cuz I was a bad boy good morning Madam Clerk hey it's not it's on it's not on good morning Madame mayor can you hear me is that better it's on it's on move it up just make sure it's close can you hear me now all right if we're ready to call this meeting to order all right thank you madam clerk okay we're GNA get started this morning and we are going to start out with a pledge allegiance and we have some future mayor's in the house right good morning and you are from the Mount Rose school right and you're in seventh grade come on up introduce yourself are you nervous a little bit that's okay I get nervous too I'm Ava Garcia um I'm seventh grade and then my name is Alexander Bard we're in seventh grade at Mount Rose you're both hey ladies can you stop right up to the mic as close as possible so we can catch what you're saying thank you okay so I hear that you're going to lead us in the pledge and you are going to do it in English and Spanish is that correct and your teacher please stand up because our teachers are so important give him a big round of applause Mr Ortiz I thought you guys were going to do all the work but we were going to make him stand up and embarrass him a little bit but um I'm going to have you guys um all stand and just in the pledge I pledge aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all all right great job impressed good job all right Madame clerk I'm going to send it over to you for roll call May thank you Madame mayor um calling roll for Wednesday February 28th council member breus I'm here der here Martinez here eert at this time Taylor here Reese here shivi here Madame mayor you do have a quum of the Reno city council all right thank you so much I'm going to send it to you uh back to you for public comment perfect Madame mayor our first item today is public comment members of the public may may hear observe and provide public comment virtually by registering through the following link which can be found on reno.gov meetings https colon l i n k s period re n o period G oov SL capital c o u n c i l 02 hyphen 28 it should be noted for those in the audience that comments are to be addressed to the mayor and Council as a whole comments heard under this item will be limited to 3 minutes per person and may pertain to matters both on and off the council's agenda Council may not take action upon any matter not agendized on today's agenda when you're called on for public comment please state your name for the record and begin speaking the timer will begin when you say your name and you will be afforded 3 minutes for those participating in Chambers in accordance with Council rules 6.3.1 one while in the room please be respectful disruptive behavior from audience members like clapping yelling whistling Etc which impede the meeting May result in a roaring from the presiding officer if the behavior continues you may be removed from chambers if you're an attendee in the zoom meeting and would like to make public comment please raise your hand at this time our first public commenter is Terry Brooks followed by Shan Hill followed by Garrett Gordon good morning morning it's me Terry Brooks again and today I feel the responsibilities to address discrimination against those with physical disabilities every day a lot of people experience accidents that wind up leaving them with physical impairments some people are even born physically impaired and ever since they were born it's been a burden they have beared one very impairing kind of disability is the kind that really impairs the person's Mobility so many people spend their lives in a wheelchair and for them to be discriminated against absolutely is not fair even after some recovery they still need a walker crutches or a cane they're gradually gaining ground but still going through a lot of pain some might lose the use of a leg because of going through some harm and then they might learn how to depend on more use of an arm or someone might lose the use of one arm and then learn to depend on using their other arm when someone loses some of their abilities all their body parts help them to learn more of their capabilities when something happens that leads to losing some ability it can then lead to being open to a new possibility so anyone who discriminates against others because of their disabilities is someone who really lacks social responsibilities anyone who deserves to have a second chance so that they can then learn how to advance each part of our body is a separate tool that works with others to prove themselves above any kind of ridicule I would like to thank you all for putting up with me today and I look forward to being able to come back with a lot more to say a very nice okay where are we at this is chapter 2 just so you know I've only got 21 more chapters to go good job thank you so much Sean Hill followed by Garrett Gordon thank you council members uh mayor and city manager my name is Sea Hill and I have the honor and privilege to lead one of our community's great not for-profit organizations Sierra Nevada Journeys we are on your agenda today so I wanted to offer some background sier Nevada Journeys started in the back of the old rock sport Climbing Gym off Audi and silverada in 2006 our origin story is that our founder was with a group of uh Reno students uh near Lake Tahoe when one of them asked him if sharks can be found in that ocean um I've been with you organization since 2009 and I've really Built My Career around our vision which is to transform lives by building curiosity confidence and connections to Nature especially for students who are traditionally underserved Nevada Journey serves the community Through outdoor stem and Youth Development programs last year we served almost 15,000 students in Northern Nevada with a majority from tile one schools we support teachers with Hands-On science lessons in the classroom take students on one day field studies to local natural areas such as the Oxo nature study and own and operate a residential science camp about 45 minutes from town near the feather river in plumis County to sustain our programs we rely on program fees and fundraising the resolution you have in front of you will go directly to our scholarship program which allows us to reduce or remove the cost of for entry to our outdoor stem education programs for young people living in Reno thank you for your time Sean thank you so much good work morning Madam mayor council for the record my name is Garrett Gordon I'm going to read a statement uh from Jeff Jacobs related to the PO postponement of item C1 the state stat is from Jeff Jacobs from Jacobs entertainment our efforts to revitalize almost half of downtown Reno come with a certain level of social responsibility as a developer and former elected official I take that responsibility seriously for almost 30 years I have been actively involved with the oldest black church of my hometown of West Palm Beach the oldest black church in the neighborhood is the historic Tabernacle Missionary Baptist Church pastored by my spiritual adviser Reverend Gerald d kizner a former under Secretary of Hud I've enjoyed interaction with my friend Reverend Kisner and the historic Tabernacle Missionary Baptist Church for several decades Reverend Kisner married my former wife and I almost 30 years ago and one of the highlights of my life was 25 years ago with the birth of my oldest son and his Blessing by Reverend kill Kisner at Tabernacle in many ways the Tabernacle church building is similar to the downtown Reno Reno bethl am Church full of African-American history it has seen its good days and its difficult days I am pleased at quietly contributed to the restoration of the Palm Beach church after two hurricanes over the last 20 years I was also pleased to assist the congregation and the creation of the UB kizy educational and Community Center across the street the center was named after UB KY the first African-American High School principal in West Palm Beach County it provides many services to the poorest community in the county going to its website you will see the recognition of the contribution of the Jacobs Family Foundation for children my children and I have welcomed the opportunity to donate over $5 million to the construction and operation of this much needed Community Asset I am proud of my efforts to assist a historic black church in my hometown however it is a 30-year Journey that frames my thinking about Pastor whitlock's efforts and the bethl am Church in downtown Reno yesterday I was provided an opportunity by mayor shivi and council member ree to sit down for the first time with Pastor Whitlock and hear her her thoughts on The Rebirth of downtown Reno and the need for development with inclusion her thoughts go beyond parking spaces go beyond abandoned Alleyways and just as I have a vision for a revitalized downtown Reno Pastor Whitlock has a vision that includes several important facets of black history in Washo County Pastor Whitlock has reminded me that I have a responsibility to listen to All voices as I continue my Redevelopment efforts in downtown Reno I suggest that as a starting point be that Pastor Whitlock and her congregation identify three West Coast African-American land use planners for us to interview I will pay to bring one on board to listen to and respond to the thoughts of Pastor Whitlock and her congregation I will also assist the congregation in an effort to raise Federal money and donations in order to bring to fruition their vision and their interest in seeing revitalization of downtown Reno being completed in inclusionary thank you thanks John kulika followed by Reverend Deborah Dr Deborah Whit lot LAX I don't see John John stepped out he stepped out stepped out okay bring him back in Deborah Whitlock LAX followed by Renee Lawrence did this work for the record Reverend Dr Deborah Whitlock LAX bethl Amy Church speaking on C1 on the abandonment of portions of Bell Street Mayor hello seems like we meet all the time isn't it and Don few short hours ago I know it seems that way well listen um I am just so thankful uh to Garrett and to uh Mr Jacobs for meeting with me on yesterday um we met first time uh in person yesterday but we've had several conversations on the phone and via email um certainly my my my concern is always making sure that our properties and its access is stable um as well as making sure that African-American ism is not just pushed aside but that we are a significant presence in the Reno area since 1907 uh scripture tells us that our children should be able to ask the elders uh of their communities what's up about our history and that's Deborah's version of the Bible amen um and so I I just want to say that I was pleased with the the meeting on yesterday um I was pleased to see that Mr Jacobs was interested in negotiating um what we're doing we have a lot of work to do and so I was glad to hear that he was uh willing to postpone uh his petition for another 30 days to uh come back to the table and and look at some other uh um opportunities um we are interested in making sure that the legacy of bethl Church continues in this community with the cultural center with the black Museum as because it is a nationally registered church and so we want to make sure that we're that that not only the newcomers of uh of the Reno area doesn't just push us aside but really Embraces not only the needs and and Mr Jacobs has done a great job in putting up affordable living housing but we want to see a little bit more and I think that if we work together um um we can do a lot of things I'm looking for a win-win a win-win solution not a zero zum solution so thank you so much thank you so much great outfit love it my fashion mayor yes I'm hearing from uh Mr Gordon and the speaker that the item that's on the agenda I think it's C1 is going to be postponed that's a vote of the council and we're going to take that vote I'm not inclined to say it's a done thing and that I'm supportive of that I think the best process frankly to do you know as the Pastor said we have a lot of work to do and Mr Gordon said we need to hire a planner is for Jacobs to withdraw the request because with the request in place it presumes an outcome and if this is going to be a participatory out outcome I think that we either hear it today on its merits or Jacobs withdraws to show good faith that they will work collaboratively not with an upper hand of a staff recommendation to abandon those streets which Council follows 99% of the time so I just want to let that out there and we'll have more discussion when we approve the agenda um and I think this is a much broader conversation and when you talk about when we abandon streets that oftentimes when they are downtown it depends on the situation but I do want to point out the last one and often times we do that because Property Owners want to have they want to have um control of the property around them so they can take care of it keep it clean do things that we can't do at the city level so I want to there's various reasons to do that so anyway we'll um come back to this after public comment you know that Renee Lawrence followed by Alicia Barber hi Renee actually it's ranata oh ranata rata Lawrence um I have been a member of this community for 34 years um I'm a nurse I celebrate 30 years of nursing this year my son was a graduate of Reno High School in 2007 the reason I'm here today is because of the new swimming pool um I will be 64 this summer and I have been swimming for 59 years of my life I have swam every year in almost every pool in this community um the reason I'm here is I just want to advocate for a locker room expansion in the new facility I have been a City High School College competitive swimmer for most of my life I I don't swim Masters but I do swim and I really want to be a support to the swimmers in this community that we offer a swimming pool that gives them the nurturing and the confidence to have swim meets and promote that their dreams if it's just just into college or for it's on professionally that here in the City of Reno we have a pool that supports those visions and those dreams and that's all I have to say well great are you excited have you driven by you fix not until you fix the locker room issue one of the reasons I'm here today is because there was a thing out oh we have to decorate and I'm like no we have to fix the inside of the pool Arena to make it a competitive Arena and something for Reno to be proud of I have swam like I said in Idle Wild pool all summer long I work around my schedule I'm a small business owner to make sure that I can swim lap pool uhuh if I have not volunteered to lifeguard but I could very easily get my lifeguarding license to be a lifeguard in my retirement years I don't know but I know that I want to swim and I know this city needs a pool that will allow all of us to use that facility for a long period of time yeah it's going to be beautiful you have people here that have worked really really hard right chip I see you back there worked really really hard so thank you so much um Madam mayor by Ral if I may I just wanted to uh assure ranata and other people that are concerned about this issue that since it is my in my ward and I've been a uh you know an advocate proponent of the pool the whole 10 years I've been on councel that I am taking a deeper dive I have met with uh chip and others off line I've got the plans I'm looking for is there a way to uh meet everyone's desires and uh needs for the pool may or may not be but I I wanted to assure you that I am taking a deep dive into it so thank you for being here did you say deep dive yes I didn't know if anybody that good job mayor Alicia Barber followed by John kulika hi Al so good morning everyone um very nice to see you and I wasn't planning to speak today but pastor with L last asked if I would so uh I'm here in support of uh the betham me church and the congregation um in opposition to the abandonment request for the parts of Bell Street and the Alleyways and so that's primarily what I wanted to uh Express today uh I even before councilman breus uh mentioned this was hoping that I had heard that this was being removed from the agenda I was hoping it was being withdrawn because because if it is continued then the same agenda item will appear with the same request and I hope that in the spirit of conversation and discussion which I know has begun um and I'm grateful to those of you who have been speaking with um Pastor woodl Lux over the last couple of days um I had the pleasure of attending church on Sunday and she opened me literally with open arms um but I had been invited by another um member of the congregation Mel Gentry who came to my talk the other day um we were talking about recent advances in uh the history of the African-American Community here and we are really embarking upon such an exciting time of collaboration um with our story Inc with these congregations with all of us who are working on history in the community um we have worked on Reno historical thanks to some grants from the John Ben snow foundation and others to diversify content on there and we are only beginning to give the wider history of this area the attention that it deserves and the respect that it deserves and we're learning so much more even about Bell Street um one of the projects we were able to Embark upon last year was to look at where the church got the land and learn that the original Homestead of these Lots was William and Sarah Hamilton an African-American couple who moved to Reno in the 1870s and bought property their first house was at the site of what's now the Palladio right on the River on the north side of the river on the original Town site they bought land there they bought land on Arlington and then they bought this land in the pounding Edition in 1900 they established a homestead um and sold this bottom portion of their land to the bethl Amy Church in uh 1910 so they could build their Church there they moved their own house a little further north and members of this family were very engaged in that congre congregation for a long time it's exciting work that's only made available now to us through digitization of Records we're having these conversations we're expanding our knowledge and history so I want to encourage more discussion I want to encourage a withdrawal of that item I think that that could change considerably so it would be nice to know that that could be a completely different item um if it popped back up on the agenda but thank you I just want to express my gratitude for the discussion for the conversations this is what we all hope for when it comes to telling the stories of our community and making sure that that public memory um stays alive and that we respect um the history of the incredible bread of our communities that that make uh the makeup Reno thank you so much right good job Dr Barbara you had hosted a conversation at the South Valley's Library a couple of weeks ago and unfortunately I think it was Super Bowl Sunday and so my chiefs were uh there and so I was had my heart somewhere else but is that something you're going to do another presentation on is it something you're we absolutely can and and thank you uh councilman re for bringing that up we were presenting on recent research in Renos African-American history and um focusing on a lot of the collaborative work that we've been doing over the last five years in particular with our story Inc and historic R preservation Society including bethamy happy to present that information we did that with Kenneth and Demetrus Dalton of our story Inc I'd be happy to um present that and have that conversation we have Dr Jake Dorman in the um in the audience here who is a professor of history at UNR working on another exciting project about restrictive racial covenants um so there's much much more to be talked about and discussed so I think there's something there for our um city initiative that the city manager's office leads around conversations and so I'm hoping that Mrs sparza and Mr Thornley will reach out to you and see if we can't include that in one of the Citywide opportunities because there's a lot of opportunity there and I think it would fit well with that especially the redlining conversation which has been an important conversation to have so we'll make sure that we get you some information about that and try to connect terrific thanks so much and not only that because there's so much historical significance in what you do I would love it honestly if you can come a little bit more and say hey we're going to do this because we have a lot of people that watch online too and um I it's just invaluable so when you're doing something I want to know thank you so much and and everyone can um look me up online and also read my newsletter the barber brief where I talk a lot about these issues too and try to bring more attention to issues that are facing our city so thank you very much right John kulika followed by Jacob Dorman good morning good morning how do I they will do it for you just put it right up on the screen right there and we'll put it up for you there you go I'm here to address the homeless situation on Dickerson road which is about a mile west of here my wife and I have three acres there and uh have lived there for 35 years she was born on the property her dad bought it in 1949 and uh the homeless situation has just become unbearable um I'm just putting these pictures here to show you a little bit about what we look out through our front door and uh you know we feel very sorry for them uh I don't know that I I'm glad the kids are here so they are not here have to watch this stuff and this is the view from the other side looking down our driveway um my wife has become very good close with Jenny who has helped us you know thousands of phone calls the beginning of the street of Dickerson Road on the right side these huge RVs are parked there all the time they're unlicensed they're uh they're filthy the stench here is just discussing and across the river from us because we have 350 ft of river Frontage is the river bank and the homeless Camp there and they build fires and they they have you know sodomy and sex and everything else right on the river banks for my children and my grandchildren to view it it's disgusting now recently the city of Sparks has initiated uh some new laws uh just as of last week there's no more sleeping in cars there's no more camping within a th000 feet of the trucky River and they can't create fires in public areas anymore I would just beg that we could do something here in Reno are are we yeah we have the same one oh you do have the same one well is it being enforced uh so um and I don't know how much I can elaborate since we're in public comment um we that property is owned by Union Pacific right and they have been incredibly challenging and from what I understand that we have been finding them every day and we need their cooperation um I just received a letter this morning that um our federal delegation has also been made aware of this we need to make sure that they are working with us we've asked for anou unfortunately I think that um a lot of this has gone on deaf ears and it's been very very frustrating so we are trying to do whatever we can to get a hold of Union Pacific and so that we can take the responsibility to help clean it up they tell me that they've been out a couple times and every time they come out to clean it it's $40,000 because they have to have HVAC units you know because of the AIDS and uh all the you know disease that's out there we just found out yesterday that there's a project called the karma box project and I don't know if any of you have heard of that but they're coming this Saturday and they're going to initiate a cleanup so we're sort of excited about that uh but anyway I just wanted you to know so we work with Karma box a lot and you will um get to meet Grant and they do a tremendous job and I want to make sure we have your contact information so that we can keep you aware of what how what progress we're making on our side but it would also be helpful if we had some letters of support to Union Pacific okay thank you so much thank you and John can I John can I ask is Kathleen your wife no Kathleen own building right across the so she reached out very early to me this morning I know she's sick today she had the flu otherwise she would have been understand and so we chatted with Karma box very early this morning about a cleanup and I think we're going to have have some positive movement on Saturday yeah we're looking forward so I'm uh we're aware of the situation we're working on it thank you very much thank you all for your time Jacob Dorman followed by Damen Cole greetings my name is Jacob excuse me my name is Jacob Dorman um and I'm here to speak about the abandonment of Bell Street front of the am Church um I teach African-American history at the University of Nevada of Reno but I'm here representing myself not the university um but my comments today are informed by the fact that I am co-directing a project to document the use of racist covenants in Reno um in only six months we've documented over 5,000 of these and I think it speaks to the fact that Reno historically um has you might say abandoned uh the african- American community in 1904 the chief of police actually put out an order that all vagrant or Idol African-American men um should be rounded up and put on to trains um and that actually happened U but a number of African-Americans said we're not going we are um citizens of this town this is a good town and we're going to stay and only three years later in 1907 the bethl am Church uh was was founded on on that site so I think it's a a wonderful symbol uh not just of the fact that we have an African-American Community here but we have an africanamerican community that has persisted in the face of um persistent racial uh discrimination as you might know racist covenants were used from the 1920s through the 1960s even though they were ruled illegal um in 1948 um and excuse me they were ruled unenforceable by the Supreme Court in 1948 for Vi violating the 14th uh Amendment so you know Langston Hughes visited the bethl am church it's a probably I can't think of a more important uh landmark in terms of African-American history that we have uh in this community um and I think it would be a real shame if we abandoned uh this uh this church and this street uh in the last few days of Black History Month uh especially so I I am heartened that this uh that we're going to take more time to consider uh this motion I would certainly support the withdrawal uh of the motion um and I I'm I'm heartened that the Jacobs Corporation is is uh uh attempting now to work with the congregation um and you know we've abandoned so much of our history in downtown um and that can never be undone once you build a building or move a building um you can never put it back so this is a really a historic Place uh Reno is a great city with a lot of history but we often don't um pay enough attention to that history and to the to the built environment so I really hope that the members of this Council um will will see to it uh to save and preserve this uh essential piece of Reno's history thank you thank you so much Dr Dorman my uh liaison is going to get with you outside if we can just exchange information so I can um set up a time to meet with you terrific thank you and Madam mayor may I comment too um I just wanted to comment that um I've known about these racist covenants for quite some time been very concerned um even the Comm uh community that I live in has them on uh the buildings I was very inspired by um commissioner Alexis Hill donated money and offered to go through the process to remove these covenants and I was just wondering Madame mayor I'd love to put on a future agenda item that potentially through our historic Resources Commission might be the right Avenue uh to do something similar to what Miss Hill did she can't pay for it all herself right and the county can't but maybe we could start our own project here possibly through historic Resources with some of our um internally directed uh Council funds to continue or expand upon her initiative it's just a thought but I don't believe it's you know that it's taken um a fire yet so to speak in other words I think it's happening here and there but not on any kind of uh Regional basis so it's just something to talk about a future agenda item to okay yeah thank you just so you know there is now a process through SB 368 that was passed in June that allows individual homeowners to remove races covenants but other counties like Los Angeles counties actually using a excuse me a fee on filing to have a private company come in and and do a mass redaction right on a on a mass level what do you mean fee on filing filing what so on filing new new um Deeds or in terms of property exchang transfer Deeds transfer of property so they're using that to actually go through and redact um these Deeds on a on a holistic kind of mass level but I think anything that the city could do even just to acknowledge that this has been a problem in the past and that to take steps um to apologize and to help to redact this so that future homeowners don't have to uh sign off on a racist Covenant I think that would be a wonderful well and I just want to point out for the benefit of the whole Council and it's not just about either black African-American I mean the covenants are no Hispanics unless you're working in the property uh no Jews um and the list goes on Asians no Asians exactly and in my community we have all all blacks Hispanic Asians uh Jews all in my community living with covenants that say they can't live there so it's it's a real thing thank you so much it's Damen Cole followed by Noah Bristol good idea good good morning Madame mayor my very testing okay good uh good morning Madame mayor of City Council um the annexation by Jacob's entertainment of properties needs to stop it needs to be fought their ignorance and disregard for local community in history is mindblowing the city granted the alley Abandonment for a building that houses Asian and Latino businesses on Fifth Street that access is the parking lot in the back El Taco Ste aana was kicked out of Jacob's building they destroyed the Greek Church sorry the the Greek uh restaurant that was on Fifth Street the building that housed that uh lowcost housing for his uh that the that Jacob's uh promised to the city is actually going to only be for his employees only the building that is being built on uh the apartment building that's going to be on second in Arlington originally was named after a Nazi sympathizer until someone pointed out to him uh George Claude was not a good guy lowcost L lodging for the entire disenfranchised community of Reno has been destroyed we're talking about those rat-infested weekly motels throwing hundreds of people out in the street the only building that seems to really be saved is the gold and silver Inn because my God the community was out crying saying what's going to happen to that the Gibson Apartments is also Jacob's property which is on the corner of second in Ralston this church that the abandonment is going to be happening on the for for the public access way is in the ponin Edition poundings Edition but it was not included in the poundings Conservation District because the Conservation District boundary was south of Second Street I think the city council should Annex and expand the boundaries of the conservation dist for poundings to include these buildings that are going to be affected by the constant onslaught of development in the name of money for for for the public for the for the city good oh rest in peace Bob Barker um so yeah uh corporate takeover of the people's property is happening not just in this city but throughout the entire country uh Andrew Callahan just made a wonderful documentary showing what's happening in North and South Philly due to Temple University's uh constant gentrification of the downtown Corridor it's happening here people and this needs to stop thank you all right thank you Damien um Noah Bristol followed by Darcy Phillips via Zoom just taking a moment to uh make some eye contact because last time I was here I read so fast that I forgot to do that it's good to see all of you this morning um for the record my name is Noah Bristol I am an artist and I live here downtown and I choose not to own a car my comments pertain to agenda item C1 Jacob's entertainment seeks an abandonment of part of Bell street they're stated in intention is to knock down three existing buildings one of which is on the national register of historic places in order to expand the surface parking lot we shouldn't have let them build in the first place once the land is removed from public ownership its used reverts to whatever the adjacent zoning allows and any subsequent use that aderes to that zoning could proceed without any additional public review this is a mistake any discussion of what the land will actually be used for appears to not be a part of this conversation there is nowhere in the process to question restrict or incentivize the developer to build anything in particular the only redress is what we are doing in this chamber right now and what the code stipulates but if 1100 New parking spaces across three huge surface parking lot dead zones can be built and still adhere to code then the code needs to change when working with developers what we do not ask for we will not get so we had better be clear about what kind of place we want downtown to be and we had better get their agreement to build such a place in writing voting to deny Jacobs their abandonment request requires demonstrating material injury to the people who use the area that's not hard to demonstrate a parking lot is designed to store automobiles the number one cause of pediatric death in America and wouldn't you know it there is a high school across the street secondly what is the tax revenue per acre of a surface parking lot how does that compared to the tax revenue per acre of a small building occupied by a local small business take shifters for example the bar down the block from the proposed Bell Street parking lot crater I don't have exact numbers because I am new to this but typically what we find in these comparisons is that for tax revenue per acre the small local establishment blows the parking lot out of the water every time so the question becomes do we hear at city council like having enough money to do all the things we want to do for our wonderful City these choices add up thirdly everything in the built environment sends a message by the way it looks and how these places make us feel when we are in them um what message does block after block of surface parking lot send by Paving downtown for parking lots we are telling visitors and ourselves that Reena isn't valuable interesting or beautiful enough for anything other than parking cars when was the last time any of you took a vacation to a parking lot never nobody wants to spend a time in a parking lot so why do we keep using our Prime downtown real estate to build places nobody wants to be in surface parking lots are dead zones and downtown Reno is littered with them but it doesn't have to be this way we need infill development not more knockdowns and surface Lots so my call to action for Council this morning is that I respectfully urge you to deny Jacob's entertainment their abandonment request for Bell Street um and since I have 20 seconds left or so I just want to say that I may come off as a little bit spicy but it's because I love this town as much as you do I could choose to live anywhere in the world and I choose to live here because I like it here um and so that's that's why I'm so impassionate about making a downtown that people enjoy coming to visiting and living in so um thank you for all the work you do and thank you for your time thanks spicy Nova Noah appreciate it um D Darcy Phillips via Zoom good morning hi everyone on the council I'm Darcy Phillips I'm the executive director at keep truy Meadows beautiful we are so grateful to the city of for all of your ongoing support and we are here today because of item B21 um we just wanted to offer support and promise that we will continue to work to clean up all the litter and green waste in this lovely community in which we live last year we cleaned up about 300,000 pounds of litter and green waste in Washo County and we just thank you for your ongoing support and we look forward to working with the church of latterday Saints on these cleanups in South now thank you thank you Darcy and um since this is my item um my donation um I just want to thank you for the work that you do um it's incredible um how you partner with so many organizations throughout our community I specifically highlighted the um Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in this particular case because every year they have done a series of cleanups and they are willing to work in any Ward um they have worked in my ward so several times um they have participated in tree planting they've participated in cleanups um I wanted to support you in your efforts to support them and one thing that they do which I think is a model for our whole Community is they participate in something called the 911 day of service and so in recognition of what happened on September 11th they um will adopt a project throughout Reno and commit that day or a day close to 911 if 911 is in the the middle of the week they'll pick a a close weekend day but that is what my intention here was um hopefully you can work with them but if not them uh an additional group um in furtherance of 911 or another special event in our community so thank you so much for what you do Darcy it ktmb has been one of our longstanding partners and we appreciate what you do we are Greatful for that have a great day thank you so much all right ad I'm all right Madam vice mayor with that we have no additional public comments registered for the record we did receive six comments which were General in nature or not directly associated with an agenda item prior to 4 pm on February 24th um these comments were written and or voicemail correspondence received via our reno.gov online public comment form or by email to our office copies of these comments have been distributed to the Reno city council and are available on the public available to the public on the reno.gov meeting portal one letter of opposition and five letters of concerns again those have been distributed and if it give me one second it seems like we might have somebody that we missed okay all right Madame vice mayor we're moving on to item A4 approval of the agenda all right may I have a motion to approve the agenda um Mr manager do you have any changes for us sir do I have one um so as you've heard uh quite a bit this morning item C1 isn't quite ready to go the applicant has waved the 65-day review period and they'd like to bring it back at a later date so my recommendation is that we pull that off today's agenda they'll Ren notice it uh when they're ready to come back M just one sec so let me understand um when you say wave the 65 day there's no set time to come back there's not a set time to come back back which is why they'll have to Ren notice it but what the code requires for an abandonment is that we hold a public hearing within 65 days and that's a that's a a process requirement that is afforded to the applicant to make sure that they get a decision on the on the application and have you heard from the applicant I mean several people in the audience and council member breus mentioned withdrawing it and starting fresh is that an option or what do you recommend there so my recommendation is that they go have the conversations that they've committed to today uh they see if they're fruitful they see what adjustments they can make and that they they come back with their live application I don't think they need to withdraw it um they're committed to having those conversations and we'll see where they go okay and if they did just following this thought process through um if they did um have a significant change is it the still the same application or do they have to modify the application how does that work so where you see these things they get modified all the time when they get to the council level and so that's where we're at at this point is I think having those conversations the Planning Commission already deled into this into this conversation obviously you have the staff review and so now it's just whether or not it's going to move forward in the through the lens of council review whether or not it's something that the that the community can support and those are the conversations that they've committed having here today well I I heard them say that it might be a good sign a good show of good faith but I don't know you know how the council feels about that so um mad um council member breus yeah Mr Thornley you said the Planning Commission saw this uh I may have made a mistake there so yeah it's not yeah okay the Planning Commission and this was over my objections when we rid the code does not see abandonments um you know on the one hand I'd like to force the issue of have the hearing right now because it obviously has the support of our manager and all the technical staff that reviewed okay but based upon the history going on now seven years of Mr Jacobs and this Council delivering and delivering every ask incrementally to them you know that's a role of the dice I'm not willing to take okay but I think it I want to call out that I believe it is bad faith of Mr Gordon to sit here and read a statement about all jacobs's intents to be a good partner and then say you know but on my back pocket I have a staff recommendation for approval and we're going to go off and have all these meetings and everything the good faith gesture is to withdraw the request and it it's not on the table and it comes back in another day and maybe our manager looks into it in the context of all the other Jacob approvals that are sitting on the table namely the development agreement which is where this thing should have been embedded in in the first place so make no mistake about it as someone who's been here for the whole Jacob's story this little hanging out for a little indefinite period is a gift to Jacobs with a recommendation of support the best thing is for this Council to ask asked Mr Jacob Mr Garrett to withdraw it completely anything less is once again allowing them to do whatever they want and that's just they've gotten everything they've asked for and it's wrong it's been wrong and here we are at the last one of the final because I don't see what else is on the table pieces of cultural significance with all the people who have been displaced with the passed by the council to implement the downtown plan and do a planning process for the Northwest Quadrant quadrant everything a development agreement without giving them so many entitlements to sewer credits that exceptions other people don't have I don't see why anything else will be different the issue is Mr Gordon needs to withdraw the request Madam vice mayor on the agenda the oh good the development code allows any applicant one continuance as a matter of course yeah and so varying from that process I think would be an issue for us and the I mean they can do whatever they want and they have requested a continuance okay um and so for purposes of order of the meeting today we can either get to that point and the council can vote on the continuance which is already afforded to them in the code yes or we can say right now we're going to pull it off the agenda and we'll Ren notice it when it's ready to come back well if I could be no hold on one second you've you've spoken let others speak right now okay go ahead Mr Gordon entertainment first so we have a clear record a member of the public at public comment said this application included demolishing the church that is not true whatsoever secondly in regards to this withdrawal request unfortunately Ward The Ward one member is misinformed this is her District it would have been great if she would meet with us and work this out but she never does as the both Council the mayor knows and Council ree knows the church is not opposed to the entire application so we could move forward with a portion of it that they're not opposed to while we continue to negotiate with them so there's no reason to withdraw the application today we're sitting here in good faith saying let's postpone it for an undetermined period of time we look forward the working with with the pastor and bringing something back in current or likely modified form or partial form um for year input and eventual vote so we' respectfully request to continue it today for an undetermined period of time um so we can work with our neighbors thank you I appreciate that I do want to say um I think it's always important to have those conversations I think it's important to work together this world is become incredibly adversarial as we've seen um I've learned that I can get much more for my community whenever I'm sitting down I'm communicating I'm working with others um instead of creating things that are divisive I think um some of those comments um from the W representative um are very very concerning because she hasn't been at the table for anything that we have worked on in any capacity and that has been unfortunate and it's a disservice to everyone in that Ward and so um and I take it you know I I take it to heart because I've I've watched everything I will also say this there's a lot of discussion that happens before even a project comes to council it takes a long time the other thing I would also say is I don't think people realize when something gets on the agenda it's not that the council put it there it's someone put in an application so when it comes on that doesn't mean that yes that's happening you know it's time for discussion there's a process we want to follow that process and it it sounds great yes I want to hear it today I want to hear it today but I think that's also a disservice to um PBS and what we're trying to accomplish and if we can't get there then we'll bring it back and the council can vote but I don't think that that's going to help in any capacity so um and and that honestly could cause a lot of harm for what she's trying to accomplish so I don't think that that's advantageous I know that some people want to argue and fight all the time I just don't think that that's the best way to always approach things um you you know today is tough in this world no I I always let you speak you remind me but today is tough and I think it's important when we are here that we're trying to work with each other in Solutions and have kindness and civility there is so much out in this world and so I just say let's start with Community First and work with others and then if we can't get there and take it you know then then it's a different approach but to step out out and say I want to hear it today to cause something that is becomes very adversarial I don't think that that helps in any capacity um Pastor Debs did you I see you back there and Madame mayor I just want to ask our manager I mean we're not voting now we're we're deciding what's on the agenda and I think it was informative but we still have to visit it at item C1 isn't that correct to take action um it's my understanding that that is one course the other course is because it would be Ren noticed um and not just and you're not just continuing it to a date certain I don't believe you actually have to no okay so just like does our staff just accept their waiver of the time frames and it never I I don't recall that we did it that way before so that's all I'm asking the process question we normally don't because we normally continue most of the time we continue to a date certain when we don't continue to a date certain and we do it indefinitely we just pull it off the agenda okay yeah Madame mayor can I um yes interject so I'd like to ask our legal councel a question um so I don't totally understand I I want us to focus on the point we're at at the meeting the meeting point is about the approval of the agenda right the manager suggested that um the recommendation was to remove item C1 at the request of the applicant and now we're at this question where we're asking about the effect of a withdrawal and it sounded to me like the withdrawal would occur and potentially has waved the 65-day requirement which means that if it doesn't come back in 65 days it has the same legal effect as a withdrawal so I I'm trying not to mince words hold on a second I'm I'm asking our legal councel to opine what is the clearest path forward on approval of an agenda item that is not about the substance of the abandonment just right procedurally how do we operate in these Chambers I don't like theater I want to operate under the assumption that we have some rules in this Arena and what are those rules so for the record John Shipman from the city attorney's office um no I think it's as the city manager explained so you're at a point in the meeting where you can um you know take this off the agenda um at the request of the applicant they wave the 65 days um and it can come back and it's not like other instances where you've seen this where you know the applicant didn't want to pay for the ren noticing I mean that's um going to be happening here so this is again as as the city manager recounted it's totally inappropriate so Mr Shipman that is the real issue it's about whether or not the applicant is willing to pay for Ren noticing yeah not about whether or not it has some legal effect about the staff report attached to the original application yeah thank you and a followup if I may Madam mayor to our attorneys um but a statement was also made by council member Reese that if they didn't meet the 65 days it was somehow there was a an action taken but that's that's the same as a withdrawal because then they have to Ren notice it after 65 days if I understood the advice of our legal counsil after we notice it but I thought you said it would be denied or something if it didn't so the way the way it works is that it's 6 it has to be adjudicated or come to public hearing within 65 days um and and that is been waved by the applicant so it um um again this this item would be continued a later date subject to Reen noticing um for a separate agenda okay Madam mayor Madame mayor go right ahead we're in a we're in a time period where we cancel people and I'm really tired of cancer culture I'm tired tired of silencing people I'm tired of the of of fighting while I am absolutely um opposed of the abandonment of a portion if we can't negotiate but what we're asking is let us negotiate let us sit at the same table Yeah human to human and let's figure out something something we're not looking at arguing we're not looking at oh my gosh you're going to sweep something under the fence because Jacob's Entertainment also wants to do some Progressive things here I don't know all the other crap that has happened with Jacob's I don't care about it I care about my church and I care about my block and I care about my history and I care about this community and so if if Jacob's entertainment is willing to sit across a table and discuss because he knows that I'm not moving my church I'm just not going to do that he knows that there is a Hispanic congregation that has been there for more times than I have lived here that will be negatively impacted if they do what they're going to do and that's the takeaway 21 parking spaces they understand that they heard my heart L yesterday it was Mr Jacobs that said why don't we do this which benefits bethl in it benefits him and so I would say let's do a continuance let's see what happens because I still will adject if he's not willing to change clear well St fasor okay so you know what uh in the words of Rodney King can we all get along yeah I love you I love you so much and that's all I'm trying to say is is I'm happy with you know I'm going to trust the Integrity of Jacob's entertainment I'm going to trust the Integrity of Mr Gordon who says that we're going to get it at the table but best be sure this entire building will be filled if he's full of crap yeah is that fair is that fair Jenny no I'll I'll I'll speak it's my turn my apologies thank you no no I just want to make sure heart sorry Pastor can you state your name for the record Reverend Dr Deborah Whitlock La thank you um thank you so much I appreciate that Pastor Debs um you know my fear is that it it really forces adversarial action my colleague wants to force adversarial action I have learned from sitting up here long enough that never helps it never serves anyone for the better interest of this community I'm sorry it might sound really good whenever it comes out and um that's just not really how it works and not to mention you know people don't understand what happens to behind the scenes when we sit down we meet with developers we meet with people who are interested in opening businesses in our community there is a lot of know going on there's a lot of negotiating how do we get there how do we do this you don't get to see that you get to see like this very short window um of what we do up here but there is a lot of care in this community and um we're lucky to have a community that's small enough to where we still can communicate but I don't want it to be overshadowed by someone trying to force adversarial action um whenever if the council took action today how how would we know that that wouldn't Force something that you don't want we don't know and so we've got to continue to work together and um respect you know the direction that you want to go Pastor so I appreciate that but I also would say it's tough whenever you do have a ward member that has never met matter of fact I meet a lot of times with people in that Ward because this council member won't and that's tough it's really tough and so I would just ask for some cooperation and some kindness and to you know don't make it about you make it about the community you might not like it listen there's a lot of times people don't agree with me but there's times that we can agree and that's a good thing that we don't always agree on everything um you know I I just believe that that makes us unique and different but I also believe too that we all can agree that ice cream tastes good so there are certain things that we can agree on at times right not everything is going to be um things that we disagree on but if we do let's do it respectfully and not adversarially and that's what I would ask all right council member breus I'm going to ask that you um go ahead and give your comments and yeah be kind and considerate I will support the continuance but make no question about it this Council individuals have good enough relationships with Jacobs and you know who have put us in a tough situation here and could Madame mayor please I didn't interrupt you and it would not be any harm for them to sit up and say we want to withdraw because what it is is listen to this talk they've got the waiver the waiver rights of a waiver it's not a development request because it's not related to their private property okay they can easily pull this round off and have this discussion without a time pressure on they're not willing to do that and let's talk about the whole story here we are at two parties a very significant cultural institution and Mr Jacobs going off doing their thing that's not how you plan for a part of the city and this Council has with Mr Jacobs basically given over a whole part of town to whatever he wants and whoever he can buy out and whatever property can come his way this is our downtown plan we did this in 2017 the the consultant and we adopted this said there's a PO part of the city the Northwest Quadrant you need to plan for where everyone is not quote behind the scenes like was just referenced of these to people but in a process this Council took a pass on that because Jacob said they don't want to lose control of the planning area so that's how they've been able to get street parking lots abandonments development rights for sewer because this Council prefers to do things in closed doors not in public doors where everyone can have a piece no one's here to speak any longer because their motels have been turned down and they are either you know who knows the fate of those folks we would have had a whole community in a dialogue but this Council never went want wanted to go there I will be putting in the record on this item for everyone to see the reference in this plan to doing a Northwest Quadrant plan where everyone has a voice bethl would have been brought in six years ago to talk and let everyone know how important they are to that area I'll also put in the letter that documents from a statement from an assistant city manager how Jacobs didn't want the plan told the council not to do the plan even though it was budgeted because they didn't want to lose control of the planning area and that's where we're at right now with surface parking lots and basically a um non-performing non-productive part of town to this community's Vision thank you madam mayor can you repeat that you can go back and read the what did you say I I just said a lot you can go back and read whatever you want or read it I'm not going to repeat everything okay well I I'm going to just disagree with you only because you have not had any conversations not just on this project but a lot of other projects whether it's business um other things that transpire in the city I meet with anyone that reaches out to me and I would ask that you would do the same because it is a disservice to what we're trying to accomplish in the city you cannot come up here and plan a city in a eight hour council meeting I'm sorry you can if we had done the Northwest Quadrant instead of all your behind the scenes meetings with Mr Jacobs and everyone else nothing's behind the scenes council member breus and you you just don't want to do the work and meet with people I'm I've been meeting with all of the people you won't meet with so anyway um we're going to move forward so back to you madam clerk where are we at I'll make a motion to approve the agenda thank you so much second I have a motion and a second all those in favor say I I all those opposed motion carries thank you madam mayor moving on to item A5 approval of the minutes all right may go a motion I have a motion I have a second all those in favor say I all those opposed motion carries Madam clerk back at you thank you Madame mayor we're moving on to our consent agenda we do have public comment on this item do you want us to pull items oh sorry hold on one second I'm going to start with councilwoman dur vice mayor go ahead sure um I'd like to pull item B12 which is about black history and a uh historic resource survey that the city council is budgeting and I'd also like to pull B17 which is um with respect to affordable housing project vintage at stoker great and I think I think that's it all right awesome okay go ahead councilwoman Ebert thank you I'd like to pull items B1 okay B4 B7 B9 B10 and b14 okay perfect councilman Reese nothing councilman Taylor Mad May councilman Martinez nothing for me Madame mayor councilman breus B5 please okay all right may I get a motion oh madame mayor can we do public comment before that and can I just repeat the items to make sure I've got them all correct yes so we're pulling items B1 4 7 9 10 12 14 15 and 17 and before the vote if we could do public comment we have Sam gettle followed by Mike worm okay perfect Sam if you're a participant in zoom and would like to make public comment please raise your hand at this time Hi Sam come on up I'm here on B18 and I'm thrilled to be here it's been a long while thanks for everybody Sam can you just state your name for the record Sam gettle thank you so much um I'm actually thrilled to be here to be able to bring this issue to inclusion you'll make the US Post Office happy yay Amazon UPS FedEx process servers the police everybody and so I'm here on behalf of myself and the four tenants living adjacent to me that we own the properties I am seeking the ability to have the availability to serve uh to Services associated with 911 consisting of fire police and medical emergency genes I'm also seeking Dependable mail and package delivery services so that we can receive medical supplies and other important issues the latest example of the ongoing problem took place on Thanksgiving weekend when the police were not able to find one of the the residents of my tenant who had called a 911 for a domestic violence issue so this has been going on for 20 years so I am here to underscore the Only Way Forward because of the digital world is the alley has to have a name I did not pick the name but I'm happy with the name because we're getting resolution and I'm hoping that the council can come together so we can have basic services and I thank all of you for that and I think didn't you come a while back yes and it was pulled yeah okay good I'm glad to see this is happening yes than I'm glad be here in front of you okay good well thank you sir mam mayor yes um just speaking to and I I probably should have pulled this but this was a very intentional from the um historic Resources Commission you know the name was proposed to be another thing yes but they did the research they found the old creery was the historic you know location yes was on this alley and I was just so pleased and I mentioned this to our staff earlier I was so pleased that the process ended up in such a good place you know where we're recognized ing our history and often it's good to have names have a geographic reference or a historical reference rather than just a random you know um you know horse Street or something you know something that isn't relevant to something so I'm so pleased that we can get here thank you for comments the the original application was trying to be as apolitical as possible this isn't about I'm trying to make this isn't about anything behind a street name it's just getting I know just any name I know just any name a a Ali thank you a Al thanks so much I'm glad it's back Mike worm followed by Jay Howard ah Mr worm good to see you good morning uh Madame mayor and councel um I just wanted to take a moment to say thank you we are on this Cent Genta as for a potential donation to the Boys and Girls Club with discretionary funds especially want to thank uh councilwoman Taylor foring the time to come visit the club and hear our story and take a little tour of of the project that we have at nin Street um and and really just thank you all uh for all that you do I me anyone that's willing to stand in leadership role today and listen to all sides and most sides that don't want to agree and try to do what's best for Reno I can't tell you how much I appreciate that and just to highlight for a second some of our long-standing Partnerships with the City of Reno and the boys and girls club which together we've worked to do some incredible things for kids in this community you know currently over 500 youth are enrolled in our boys and girls club from Reno alone 12,000 across Northern Nevada and and it's and in my time there March will be my 29th year at the boys and girls club and I will say tens of thousands of kids have come through and uh you know some of the most highlighted and no chance do I have to mention all the people or the Partnerships we've done with City of Reno but uh really want to highlight our Neil Road collaboration and create a safe haven for those kids every day in that community and our probably our most deserving community in in the Reno Sparks area so thank you for that continued partnership um I don't want to go back too far because we're not in the pandemic anymore but your support during the pandemic to help fund food and allow us to do our part in helping make sure that no kids during that time went hungry so thank you for that um I don't know if you're aware but every year your your your City Department uh building department they work with contractors and town and do a toy drive every year for the boys and girls club and thousands of kids get toys because of that effort and their and their push and Chris pingry and many others are part of that but that same group works with us regularly and we've got a number of projects that we've been able to pull off in the last couple years uh in particular in Reno um two daycare projects that have allowed us to open up about 150 new spots in the last six months to kids in Northern Nevada and very proud while it's while it's just across the border in Sparks uh yesterday we were opened up another center with 110 more spots in the city of Sparks on El Rancho so but very excited about how well the city group Works to make sure things like that get through in appropriate manner under proper guidelines to make sure that we're providing services for kids um and then not just what's in the past but really excited to work with your new parks and re director Nathan and some new ideas that we have that we think we can work together and expand services to more kids in Northern Nevada so um the project that I did want to mention quickly that uh councilwoman Taylor looked at we were able to remodel some space in our East N Street Club hopefully our last remodel on that club because it's a monster um but provide some professional workspaces for uh I want you to think about the boys and girls cment leave not as this big nonprofit but as a group that works with me about 20 of us that work to provide back room services for small businesses in all Northern Nevada so today we do services not only in waso county or primary County but also in Lion County Persian County KN County Lincoln County Humble County and White Pine County and it's because of the work that you guys do to help us do our work that allows us to reach so many kids so thank you very much for that no uh thank you for what you do your your efforts have been incredible and all of the good work that you provide for so many kids that really don't even have a place to go or parents to go to right after school I mean you guys have done a phenomenal job just incredible incredible 29 years huh seems like a long time my a time just not just seems like oh my you're not planning on going anywhere soon are you eventually whether I went to or not I'm sure so mikee thank you so much you're amazing thank you huge fan Jay Howard followed by Marie Baxter via Zoom good morning to members of the council and thanks so much as usual for the time this morning uh my name is Jay Howard and I'm the program coordinator for trucky Meadows Trails um which is a relatively new Trail effort planning and support program that we've put together um here in the region to do just that um support the the planning proper construction of trails and connectivity in the area that we need so badly with Trails I'm I'm here um so so I should mention that I'm also an employee and supported by the trucky Meadows Parks Foundation um they're a great group of people and I really appreciate this the uh the the administrative and fiscal support that they've provided for the program here um I'm here this morning today to um just voice my support um for item B22 um which is the Virginia range uh Trail Corridor project and that is um kind of a Visionary project um that uh vice mayor dur has has had for a number of years now and came to us with so that we could move forward with this project um so the Virginia range project is is a like I mentioned a fe it's it's a feasibility and planning project with the goal of creating Trail and pathway connectivity in the dman Hills section of the Virginia range so that's all of those those Hills um over above the dman ranch uh developed area in um Southeast Reno so early on in the planning process something I'm working on right now is a regional trails plan that brings together all the trails Community Partners that we have in the trucky Meadows uh to work together towards these goals and early in that planning process I too saw that area over there um that was sort of a void of trails you know these these uh uh you know the system trails that we need to have in place not just social trails and roads but the properly built trail system that should be in place over there to provide that um resource to the folks that live over there and the people that are in this community in general um so so again um this is a passion project for me as well and I really appreciate the support of the City of Reno and vice mayor doer for this project and uh hope that this um this item that's on agenda today can can be approved and help us move forward with this project thanks for all your work it's amazing thank you Marie bter via Zoom hello I have a terrible cold and laryngitis so I will keep this short no submitted my comment publicly in the chat or in the email as well um but I just which is why I'm not there but I just really wanted to express our extreme appreciation um to all of you on the council for um the many decades of support actually um that you have provided to Catholic Charities of Northern Nevada Marie Boxter Catholic CEO Catholic Charities of Northern Nevada for the record and um just uh we so appreciate being included um with b19 and and again all that you've done um again across the decades but in particular um you know during the pandemic and in these years since so um we're grateful for the support and uh uh appreciate it and I will save you the listening to the rest of my voice so take care thank you get better before you leave us before you leave us I'm yeah and I didn't want to breathe on any of you so I'll stay in my office where the door is closed I I didn't pull the item I mean this is again some Council donation but I'm just I'm so grateful for all the work that you've done whether um helping to work with our um unhoused population feed people provide resources clothing I mean you name it you have been there for the community and I really wanted to recognize that um as we sort of round out our end of end of this portion of our giving so to speak for donations but thank you for everything you do and thank you my goodness for making the effort to show here today on Zoom I mean I couldn't do it so speak miss you I wouldn't miss it so thank you very much speak cold and as ill as you are really takes some uh some effort some doing but again just as we have so many great Partners in our community we just heard from Big Brothers Big Sisters we're hearing from you we've heard from the parks Foundation I mean the we couldn't get our business done we just don't have enough money in the City of Reno to cover all the needs so we we are interdependent with our nonprofits thank you absolutely thank you all right Madame mayor with that we have no additional public comment additionally we have not received any correspondence so I'm looking for a motion to approve all items that have not yet been pulled okay all right one second oh uh Madam clerk I just want to go through this really quick okay B1 B4 B7 B9 B10 b14 B12 B17 B15 yes ma'am all right thank you so much so I have a motion I believe from councilman Reese a second by councilwoman derer all those in favor say I I all those opposed motion carries unanimously see there are some things we can agree on okay hi Lance morning good morning how you doing hi Lance so I had a question about this this is for a a privilege business license for alcohol and Catering in this location like there's a sign on the the front of the building that says Dynamic drywall and construction so is this going to be two businesses in the same building it's going to be drywall and Catering in the same Lance for AO director business licensing for the record yes that's correct it's actually a building where this alcohol cater in particular is just uh Pro providing dry uh I want to call call Dry Goods but canned alcohol so it's just a storage area where that where their all of their product would be held so yeah they're operating out of that business as well okay so they don't have like a kitchen or anything it's just storage for alcohol okay so that was my question it was just kind of a weird you know looking conglomeration of facilities so thank you that was it no problem uh motion to approve motion from councilwoman Ebert second from councilman ree all those in favor say I I all those opposed motion carries okay we are at item B4 councilwoman Ebert okay so this this particular location we had voted on this in September of 2023 this is a um a location that wants to have slot machines and it's right across from high school so just wanted to find out you know know has anything changed at this location they have any uh additional justification as to why it should be allowed you know in proximity to a high school right uh again Lance verado director of business licensing for the record uh as you said this application came before you last September um it was denied the general consensus or the discussion around the item was that it was the proximity of the high school that was that was of concern um just to briefly remind you of what the application is it's for four slot machines in in an existing convenience store um the state analysis uh from The Gaming Control Board and the NBA gaming commission they discussed the proximity of schools they uh considered a condition deemed it was not necessary so they approved it unanimously with no conditions um myself and state officials have spoken to the principal they have no concerns of what's going on over there and uh also what was discussed is that there's a 7-Eleven that's also across the street and it's had gaming for nearly 40 years with no issues to speak of um from the local authorities or the state authorities so uh the applicant feels that uh they'd like to revet this item and discuss it again and uh see if they can get a favorable outcome and so that you know that there are two um employees from the company that are are here and willing to answer questions if necessary okay so you mentioned there's another location that um is also operating with slot machines can you show me on the map like where they all are in proximity to the high school I think I could do that um hold on one second so if you can see with the clarity there um where the little shaded area is the little red shaded area I think you should point with your pen or something right about here okay you see that yep that's that's the market itself just north is the parking lot of Reno high school and then just to the uh East where it says NC across there that's a I'm sorry the building just just uh um south of that the little white top on the corner of California there's there's several buildings with white tops can you this one right here okay so they're they're further away from the high school uh maybe 100 ft okay and they're on the other side of the street too you're correct right so it's they are further away there is more of a barrier for for the kids to get to that location so they're more likely going to that 7-Eleven like if they're walking home from school to get a snack or something like that they are closer to the high school uh possibly I don't know the routes of all the students in which direction they go so it's possible okay right go ahead um councilman re thank you um Mr Fado I appreciate the uh explanation having you know lived in this community for 49 years I I'm familiar with the site and drove by it over the weekend my question is really for our legal councel so in the denial of applications for privileged licensing there is the concept of arbitrary and capriciousness right the idea that uh applicants of similar character equality should be treated the same unless there's a rational basis for it so I'm trying to understand I was not here during the September 20 7 2023 meeting um I don't understand how this would not have triggered that in terms of how the applicant was treated in that denial yes for the record John Chipman city attorney's office I can't speak out of memory as to that particular um item at that time I can't say that I mean if if the notion is that it the council believes that it needs to be um denied dened um the I mean the recommendation from the city attorney's office is create the record uh what are the facts that you're basing that denial upon um and uh you know it'll be in the record it'll be what the information that staff has given plus the information regarding the schools and other state authorities plus whatever record that you want to supplement it from a city council standpoint and if you believe that's sufficient to deny then that's your it's at your discretion okay Madame mayor for my part there is no way to deny the application uh the literal location of the other uh small uh business which has gaming is about 30 feet um and on top of that um the ren the Reno Municipal Code does not have a limitation on proximity to schools uh on top of that you have the Gaming Control Board who has allowed for these to happen we're a gaming Community you can game in Ry uh Safeway um the grocery store anywhere you want to and and so I don't understand the original decision I was not here for it so for my part this small business owner um should have the same legal rights as the adjacent small business owner and so um I will be voting to support the application uh that's been presented all right councilwoman breus yeah so let's let's kind of go through the statements that our staff has made is one The Gaming Control Board asks questions but it's always okay you know that's that's fine they're Statewide board you know in in in my history of watching their proceedings is really they know it's a two it's a two-part approval and the local Dynamics what's going on in the immediate area is a planning decision okay and local local so that's why we they make two steps okay number two is well there's a 7-Eleven across the way and they've had had gaming for 40 years that isn't justification anywhere in any basis for having gaming over here okay for all we know this property was a bank up until about 2012 for all we know 40 years ago the city fathers might have said no we're not going to have the subel there because it's too close to the school we want it over there so you know I think there is some tremend mendous uh reason for this proximity and I just want to go go through also Mr um fro would you put this on the slide so let's talk about going by Mr ree said he went by on the weekend I've made several trips during the school days including during lunch release now this was lunch my second visit was lunch release and that that little golf cart that's a Reno High School it has a little uh a decal on it it's Reno high school they're sitting there watching okay because it's an open campus and they're keeping a good enough eye on the students as they go to open campus what does that demonstrate that demonstrates that this is where students go I want to let you know you see maybe 10 students out when they release all at once one time and I was I was a little further away I could get a photo there's 50 or 60 students waiting queuing up to go in there for lunch okay so I think it is a business that serves the student population the introduction of slot machines is incompatible with a student population because students in a high school are not 21 and above so the arbitrary and capricious is no the findings to me are proximity to the Reno High School is found as a reason for denial because the business is one that is populated by meor miners this is a business that is frequented and serves miners who are all releas at one time the Bell Rings everyone's out resulting in large numbers of students simultaneously looking to patronize the business which is great but when they do that and this is my third point the internal uh circulation in the storefront results in students and I'll admit I didn't go into witness this but I know the layout of it results in students over crowning into the gaming floor the gaming floor should be an offl liit area to students and it is not allowed by this and is not um accomplished through this um request that is why I think our decision back in September was a good one and I think we should continue to do that I don't think it's arbitrarily capricious this is a business design for students students come in unique circumstances of crowding in all at once trying to get their lunch in a short period of time they don't need to be pressing into the gaming chairs putting backpacks on the gaming devices it should be denied thank you Madame mayor all right thank you so much the time um Madame mayor yes go ahead yeah um I I hesitate to wait again on this but in my time on Council about 10 years um we we we've actually discussed this General location a number of times not just this time or this in September and my concern with just the argument that well there's one here and then this one's only 30 or 100 feet away um that kind of leap prog then we could have one next door it's only 10 feet away from this one and I mean by this extension of this logic pretty soon could be in the school you know if you see what I mean it's it's not um so I with all deference to that argument I I do think that the reason that we originally denied this was our concern about exposure of miners or of providing proximity um I'm sure we made a record at that time do you have um what we said at that time our rationale the rationale was the proximity to the school and my question here is is there any change from the time we made that decision for example have they screened this area in a different way or is it monitored by an adult or some some operation thing that would give us the comfort that we're not exposing miners I I don't think that anything specifically changed but I know that especially during the state uh discussions the applicant was willing to set up some sort of stanion to divide the area um it's a small enough shop that you know you you can see from the street that one person behind the counter can see everything that's going on so there's there's monitoring going on but I also know they can't they're dealing with transactions they're taking money they're selling products they're not monitoring the gaming area so I would also offer that if if you'd like to hear from the applicant we could would yeah personally I mean I just like I think we could move forward but I do think that a change in condition is the basis on which I would want to move forward I don't think our rationale was flawed before I mean a majority of this Council denied it so I want to hear some change some you know that then we could get to yes you know and not um undermine our previous decision Lance um quick question Lance yes um they do serve alcohol correct it it does have a package alcohol license see I mean i' be worried about that what I think I'm struggling a little bit is um with the gaming license doesn't that create a disadvantage or an unfair Advantage if someone else across the street also has gaming because what what I'll tell you is um and I went to Reno High We the majority of the traffic is over at 7-Eleven and they have gaming correct so I just wonder are we creating an unfair Advantage for a business owner in that capacity it's possible I guess it just it depends on the I mean I'm more worried about the alcohol because I that I'm I shouldn't say anything okay that's good to you guys know there were many times we try to buy alcohol in high school oh my gosh if we could do it go well then we start to get smart and ask the adults when they walk in can you buy it for me of course this will be great this will be the next headline and then my but they're the ones sitting at the gaming they're the ones sitting at the gaming chair that's part of the problem did you he interaction I I would like to just hear if there's a change in operation so I could change my vote from from no back in September to yes today sure all right come on up Jeff Hood Northern Nevada regional manager for Century gaming uh commonly the state will put put conditions on locations if they can't have unfettered access visually yeah they didn't in this case but if you would like a condition that we have a mirror or cameras we're willing to comply with that or or the St in that kind of uh protects that area from the regular uh rest of the folks sure we don't have a problem doing anything those three things would give me some greater Comfort yeah that you know we're achieving our goals I don't want I'm very business friendly and I want to be able to support to the mayor's argument you know I don't want to do for one and not do for another but I also want to you know be do our job STS cameras anamir I think it's a good idea what do you think you're in the gaming business are we going ask we've never had a condition like that but if you feel it's appropriate we'll go ahead and do let's hear from the rest have the same I don't think they don't it's just closer stanions are the most well if I may the this asked you to come up we're going to ask a business to construct something which is within their St are here these this is a stanion right here but it's not anywhere else we haven't done it for any other business okay I am if I may I am asking for a change that helps me get from no to yes and that's the most important of me it's just um sequestering the area I don't think particularly mirrors are a thing that would help in this case because you still have the same Staffing um if you think cameras are a good idea throughout your store I have to imagine you have cameras because of theft we we're having a tremendous amount of theft in almost every operation like yours I'm sure he has cameras whether they're aimed at the slot Mach that's what I'm saying I think they're already there but that this is a very inexpensive thing to do and I think would create some change if that's a condition you feel is appropriate we'll do it well that's for me I mean I I'm happy to hear from everyone else all right uh Council Ebert did you have anything you want to add no not right now if anybody else has another round all right anyone else see there none I'm going to send it back to you I think uh Council youber you were the one that pulled the item go ahead um I'm just not comfortable with it being this close to the high school and seeing how many kids go in there um I know that there's another location that has gaming but it is on the other side of the street it's not as close to the high school it doesn't have the same access um so I'm going to move to um deny all right thank you so much I have a motion yeah I'm going to second a second all those in favor say I I all those oppose Nay n all right Madame mayor I'd like to make a different motion go ahead all right Madame mayor I motion that we approve this uh location with the addition of a um stanion and a redirection of some of the cameras in the business to this general area all right thank you I have a motion I have a second Madam mayor discussion yeah you know I think some of the discussion for physically separating is a little flawed cuz If You observe these students and I don't know what lunchtime is but it's pretty short I mean kids are are hauling and they're going right there you know this was there's a reason someone came in and went to the Planning Commission to open a convenience store there from a bank and it was you know they see a captive population and those kids are there okay so the gaming devices take out an area where these kids can go in and do their business it's like this business wants to have it both they want to serve the population but then also create an environment where four people can take up space sit there all day have interaction with the students it's it really brings up questions of you know what are we building this city for if we cannot tell a very oriented to a high school population business it's going to be an off off a hands-off area for gaming you know there's gaming all all over and you know if we were walking through the casinos at limited gaming 18-year-old miners wouldn't be allowed to be in proximity but you're allowing right now 18-year-olds who are known to go there to Cluster in and to scrum you know if you will scrum like a rugby team into a little environment with a gaming you know a large four four unit four four gaming units it's it's really sad but I I uh you know I'm going to not support this and um it's been interesting to see the incrementalism because I remember when I came on the liquor came on and Bob celle said what someone allowed we allowed liquor here and how'd that happen how'd it go from a nice Bank to a liquor and now a gaming place right across from the high school and he was not happy with that but it had gone through the Planning Commission been recommended and you know I just it's not a good mix anyway I've I remember that discussion and um that was the big issue was the alcohol and again that's where I do think that's the problem um not over here so all right I have a motion a second all those in favor say I I all those opposed opposed motion carries thanks Lance you okay mad mayor before we go on to item B7 for the record I would just like to state that we did take a motion on item a five for approval of minutes however there were no minutes to accept so I'm going to withdraw that motion um for item A5 so we're moving on now to item B7 pulled by council member eert all right go ahead councilman Ebert okay so this is um in regards to the contract for uh Park mowing services so just in looking through the staff I'm sorry looking through the staff report on the front page it says a contract period for one year uh contract period is for one year with two one-year extensions available um and then a sentence down it says staff recommends awarding the contract to Reno Green Landscaping with a start date of April 1st 2024 with an expiration date of December 31st 2024 so that's less than one year is that just because that's what's left of the year and then we'll extend it as needed for two years if we want with me Nathan OT Parks and Recreation director for the record that's correct we want to get it onto a calendar cycle uh the mowing season is is typically March April through um the latter part of fall end of October oober so we need to start now since it's a new contract our last contract just ended ideally we would have started January 1st if we had all the the information and the the thing selected so it would be a calendar year cycle okay so if we extend it at the end of the year it would be for January 1 through December 31st going forward okay um I had another question too [Music] um I noticed that the contra contract is awarded for $335,000 change basically but on page um 434 the staff report um the amount that is listed on here doesn't match that amount I'm just curious sure I'm pretty sure I'm going to get this right but Matt will back me up if not um there was a or I'm sorry that's not on this page I think I know what you're talking about where one of the numbers was higher for the additional mowing in those areas and the the calculation of the RFP um in this case Reno green was at the entire acreage uh the additional mowing is for a select acreage of athletic fields and practice fields which we want to do they're just heavily used so we want to get an extra mowing in so that we can start doing a a Turf rebuild program okay and then also there was a a section in here that says um um proposed award date by city council was February 14th is there a reason why we miss that date not not specifically other than to just get the contract in order okay um just one of those things that was where we would have originally liked to have gotten it if we could but okay so not like a specific something went wrong or anything like that I think um we haven't done this RFP for 5 years and so I think Matt wasn't here I wasn't here so we kind of learned the RFP process as a part of this too so um the review and everything like that was probably what kicked it a little bit down the road okay I do have one more question if I can just get another let me just check in with any others I have a yes U Miss breus and then Mr ree yeah the second paragraph of the discussion um section of the stop report says that build alternative one allows for one additional mowing per week at 38 Athletic Field sites who's mowing those presently well the the former contract just ended uh so they're not being mowed during the kind of dormant downtime season so the mowing should start kicking up shortly but if it's a bid alternative why is it why is it a build alternative then uh because it would be in addition to what we did last time so we wanted to see and separate that pricing to ensure we understood what the actual cost of that that piece was were they part of the prior contract those 38 sites were they getting modow they they were part of it for a single mowing so this is adding the additional mowing on those side oh the second one yes okay gotcha thank you you're welcome all right back to you Miss Eber okay so also in the contract it says um that um contractor shall have the opportunity to correct any failed inspections by the end of the workday following the notice of a failed inspection who's going to be checking this are we going to have a city Areno person checking this or we just kind of you know so in in in our Parks almost certainly in the schools we have an army of about 16,000 kids and families that check them pretty rigorously so they will let us know and so those those are going to be our inspectors yeah they'll be the ini will kind of sound the alarm and then we'll go out and inspect and then issue that correction notice okay okay so if you don't hear about it for a couple days there's no issue with that because it says by the end of the work day they'll still fix it even if they're not notified by the end of the day as we notice them okay yeah okay so that was it thank you anyone else Mr Reese yes madame vice mayor I don't have any questions on the agenda item but man what you're wearing today is the fit what do we got going on here are you celebrating preparation of June 16th being National Ascot day um nice to see everybody weing an ascot is a power move okay told as much thank you well before you leave let's see do we have a motion for approval or denial Miss uh eert uh motion to approve second all right we have a motion from Miss Ebert second from Mr Reese any further comments all in favor please say I I any opposed all right motion passes unanimous uh with the power of the chair what I'm going to do is knowing that we have an attorney client um I'm going to take two items out of order um that is B12 and B17 and then I plan a break for us a bio break and a a attorney break so B12 um was brought up by me um Madam clerk I thought we weren't having an attorney client yes I'm sorry we that's a good point R statute are we going close session I'm sorry I apologize it's not an attorney client you're absolutely right what about a revised Statute statute said we're not I I made a mistake I was I don't know the statute off the top of my head it's it's a listed exception in 241 so I have a non- meeting if attorneys could let us know i' i' appreciate it okay all right attorneys I believe we're having a non- meeting without you yes we're having a you are having a labor negotiation setting and it's under chapter 288 and I sent an email out but I'll I'll resend out the the the citation but the charter says that the attorney shall be present at all meetings of the council uh the city meeting yeah that's it's not it's a labor negotiation but we're meeting as a group isn't the City attorney fulfilling its Charter obligations being present when we're pres for for this meeting here we currently are but for labor negotiations that's not what you don't me the charter doesn't apply okay okay so it's a non- meeting so we're not having a meeting with our attorneys so um I would like to turn to item B12 Madam clerk um I don't know if anyone signed up to speak but I wanted to explain why I pulled this oh thank you Megan thank you for being here um this is acceptance of a National Park Service under represented communities grant for activities related to a Northeast African-American historic resource Sur survey and National register nomination and while some things were on the agenda and they said it was inappropriate oh my goodness we we might be harming uh or voting on something that would potentially harm a uh historically black church um this was prompted by our own staff and I just wondered if you could um describe what's going on here good morning or afternoon um Megan burner arts and culture manager for the record this is acceptance of a grant from the National Park Service um this grant is an underrepresented communities Grant and um the the idea behind this really is to create more diversity on the national register of uh historic places and so we appli to do a survey of Reno's historically um so do I just black and african-amer neighborhood the Northeast area historically was that area and so we applied to do a context we will work with a a consultant a historian to do a context for that area um to write about the history document about it work with the community in doing so and then ultimately have at least one um resource that will be put on the national register of historic places wow fantastic well on the ls on to our um historic Resources Commission we just had a lengthy meeting yesterday about the Lear theater and selected a consultant to do the historic structures report um so kudos to you with how things are going on the historic Arena um did someone ask you to apply for this grant was it a staff initiative it it was a staff initiative um there's no match for this grant which is really exciting and so we thought you know we really see a need for this and for expanding some of the the knowledge around our cultural resources and especially you know including the diversity of our community um and we were one of 21 groups that received a grant amazing in the country all right well kudos to you I really wanted to put a spotlight on this and that this no one begged us to do this this is initiated by our own staff and I really appreciate the work that you're putting into both our arts and culture and our historic resources I think there is a public comment on this is that true Madam clerk we did close public comment for the consent items but Alicia barbar is here if you have questions well I mean but this wasn't voted on yet this is a um I'd like to be recognized okay yes um yes before we take public comment let me call him council member I was going to pull this also and I usually don't mention stuff that's you know kind of more advisory but I've had inabilities to meet with staff on this this is why I'm no longer the arts and culture liais on because the manager has not allowed me to have that kind of interaction but I just want to say on the you know on the record is when you bring your consultant on I think some Outreach to the folks up at the Herlong Depot would be a good idea I many years ago heard from someone who either themselves or their mother moved from the south in the 50s but maybe even the 40s to work at her long along with a number of other African-Americans who were I think fleeing you know like Jim Crow conditions and had equal opportunity to work for the military and there was a bus a van that took a lot a commu a commuter van that was organized in some fashion to commute folks from the um Northeast qu um area neighborhood um and I think it's mostly women African-American women up to Herlong to do work and then they would come back each day and so Herlong I think has a good documentation of their history um so I just wanted to reach out that that might be an Avenue of research for the um you know both the migration and the foundation of that Community too so that's all right great great input for you uh Miss burner in moving forward with this project um I would like to hear from Miss Barber um I thought that was our protocol is that um we haven't voted on these items yet so it's it's action item so Miss Barbara and thank you for staying around I know you were interested in the previous item but thanks for being here for this one be here hello Alicia Barbera for the record this is such an exciting Grant I it's it would be hard to kind of overestimate um how exciting it is that our our city government is now applying for this level of Grant from the National Park Service and um to get frontal funding for this kind of thing um uh Melissa hay and Megan burner in that office together have been going like Gang Busters to find funding especially something that doesn't require match which is what is happening a lot with projects for underrepresented communities right now um it's it's so exciting because this really is a part of the city that hasn't been given that attention and that respect for trying to really understand its history um its significance when we started to do the research on black Springs which I've been working on for a while and we just submitted the national register nomination to the state historic preservation office for the fire station in Black Springs um with our story Inc but we have done some oral histories and learned about that connection with Herlong um even more and it's it's a fantastic story because it is so far um but there were so many African-American families whose members worked at hurong and lived in Northeast Reno or lived in Black Springs and did travel back and forth and commute every day um for a significant period of time just looking for job opportunities and so this area in Northeast Reno was of course extremely diverse um it did have the highest you know proportion uh percentage of African-American residents for a very long time um largely because those tracks were established prior to the racial restrictive covenants that you had heard about previously that started in the 1920s so these areas in the center part of town like the pounding Edition with the Hamiltons whose Homestead I talked about earlier and in Northeast Reno did not have that kind of restriction so there was land ownership and and tenants um from a very early point in this area and of course like in a lot of other cities unfortunately also um the Advent of the Federal Highway Administration who ran the interstate right through the middle of this community there was also an urban renewal project in the 1960s that took out the center of this community which was very diverse as well and those are legacies that we know about with the federal government but we will look for the local repercussions of that here um through the work I did on the state historic preservation office historic context for African-American history we started to examine some of the the buildings in this particular area we had an advisory committee that was Statewide um with some residents actually who had lived in that area and we've done some more current oral histories also so it is a fertile and Rich opportunity for a lot more work and this these funds and allowing this context to happen and this research to occur is going to give us an abundance of information that will help us tell these stories identify historic properties that we can then even think about you know for future historic districts for individual um assistance um commemoration on various registers whether local state or national so I did just want to add my excitement about this well thank you for being here Dr Barbara and thank you for staying involved thank you um I'm so pleased with the direction our staff's moving I just wanted to make a comment which is uh reference ref to something you said which is that and and Miss burner said which is that this grant requires no match but many grants do require a match and recently we did another Grant where we got money $5,000 for historic plaques and the mayor and I using our Council funds were able to match that and my my request to our staff is that as they're producing the budget for our consideration that they do put some money aside Citywide to be able to match grants um which we haven't had the ability to do if this required a match you could not do it you do not have another $50,000 or 55,000 uh to be able to match a grant like this and they probably would have required maybe 20 or 25% but you don't have that either you didn't even have $5,000 to match the historic plaques Grant and and we had to dig into our Council funds so if the staff are listening um those that you know uh Miss Bryant and others I see our manager not here but try to set up a match fund for our grants if you can um it would really take the pressure off some of us um some other people want to opine Mr ree Madame vice mayor thank you so much um first of all I want to say thank you to Dr Barber for giving us some additional history today I I think each one of us I hope are Avid readers of the barber brief they're without a doubt the most in-depth and well researched bit of local information um and I think when people read it they really trust the information I would hope that something positive like this ALS makes it into that in that form because um when we share those stories especially the stories you've been sharing through story uh Inc or story core I think it's a the National Organization uh or the one about black Springs um it's not reaching a wide enough audience because it it tends to hit the audience that maybe is very interested in history and I just want to see it grow uh for my part I think uh council member or vice mayor derer you also said something that resonated with me and that is we don't always know the types of grants that are out there and available and I would hope that if if you saw a grant Miss burner that you thought gosh this is just so awesome but we are lacking the match piece of it that you might let us know and then we would have the opportunity to figure out how we can find the funds for it even if it is just from Council discretionary because on the small grant numbers like $55,000 yeah I I would hate for us to turn down the opportunity because we couldn't match the other side of it and so if if ever you come to a point where you're like this great historic Grant is available I I want you to know my door is open and I would certainly be consider of that type of a match so I think it's a great opportunity uh this is really neat I also noticed and hopefully this is something that uh Miss Barber also saw in or Dr barber in the um staff report there's a lot of facilitated public engagement which I think um is something that this Council believes very strongly in um we have I suppose there are times when we don't do as much as we need and maybe there are other times where we've done more than was necessary I look back at some of the larger engagement opportunities that we've done like on redistricting or in how we allocated arpa allocations where we had lots and lots of meetings um and sometimes people don't know where to plug into that and so we got to make sure that some are Zoom facilitated some are uh and certainly I would hope that they would be and it looks like they're in the Northeast Community but we got to make sure that we have lots of opportunities for everybody to participate um so I love the engagement piece of that I know there's only so much engagement can be done with a $55,000 Grant and so I'm mindful of that but I do think it speaks to the broader point of making sure that the engagement we do meets people where they are um you know having it say at City Hall on a Wednesday night may not be the most convenient thing for people so we got to be out there in the community where uh they desire to meet so if it's Evelyn Mount or if it's could be at bethl right it could be a meeting that's held at a church like that or maybe it's inside of the the current existing Lear theater space um which I know is getting cleaned up too so it's exciting lot of moving Parts uh council member doer and the historic Resource Commission are doing a great job of really working through um the issues as they arise so I thank her for that all right well to round this out did anyone else have any public comment Miss Hebert um I actually have a question about the grant um I noticed in the staff report it says the purpose of this award is to complete a historic cont text and uh reconnaissance survey of Northeast Reno is this specifically only to be used in the City of Reno or is this waso County it's there are defined boundaries that we um put within that Grant and I believe that essentially the freeway was the southern boundary and I can't remember theary or I8 I80 um and it is within Reno the survey itself will be available to the general public to access so anybody can can use the survey that's well I only ask because I know that there's you know several times black Springs was mentioned today and I think that it is a really important historic area but it I don't know if everyone's aware that it's it's actually not uh incorporated into the City of Reno it's technically County so I'm just curious to find out if that's um you know uh would qualify to be identified through this grant since it's it's not technically part of the City of Reno I know it's surrounded by but it is actually County of you know Washo County not City of Reno uh Megan burner arts and culture manager for the record I forgot that um that is not part of the boundaries of where we appli to do this specific context so it it would not be included in this okay thank you okay any other comment um Mr Martinez thanks so much vice mayor and thank you Megan for uh and your staff for putting together this uh crant to be able to you know add to the diversity of our registry also on top of uh the suggestions by council member Rees um to read the barber brief I would also add a cry for help by Helen townell Parker who was also here when we celebrated um and honored Black History Month when we changed the belief sign to black red green and yellow and so I just wanted to add that tidbit as well uh to the public record and make sure uh and appreciate council member uh t for pulling this item and as we round out Black History Month that we're engaging in these conversations and making sure folks feel seen and heard um as we are up here on the dis so thanks again for your work on this okay anyone else Madam mayor Miss Barbara did you want to weigh in I thought you were like hey I just actually go ahead yeah sorry Alicia Barber for the record U I've just been working so much on black Springs lately I just wanted to let you know that there was a survey done um of black Springs by the Nevada Department of Transportation in the early 2000s and so we are kind of working on that and working with that material from that survey which was actually pretty comprehensive and involved interviews and such um from a historian and so in the work we're doing with black Springs involving this National register nomination for their fire station and other initiatives we're building on that so just so you know black Springs has been um is you know has been surveyed there's a lot of work going on with that so I think the fact that this is focusing on another area doesn't mean that they're not getting that's not getting ATT attention all right thanks so much well I'll just round this out any other council members any other comments thanks again miss burner for all the work um I'm looking for a motion I'm happy to make it but uh go ahead second all right I made a motion to approve this and Mr re seconded all in favor please say I I I any opposed all right motion passes unanimously I'm going to hand the gavel back over to the mayor and mayor let me just say I announced um that we would be taking a break it sounds like we may may not but I did ask that we move uh to B17 but I just want to because we do have people in the audience for that both staff and visitors but there's probably others too um absolutely so first of all we have a lot of our team here and I want to make sure that they get back to work before we take a break yeah I think that's important so for one and then the other thing Madam clerk I really want you to um and you probably have already done this taken sort of a temperature of who's here for what item cuz they're busy and want to get back to work too so uh I want to move forward with getting um everyone um back to business so do you want to go to B7 or a different item yeah let's go to B7 okay all right Madame mayor I pulled this item um this is uh very exciting actually this is uh the city um Pro providing a resolution to the director of Nevada Department of Business and Industry supporting the affordable housing project identified as V to Jet stoker um which is 180 units of affordable housing I had a chance to meet with representatives of vintage prior to this meeting for about an hour um the very first thing I did was to compliment them on the tremendous amount of work and money they have invested in our community for affordable housing they have a whole team we know some of them such as Green Street um Dane and Jim most of us have gotten to you know be on their speed dial um but there are others here and I believe Eric was here earlier in the audience Maybe still here um but anyway I'm just very grateful that they continue to invest in our community and I wanted to highlight that I also wanted to highlight that everything isn't always perfect and that was part of our meeting today was um we got the stuff built but then there's always after the fact how are we managing and they have experienced as others have in our community some real management challenges uh with keeping people um they don't manage themselves they contract with a third party and um I brought up some issues that have been lingering for about a year and a half with with some of the issues and I will uh really tag the Management Group specifically um I appreciate that vintage has gotten on it immediately so I just it's a cautionary note that when you build something and I I always call this a life cycle cost you build something but that's just the beginning you got to operate it you've got to pay for that and it's got to be successful for a long whether it's a bridge uh a dam or a building with people and with people comes people challenges so um I I have gotten a commitment earlier today from vintage to keep working on issues that have risen to our our fire department or our code enforcement department we don't want to be in those kind of relationships you know after the fact we want everything smooth sailing and I want to compliment our staff today we have um Elaine and um Monica here I'm sorry to be so informal but with our hand which is our housing and Neighborhood Services who are our primary staff that are devoted to implementing these projects and also the aftermath of the projects they're the ones people call as well as our code enforcement or our council members so um with that I just I hardly endorsed this but I didn't know if uh our representative from vintage had had a comment uh Ryan or if any council members uh Ryan Patterson on behalf of the project with vintage housing um as you mentioned we had a I think a very positive meeting here uh and went over some of the issues which I think kind of break down a different categories but always comes back to communication and though we're we're committed to continue to improve the services and and and the livelihood of the people that are attendance I mean you no that was for me you can keep talking you you guys understand people problems you understand managing people and and trying to meet expectations and we're going to continue to try to improve that mechanism and I think we've taken some steps already to make sure that that's possible uh we also appreciate you know obviously being in a public private partnership with the city and the state to make this happen um you know we've been a prolific affordable housing developer for a long period of time and over 25 years in the state of Nevada and we continue to try to be you know here and available to make the the best opportunities we can and I have a second comment but I'm out of time so um I wouldn't mind coming back around all right any further questions comments um I would just say this that um also part of the challenge too is sometimes not it's actually not um on your end it we see sometimes it's on the operating side end so um sometimes there's some confusion with that and honestly I've worked with your team they've been fantastic you guys have been super responsive um and so you know just I know that it's unfortunate some issues have risen to the point where I had to get involved but I'm here and I'm involved and we're going to rectify them no and I really really appreciate it um because it's it's very helpful but you guys have been a really really good partner you're doing a lot of good work in this community I appreciate um all that you have invested and how hard you guys have worked to really provide housing to you know our some of our most vulnerable in our city so um it it's very hard to do too that's the other thing it's a very challenging space to be in so uh we appreciate you because there's only like a handful of people that do it yeah and if that not that many people are actually doing the projects of and scale that we are so the problems tend to have a size and scale to them so right exactly okay go ahead I think Mr Rec thank you so much Madam mayor and Madame vice mayor um for my part I just want to say what I always ask when I ever get the chance to interact with your group which is where's the next project right we we need more of the projects that your team brings to this market and we need a lot more of them and whatever we can do as a council and I think we've got a whole agenda full of things that are very similarly situated I think we have desired to do um we we want to create the opportunities that the housing type that you're building brings to this community and council member derer has been an incredible advocate for the people in those communities it's not just enough to say we have approved or or made way for you to build them but miss der vice mayor der often is following up with those people as their ten tenants five and 10 years in and so um obviously you know we have a an incredible amount of respect for the work you do and Miss Do's goal is to just make the lives of those tenants that much better as it is yours so I think uh my point is to just say thank you for the work you do let's get together and make other projects happen and and let's continue to lean in where we can to fix the things that matter uh to council member vice mayor der I I really appreciate that I appreciate the support um you know I know that the cities they created additional mechanisms in the form of you know waivers and and fee reductions and things like that that that have been incredibly helpful and obviously in a more difficult environment it's ever been to create the housing with interest rates and and cost of construction and so forth so all right councilman D yeah thank you I wanted to um make a note that um we have on our agenda about five projects that we're considering for the waivers that were just mentioned sewer uh hundreds of thousands of dollars to support affordable projects I think we have five on our agenda and you will be coming back later too with this project for similar waivers permit fee waivers sewer sewage connection waivers so I have talked to our um development services and one of the challenges is that there is a um I don't know if you want to call it a loophole but for for buildings like yours that are under five stories yours is a five-story um the one at vintage at The Crossings for example and on those buildings they do not require the kind of safety things that I think should be in these kind of buildings one would be a way to have uh elevators on a separate circuit um with generators so that the residents can escape the the elevator shut down if there's a fire if there's a power outage like we had last summer I'm Excuse me last winter um the elevator shut down but often in here we have people that are in wheelchairs living on Floors two three and four and uh those people need a way to get in and out of the building even in those conditions especially if they have to escape and they can't come down an elevator cuz it's shut down so I have asked I've already um had a long meeting with our building code folks to talk about where we're giving waivers hundreds of thousands of dollars I think it'd be good for the developers to lean in and address some of these um very obvious safety issues that they can that are required for slightly taller buildings one more floor they're required but for one floor L they're not required but they're still needed so it's it's a power it's um there's a wheelchair ramp that you can put in stairs that's very inexpensive um and there's other things that we can do to make these safer buildings and so I'm just planting a seed with our Council um for items coming up on the agenda and also this item coming back should we move forward um and just some things to think about but that's what Mr pingry suggested he said it's probably not something where we change our whole uh building code but for certain projects like this where we're in Partnership with you that might be appropriate okay I we had a great conversation regarding this I mean obviously this project that we're bringing before you is actually family and only three story walk up there's no elevators involved but where we have seniors involved we are going to go take a look at production in the structure people having hard attack I mean the the result of not having these things has resulted in real health and uh mergency problems already we've seen it okay all right can I please have a motion motion to approve this item thank you I have a motion in a second all those in favor say I I all those opposed motion carries unanimously thank you so much so much thank you okay I think we're back where should we go seven if you want to go back in order well I would like to see can you give me a little Madam mayor majority of our audience members today are here for item C2 through C6 oh so if you would like to open those items I believe that should help clear out some staff and and um constituents okay okay and I I guess we would put them all and we're opening them together okay you are going to need five separate motions okay so we will need five separate motions okay no problem um hold on so we're going to go C2 okay all right Madam clerk uh let the record reflect that the council is opening the public meeting on item C2 through C6 uh any Council disclosures s there are none wait or do you have one C3 C3 go right ahead okay so councilman Taylor will abstain on item C3 you mean reu you mean leave the room yes leave the room so if we open them all together maybe we should open them I don't know individually or take three first she could leave and come back for the rest M we could do that um so Madam clerk at this time do you have any public comment thank you Madame mayor we do not have any public comment registered for these items and additionally we did not receive any correspondence okay Council Taylor so Madame mayor fellow Council City members and and Madame clerk in the interest of full transparency on item C3 I am disclosing that I serve on the board of directors of the Eddie House Eddie House is a nonprofit charitable organization that works with youth to develop life and job skills necessary for sustainable independence with the goal of ending youth homelessness in Northern Nevada as a director I am an unpaid volunteer and I have never received any Financial benefits or other consideration from Eddie House item C3 involves the approval of a request for an affordable housing fee reduction of up to $ 17,43 in building permit fees and up to $316,200 this meeting I'll step out of the room thank you all right thank you so much so we'll take item C3 first and that will be uh discussion review and potential approval of a request for an affordable housing fee reduction in accordance with the Reno Municipal Code 1.08 consisting up to $1 17,43 in building perit fees and up to 36,41254 Transitional Living all right nice to see you El you thank take it away all right for the record Elaine wisman housing and neighborhood development and just so I'm clear um do you want me to just go directly to that item and not go through the program as a whole uh yeah I i' probably better okay sorry let me get there if I could Madame mayor um just for noticing um proper notice was given oh perfect and no correspondence was received on these items do that well that's okay thank you good thanks so much see this is why we have a clerk Madame mayor and Miss wisman maybe can I just ask um I know that the original goal was to open all of them at the same time talk about the general overview of the program and then we've had to Pivot a little bit because one of our colleagues needed to excuse themselves from the room on one item for my part I certainly know well the program that you're uh sharing with us I think it's fantastic I I'm going to be supporting all of the agenda items I'm trying to help us and you to figure out how to best get through the next several minutes um so for my part Perhaps it is better to just do the generic overview about the programming and I don't need a lot obviously I've already indicated my support for the programming and then maybe we go by the specific Eddie House this is just my thought Madam mayor and I'm no and I guess we take it for granted because we know um but I think to uh councilman re's Point people may not um um I guess I wanted her in the room to hear the whole overview but I think uh councilman ree is right if you could kind of go a little bit um over how we got here so people are not confused okay Madam mayor before we go could we an idea would be to take all the other items first and then do Eddie house and then she can be in here we can have the discussion we can do our thing and then we can she could leave for C3 with it's a reverse of what we just said but it would accommodate what would that make some sense yeah that's fine I mean rather than do C3 C4 five and six and then we can kind of proceed with that help okay so I'll just start here um this is just a very brief um history about the affordable housing fee Reduction Program in 2019 state law was changed to enable local jurisdictions um to reduce or subsidize enter Enterprise fund um fees in 2020 city council adopted an ordinance um setting affordable housing fee reduction parameters standards and criterias for our jurisdiction hi welcome back okay I'm G to jum to I'm going to jump forward prior to those and I want I want to go to the um program as a whole so holistically this program prior to your action today um has has approved $7.3 million in sewer subsidies over $600,000 in building permit fee subsidies and supported the creation of 1,459 units which is incredible every time we bring this item to council this list just keeps growing it's it's phenomenal today we have five projects pending um for over $2 million in sewer connection fees and over $100,000 in building permit fees so after today's approvals the combined subsidies will be over $10 million and supporting almost 1,900 units so with that being said that's really the pro the program as a whole I can accept questions about the general program if you would like or now I can go back to each individual project and just give a b brief overview so I will leave it up to you yeah I don't think Madam mayor a question generally for my for my part um I just want to say Miss Weisman um your team is doing such incredible work and every time you come with one of these because we've had a number of them since 2020 that list has grown uh and that's because of the work you're doing so we get to vote on it we get to support it from a policymaker decision but the work is largely on your back so thank you for that we see you we know that the work you're doing is important and it is I know for thousands of people those 1900 units are going to make a big difference in their lives so thank you thank you yes go ahead question um on any of these we're not doing C3 but the others um do any of them have or are they multi-story or one story or what's their situation um the majority of them I think all of them are multi-story okay do any of them have elevators um I believe a couple of well I think excuse me villages Sage is not multistory um but the other ones I believe they have um elevators but again all of the developers are here so when we get to each individual motion um I was going to call the developers up to answer any specific questions well and then do um I assume that they all have I assume fire um sprinklers because they're congre or multi-story mean and then do you know if any of them have um security or plan to have security um I do not know okay so that's be a question I'll ask them when they come up but here's the thing I think where we are partnering that I would like to see the buildings that have elevators sprinklers um and need security to have those um this uh this population needs as much attention as all the other populations and I I don't think you participated today with my conversation with the Vintage but these are issues that have come up time and time again they're not required by building code to have an escape hatch when the elevator shut down um and so what I'd like but but in other buildings we require that the elevators be in a separate circuit and that there be generators so if there's a power outage um and this is whether they're in anybody could be in a wheelchair it's not just seniors um anybody could have um Mobility challenges not just seniors so I would like to see the security issues put in um to each of these projects and I can't can't do that right here in a motion but when we get there what I would like to see is that the staff prior to doing an agreement with each of these folks for 300,000 700,000 whatever it is that you take a close look at the security features especially uh fire related and that you uh have them go above and beyond the building code to make sure people can evacuate out of the building that means having certain kind of doors and certain things that are generally applied to over five story I don't think any of these are over five story five story and over so th that's my request just from what I've seen in other multistory buildings that are not quite reaching the five um and I think it's a reasonable give back for the residents in lie of the funding that we're doing and I'm not sure how to how to craft that except to give you some direction potentially in the motion uh when we get there to address these and I can give you a list offline but I'll give you one more example example fire extinguishers generally they use the big 10 pound fire extinguishers a lot of people can't lift those even Able Body people um it would be good to have those smaller fire extinguishers in units that might be a simple thing that they can do to help provide extra security so thank you madam mayor and mad mayor may just I have to just jump in real quick John Jim with the the city attorney's office so I'm concerned that we're getting a little bit far a field from what is being considered today in the sense the public needs to be aware for noticing purposes if there's going to be additional things that are placed in these into these projects so I'm concerned that if um if you go down that path you might be creating a problem from an open meeting law standpoint so um the choice is there if if we're going down that path we might need to bring these back to get them so that we have that type of Direction built into the the title of the um of these items so people know what we're doing okay well perhaps it can be considered Ed voluntary and not a condition um that these developers would come forward and going forward after this we could make it into a formal condition does that work well well the what what the law says is that if we're going to talk about things here today we have to tell the public we're going to talk about things and I think that in the um in these agenda titles it does not give the public that um notification um so I just want to be put everybody on notice that we need to keep the conversation tight to what's in the item now that doesn't mean we can't come back with other titles that address all of those things but it's just that at this point um you know we we need to keep the the the um the items kind of tight to the title so okay well I've only just learned about this in conversation with our building official about the opportunity in um exchange for the funding that we're providing uh a small amount of funding for them to provide extra security that's not currently required so I I've said my piece it doesn't need to be part of a a condition I can speak I mean I have freedom of speech I think to say what my concerns are um we're giving we've given you just said $8 million between sewer fees and permit fees I've completely supportive of it I just want to make sure these are fabulously safe places for our residents to live so all right thank you Council momur thank you all right okay so just yes go ahead councilwoman Taylor sorry so sorry one second uh thank you madam I just wanted um the only thing I wanted to do is love the program love everything um thank you for your hard work but it seems to me that there might be somebody new on your team that I missed at yesterday's Reno Housing Authority meeting and I was wondering if you might want to introduce her yes absolutely um this is Corey fiser she comes from the Reno Housing Authority she is our newest housing manager in housing and neighborhood development I thought you I was like I know you what are you doing here here she works here we we stole oh my God you stole her we did we're very lucky to have her so so welcome Cory thank you I thought you might have been here for R but no as of this week here for it was I bet they're not happy they aren't happy they're not happy good are you excited I'm very excited I'm Cory Fisher for the record very excited to be here and um honored to have this opportunity to serve the community that I love so much so and that's so great because honestly now there's really some Synergy between both groups absolutely that's so great good things coming thank you I'm glad you pointed that that out I didn't know that okay so just so I understand correctly we're going to go and do all of them besides the Eddie house is that what we pivoted to okay so I will bring it back to a brief overview of each project besides the Eddie house and then I will come to each motion and then bring the developers up for a question at the time that their motion comes up does that work for this body okay great so let me go back okay the first uh project that we're going to talk about today is Carville Park Apartments it's located on Carville drive and it's an existing affordable housing complex with 208 units however the units are configured different now than they are going to be after this Redevelopment so right now they're in like quad units so there are four uh bedrooms with um bathroom facilities and then one shared kitchen space and living area space for four different um bedrooms so the Redevelopment entails which I think this is so exciting the Redevelopment entails taking each one of those individual bedroom units and increasing the size and making them their own Studio unit so there will be no more shared kitchen fac facilities or living areas each apartment will have their own kitchen and restroom facility so it's a full Redevelopment we maintain 208 units of affordable housing with this project this is um targeted to 50% and Below Ami they do put a preference on seniors and or disabled um they are eligible for 100% reduction in their sewer and building fees totaling the amount seen there on the screen the next is uh Nevada car's campus um phase four Supportive Housing again another great project that really um brings together the full Continuum of Care on that car's campus this will be 50 units of permanent Supportive Housing for chronically homeless individuals most likely coming out of the car's campus shelter um as you can see on the map it is located right there on the campus um really the first time that we've had really that um that full full spectrum of care um eligible for the 100% waiver again because of the deep subsid um the Ami of those units um so they're eligible for those amount of fees um that you see up there on the screen orada Street senior apartments phase two um if this Council remembers they approved phase one a couple of years ago um and they are actually getting ready to lease up phase phase one so this is the second phase um located um right next to the first phase this is 34 units of affordable housing for seniors with a Veterans Preference um all the incomes will be 50% and Below Ami which does trigger the 100% reduction in both sewer um connection and building permit fees totaling the amounts that you see there on the screen and the last one um we're going to talk about right now is Village on Sage 2.0 so this is right next door to Village on Sage um that has been up and running for a while now this will bring an additional 96 units of affordable housing to those at 60% and Below of the Ami um for those of you who aren't familiar with Village on Sage it's dormatory style living with um shared facilities so individual bedrooms and then shared um kitchen restroom laundry facilities um they are eligible for an 85% reduction in their fees um totaling the amounts that you see there on the screen so again this is kind of a a synopsis of the entire program that we've already talked about this would be the first motion for Carville Park Apartments and I would invite the developers to come up and talk about the program or answer any questions and I'm also available for questions on this first project okay thank you thank you thank you so much any questions for developers mam mayor I don't have questions for the developer but I did want to speak to this project very specifically um first of all it's a really a brilliant idea that was brought to us now it's been a couple years that we've been working on it but the Northern Nevada building and construction trades Council they own this project um it's a yeah it's a a type of housing product that was at one point in time it was intended to serve a population that really needed that type of housing the concept of the shared kitchen I think when it was built in the 1950s or maybe it was 70s sorry I'm dating us all um but the 1970s uh was what I think people were hoping was an affordable component but the problem is is as we evolved and as Hud's regulations evolved and as the way in which our lifestyles have evolved it became a project that really wasn't the type that was meeting the need for our community and so um I can remember back to some of the early days about the Project's conversation where we just didn't really know how to treat it it wasn't whether we knew it was fish or fowl because of course as a body we want to be able to support all types of housing uh but the idea of taking existing housing and changing the nature and type of it was unfamiliar to our staff and so there was a lot of leaning in that went in to it on the early end because you know there were questions about whether one could change and demise the walls interior and take out the kitchen and turn them into little Studios uh but it was a good example of working with our Community Partners I think the Northern Nevada building and construction trades development folks uh really had a br brilliant idea that helps our community move forward in part because the way in which people are able to then apply for those and then get the type of vouchers or the different kinds of programs that HUD makes available to them is very different when you have what I I'll refer to as congregant style living as opposed to a studio one bedroom because then you can actually have like two adults living in them it could be I suppose a couple or married couple and this was part of the education we had to do uh but really um the housing and neighborhood Development Group leaned in uh Miss fous and the Building Development folks on that side had to lean in and what the result is is an incredible project that um is in a location where we already have bus lines and Sewer lines it's truly infill in the truest sense because you're not actually altering the four exterior walls it's all being done inside so I want to thank um Rob Benner and his group who really worked hard to educate us about it too because sometimes what happens is in government we see things in a very specific way and aren't able to get out of our own way uh we went from having you know the same building footprint but now being much more user friendly and can allow more people to live there um and make their uh use of it at at that 50% level which is an incredible uh thing uh and I know that hopefully it won't be the last project and maybe the most unique of the ones that we do but I think it's a great project all right Council M mayor and Mr if Mr Benner could come forward um I too want a heat Praise on the Northern Nevada U building and construction Trade Organization because youve also become members of the western n a development District you your project I think here is really a model for the whole region which covers eight counties um what you're doing here is remarkable and the fact that you're investing I mean uh you're showing current building techniques and advanced building techniques that really aren't being seen elsewhere and you're doing a very high quality job and you to my knowledge you're paying prevailing wage and all of those things are important models for our community um to see to experience and to see that you can turn a project Meeting those criteria espousing the values that you stand for you're you're you know money is going out it isn't just words on a page it is people doing things and paying for things that matter both to the families that will ultimately live here but also the workers um that are building these projects and that are experiencing sort of the good that is happening from their work they are by hand creating you know with appropriate tools um creating living opportunities for people that they have won't have experienced before so it's remarkable I I thank you so much for your words Mr Reese um I also want to just briefly ask you I believe it is a multi-story building right two story twostory so it isn't really in the situation that we're facing elsewhere where we're with four stories so um but when those opportunities come up even if it's out on the job site on a different building it's something to have a conversation with them about the electrical circuitry it is commonly done throughout the country to segregate the the elevator um electric from the electric of the rest of the building so I'd love to see that principle go into practice here you know whatever you can do on that thank you but Kudos thank you for being here okay well that was nice to you because Rob is very humble doesn't like to come into the dice I know I can just tell look at his face now it's all red but I'm so glad to see this because we've had so many convers ations about this project not um secret meetings or behind closed doors um but uh so I want to say thank you so much and I know this is like so it's like almost personal to you oh for sure see look at him he's like for sure so uh the amount of love and um just Dedication that you put into this project I also didn't know the backstory how much Council councilman ree has put in to this project as well but I'm really grateful because I know how much it means you and the residents so it's going to be fantastic I know you've been um very nervous for a long time and I'm just so glad to see that you know it's finally here so good job Ben for the record I just like to thank Council for helping us through this project the process uh especially City staff City staff's been great on this whole thing um this has been you know I don't know two three years in the making I think and even before that I was like discussing you know behind the scen or you know with our staff you know what to about this project just to make it better because at the end of the day this is you know we are you know we have provided affordable housing to this community for 40 years and we want to provide affordable housing for to this community for another 40 years and that right this project is all about um preserving affordable housing for our seniors and that's that's what we want to do that's what we want to keep doing and uh hope to bring many more projects forward um to the council and front of council to approve cuz uh we we are making a commitment to provide more affordable housing to for our community yeah well call you and be like Rob I haven't heard from you in a while I'm getting nervous and Council M ree got got it yeah all right well good yeah it's just been long process we're almost there I can't wait to be done and on to the next project so well Madam mayor thank you that was very kind but Mr Benner it's been a joy to work with you on it to be honest with you um the idea with so intuitive when you brought it to us and I thought well of course we're going to do that but boy did we go through some hurdles to get there so you're at the finish line and I hope that we'll have the support from the body but it's a privilege to work with you all thank you okay any other questions for Mr Benner go ahead I hi I didn't have any questions I just want to say thank you to for uh taking me around giving me a tour of the the facility or the location and just um explaining what the plans were and what the changes were and I just wanted to thank you for that for taking the time to meet with me to do that too so thank you you're welcome okay so Madam clerk can we take a motion now just on this yeah I'm prepared okay perfect on everything except item C3 well we're just doing it on C2 Charlie 2 yeah so I moved to approve the request for subsidization of up to $2,967 in building permit fees and $74,200 in accordance with RMC chapter 1.08 and make the determination that the criteria are met and reducing or subsized such fees will not adversely impair the ability of the city to pay when due all interest in principle on any outstanding bonds or any other obligation toward which revenue from such Enterprise fees were pledged nor affected the economic viability of the general fund and the affected Enterprise fund second all right I have a motion to Second all those in favor say I I all those opposed motion carries unanimously yay okay next okay we'll move on to item C4 I do have representatives from was County here to answer any questions about this project Madam mayor I don't have any questions um what an incredible project what an incredible work the county is doing over at the cares campus um I don't think any of us five or six years ago would have foreseen what the campus is ultimately going to become and every time I've gone over there in the last several months I'm amazed at the building the activity the changes coming this one is incredibly important to the long-term success of the County's Mission uh and happy to be uh here to support you all today on this one yeah it's really impressive what you guys are getting accomplished it's it's fantastic so um elain I just want to ask one question I noticed on some of these you were saying some were receiving 100% support somewhere 85% what why sort of the difference so it depends on the um sorry Elaine wisman for the record it does depend on the um Ami that they're targeting so the higher Amis don't get as much subsidy correct good all right gotcha um okay may I get a motion a motion to approve this item I have a motion I have a second all those in do I have to read everything okay all right I will read everything faster if you want councilwoman who is going to put on the record okay I move to approve the request for subsidization of up to $26,845 782 in sewer connection fees for the Nevada car's campus phase four support of housing in accordance with RMC chapter 1.08 make the determination that the criteria are met and reducing or subsidizing such fees will not adversely impair the ability of the city to pay when due all interest and principle on any outstanding bonds or any other obligations for which revenue from such Enterprise fees was pledged Nor affect the economic Vitality of the general fund and the affected Enterprise fund all right I have a motion in a second all those in favor say I I all those opposed motion carries unanimously good job okay um C5 is oravada Street senior Phase 2 and I have chip Hopson here to answer any questions about this project all right no any questions for chip Madam mayor no uh questions but obviously amazing work that they're doing yeah this is the second phase yeah our senior how's it going it's going great I thought you were just a swim guy no this this is my real job you're a housing Guy this is my real job and and that was totally unexpected the comment at the beginning of the meeting and made a great new connection of a support of our good no but I'm here as the executive director of Silver Sage Manor we're nonprofit affordable senior housing developer based in Reno since 1992 the phase two of this project will be our second phase um of the ORV Street which actually was just recently opened and and Lease up but actually better than that we're about 80% occupied and we've only been open about 3 weeks now wow um with great response so far from those that are fortunate enough to to be in so um and your support both through well the administration of the home funds with the was County Home Consortium both on phase one and we have those on phase two as well as these uh these waiver fees that really help in our case we are working under the 9% tax credit serving very low income seniors and we really have no alternative sources of funding we're targeting so deep that we can't have a permanent mortgage so we don't really have anywhere else to turn so every dollar is going to making the project work making it pencil um and and we're thrilled to have the support thrilled to have the phase two I should also acknowledge to staff on this phase two which is a unique situation with the 9% deals and the dollar amount of dollars that are available in a given cycle we can't build more than about 40 units so while we would love to build all 74 units at once we can't do that but your staff uh has been incredibly helpful in working through solutions to make that happen so that we'll be able to house 34 more senior residents once once we open this in about probably about 16 months so any any questions I'd be happy I do um just chip I'm wondering first of all Kudos again phenomenal project and especially focusing on seniors um one of the challenges that seniors have faced and I don't know if they will in this case is that as our Ami goes up the rents can go up too because they're tied to the Ami um they don't have to uh but they can I mean they're loud to it's legal and what I've experienced is that um often the seniors in particular don't have the wherewithal to make up those rents even if it's $50 or $100 more a month because their social security didn't go up just because our regional Ami went up because Edon in particular is doing such a fabulous job recruiting businesses to our community such as high-tech businesses um service Industries ET headquarters they all drive up the annual median income but on the back end unintended consequence seniors in particular um end up having to pay more for rent um I would love to have you and the other people that we've seen here today and still to come to sit down with me and talk about how how we can get a handle on that and also you're dealing with a senior and disabled population you mentioned are there things that go into your building um that are particularly attuned and I'll give you an example another senior place I've dealt with um when they were first built the lighting was very low it's quite dim even I had challenges seen in the hall you know to read to put in a key to do anything and I recommended and they are now doing improving the lighting in the hall but just having a higher standard of lighting for example so seniors can see what they're doing in the hall and feel a little more safe um those are some of the things I was alluding to earlier um I don't think you have elevators right it's only 40 we do oh you do we we are three story I I I would be more than happy to meet and discuss all these issues um I you know I'll take a real quick stab right now that on the rental thing what oh we have meetings okay sorry I meet with him all the time so go ahead oh you do oh okay go ahead um on the rent issue um you're correct that our entire population all of our units serve people at or below 50% with about 40% of them being 40% and below so we we are targeting that exact population the vast majority are on fixed Social Security yeah we have not always raised our rents to the maximum levels historically that we could we we have to raise the rents the other side of that is expenses are are going up at a much greater rate than than the Amis we also have done things like when we do implement the increase we've often waited until after there's a social security increase so that we know that we're not implementing a rent increase January 1 when they won't receive their increase in their Social Security payment until February or March so so we're very aware of that and try within the best of our abilities to to work and not not do what you're concerned about um we do design the buildings in an effort to allow our seniors to age successfully in place it is independent living but we do consider things like lighting um you know they are elevator served I I was not aware of of your concerns and comments I I will say that in our most recently open building I was there during a power outage and our elevator still functions um I don't know well some are automatically shifted to a generator but I found out in others they don't have that and and I can't honestly answer right now that's certainly something that we would the safety of our residents is a huge concern to us as well um the challeng is with you know any of those additions offsets than the the good that the the waiver is doing but certainly things that we will look at and and consider well it' be an extra panel with a plug you don't even have to have a generator they could bring in emergency power if needed but anyway thank you yep all right any further questions no okay motion want a motion to someone else in Ward three want want to make this motion councilman Martinez you want to yeah happy to this is all you yes I move to approve the request for subsidization of up to $ 24,56251 in sewer connection fees for the development of oravada Street senior apartments Phase 2 in accordance with RMC chapter 1.08 and make the determination that the criteria are met and reducing or subsidizing such Fe will not adversely impair the ability of the city to pay when do all interest and principle on any outstanding bonds or any other obligations for which revenue from such Enterprise fees was pledged Nor affect the economic viability of the general fund and the affected Enterprise fund second all right I have a motion a second all those in favor say I I all those opposed motion carries all right good job okay and next is Village on Sage 2.0 and I do have Representatives here um if you have any questions all right I have a question okay Council madur has a question thank you um and sorry if there too many questions but each of these are are fascinating and important to me um village on stage first of all I want to put a shout out I don't know if she's still here but Jackie Bryan I know was very instrumental in helping get the units that are going to be placed in village at stage to .0 and so that's our staff again stepping out taking quick action to acquire more of the type of units that were used to build Sage Street 1.0 so yay for our team um the next question and I know you care about this much mayor um I have a because that was the question I was gonna ask so I'm glad you're asking course well of course um when we approved a similar project for sage 1.0 the mayor and I were very clear that we wanted 25% of the units to be quote dog friendly and to be able to have pets and that wasn't a minimum not a maximum and to have a facility to store those pets and I've had on my calendar a meeting with someone from your office that's moved from it keeps getting changed and now it's after this meeting instead of before I'd hoped it would be before because I people told me we promised Naomi they vaa came and they said we aren't honoring your request which was really built into the motion I believe to our Council maybe consternation but um built into the motion to approve Sage to uh 1.0 so I really want to know what is the plan with the pets and are we going to be able to accommodate pets and the reason is is I just went to Northern NADA hopes and toward their whole tiny home Village they allow 100% pets there's of 29 units or seven right now pets and they have an exterior place for the pets to stay if the people have to leave but what's really cool about there is that people are taking care of each other's pets rather than having them even in the kennel that's kind of for a backup I understood that your team was going to go see those kennels so if you could just speak to to that issue that would be great uh Terry Miller Community Foundation nor Nevada for the record um um you might not have been aware were you aware I don't think she was she she was she was aware so um and first of all nice to see you for people that don't know who you are and all the great work that you do in the community thank you so much um like councilwoman said that we were just we we had been informed that they were not taking pets any longer and that was part of one of the reasons why we really were excited about this project because we feel that we can overcome some of those berries barriers to get people into housing and so we were a little surprised I think Monica you probably have an update for us that's make your life easier I think Monica can step in step in for you and and answer that go ahead Monica thank you Madame mayor Monica Kirch for the record uh I just want to let you know that I have had conversations with the Community Foundation and Volunteers of America and they are both committed to the concept of having pets at 2.0 uh in some of the new renderings they actually have Incorporated a dog run and I went last week with Travis from Volunteers of America um to take him over to hopes um because that is a great model it for this yes and they have a dog park as well yep they have a dog park and they have Kennels if you will that have their their control yes um and so uh we met uh I made sure I got there with him before he left on vacation last week I believe he's coming back next week and we are meeting again um and I'm meeting also with um Community Foundation to figure out the funding on how we can get something like that um and a conversation was even brought up perhaps um uh of maybe sharing some of the facilities at hopes um to utilize them in a better manner so they are definitely committed to this concept and we are working to get there and and why are we talking about on these units versus the ones we just discussed well there's a presumption in Nevada that you cannot discriminate housing based on what type of dog I mean the state did a a regulate an or sorry a statute that says you can't discriminate based on what kind of dog and so on and so forth but in this case we have people that are transitioning from being unhoused to being housed and that's the similar with hopes they are I guess the next step after being unhoused and often we find the barrier just as with Abused Women in particular they do not want to leave their situation if they have to leave their pet and we wanted to take away that barrier and we want to recognize that it is a barrier and take it away so that's why we're having a conversation with these units with um the hopes you know in particular and so I thank you for being willing to step up and meet our challenge you're welcome welcome I'm just glad we're doing what we're doing so I'm so happy to be part of this project I've only been with the foundation like I said a year right and leading this project has been wonderful for me so well it's a whole new thing to do a development project versus ad Minister money I mean being that level of involved yeah and all the details that go into constructing something is very major you know a whole different type of skill set so kudos to you but just know this Council um is very interested in in addressing this issue yes okay agree I happen to be chair of the wo County animal Advisory board for eight years and it's a passion to make sure that we're not discriminating on the basis of pets and that we're treating the pets appropriately and that we're getting our people housed so thank you you're welcome go ahead to approve the request for subsidization of up to 8,116 in building permit fees and $313,500 $7 in sewer connection fees for Village at stage two in accordance with RMC chapter 1.08 and make the determination that the criteria met in reducing or subsidizing such fees will not adversely impair the ability of the city to pay when due all interest and principal and any outstanding bonds or any other obligations for which revenue from such Enterprise fees was pledged Nor affect the economic viability of the general fund and the affected Enterprise fund second all right I have a motion and a second all those in favor say I I all those opposed motion carries unanimously okay good job okay okay she's going to leave now okay bye okay I'm going to go back to a quick project overview of this project and I will keep it short but this is a fantastic project um Eddie House Transitional Living will be at 888 Willow Street so this is actually the site of their shelter as well um it will be 36 units of Transitional Living for homeless transition aged youth which had defines as um 24 and Below um with incomes at are below 30% of Ami so with that deep subsidy they are eligible for a 100% reduction in their sewer and building permit fees and we do have Trevor here with the Eddie House to answer any questions about the project so I will invite him up Madame mayor if I may yes please I don't think I have questions for you Trevor but what a joy it has been to get to know you these last many years and I know how much of your heart has gone into this project uh we began talking about this uh and there were so many variations and iterations on what could be built and um I'm really proud of the work that you're doing I continue to believe that uh even with the expansion there's still going to be a need I think as you and I have discussed many times one of the number one reasons that young people that your clientele ends up servicing are made homeless or find themselves where they need the help for transitional living is because they come out to their parents as lgbtq folks and for me um this is a sad reality about this country still and it makes me it breaks my heart every time I think about it but what gives me the hope is that places like the Eddie House are providing a safe space for people um I noticed a couple of weeks ago in the news of course that there was you were at capacity right and so um again it continues to uh break my heart that that's the case I know that you all make do with what you can and you um you House people wherever you have to at time so thank you for that uh My Hope Is that as you uh move into this facility that we'll continue to make a dent in that uh space uh but know that uh we believe in the work that Eddie House is doing we believe in your leadership at the Eddie House I know my colleague who could not join us on the dis here is um serves on the board and certainly that's another call as as often happens uh but this is uh really exciting and um yeah you have my whole heart on it thank you so much we really appreciate it all right any other questions Council I'm sure does no I just kidding sorry out what's that we're a fivestory building that we're buing so I'm just kidding so you are wait are you running for office yeah so you already we already have elevators on a separate battery system luckily I've been on these issues for a solid 10 years so this has nothing to do with electoral politics this is all about just trying to make light of a situation everyone kind of doesn't want to touch but I'm the one that always says it my out loud voice okay well I'm saying in my out loud voice here too teen I heard that I I tried not to comment or look your way but um I mean we were running the thing I wanted to say about that I'm sorry to go back to this but you know what was funny we weren't running to put money into a slot machine we were running to go get I know go get that beer that was not me in case anybody wondered that no I bet it wasn't I to become a Beer Drinker until I was in college was a good kid until I hit the 21 Mark but anyway um anyway um the five story the point is is you already need to meet these requirements these are already in COD and they're they're there for a reason is to keep people safe now you happen to be dealing with a young agile population that does not generally but maybe um have a disability such as a wheelchair difficult with Mobility but they might and I have met in my other previous tours at Eddie house I have met some people that have some real challenges uh it could even be mental challenges frankly that impair them from being able to react appropriately with alarms or or you know request to evacuate buildings and so on but I just too want to say I don't have any further questions I just want to say thank you for everything you do to Mr Reese always makes some eloquent comments about what is happening and what is happening here is we are out of room in so many places whether it's seniors that we've been talking about a lot today or youth uh which we haven't talked to as much today so I know you've worked hard You' you've had the building fund um it takes a long time to from Vision to creating these projects I'm making them reality so thank you for being here thank you okay anyway okay any further questions no I had uh we spoke on the phone a few times and we've met and so um and you're not from here I am oh you are yeah or did you leave and come back I was in Vegas for 10 years before coming back home yeah see I always think of people are you know they're cheating on us when they move to Vegas but we're glad you're back thank you so much I'm hearing wonderful wonderful things about you um unfortunately in my office it's one of those things where maybe it's fortunately I don't know but uh we tend to hear a lot of negative but we hear a lot of everything and I'm hearing wonderful wonderful things about you and all the things you're accomplishing so thank you so much and also investing in our youth because they are our future and if we're not helping them uh we're going to live in a very troubling world so thank you so apprciate it all right give me a motion Madame mayor I move to approve the request for a subsidization of up to $ 17,43 in building permit fees and $316,200 and make the determination that the criteria are met in reducing or subsidizing such fees will not adversely impair the ability of the city to pay when due all interest and principle on any outsanding bonds or any other obligation for which revenues from such Enterprise fees which pledge nor affect the economic viability of the general fund and the effec Enterprise fund all right I have a motion I have a second all those in favor say I I all those opposed motion carries unanimously thank you so much great job elain as always job really great job but you know what Madam mayor great job to the council for putting this kind of program together I love it I mean making money being able to wave fees we know the day of accounting is coming I see Mr flansburg in the audience we can't continue to do it forever and be able to make that finding that it won't affect the fund yeah and so that's something frankly we're going to have to lean in with the state to help get offsets so that we can keep the fund whole yes and not have to raise rates okay Council Taylor come on back if you're back there oh there you are come on all right thank you so much good job great job okay Madam clerk where are we at thanks Madam mayor we're moving back to our cons consent agenda we're moving on to item B9 from Chief Nance yay okay chief n come on up she's been waiting patiently for hours patiently okay I believe this is uh councilman Ebert am I right this is how I want to see it cuz then everyone's getting to work all right is it already if we do B9 and B10 at the same time are they they're two different things so I don't know the rules on that probably can't so let's go with B9 all right so I just wanted to know a little bit more about this is this um purchase of a crime fighter uh barcoded evidence analysis statistical tracking laboratory can you just tell me more about this what this is yes this is a information management system so it's a tracking system that we'll use for both evidence and in the forensics lab so this is a new thing this isn't you know something we've had before or replacing anything this is new we've had versions of softwares like this but nothing that's as comprehensive that does exactly what this one does okay so is this um part of like a greater effort to kind of do our own forensics things inhouse versus um Outsourcing this money comes from so the money that's being spent on this is the money that came from the forensic Grant which is the idea to stand that alone so this is a portion of that okay so I guess what I'm asking is um is City of Reno kind of becoming more independent in its ability to kind of handle these forensics thing or some of this yes this is more of a tracking software for mechanisms for how we're processing things so it is a part of that but we would need the this in the stand alone and also with our forensics team okay thank you um I guess um motion to approve second I have a motion second all those in favor say I all those opposed motion carries okay councilman Ebert um so similar questions on this this is fingerprint cap system is this replacing something that we already have or just a little more detail about this this is a new item okay so um just something we've never used before just something new that you're implementing for the Reno PD so this goes along with that forensics grant that we received and this is a part of that so this is one of the monies that are being spent from there okay and then it goes with the forensics unit okay so is this something that we had previously outsourced anywhere or yes we would have outsourced this through was County okay so this this is something that we'll be able to just do in house now we won't have to pay another agency to to process or do for us now um how exactly that payment work it's not a per item payment it's a totality of different things that come forward in that item so our goal is to move our forensics lab stuff inhouse so that we can do it ourselves yeah that's that's really kind of what I'm getting at is that this is part of a process to be able to do the things that Reno Reno PD needs to do inhouse versus out sourcing things yes great so that's just what I wanted to highlight so great job thank all right any other questions comments from Council seeing done will you please give me a motion yeah motion to approve all right I have a motion in a second all those in favor say I all those opposed motion carries good job nice seeing you I think I'm back for one more oh you are for one more okay all right all right moving on to Item B one b14 okay by Chief n long time no see sorry I thought there was one between me between 14 sorry about that go ahead sorry um I'm just curious what this vehicle is it says it's worth you uh $1,600 like what is this vehicle undercover vehicle that we will use for undercover surveillance okay so we're not going to talk about what it is exactly okay all right never mind it's wor $1,600 and it's a vehicle and we will use it for surveillance okay thank you motion to approve I I have a motion a second all those in favor say I I all those opposed motion carries all right item we're going to go to fif B5 B15 councilman breus yeah just like a staff report we have a staff member one here sure we do have a presentation for the record Angela fous assistant director with development services one moment okay so this is a dedication of property from BT South Torino a little bit of background into this um the map in front of you is the verd area so we have an area within our zoning code called the mortson Garson overlay District M God is what we can refer to this area as within that boundary we have a requirement that before development within phase three which is everything in yellow that is the area south of I80 again in the verd area before the first final map is recorded within this area 2.9 acres has to be dedicated to the City of Reno so where we're at now we have a 3 Acre Site again south of I80 off of that Boomtown garon Road um it's owned by BT South and they are dedicating it to the City of Reno so this is formally the process where you will accept that dedication all right let me ask if there are um it looks like there's no public comment unless it's online and then let me ask if there's any council member comments I have a question so miss breus there's the requirement is not associated with the tenanted m appap it's just associated with the that RMC it is part of the RMC so when the first tentative map came through which was part of the meridian 120 South development we added that also as a condition you added that as a condition to 120 correct uhhuh okay well um and for maybe not you I don't want to you know put someone to be responsible to answer questions that's not in their um you know area of responsibility where are we at on funding build and Staffing this station well I can say it is not in our CIP currently we have added conditions of approval on the projects within this mg good Verdi area that they have to help pay to help fund that it's a it's a a contribution with each um building permit that comes in they will pay a fee of about $1,688 per door we will then collect that money and use that to help fund a future fire station do we put impact fees on like we did for the police station for not no we just kind of informally did it that way that's correct okay and then um is this going to get um built before the downtown one there's no timing of this there's nothing in the CIP for this one okay um thank you all right any other council members questions comments all right see none looking for motion I'll move to accept yeah oh did you have okay so we have a motion from Mr Reese sorry second I I'll get right back to you I thought you were gonna ask me to make the motion because when someone pulls you do but no I apologize absolutely can my fault yeah we just jumped the gun um can I get the motion withdrawn and the No No that's fine I um I'll comment on the motion on the table all right so we have a motion from council member ree second from council member Taylor um are there any uh comments on the motion Miss breus yeah I'm not willing for the city to accept this dedication it's based on the mg good which is expired that agreement expired right two it's based upon to pay for it as I understand now an internal handshake way not through the methodology of NRS to do impact bees and three it's going to set out there as people build and live out there in expectation that a fire station's coming a fire station is not coming it will be a long time until a fire station is built there and I think that that expectation of having the land future fire station sign gives people a false expectation that they have coverage they won't have coverage they'll be vulnerable I remember hearing from the chief some time ago that the Santa area is a canyon area that's burnt repeatedly and so I think that we can reject the dedication and not move forward with the tentative maps in this very irresponsible growth area thank you um we don't have coverage we do not have coverage we will not have coverage and let me just add in taking on these tentative Maps we're rolling folks from Sumer sets that Expose and Mayberry which has its own needs okay so just a comment for me too I did not support the Santa because of um in part because of concerns about fire danger um and what I do know is most of the fires there have not been started by electrical wires but by target shooting and things like that um and I did a PSA myself along with our fire chief and a a firearm distributor about that problem uh years ago but this is about BT South I want to make sure this this is tied to the Meridian 120 right the property is owned by BT South which is Meridian 120 however the first final map is the Santa final map okay but the requirement per our zoning code is tied to whichever first final map comes forward before that can record they have to dedicate 3 acres 2.9 acres to the City of Reno okay so my question though was I was under as I recall this is quite a while ago as I recall there at a certain point in the number of houses to be developed there had to become a fire station that's what I recall is that wrong maybe I'm thinking of a different project for Santa there was a requirement for a residential fire station basically the idea that we take a house Santa would build a house and conver into a temporary fire station that's what I'm referencing and so that is still part of the sander that's like 215 homes or something like that I think it was I can't remember 256 maybe there was a number no actually it was the 25th home 25th home correct so at 25 homes Santa has to take a house and make it like as an informal fire station will it have a fire rig will it have our staff I mean what does it mean no it was intended to be just truly a residential fire fire station I don't know what that is we don't have a definition for that it is something that um I will say generally speaking we don't have these anywhere else in the City of Reno so it was something that was brought about at the time of stonate when stonate came up with the idea of of doing it that's what I recall too so we don't have them anywhere in the City of Reno I think it's something we'd have to work through to the logistics of that is the envisionment that it would be some kind of volunteer fire uh group or something it is something we would have to staff figure so we would have to figure out how staff um it was intended to be more of a Twan staffed um and it would be something to respond I think more to um 911 medical calls not necessarily fire calls okay to be determined but in the interim we're here about the three acres this is this is land again it is free land that is given to us that if we choose to build a fire station now we have a place to put it right okay so we have a motion and a second is there any further comment all right see none all in favor please say I I I any oppos post post all right uh motion passes looks like 51 um all right well where are we Madame clerk after this D1 D1 all right moving on to D1 which is the Civil Service audit [Music] report hi madam VI mayor council city manager thurley uh Rob Miller for the record staff auditor the item before you is the 2302 Civil Service performance audit as a reminder the internal audit function for the city is here to provide an appraisal of City Department functions actions and accountability transparency and provide a culture of continuous improvement with the city operations we are independent and objective and able to review staff actions and procedures and let you know how things are going and Rob is this your first outing with us um as a as part of audit staff that's what I mean yeah I've been with the city for a while with the budget staff before right but I mean this is your first presentation to us that I recall as for auditing yes okay cor thank it's a little familiar but you know it's always good to come back so the purpose of a performance audit um you are probably familiar with financial audits we do those um every year um for the city but the performance audit is assessing the use of resources and how we're uh achieving our objectives um I've got a list of 10 items that we really look for um Effectiveness efficiency uh risk of course always transparency accountability all of these things uh go into a performance audit review so let's go into the findings remember a finding is an area where uh we believe that there is additional risk associated uh with the finding uh that may need to be addressed for this audit we have four finding categories these are in the groups of program Administration duties Security expenses and training so for program and administration duties um what the audit determined was that there was confusion around the administration of recruiting and hiring tasks um the city Charter actually bifurcates the Civil Service function within the city and I'll go into it a little bit more uh later in the presentation but that did create some confusion as to who does what who does um the Civil Service function what does HR do and then what are the responsibilities for the hiring Department um this also creates some confusion for due diligence who's checking what on the applications for our next uh group of audit finding security um is the security of personally identifying information um this is an issue across the board um we've talked about before uh cyber security issues um issues with uh hacking and protection of individuals information uh so this is not unique to civil service but it is something as Auditors we look for um in order to protect our our applicants information so there were no process or training regarding the use or distribution of paper application materials that came in or uh electronic application materials that came in under expenses um we found that we needed to have more proper supporting documentation for the purchase of food and beverages under policy 303 food and beverages purchases are allowed um we needed more documentation on the business purpose for those purchases and then under the training category um there were three findings here um all of them are similar which is to provide systematic iterative program training for hiring managers for the Civil Service staff as well as uh training to anyone that is uh dealing with the hiring process on the handling of application materials that may have personally identifying information so so moving into the audit recommendations um as I mentioned before uh this process is bated under the charter between the city manager and the Civil Service as uh headed by the Civil Service Commission so we requested actual uh um management actions and responses from both the city manager's office and the civil service because of the division of responsibility um both of these groups need to work together in order to address any of these uh findings our recommendations were grouped into three categories which of course is to provide additional clarification for uh duties and expenditures provide additional documentation and to provide additional training uh in the uh agenda packet that you received the management responses were included as part of the audit report um these responses from both the chief examiner and the city manager's office um adequately address the findings um and we will be following up with them uh within 6 months to determine uh where they're at on implementing those responses we do want to acknowledge um the the work and the efforts that uh Civil Service uh has made especially under Chief examiner acman um at the time of the audit Civil Service had full Staffing um they have been providing quarterly informational sessions um and meeting with departments um which is a great First Step um we are asking that they um improve those and increase those um and then they've also provided additional website Resources with that um I'm available to take any questions on the audit report otherwise I would be looking for a motion to accept the report I'm going to hand it back to the mayor and I do have a question thank you so much um all right council members I have a question go right ahead yeah um thank you so much Rob for the presentation I do have a question I've been puzzled about this for a really long time seems like the right time to ask um is is the bifurcation of the Civil Service Commission from HR uh common and other cities in Nevada or are we one of just a few or one of only no we are unique that's what I thought we are the only city in the state that requires um has a charter requirement that have has a separation of those functions yeah so and i' I've delved into the history a little bit about how do we get here it sounds like it was a 1970s issue um very needed at that time we've we've talked a lot today about life evolves things change all kind of things change and I just wonder um it sounds like this is established in our Charter for only Reno Nevada in all of Nevada in the rest of Nevada Civil Service issues Fair hiring practices um equitability of job you know applying for a job is handled by the HR department with special staff that attend to that with special training so I I just going to mention this it seems like the right time but I know our Charter committee's meeting and I just wonder you know if it deserves some review in that process so I'm planting a seed with my colleagues um and that said I I really don't have a lot of questions but I will tell you this when I first got to council 10 years ago we had tremendous issues in the civil service area uh it was underst staffed uh there was a a turnover there was a a constant headbutting between the HR department and Civil Service I could not understand it because I've worked for almost 40 years in other jurisdictions where HR properly handles these kind of issues and it was very complicated and it was impeding the hiring like the the the producing of the list was very slow and uh convoluted and it was taking months and we could not we had so many open positions at that time we couldn't seem to hire people so I I I guess I'm still informed by that early experience it sounds like things are better because possibly we have different Personnel involved that are not engaged in banging heads but are working more cooperatively together do you have any comment on that and since you did a deep dive into this sure um so my first stent with the city started in 2008 2009 and um I would agree with your characterization of the Civil Service function at that time um I do know that Chief arriman uh the Civil Service Commission has worked very very hard on improving that um there are additional resources as I mentioned having full Staffing that we've added staff members um since that time to the Civil Service function so I think all of those working together have made improvements um and hopefully with this audit um we can continue that work okay thank you yeah Madame mayor um yeah hold on councilman Reese I'll go this way I think um first of all outstanding presentation um appreciate that I would expect nothing less from a Jayhawker you know rock Chalk um one of the things that struck me as interesting about the presentation and it's not so connected to the civil service question you had but you talked about training right that when you go out and perform audits there's like this training element to it right do can you bring that slide back up I I sort of want to see that and again my my thought was simply this I think that um there is there are opportunities for more training right um I think that the audits um are a super important function but if all we do is complete the audit and shove it once we've made the findings but then we don't go out and make the changes um I think that there's room for improvement in the training aspects of it um and again I'm not sure it's as to this specific thing but I'm just thinking about the range of things for which an audit could be performed and then training could be made to hat uh we've done I think five or six audits in the last year or so that then came to counil and this is the first time I recall training being a real component of the findings I and I I'm searching my brain because I'm not saying that they weren't it's just that this one stood out to me and so that's why I sort of pause here because I do think that the iterative program that you're talking about only happens if the training does occur and so I just think it's a good worthwhile thing to pause and and reflect on so thank you for that no problem can I ask you first of all rob it's so it's great to have you back I love it how long have you been back now uh since 2020 I got hired a week before the pandemic send us all home you're like yay right I'm back but you were here you how long were you here before that um for five and a half years yeah okay I I really enjoyed working with you so it's it's just great but we don't get you to come to counsil that much yeah you know there may be reasons for that can I ask you it's not just with this audit but with other audits how what kind of process do we have in place after you kind of come up with your findings and then to make sure that those things are implemented CU we've seen you know we've seen this before and I kind of I'm not sure about the process um because obviously we we don't really we're not really part of a a department so we don't know the process so tell us how we can better Implement some of these these um findings that you come up with and what that process is sure so for our audit standards um we are required to follow up on any findings and management responses so we will all always go back um depending on the management responses um and see what has happened um we throughout the audit we are meeting with the Department we are living uh with them um we try to stay out of their way but get the full picture of what's going on um so even during the audit phase itself the the fieldwork phase we are we are there um asking about processes asking those questions figuring out what's going on um which often times can lead to improvements without a finding ever happening um I think that that's really good and really important I didn't know if that was happening like if you just come and give your thing and then it gets into a file and that's it done but um I would also like to know how responsive they are and are they doing like do you get push back when you're like hey you need to be doing this and then they're like no we don't believe that or you know those kinds of things I think we also want to know how well it's working for you guys to make sure cuz I do think you guys are at a level where it does separate and it's always really good and transparency and just how we overall get better when it comes to reporting because Emily's been here so many times with you know different aspects and um I think you've done a really really good job but you know you go over a lot of different um sort of departments here so different recommendations so I kind of would like to know how our team is doing as well and helping you chime in yeah what do what do you think uh thank you for the question for the record Emily kid internal auditor um this might help um kind of what we're talking about on that overhead if you don't mind Madam clerk okay so sometimes there is push back right um sometimes um it might be hard to implement sometimes we don't have the cash to implement findings um but this is the overview of the three lines of Defense model this is a philosophy of of where inter internal audit lives in the process as well as Senior Management and the body so the governing body excuse me so if you'll see um the board is there at the top and Senior Management as well um we are need to stay independent um to your point we are administratively under the city manager's office but we do work independently to make sure we keep those lines really tight so with this manager group right now the administrative team has been really helpful in promoting the changes at the department level that might not be as you know fun to do that the you know that the department didn't want to implement so we haven't had any problems um recently but if we do we would reach out to you you will yeah and the financial Advisory Board is kind of the step between us and you there are our acting um audit committee excuse me so lots of jurisdictions will have their own separate audit committee um for example was county has their own group and it would pull three or two of you from that as well as um public members are part of that board right okay I just I want to get a meeting with you so that we can talk about some um some areas in which I think um you know we can improve on because you're really good at this so um I'll save that for a whole other council meeting not even you're in luck we are ramping up for our annual audit planning process so you will see that email that you've seen in in the past um we're starting that in uh March good so we'll be asking questions um from uh both Senior Management department leaders if you feel like there's something a Miss in your reporting system something like that we can come in and take a look how do you feel that you're doing on followup after all of the audits that you do yeah followup has been better um we'll see report 1803 that took five different follow-ups so I was on that audit for many years was that um that was the building permitting process and uh asella was one of the Hang-Ups in the systematic I don't like yeah it's it's kind of one of the bad a words yeah it is that's but yeah we we will follow up and and there is a point in the audit process where if it it can't be implemented or don't want to implement it management will accept the risk associated with not taking action and that is an option as well mhm okay but do you feel like you're following up on a lot of the these reports yeah yeah all the U followup is is done um anytime a department comes back and says we yes we did that we made this policy I will then ask I need to see the policy and and just really make sure everything is is locked down in that in that space okay well code is probably the most recent example because you did the audit then you came back and we so that that's the example that I would use most recently sorry to interrupt and the idea is that once we highlight the issues the departmental heads take ownership of that and then yeah go forward and Conquer with that information and the changes that have been made I love what your department does cuz it just gives us a whole different view on certain things than maybe that what we sort of have um been exposed to I think you do a great job thank you um okay I'm going to send it to councilwoman breus and I will I guess you'll schedule meetings with all of us um you would like your Leon to reach out to us we can get that on the books thank you so much yeah I just want to say good clean audit I'll look for the six-month update seems like the HR department has more to-do lists than the Civil Service uh but you know it's a collaboration obviously and uh just want to reiterate um I support the Civil Service Commission it's an very important check if other members want to go talk to the Charter committee and you know talk about doing something differently you go but I'll stand for it and I know that our Workforce stands for it because they want a merit based system for employment and promotion they don't want a political or patronage based system and that is why we have a Civil Service Commission in Rena Nevada and that's why we need to have one thank you all right go ahead councilman ree well I think our motion was to accept the audit is that correct so I'll make that motion thank you so much for the hard workk okay thank you I have a motion second I have a second iead do you have some questions councilwoman I I did actually so go ahead we're in discussion so go ahead okay so I noticed in the audit findings that there was some comments here that were made on page 12 of the CI Civil Service audit report it said that um what measures are planned to address this finding Civil Service staff is currently providing routine training to directors and hiring managers and other staff that utilize the neogov applicant tracking system but then underneath it says quarterly training on various civil Serv processes and rules are covered during the regularly scheduled hiring team uh meetings with Department Civil Service staff will continue to provide these in-depth trainings on specific rules and processes that include the portions of recruitment process covered by civil service director and hiring manager attendants at regularly scheduled meetings and trainings is sporadic and interferes with our ability to provide valuable information to them so it sounds like there are some things that are being provided by civil service that maybe aren't being attended Ed by the groups that maybe should attend do you think that that's maybe causing some of the findings in this audit that you know maybe are not necessarily the Vault of civil service following procedure or being available but maybe that there needs to be some communication with the the um hiring managers or people that need to meet with civil service uh thank you for the question councilwoman um I I don't think that that's necessar necessarily the case um from what from what was uncovered during the audit was more of a refinement of what's going into those trainings uh specifically the pii or uh specific roles and and duties so um we would always recommend um that staff trainings be be well attended um but the confusion was beyond um just lack of of of attendance at certain meetings um that would be a management decision on how those trainings are are implemented so you you would say that the the trainings themselves were not not sufficient and what they provid the trainings themselves are great I've attended several um there were just some specific things that um we found that would uh provide Clarity to the issues that came up during the audit period okay so those weren't covered during the trainings uh not specifically the ones that um I attended nor uh did they come up as clar or needed they came up as needed clarification during interviews uh with staff members okay and you would say that's not a result of them not attending the trainings correct okay thank you all right I have a motion I have a second all those in favor say I I all those opposed motion carries all right good job nice to see you guys all right Madame mayor we're on item G1 which is a commissioner appointment to the Reno Housing Authority all right hold on G G1 uh at this time um I believe we're going to hand it over to our city manager awesome well then I would like to recommend that we uh stay the course with Mr ayazi all right thank you so much I have a motion second I have a second all those in favor say I I all opposed motion carries unanimously okay mam clerk back at you thank you Madame mayor we're moving on to item H1 city council comments all right any comments from Council Members I have a comment go ahead so Nevada revised Statute 288 220 certain proceedings not required to be open or Public Sub four any meeting of the governing body of a local government employer with its management representative or Representatives a meeting of the govering body the Reno Charter 3.62 subb says the City attorney shall attend All City Council meetings I don't know how reading those two in tandem the City attorney can feel that he's not going to be present at a gathering meeting of the council to discuss contract collective bargaining with our labor team I don't understand that I don't know what why the City attorney wants to pick and choose how he does his job I I I I don't know if there's a division with the attorney and our city manager and labor groups but I will not participate unless I get a solid briefing that I can read on why those two in tandem do not require the CD attorney to be present at our collective bargaining meetings Shar if I could address that this is John Shipman at the city attorney's office so um as as you remember last year uh the city council hired special Council to handle the labor negotiations briefings um for through through the HR department and it's been our pattern in practice not to attend those meetings as we did in the last go round so that that's essentially where we are at this point today um if there's a need for the City attorney to be there um I mean we're open to hear what that would be but there it we're not here to be um uh doing open meeting law compliance or anything like that because this again is not an open meeting or a meeting of that so if if there's a question or an issue that you have or a legal question that you had we'll be happy to answer it well I've seen you at every other meeting when the city council has exercised the 67th provision and had outside Council So when you say the 67th provision I mean I don't even know what we're talking about there we're we're talking about that in the last Labor go around uh the the the city manager's office and through the city council hired labor um a labor attorney to help with the negotiations still says you attend all meetings of the city council okay and and and again that's you want to decide not to do that with the charter maybe we'll bring it to the Charter committee and and have them look into it but I think you need to be there at all these meetings and I would also like to see this uh contract with the than you okay well I apologize for sort of for that demeanor I would always refer to our our city attorneys who our attorneys Madam mayor you don't need to apologize for me I know I don't apologize for you I don't apologize for you when you Jenny when you hold staff responsible for your extravagant travel can bear I I don't hold you apologize to anyone when you do those sort of things excuse me you always you always want to say stop let me interrupt let's talk all that okay so I don't want I'm when you apologize for me you demean what I'm saying for myself and I don't apologize for you we all are accountable for our own I think you can get a lot more done if you are not if you're not adversarial and if you're going to apologize and use your provision as the chair to minimize what I say done that's a problem I don't I don't apologize for you and your behavior of having people excus for your apologize for you thank you all right moving along Madam clerk go ahead thank you madam mayor um we're moving on to item J1 which is closing public comment we do not have anyone registered um but for the record we did receive five letters of Correspondence either after 4 p.m. yesterday um or items that were General in nature throughout the day today so those were one letters of support one letter of opposition and three letters of concern and with that we have no additional public comment we're moving on to item K adjournment all right second I have a motion a second all those in favor say I I all those oppos motion carries all right thanks everyone um