the council it's pleasure to be here this afternoon to brief you on this so virtual tourism is becoming a new thing especially at the last two years of covid people not able to get around and see venues and facilities and come to local cities so they're able to go online and get a first-hand look and we're pleased to bring for you today a preview of our new 360 tour for um the westgate area of glendale i will share with you this is just phase one we will we are doing this immediate area and we will be looking as amenities and destinations are added out there to increase the the list of things that are itemized and be able to look elsewhere in the city we'll be able to look at the retail areas in the arrowhead area for instance and the downtown glendale area in the future the 360 imagery is really important because it gives people a chance to familiarize themselves with facilities and destinations without physically coming and a lot of people are doing this now as a first move or first action when they're looking at going somewhere it's an opportunity for convention visitor bureaus and hotels to share a virtual experience so you can actually go in and see the properties and you can see how they relate in the in the community how where they are related to each other and other destinations and venues we are luckily the first cvb in the state to bring a 360 tour to to the marketplace so we're really excited about that and we've been working on this for a little while we're hoping doing a press release later this afternoon or tomorrow after your review of this today this is an information only item we're not looking for council direction but we're really excited to bring with you and share with you this new technology and this application we are already hearing the phones are ringing for our consultant and with our cvb of other entities now want to go and copy this and look into doing the same thing so being the first in the marketplace something we're really very proud of with that i'd like to turn it over to danielle and let her do the lion's share of this presentation and we'll be glad to take any questions good afternoon vice mayor and council members we know planners across the globe are hard at work they're planning events they're ensuring continuity of future business and our team is harnessing the creativity and innovation and cutting-edge technology to help planners navigate some of those unforeseen circumstances and what you'll see here is we have a pop-up guide that shares property details we've got pinpoints on google maps and the pop-up guide that walks visitors through each location while sharing tidbits like the fact that glendale has more than a hundred thousand square feet of meeting space we've got photo galleries for our visitors social media and direct links to their websites and other stops include state farm stadium and top golf we really wanted to be cognizant of the public investment that was included and so we started off utilizing state farms pre-existing and top golf's pre-existing tours it has mobile compatibility whatever device you're on you're able to actually execute and move around with your mouse it's also multi-directional and we provide google business listings you can explore rooms that attendees will call home during their stay google business listings as i mentioned will help participating partners increase their search engine optimizations and then these virtual tours they help planners visualize in a first-hand way just how special their next meeting could potentially be here in glendale and our region is ideally located it's the right mid scale size and it's full of opportunities for event planners looking to host events and market glendale and we welcome them all right so there is a lot going on and what we're going to do right now is we're going to skip a video but we encourage you to take a look at it at a later time and we're going to go straight into the actual presentation and the tour and so you'll see it's rotating it'll take you all over the place here and what we're going to start out with is westgate entertainment district you can move around from left to right and actually take a 360 virtual tour throughout and i'm going to take us on a little tour through westgate boulevard and each step you'll be able to walk through as if you were here immersed within the city of glendale's sports and entertainment district we're going to go upstairs and a meeting planner can get a visual detailed bird's eye view of the actual destination i'll take you back downstairs for a moment here and again you can move throughout we're going to now veer off towards the hotels and i'm going to take you to the renaissance hotel and spa we're going to start out in the lobby and again 360 virtual tour of everything that you can see we'll go through and you'll see the front desk and then we'll take you throughout the courtyard this is perfect for a meeting planner to just see how they can use this open space and with the super bowl on the heels of of the year this is a great outdoor setting to host a private event the meeting space we're going to take you to one that's already set up it's the sierra ballroom and a meeting planner who's thinking about choosing glendale over any of the numerous destinations throughout the nation can see a firsthand experience as to what their group event could potentially be going straight into one of the guest rooms you can walk through a visual what's outside and i'll take you back to the lobby but as you have time we would encourage you to just visit through and walk through it yourself as well i think you'll find it to be a useful tool indeed it does civic center currently has one that exists council member clark so that one we actually work with public affairs and the civic center and utilize the same company and vendor that they did to produce this piece here there is one for the civic center it does pre that is a pre-existing one thank you any other questions mayor members council that's the presentation so we'll answer any questions or take any comments from the council thank you for the presentation um vice mayor thank you um what's the target audience for this presentation is it the event planners or the attendees or who is it thank you for your question councilmember turner it's for the attendees pre signing up and registering for their events it's also for the meeting planner so that they can make a determination as to whether or not glendale is the perfect spot for their event and then also for the leisure visitor they can see beforehand and get an immersive experience as to what they'll they'll come across in regards to the attractions and the hotels it gives them the options um vice mayor thank you um i might suggest that perhaps we would want to go just a little bit farther out of the uh the commercial zone then and maybe incorporate some things like thunderbird park to our ranch park heroes park our three premier parks to give them the attendees an idea of what else they might do while they're here or why they might have a desire to stay longer than just the end of their conference and also with the event planner locations they might be able to do other types of events team building exercises and things like that vice mayor members of the council councilman tournament that's really a very good suggestion as we grow this and add destinations and elements it's a great idea to be able to put the features that we're most proud of like tcp and swivel ranch park and as i mentioned we'll be looking downtown too and heroes parker is there any data you guys are using that that will help you identify areas as councilmember turner mentioned that you guys are focusing on so what you demonstrated today is that because of data you received from from someone or affiliates at all hello vice mayor aldama actually that selection was because that's where most of the hotels in the meeting space are located and we know that's where we can put the heads and beds and folks within the stadiums gila river arena as well as the conference center so that was why we ended up choosing this area but we are definitely exploring other opportunities moving outside of the ant sports and entertainment district thank you councilman mcdonald's thank you vice mayor um so this is i think this is really great i i love you know that we're kind of veering out into this newer newer technology um but how does the back end work i mean is the idea to generate leads and then how do you i mean what there's there's got to be some kind of back-end work happening or this this has to serve some purpose so how do you follow up are you getting you know list of daily leads and then you can follow up with them and actually talk to you know they can talk to a real person you're absolutely right council member tillman shaft this the back end aspect of it is we are able to run reports that will tell us who's looked at it but we're using it as a tool as well so prior to meeting a meeting planner as a lead comes in we'll share this with them and literally walk them through it we also can do familiarization tours with groups of folks that are interested in coming to glendale and we can host an actual opportunity to do a virtual tour online but for certain uh the back end of it we're getting leads we're following up with them and asking them okay this is the first place where you'll start would you like to come out and visit it firsthand as well okay thank you those are those are great comments um by council members i want to remind you and you know this so we we we promote work live and play in glendale and so if you'll you'll focus on some of our resident residential areas that we want people to come live in so i know you're probably already on that but you want to work play and live in glendale so keep in mind that councilmember clark thank you um one thing that occurred to me when you were talking was you said you make this available when someone calls and it generates a lead but how does the casual visitor not associated with an event get to see this or is it also on our website as of today we will go ahead or at least earlier this week later this week rather we will be putting this on our website it'll also be on our e-signatures at the bottom indicating and encouraging folks to please click through to learn more about glendale thank you council members any other accountants well great work very innovative uh thank you so much and timely for the super bowl and all the activities and action and coverage we're going to have appreciate the uh presentation without further comments mrs bowers would you please no i'm sorry our next time in the city's report is mr phelps do you have anything to report uh vice mayor obama members of the council just a couple things as a follow along to the presentation here just wanted to say i think that danielle and her team have been doing just a tremendous job especially the last three years all the upheaval within the tourism and travel industry what i can say is that the glendale market for both daily occupancy rate and percentage of occupancy has been much stronger than most other areas i think it's because of the good work that our team is doing and so they we still have very very impressive numbers that have been happening there this is a platform that we can build from and what we wanted to show you was kind of the the targeted approach but as we build this out we can see economic development coming in and saying maybe we want to showcase these kinds of things once you have the kind of the tool and you have the vendor to help you put it together it's really just a matter of where you want to take it so we'll be looking to expand this uh because this is really where people are going to be making decisions from in the future they're already making them but they're going to that's going to continue to move that direction so just a couple items in for the council and i want to talk first about our success factor awards we just concluded our inaugural success factors excellence award incentive program and we're celebrating this week all of our winners if you recall in the budget process a year ago the council put money in as a way to to incent both innovation and customer service and we went through a very detailed process and we launched the program in 20 of 21 we received 131 nominations for individuals and groups which represented approximately 400 employees so these nominations came from within the organization by our people who are recognizing their peers and other programs as as being noteworthy of a special recognition we were really thrilled to death with that level of nominations that came through it was then reviewed by a employee-led committee made up across all different departments and 45 employees were selected to receive an award along with 39 semi-finalists again this program is made possible through your donation we will be having now 45 employees will be receiving a fifteen hundred dollar uh bonus uh which they're very excited about i've already received a number of emails from employees thanking the city and the council uh for putting this program in place and then there is a there's also a smaller cash board for the 39 semi-finalists so we're going to be going forward we'll be making some tweaks to program as we go on but again um thank you and i hope you'll uh reach out on uh as we have and congratulate those winners and say well done for both outstanding customer service and both innovation the next announcement is not uh i i make with somewhat both mixed emotions on this but here today chief garrison has announced that he'll be retiring after 45 years of public service he actually hits his 45-year public in march and so he has announced that he'll be retiring on june 10th of this year as you know chief garrison comes with an incredible resume here to the city of glendale you know he started you know he started in the u.s army but he also had leadership roles of the city of phoenix oceanside california the daisy mountain fire district and of course prior to coming to glendale a little over six and a half years ago he led the fourth largest fire department in the country in houston texas and and so he has brought just a tremendous amount of enthusiasm and and leadership to our fire department um you know my interactions with chief garrison is he was is always a person of very high integrity um and he has a passion really for both protecting our uh the public that we serve and protecting the men and women that work underneath him and he's been passionate from that on very from the very good go again his last date will be june 10th we'll be course putting together some activities to recognize his great service to our citizens here in glendale soon afterwards we'll begin the process of doing a national recruitment we'll have more details to share with the council as we get a chance to put our timing together and understand how we want to approach that and with that mr vice mayor that concludes my report thank you mr phelps our next item is the city attorney's report mr bailey do you have any report nothing today thank you thank you mr bailey next item on the agenda is council items of special interest each council member will have the opportunity to indicate topics they would like to have discussed by the council at a future workshop council member clark nothing today thank you mr clark councilman hugh nothing thank you malnour nothing today mayor councilman telemacho nothing today councilmember turner not today chair has none thank you is there is there a motion to go into executive session second i have a motion and a second motion by councilman clark seconded by council member hugh to go into an executive session is there a discussion on the motion all those in favor please vote aye aye they're in the opposed none motion passes council meetings recessed thank you [Applause] you