jardin is absent rhys here and may or she be yeah you do have a quorum of the reno city council okay thank you at this time we're going to send it right back to you mr clerk sorry for public comment certainly we'll get there uh just one moment madam mayor our first item today is public comment 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 three minutes per person and may pertain to matters both on and off the council's agenda please note that the council may not take action upon any matter not agendized on today's agenda when you are called on for public comment please state your name for the record and begin speaking the timer will begin when you say your name and you will be afforded three minutes if you are an attendee in the zoom meeting and would like to make public comment please raise your hand at this time lastly while in this room please be respectful warnings will be issued by the presiding officer if there is disruptive behavior you will be asked to leave chambers if the behavior continues first up we have george eddie lorton followed by terry kleznick followed by alexis motorex for the record my name is george eddie lorton running for reno mayor it's been a while nice to see you well i ended up i wanted to have some words about this up-and-coming position that became vacated in the past the city's had a history instead of an elected and elected position they do appointments they brought it to a whole new art form so now it happened with mr bobsien happened with devin and then it turns it into the fake gift of incumbency so now when it comes to the pet peeve projects and stuff like that we spend endless money if it comes to art or different things endless money so this the way to bring the public in politics and i think we should hold a special election and it's cheap now that we have mail-in ballots it's only one ward so therefore these people can have a say on who it is instead of another yes person so i hope that we will do a special election in an elected position and then all of a sudden they'll come back and say they want to save money well i don't think leaving the public out of this process is worth saving money over so i hope we're going to do a special election in an elected position and then they'll make the argument sometimes to where they'll say that well they appoint committee members and stuff like that yes they do those are appointed positions but in an elected position i think it's extremely important to elect someone in an elected position then the voice of the people are heard so i appreciate your time thank you next up we have terry kalisnik followed by alexis motorex followed by gordon gossage hi i'm terry kaleznick i guess i'm in ward 2. i'm over by virginia lake i'm a a wife a mother a grandmother a realtor and i represent a church member and i represent a whole lot of people who would be here today you but your room wouldn't be able to fill them all so see them all and i'm standing with eddie's opinion that this should be lawfully followed this is an elected position and so we need to hold another election as he stated for this person so uh to be in there because it is another two years before this go round comes again so it an appointment is not satisfying to the people of this city we need to have an election for this person so thank you for listening that's all i have to say thanks terry next up we have alexis motorex followed by gordon gossage good morning my name is alexis motorex with the nevada chapter associated general contractors representing over 300 firms in the commercial construction industry in northern nevada i want to start by saying how sad we are to see councilman councilwoman jordan leave but we wish her well in her new endeavors and thank her for her service and dedication to the city we are here today to encourage council to fill the impending vacancy by appointment rather than special election should you wait to conduct a special election the seat will remain vacant for at least four months leaving the citizens of ward 5 with no representation on this body it would be a disservice to the residents of all of reno to let that seat sit vacant for so long while council addresses the important issues facing our city additionally we are in uncertain economic times and spending tens of thousands of dollars on an unnecessary election for one ward is not the best in in the best interest of all residents of the city of arena who will bear the cost of this the last two vacancies on council were filled by appointment and resulted in two members who have been strong leaders and assets to this community councilman reese and his predecessor david bobsien both of whom represent their constituents so well following their appointments they went on to be elected by their constituents the appointment process is open and very public given giving residents of ward 5 ample opportunity to weigh in on their representation the city charter and nrs provide two options to fill this vacancy given how long a special election will take and the cost of taxpayers it seems making the appointment as only responsible choice thank you thank you next up we have gordon gossage followed by scott meyer good morning my name is gordon gossage with regenesis reno and uh i have to tell you usually i would say let's have a special election but that would be in normal times these are not normal times we need this seat filled because we have election in november and we need all 18 elected leaders of the three jurisdictions to recognize at least one thing and that is joe lombardo won the republican primary and if there's some misguided people who claim that he did not then that's an attack on democracy uh my uncle was killed in the south pacific defending democracy 1944 and he did not die to defend the notion of attacking the capitol building anyone who attacked the capitol building was responsible for the death of people working for the federal government that we elected so i urge you to fill this seat as soon as possible to make sure we have democracy in this country and to help the people who are misguided because they are so angry they are so fearful of the changes that have happened in their country but the answer is not an insurrection 20 percent of americans believe that democracy is so broken that elections should be canceled and the military either federal or local militia should take over the country you guys need to change that whether you're a democrat or a republican i want you to create a coalition to make sure people have faith in the election in the fall am i going to vote for joe lombardo no those who know me obviously know that uh however he is the republican who will be either joe lombardo or it'll be governor sisselok who's going to win and let me just say very clearly my party and my wing of the party the progressive democrats have lost the white working class we've also more and more are losing the latino working class uh the maga movement now has the support of over a third of latinos and we need you guys all 18 of you to support our election system and get rid of the fantasy that someone other than joe lombardo won that election thank you very much up next we have scott meyer how you doing my name is scott meyer i just want to support what eddie lauder said about special election i think i don't think the government would stop working if that seat wasn't filled right away if i'm wrong somebody tell me but i think you know i think things will move along just fine but i think a special election is what you know people deserve is there to be able to have a say in who is uh who sits up here so i just agree with eddie and i just want to make that put that on the record thank you thank you madam mayor at this time that is all we have in-house i do not see anyone on zoom wishing to no it's okay don't don't worry this is for the opening public comment we do not have anyone else signed up for the opening public comment additionally we have not received any written correspondence and we have no voicemails okay go ahead uh councilman yeah mr clerk um yesterday we got about 25 letters of written correspondence related to this i believe they were written for the item itself and not for opening public comments so we have some that will come up later i have the same confusion sorry that's okay sorry just want to make sure everything was these one item meetings are a bit tricky since everyone's speaking on the same thing so i think uh i think we're moving on to item a4 approval of the agenda all right at this time i'm going to ask for a motion i have a motion from council members a second person can we have a discussion on the agenda yeah hold on one second a second from councilwoman dewer yeah uh sending it to you councilwoman thank you madam mayor i understand the haste necessary to schedule this meeting in short notice from monday to today but in contrast to different times there was no consultation with members of the body about their availability i don't even know because i share my private calendar at the request of the office manager if they looked and saw that i had a busy appointment at noon which i do it's a medical appointment long scheduled i cannot cancel it i tried i can i will not ghost one of our small businesses i think medical offices are having its time right now so i'm going to request that if by the time we leave i have to leave in 10 minutes that we when if a boat is taken that we recess until i can return we dated the same courtesy two days ago to the mayor and i'm asking for that courtesy and i also want to state that the charter committee meeting that was held with one work notice was canceled with one work day's notice was also rescheduled to a date without any consultation on availability and i missed that meeting on account of that so um i think this scheduling i don't know if the you know the mayor and the manager have special privileges and setting agendas i don't know if consultation has gone on with other members but it did not go with me this is an important decision i'd like to be here for it i have to walk out of the door in 10 minutes thank you all right thank you so much okay that being said i'm going to send it back to you madam clerk we do have a motion in a second on the table okay i have a motion and a second all those in favor say hi all right all those motion carries okay okay that moves us up to item b1 are you looking for public comment at this time yes okay thank you uh we do have some public comment in the building first up we have rene resentus followed by valerie fianca followed by conor mcquivey thank you my name is renee rosentis for the record um i'm sorry i'm not more prepared to to speak but i'll do the best i can um this is appointing people for elected positions is becoming widespread here in washoe county i know they're trying to do that with school board also they want to appoint the school board members not have elections so um i don't want to see this take precedence and um it affect all the boards um we the people um we are are the voices here and we're the ones that need to be heard and respected and um the um as far as corporations um you know builders whatever um they bring a lot a lot of stuff happening with our um infrastructure and everything it is really affecting it in a lot of areas in a very bad way um but i know i know we're getting um subsidies from the federal government and they are chipping away at our freedom by um by providing that and the board's accepting it um because the more that we allow the federal government to have control the more our country is going to become ruled by the federal government down the road and not the people so um please take that into consideration and this is this is not just a little piece of of what's happening in in our in our um in our town here um and um you know already just what they what happened with the president and and um mar-a-lago and i mean this is tyranny this is tyranny happening right here when we start appointing um representatives rather than have the elected in the elected process so um i am with eddie lorton and those uh opposed to this appointee and we would like to see a special election so thank you all right thanks renee next up we have valerie fiannaka followed by connor mcquivey followed by kurt gotcha valerie fianco for the record business owner here in reno i spent till 10 p.m down at the legislative session this week speaking and listening to speakers about the appointment of school boards this isn't the first time it's come up this is the third legislative session where it's been brought before them the notion of appointing school boards rather than having them elected overwhelmingly the public doesn't want this they want the representation they want to have a voice in how their children are raised and what comes before their children in terms of school books in terms of everything they want to say now their kids are raised the same goes for politics they want their city they want to have a say in how their city is run even though this is a short-term appointment i still think a special a special election is not without reason it's not without reason at all we spend money like it's water in this city an election is the one of the most important things that we the citizens do it gives us voice it gives us it gives us our voice in the city it makes us feel a part of it the more that's taken away from the citizens the less they feel like participating in the in the entire process taking that away from the citizens makes them feel devalued if you want participation by the citizens or maybe that's the whole point maybe you don't want participations by the citizens it just takes more and more away currently we have four school board members who are appointed and no parents i can tell you because i go every two weeks to the school board no parents show up that's appalling we're 50th in the nation in terms of our schools in nevada and there are zero parents that show up the school board why is that because they don't feel like they have a voice i don't know how many citizens you get here at these meetings because i've never come to one never felt the need to but appointing people to your board can do nothing good for you nothing at all it's better to leave the seat open because like you still have a quorum without that one seat you can still do your business without that one seat i would appeal to you to it very minimum leave the seat open for the duration of the term it can do no harm no harm no foul i mean thank you for your time thank you next up we have connor mcquivey followed by kurt gotcha followed by jess trujillo good morning city council my name is connor mcquiddy i'm here to encourage you to hold an election for this seat i know that last time there was an open seat that was done by appointment and i think that was fine it was less than a year until the election councilman reese went on to win be supported by the voters this is a little different my understanding is this seat won't be up for election until 2024. that's two years and i think the voters of ward 5 should have a say in who's going to be representing them for that two-year period i don't live in ward 5 i would not be able to participate in this election but i do think that it's important for voters to be able to have a say the other thing i would encourage you to do for this special election if you do it if it is possible is to do it with a ranked choice election and there's a few reasons for that here in nevada in november there's a ballot initiative to run our state elections with a ranked choice system i think it's a good way to go i think it is a better way of doing our elections i know there are people on this body who support ranked choice voting and i think this is a good opportunity to put our money where our mouth is and demonstrate it i don't know what the rules are for running these elections i don't know legally what has to be done in order for it to be ranked choice but i think it's something that we can do and lead the conversation on over the next couple months a lot of people in nevada and in reno are going to be learning about talking about debating ranked choice voting and for us as a city to be able to lead that conversation to show how it works to talk about ranked choice voting i think is really important it's a great opportunity for us as a city and i hope that you will take it secondly rank choice voting is nothing new for the people of reno i voted here in reno in a ranked choice election two years ago the democratic primaries in 2020 were held with a ranked choice vote the way that works for people who don't know ranked choice voting basically instead of just voting for one person you put the candidates in order that's my first pick that's my second pick that's my third pick what that does is ensures that who wins the seat has the most broad appeal we can do that we've done it before we're also not the only place that's doing potentially ranked choice voting seattle just voted to do it new york city just did it in their mayoral election alaska is doing it statewide and as i said it's going to be on the ballot here in nevada very very soon the third reason i think you need to do an election for this seat is as you've seen in public comment today there is a lot of criticism that this body may not accurately represent the will of the people and if you appoint someone to this seat as unfortunate as it is i think you'll be looking at two years of across the aisle both the people who've spoken today and people that are ideologically very opposed to the people that have spoken today they're all going to be spending two years accusing you of not listening to the voters and i don't think that's good for the city so i encourage you to hold an election and if you're able to do it via rank choice so that reno can really lead the conversation because i think that's where our elections are going and i'd like to be at the forefront of it thank you thank you adam mayor because i have to leave could i make a public comment thank you um my position from when the last time we had a vacancy is that the voters should decide and not the members of this potty body and i still have not changed my position there's a lot going on in ward one right now i have a lot of constituents reaching out to me they want me to work on their constituent needs over the next month not in political decisions and that's what an appointment essentially is i also believe strongly that when an individual individual goes out and gains a seat for the first time those conversations with voters the humble demands of a candidate follow through to that person when they see and i think appointments they miss that step of growth as a candidate so those are why i support an election at this time i have strong reservations if this body decides to go through with an appointment and even participating i don't know that i would want to legitimize what i believe is a political farce i think it enhances the power of individual bodies on this membership members on this body in service to those who have political influence because that's always a characteristic of these appointments who's supporting who and for me i think the support for this position needs to come not from us and who has our ear but from the voters in the neighborhoods in ward 5. nicu and i have to leave and and i hope the um body will hold the vote until i'm available at 2pm thank you tom clerk next up we have kurt gotcha followed by jess trujillo followed by nick martin good morning my name is kurt gottschalk um for those that don't know me uh i'm a 43-year resident of the community with all but two years of that time spent in reno i'm actively involved in the community and one of the comments i would make in regards to this issue is that i'm not a person who if elected becomes a perpetual government employee i used to not support term limits i support term limits heavily now i dislike when members of an elected board or council go from county to city city to state state into city or other positions that they're given i think that's wrong an election is how the citizens choose who they want they don't want ward one at large ward 2 ward 4 choosing their representative they want that representative chosen by themselves they know what is best they don't want a rubber stamp person put in this place and the election excuse me election process does that democracy is an election democracy isn't appointments cost i've heard the association of contractors thinks it costs too much to hold the election well recently this council voted a hundred and thirty seven thousand five hundred dollars to buy a whale and repair it i think the cost of this election far more important than a hundred and thirty seven thousand five hundred dollar whale and if cost comes into being if you can't hold this election for that amount then we have a problem but anything under that significantly under that i think we can hold an election maryland ballots as mr lord said can be utilized inexpensively done independent thinking versus partisan skullduggery the independent thinking is what occurs with your citizens partisan skullduggery is what happens when elected officials get involved and partisan politics comes about not conforming to what the world asks of you is your birthright to greatness allow the process to prevail allow us to be able to vote for who we want to represent us from the people that would come forward to want that opportunity thank you for your time thank you up next we have jess trujillo followed by nick martin hello jester here um so in my honest opinion since i've started coming to these meetings whenever i am able to my faith in democracy is that it is dead um been born and raised here and i have seen just how everything is slightly collapsing under this council that we have i am in favor of a special election because we should have somebody that represents the people and not somebody that can be bought out by huge corporations um so that's my honest opinion on that and i do believe if you guys don't go through with it you will go ahead and continue to piss off the people and the people will react so i'm going to keep it short and simple at that and i hope you do go ahead and listen to the people and not to the people that line your pockets with money up next is nick martin good morning i'm nick martin i've been a reno resident for 42 years and 64 years old and for my lifetime i've seen a gradual usurping of the power of the people in other words bureaucracy and government has grown immensely in my lifetime as yours has and taking away the power from the people and this is an example of that where the person originally sitting in that seat was elected by the voters now appointed if you do this by a group of elitists people who think they know better than us what's good for us okay i would um you know i thought i'd say well i'd request that you do this election i'm more i'm more likely to demand it at this point i mean the the the that growth in government the growth and the power with the government is in overdrive right now since mr trump pulled down the curtain and let everybody see what's happening that's why we've gone from an basically a stroll to an out-and-out sprint towards socialism now a concrete example of that i went to a council meeting recently excuse me a commissioner's meeting recently and they voted down a bill that called for voter id and as i said in that meeting there's only two groups of people that would be against voter id first are idiots second are mediocre politicians who need the ability to tweak elections to maintain power those are the two groups i see being against voter id okay as you can see i'm a little upset and i'm not alone or getting a little angry you know we need the stuff to stop we need the power back with the people and it's not just a statement it's not just a bumper sticker you know this is a big deal huge deal that thing in mar-a-lago was as egregious as anything i've ever seen in my lifetime i just watched a clip this morning of peter ducey asking the press secretary for the president are you in fact weaponizing the justice department against an opponent she refused to answer the question that should have been a flat out no it's so obvious what's going on it's getting ridiculous and i know we're small we're one little city one little person but that matters that matters so i would request i would demand that you hold this election rather than just appointing somebody because when we elected you when we allow you to sit the seat and and tell us what to do run the city okay we had some faith in you but that doesn't mean you can take our rights away okay thank you thank you nick madam mayor that was our last in-person commenter it does appear we have uh lee wilhelm on zoom we'll bring him over to speak okay sounds good timer's ready when he's pulled over he you are just a moment okay mr wilhelm you're ready to speak please unmute your microphone now can you hear me yes hi good good morning how's everybody i'm glad to be here um i'm sad that we have to fill this position but i ran for this office uh in the past um and i also uh applied to run uh for uh at large uh when we were filling it in the same process i just wanted to know that i'm very interested i was interested before and i think uh most of the people i've talked to uh that's why we have you guys in offices to decide how you want to appoint or have this position elected so i think you need to know that we trust what you choose to do and that we're very interested so thank you for your time i am also concerned about i believe you only have 30 days to fill this position by law and so that concerns me thank you thank you uh for the re so that is all of our public comment for the record we received 20 comments which were directly associated with the agenda item prior to 4 p.m on august 11 2022. these comments were written 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 to the public on the reno.gov meeting portal one of these emails was in favor one in opposition and 18 concerned and additionally there are no voicemails that were received okay thank you just for the record the mayor asked me to sit in for her while she used the facilities so i think is the next point on the agenda presentation by our clerk about process if you would introduce yourself mickey and please proceed thank you council member door all right so we are here today to discuss the options that you have to fill the upcoming vacant the upcoming vacancy in the ward 5 seat currently held by council member neoma jardin as you're aware councilmember jardin submitted a letter of resignation to the city of reno on august 8th with an effective date of august 15 2022. the ward 5 seat runs from november 22 through november 2024 this means that we're seeking direction and a decision from you today on how to fill this seat for the remainder of the current term [Music] this process is governed by nrs 265 or 268.32 and reno city charter chapter 1.070 these sections have been shared with each of you and are a part of the city council packet so let's begin with 2.68325 which states if a vacancy occurs on the governing body of a city the governing body may in lieu of appointment declare by resolution a special election to fill the vacancy in section 1.070 of the reno city charter it states that if we proceed with a vacant or with an appointment that must be completed within 30 days after the occurrence of a vacancy and so those are the two essentially paths and topics that we're going to review together today in both scenarios the person that is elected or appointed to fill the seat must have the same qualifications as required of an elected official for a campaign session option number one the first option here today is special election as stated in your packet i did make contact with the washoe county registrar of voters in effort in an effort to obtain a cost estimate and a timeline estimate for a special election in speaking with jamie rodriguez we have been quoted an estimate of 102 thousand dollars to hold up a special election for this position with the exclusion of the costs associated with standing up vote centers because we don't know how many vote centers would need to be stood up at this time we don't have an estimate to include however that is not indicated in that 102 000 additionally the secondary portion of this is the timeline so no action can be taken on a special election until after the completion of the 2022 general election in anticipation for this as you can see i have outlined here that we would not begin work on a special election process until january of 2023 um and then additionally which would mean an estimated i apologize an estimated uh election and completion of the election would not be completed until march or april of 2023 several of you have asked me about the potential of including this vacancy on the 2022 general ballot and in anticipation for that discussion i did speak with the deputy secretary of state for elections mark valashen and you will note his correspondence is also included inside of your packets today and it's outlined in nrs 293 165 the timelines for elections to be completed and so because of that we don't have um it's not outlined in the timeline to be able to include this position in our current 2022 general election session all right so special election timeline so today obviously we're talking about the method for filling the vacancy if you choose to go forward with a special election on our regularly scheduled meeting on august 24th we will bring forward a resolution for adoption on process funding and a timeline for the special election um an estimated of february of 2023 we would likely um i'm sorry candidates would file for their position and then we would hold the special election likely towards the end or the beginning of at the end of february the beginning of march and then likely at the end of march or the beginning of april we would canvas the votes of that said election all right option number two is city council selection and appointment so this is a process that our office is extremely comfortable with as you can see here we have conducted the appointment process in 2014 for council member bob zian additionally in 2019 for at large council member devin reese we've participated in all of the appointments application processes for the city manager and then additionally the appointment processes for the city clerk with this process ward 5 residents would have representation within 30 days which means that at our first council meeting on september 14 2022 those ward 5 members would have representation at that first meeting and again the 30 days is outlined in reno city charter 1.070 the appointment timeline is as follows august 12th today again we're reviewing the appointment process for filling the vacancy starting on monday next week because we are against that 30-day timeline we would start accepting applications so monday through friday of next week the 15th through the 19th we would accept applications on august 25th those applications would be reviewed and finalists would be selected and then on september 7th those applicants would be interviewed by the reno city council a selection would be made and they would be sworn in on september 7th something you may not see here that we have done in the past is um in-person interview or in-person meet and greets for the potential applicants we did take that into consideration assuming that council would want those individuals that were selected as finalists to meet with their constituents to have an opportunity for them to ask questions and get to know the potential candidates of who would be representing their award and so with that in mind we have scheduled out the week of august 29th potentially two dates one would be a hybrid virtual slash in-person option for those who cannot attend they can attend via zoom engage and interact with the candidates and then additionally we would do one um in-person interview so instead of last time we only did one meet and greet this time we're proposing doing two to really allow for time for the public to meet with their um with the applicants and so today the recommendation you have two options which are presented before you today either option one to proceed with filling the vacancy through a special election or to fill the vacancy with an appointment process and to direct staff to move forward with a timeline with the timeline presented [Music] i have no nothing further okay thank you um i'm gonna start with that's what i'm doing go ahead yeah thank you um thanks for the summary um you've gathered a lot of information in a short time so i appreciate it um i have questions on both processes really quick um if we did a special election would there be two phases like a primary and a general or would it just be one election period in my review it seems that it's just one election period okay okay the second question i have on special election is why would we have to wait till after the november election to even get started on the process to i don't get that part the registrar of voters currently and until about mid-december is very busy trying to prepare for the general election there's a lot of moving parts to that current process and so they are not available or accessible to us to hold up a special election until after the general is completed and it has to be the county clerk versus a you who is our clerk yes so in charter or in nrs because of our size we are required to go through the washoe county registrar of voters to complete any of our election processes and could they since election i think is in the first week i want to say or you know roughly november 8th or so or 7th i'm sorry i don't have the exact date um would and then there's a period where we have to certify and when is that period to certify the general 10 days so they would have certified the election by 10 days after so mid-november let's say before thanksgiving correct so i guess i'm still confused why we would have to wait all the way till january because they would have already certified the election i apologize jamie's not here to answer questions for you today but there is still a period of time after that where they can recall they can ask for a recount on votes there's also a period of other legal issues that the washoe county registrar needs to make sure that they're wrapping up all of their processes and in order to accomplish that or achieve that they needed that additional amount of time until about mid-december before they were they were available to us um to start working on the special election okay but even mid-december is earlier than mid-january so i said we would start the filing process in january so we would have to start to get all of the paperwork and all of our procedures in order to start to stand up the election in january okay then i have a question on the appointment process um you said something about two meet and greets and would you explain that again and just really quickly and i'm going to be running out of time so the real let me go to another question last time we did this there was a narrowing so i think about 100 people applied and somehow we narrowed that process to four can you just explain that and i didn't see that on this discussion yep so in the last time um you did in fact have a narrowing process so we brought forward all of the applications for review city council then um did a scoring system and they narrowed it down to their top five which actually ended up being their top four and then from there those finalists went and did a meet and greet so in this process it would be the exact same if you will on august 25th that at that point in time you would be reviewing the finalists reviewing the applications and selecting your finalists and then from that list those individuals would move forward to the meet and greet sessions okay so that explains that i'll come back on round two with more questions councilman reece thank you madam mayor i guess i have a couple of questions they're similar um to what ms stewart asked about the first is this question about whether or not there would be a primary and a general and so there are in nevada primary elections general elections and special elections and those are three different things in their statutes is that correct that's correct and in this regard then for if we chose the route of the election we would have let's say 10 12 17 25 candidates and then the person who i don't know how many would apply obviously but the person who got the the plurality of that so that means that a person could be elected to this body with like seven percent of the vote right that's correct okay um i think in my last general election i won i think 55 of the vote city-wide i don't recall that my opponent ever acknowledged that because i think he is an election denier so i'm just not sure but you have a process by which we have to canvas the votes right that's correct and so i guess i'm trying to figure out how does that happen in a scenario in which there are 17 persons that run and there's a plurality of them you still do the same canvassing process that's yeah so the certification of the votes is essentially it's a record and a report produced by the washoe county registrar of voters of the totals and then that certification comes forward to this body to just review the totals and then accept it and then our charter committee has recently spent the last six months looking at the charter did they bring up this issue in their conversations about what charter changes they wanted meaning we have an election or an appointment process that is part of our constitutional document the charter which suggests to me that it is a part of our democratic process did any of the charter members raised this issue in that process we did have one of the charter committee members bring it up as a discussion point ultimately the charter committee reviewed the topics they reviewed the discussion items and they decided that the decision was um the decision really was on the secretary of state's office because ours is very much in alignment with um nrs and because of that they decided that it was a larger issue for um different conversations so your concern or their concern was that it was a legislative priority or or it's a priority of this body it was a legislative priority okay um when you identified the costs related to the special election you said that it was 102 000 was the estimate but that did not include opening up voting centers how many voting centers do you know exist in ward 5 in a traditional election you know i did not ask that question of ms rodriguez and so i'm not really certain what the total would be currently or what it will be in the future so but it would be either like a rallies or a school kind of scenario okay and then you have to have election workers work those correct yeah okay that's all i have on this round thank you all right council member i don't know if there's we have anyone up there mr clerk uh would any of the council members on zoom like to speak i don't have any i don't think um this is council woman weber whoa we understand that we think there's a possibility the meeting might be corrupted and i don't know that we can fix this echo right now so i think we're okay so i think we may just have to trudge along council member weber yes thank you so much i i don't have anything i think i've heard a lot of good information so um waiting for the other questions what have you thank you is it possible to turn it down the volume maybe we can do that council member delgado would you like to speak no thank you thanks for asking appreciate my colleagues questions okay all right thank you madam clerk just run this by me again so i understand because i i find it just really mind-blowing that we couldn't get it on this election so explain that to me again and then also go through the timeline of that for the special election yeah okay so in um i just in elections law it outlines a specific amount of time with which a candidate has to file their application to run for office and what is that two weeks i don't have that in front of me it's like the first two weeks of january for municipals and then it's the first two weeks in march i believe for non-judicial positions um and so they then take that have a period of time so basically march to june to prepare for the primary election season and that all of those dates are outlined in nrs and then additionally once that is completed they also have additional amount of time then between june and november to complete their general election and so because we have missed those timelines we aren't um eligible or those out those those timelines aren't indicated in law for us to be able to input our current situation onto the general ballot okay so then coming back to timelines how long does it take us to get there it just seems like an exorbitant amount of time so how long early spring i mean spring of 23 is is likely that the next moment that we will have a representative for ward 5 if we do a special election so we're talking what six months maybe eight months eight months what well it's august it's early august so basically now until april march april seven months and again these aren't defined so i don't have firm dates it's just it would be early spring um and listen i think everyone made a lot of great comments today i absolutely do i understand exactly how you feel i was really leaning in the special side um because i just i believe that and i believe that's why we do have elections so the people that um you know choose their own candidates um obviously term limits everyone will get their their decision and they'll get to do that at some point the one thing i have though is the timeline that it seems like a really concerning amount of time um ward five i guess if you're saying eight months i mean that means it puts us closer into a year that's a lot of time and i guess my concern is when i start to think about it there's also other boards and commissions that she serves on that really need representation in ward 5. so that's a long time i had no idea i thought we could just get it on this ballot i mean i'm i'm pretty shocked actually go ahead yeah um i want to say a couple things first of all i gave this a lot of thought over the last few days since all the time we've had and i i kept coming down on the side of special election i i felt like now more than ever we have word only voting we when we appointed the other two positions they were both at large where we most of us on council went through a city-wide election today i think it's only one person that didn't go through a citywide election so i felt like okay we were appointing at large i also did a little research it just happened to fall into my lap um going back to 83 and there have been openings before and all of those openings not just the last two openings but all of the openings have been filled at least since 83 by appointment it's been more than 30 years since we've done a special election and right now so i did that research just to to inform myself but but all all that said i didn't delve into whether those were at large but because back then we had city-wide voting and we've only had ward only voting since 2018 i want to say uh roughly is when it took effect and um this is a ward and i um what's that i think i said i don't support that yeah i i don't support it i you weren't here but yesterday last meeting i actually at our bdr suggested we go back to citywide election and consider that for our next um bdr discussion in two years um because i believe that that combination that we had which was word only in the primary and um the general was citywide i think was a very good system i really do and the theory about reducing cost well that hasn't proven out the theory about increasing representation that hasn't proven out so so far that's where i'm leaning and i'm going to be advocating for that when we come back in two years um but all that said um and i i i have to tell the audience it's spoken while i agree with uh and also the comments that came in i agree with the the end result because i'm very much leaning towards an election special election but i don't necessarily do it for the same reasons i do it because i think that our highest ideals in democracy rely on representative elections elections that result in a representative for a group of people in this case it's not the whole city it's just ward only and so that's kind of informed my decision more than ever also like the mayor i thought we have an election coming up it's perfect people are primed there's three months that's about how long people spend on either a primary or a general it made a lot of sense to me even when i found out that they could not be on the same ballot because it hasn't been certified i thought well it could still be a special election that occurs on the same day um even if it's two ballot cards one for everybody on this certified field and one on this certified field only for the people in ward 5. it'd be like doing it only a gid election only an hoa election you know those kind of things a tv district election all of those are small smaller pools so i really thought um you know these things could be done in parallel even if they can't be on the same ballot so that's where i came in thinking today you have you have stunned me with this timeline yeah i mean you really have and and i don't even know if i agree with this timeline i i feel like we should go ask a question even if we have to schedule another meeting to to the registrar because these almost seem like okay i get that you're short staffed or whatever but you know this is very important and even if we have to bring in extra staffing i mean this is a very important activity and the seat needs to be filled as soon as possible that's why they given us an appointment in only 30 days everyone recognizes that we should not let this linger for a year um so those were some of my thoughts um um i read all the comments i heard the comments here today i agree with them not with the same reasoning that was discussed and and i'll just be honest about that but i just feel like it's the right thing to do in this particular moment and really clarify the why you know because i think that's an unnecessary barrier you know that's being put in front of us that's muddling our decision making so thank you madam mayor all right go ahead councilman reece thank you i guess i want to start my questions with our city attorney and ask is the city of reno in a dillan's rule state at liberty to vary the election laws of the state of nevada no we're not okay i want to ask because this is also part of the historical background for miss doer who has looked at the city of reno's appointments but i thought let's figure out about appointments in this country because the principle that appointments are anti-democratic is false so president trump nominated and appointed 40 i'm sorry 4 000 persons to office vacancies are filled by and i didn't know this until i looked up in for gubernatorial appointments for senate vacancies by governor in 37 states those include alabama arkansas delaware florida georgia illinois indiana iowa kansas kentucky maine maryland minnesota missouri montana new hampshire new jersey new mexico north carolina ohio pennsylvania south carolina south dakota tennessee west virginia and wyoming and i shared that to say again the the concept that an appointment is not democratic is anathema to our system of government it's literally in our charter and i i don't see how governors should be able to appoint u.s senators but we are somehow questioning our ability to appoint at this body and so um i i appreciate some of the comments made by folks in the audience i'm not sure i come at it from the same direction either i believe in the integrity of our elections i believe that democracy has been strong and is robust and although i think as mr gossage pointed out there were efforts to overthrow this country and includes probably some of the folks who have similar world views that have made comments both here today and online i just cannot agree with that i also wanted to offer for one of the commentaries i think i heard the concern about my having been appointed and what the timeline was i actually served for 22 months in the role as an appointed position so the idea that somehow the length of time determines it i think the truth is if we had been in january or february we would have found a way to make it so that we could have had a primary and a general the concern i have is not only is it we are not going to be able to vary the conditions of state law relating to elections or the washoe county recorder's staffing levels or how they engage in those but we also are creating a system in which the special election would happen in like january february march well what kind of turnout do you think you'll have in that kind of a period of time in just right after having had an election in a ward that is pretty compact but i'm not sure is different or unrepresentative of the rest of the city and i think they are representative it spans ever from downtown to somerset and so again uh my concern is that even the special election route on that timeline would not be representative of our democracy or our democratic process so i will be supporting the appointment process for city manager to see if she could if we could patch jamie in oh that's a great idea ms rodriguez is not yet on zoom uh we will pull her over as soon as we see her and i will notify you i'm just curious how many of your republicans in the room raise your hand yeah raise your hand are you a republican raise your hand are you a democrat raise your hand no this is my point are you an independent raise your hand right all of us together it doesn't matter right this is about this is about the people right it just seems to that it gets very partisan and that's not the process madam mayor uh ms rodriguez is on zoom we were in the process of pulling her over and i always do that i always ask because i'm an independent i don't believe in supporting parties because you know bad policy in the party madam mayor ms rodriguez is a panelist now ms rodriguez can you hear us please unmute your microphone can you hear me yes we can perfect um madam mayor i'll defer to you i don't know if you want me to kind of go into some of the questions that i've heard um and answer those or if you guys have specific ones you'd like me to kind of start with miss rodriguez this is this is doug thornley would you um expand upon why after the completion of the general election in november it will take an extended period of time to have a special election um certainly uh so jamie rodriguez for the record in term registrar voters for washoe county um so i think one thing that people do not appreciate for elections as the election will be completed um we have um an additional about we have until the end of november uh specifically november uh 22nd for candidates to be able to um request a recount um and not knowing whether a recount will be requested or not we would have to build that into our timeline which easily puts us into early december at the completion of any sort of a recount or not a recount we still are in early december to complete our risk limiting audits and the final kind of cleanup of the election um that has to happen um here uh before anything else could happen we have to you know box up ballots uh we'd have to make room for any any new election that would be happening and that does take the entirety of our staff and so that's why we were saying uh you know going into mid-december is really when we would be completing the bulk of our work that's related to the general election um since at that point time we'd be going into the holidays um that was why my conversation with mickey was us looking at january um to really start the process um of creating an election um and i don't know um if if we want to go into kind of that timeline or if there was just more of a question of why we would have to start um or why we were saying uh not being able to start until early january um i ask a quick question mr rodriguez are you here over at the county building i am at the county building yes i mean is there any chance we could take a short recess i i had a very hard time hearing her um you know for 15 minutes for her just to come over is that possible i had a very hard time understanding oh okay okay just thought i'd ask him i i want to understand this unfortunately with my schedule i don't know that realistically that would i'd be able to do that and make the rest of my meetings okay could you just repeat the part about december you said you would finish and then so we would be finishing in mid-december for the risk limiting audit and the completion of the election so that's boxing and storing all of the election materials um so that's the ballots that's undeliverable mail that is the empty envelopes from the election that is any challenge ballot um all of that takes us into mid mid to potentially late december were you able to understand that i think i understood that she was going to be boxing stuff up yeah so after after the expiration of the time for a recount the expiration of the time to challenge the results of the election uh the completion of the audit and for ms rodriguez and her staff to button up and then store all of the relevant records she's into mid to late december got that can i ask her a question okay mr rodriguez um one of the things that's come up here today is i understood we had to have a special election but is it possible and i know that you are short staff but boxing up and those kind of things maybe can be done by others but is is it possible to do a a special election in parallel with the current election that you're running um it is not and i'll i'll explain why again jamie rodriguez for the record um the reason i say no with the transition to vote centers um in the state of nevada that means we would have to have separate machines um at every single vote center specifically programmed for that special election i do not have enough equipment um to conduct the general election for the number of machines that would be at both centers as well as the backups that we have and have enough dedicated to be able to actually have specific machines at every center for that special election so one more question okay i heard you one more question is it it's been mentioned a couple times that um mail-in would be part of this is it possible per our law which was amended to have a mail-in only system for this special election i don't believe so um i would have to confirm that and the reason i say i don't believe so nevada does have an all mail-in election system however we do also have the ability for voters to opt out of a mail-in election which means if you have any voters in city ward 5 who have opted out of receiving a mail ballot you would be prohibiting their ability to vote in the special election okay thank you and madam mayor i do want to point out council member weber does have her hand up on zoom council member weber [Music] thank you i'm trying to get in let me see thank you so much am i too loud now we're trying to adjust your volume you can go ahead okay um i don't have a question for miss rodriguez so i would wait until after all of the questions were and answered by her okay sounds like it sounds like she's going to wait her questions i don't have a question about uh from her it's from staff i can wait until after we're done with ms rodriguez is that clear okay okay all right any more questions from jamie i mean i guess i'll just one okay last thing i mean thank you for being here and making yourself available because we're finding ourselves in a very unusual situation um something i actually thought was the simplest situation that we could be facing and one of the simpler decisions that we would be facing and i find it overly complicated by staffing um you know issues and there was even a comment made earlier that um you know by mr reese and it was an interesting comment that if we have were in january we could have added it into another ballot system and done a whole primary but the position still would have been vacant nine months if we did that you know or ten months or whatever it is so i'm not sure that would have necessarily solved it so if if not now when i guess i'm going to ask when when would be a perfect time to have a special election i know that maybe you can't answer that i guess if the jamie if the vacancy had just happened in january then you could have done it in expedited fashion from january to march is that what you're saying um so i will say [Music] i don't know that there is a perfect time i'll be perfectly honest um giving you a perfect time for somebody to resign is something i don't think i i can honestly answer um where we've reached kind of a difficulty as mickey mentioned right there's that candidate filing period that's specific to a general election there is a statutory date which is the fourth friday in july which was july 22nd that is the last day for a general election for which we could make any changes to that ballot um so that is to allow for you know any last-minute questions on the ballot and those types of things um in the middle of any election um it's going to be really difficult for us to run two uh elections at the same time so i get that and the statutory i just want to make sure i understand because obviously we don't want to be illegal so the statutory requirement is there a statutory requirement for special elections versus the primary general process i'm not sure that i understand the point well we were we want to hold this in inconsistent with state law and we were told there have to be certain time frames and timelines and our attorneys spoke and i'm just trying to make sure i understand what those timelines are so we don't violate them so there's um and i'd be honest i'd have to go and look at the nrs specific to special elections it's been a while since we've had one in washoe county um to speak to those specific requirements but i can tell you in terms of general requirements for any election um of why we would say we need to start you know in january but that it would take all that additional time is you do have to have the requirement for the candidate filing period for special elections you have some flexibility as to what that timeline is but from there we have to work on the creation of the election and that's working with our vendors to create the election the ballot we have to create um sample ballots send those to our vendors to be printed and mailed out to residents the creation of a mail ballot to be printed and mailed out to constituents we have timelines that are required for programming of the voting machines to be able to use those machines they have to be tested they have to be programmed all of that takes a large amount of time that takes several months for us to really complete on a special election we could do that in a slightly more expedited manner because i don't have we don't have as much on the ballot right i'm going to have one office with an unknown number of candidates not multiple offices not multiple rules related to who you'd be voting for and how you'd be voting but those are those are those are some of the statutory things that i have to do in order to conduct an election and so when we talk about the timeline what we built into that was the ability to meet all of those requirements um that i have to do before i can hold any election special or regularly right okay well thank you i appreciate your answers okay and i appreciate our clerk figuring out the sound system i think good job any more questions from uh to jamie that there are none um then in the interest of time i'm going to ask for a motion on this item i am going to say listen i am not opposed to special elections at all um i am opposed to though keeping this vacant that long that is a really really long time um and i think councilman reese made a really good point in the sense that bodies do appoint all the time present presidents and past presidents have done the same thing other bodies do it all the time and then what would happen is um then i also like the fact that we would bring everyone in on an appointment so everyone can meet the candidates i would also say you know tell everyone you possibly can in ward 5 to come and apply we want to see a lot of candid candidates come forward and also meet them i think that that's really important and not to mention because it is you know a smaller percentage of the award i wish it was city-wide i i do think that that should change i've always been against ward only um so anyway i'm just gonna i'm gonna send it to councilman madam go ahead go right ahead i still i still did want to have a question if that's okay so thank you yeah go ahead sure um i i did want to talk about the appointment process and and have um if staff would go over that again because i think that if we you know i i feel like we can't wait for a special election i just i just feel that the placement needs to be sooner than later but can we go because that process in my mind really is about the public being involved by because of how how we do it and we do hear from the public um as well so i are from our constituents from the constituents of ward 5. and i think we bring that all into a good process um i'm going to just ask our city attorney mr hall would you like us to take a motion and then talk about what that looks like but what what's that i think what it whatever you would prefer you know i don't think you can talk about the process and then take the motion that might give you additional information okay thank you all right madam clerk you want to give us some information sure okay thank you so specific to council member weber's question um and i don't know councilmember if you can see the timeline that's up on the screen or that's being shared via zoom but essentially um starting on monday if we move forward with the appointment process starting on monday we would accept applications from monday to friday on those applications would be uploaded to the reno.gov website every single day so that just like we do for candidate filings those in the public our council members everybody has the ability to review the applications and see who's applying on august 25th council will meet and narrow the results and select finalists for the position the week of august 29th we would hold two meet and greet sessions for constituent engagement and then finally on september 7th we would review or council would interview the finalists and make an appointment okay thank you very much i didn't get that week of august 29th where we have the public participation so i think that's really a good one too so thank you very much and i will wait for the motion okay thank you so much i just i think it's interesting either way we go to a special election people say oh you didn't have anyone sitting in that seat for eight months almost a year right then uh we go to appointment it'll be out there if you guys are corrupt um it's sort of the narrative that you hear today so either side you know you kind of don't win so i want everyone to know it's it's a it's always those are always tough decisions but what i would say like i said i want you guys to encourage everyone you possibly can and ward five to put in for this seat really really important for one for two it will have the meet and greets you also you know all of us up here are very accessible uh if you have a candidate that you really like you know put your support behind them that's important be a part of the process not just this one time because you know many of you i see all the time and i appreciate you you coming but some of you i haven't seen before so get involved in the process because really that's what's going to help all of us as a community make those decisions and make a better community even though when we don't always agree we have to be respectful and be kind to each other um you know i think we've lost our way in a lot in some of these difficult times so you know let's like i said either way this council will be called one or the other you know this can't win mr lorton so you know how that is it's just tough you know so i want everyone to understand um anyway i'm going to send it to councilman reese give me a motion wait one more thing i do want to say something i i'm really interested in you know doing some of the research that people had sent to me i i will say i was pleasantly surprised um about the cost of having an election um so i think that that is a good thing because i had heard oh it's 500 000 so i i do want to know who does pay for that in the special election the city of reno the general fund yes the general fund yeah okay i was just curious about that okay all right councilman reece go right ahead thank you madam mayor i moved to fill a vacancy in the ward 5 council seat through an appointment process and direct staff to move forward with the timeline as presented including the public comment periods in the 29th week of the 29th all right i have a motion from councilman reece do i have a second i have a second from councilman delgado and a mayor yes uh discussion councilwoman doerr yeah thank you um i came here very clearly in favor of having a special election that that's what i planned to vote for i thought about it i had analyzed it i did research except i didn't speak to our county clerk or chief elections officer um i'm extremely disappointed to find out the timeline and i had expected one way or another we could have a person in the seat by november december one way or the other in parallel or after or in between or something and and that's what i came here with even if it had been january i was prepared to accept that but what we've just heard from her is we're looking at april and eight months of vacancy and i don't know that that serves well either in you know i that's what's really bothering me is to have a vacancy this long um so i'm going to just repeat some things i said i think that democracy demands elections um i think we are buy our charter buy our position um set up to do appointments you know it's our duty whether whether we have word only voting or not ward only voting it's our job to pick the best candidate we've done a pretty good job so far we didn't just appoint these people we appointed judges as well i mean you know despite what you presented to us so that i am i'm really i'm very much struggling but i want to support the effort i want to get a person in there and it is not my preference whatsoever but at this i could vote no and it still passes and and i i'm not wired that way i want to support the team i want to get this done so i'm i'm expressing my personal belief that you know if at all possible and if it was even possible today i would be asking our manager to go have a conversation with the clerk and review all of the to the county and review is this all set in stone is this must be is there any way that we could change these timelines uh speed them up uh add extra staff get temporary staff do whatever it took i mean that's where where i would be coming from um you know but i am not her she's she's in this job this is what she does and so i have to take you know what she said is how it is and so um you know i guess i will be prepared to support the motion very reluctantly so that's where i stand all right thank you um oh so i have a motion in a second all those in favor say aye hi all those opposed hi motion carries okay madame clerk right back at you thank you i believe that takes us to item c our final public comment and bear with me one second look at this squared away i do not see that we have anyone in if if it's okay with you we'll have a speaker who can fill out the card afterwards so you can speak and then fill out afterwards sure no problem hi for the record george eddie lorton and i am disappointed in the process and it seems like maybe i appreciate your comments naomi that we could have a conversation with the county manager and they will find a way so i would hope maybe we could have another discussion about this because truly now as divisive as everything is it's more important now here people try to accuse people of not believing in the process but yet we want the process don't you so this is the way to have the process so i would hope that possibly you know you can do a thing called reconsideration too and then we could bring it back to the table maybe after a conversation i know this stuff inside and out so we can make it happen see it's cheaper than you thought we spend money like water i mean on pet peeve projects we have tons of different things we do where this is one of the most important things we can do so i'm just hoping if you want to bring the public back in the process and bring the public in politics i'm for it i don't think you know six seven people here should decide for that ward and before i've thought they've appointed their yes person to be honest and stuff like that so you know through that way i think that would take that away from put it in the public's hands and i don't see what's wrong with that you know and then uh when people mention where they did all these appointments and stuff well there's been special elections too and there wasn't timeline on those appointments but there has been many special elections as well so i'm hoping that maybe we could resolve it it's a new day it's a new time things are terrible it's hard it's weird that people like us sign up for things like this and i'm sure you being through it you know what we've been through so but here i am again i'm persistent consistent i don't give up and i think one day it's going to pay off i think hopefully i can do a great job here but in the meantime we're relying on everybody here to hopefully do the right thing for once i'm asking and reconsideration could happen within a week and we could maybe talk to the county manager anything can happen anything's possible i don't see why not have another side card if they can't put it on the forms and just streamline the process or something if you ask people it's amazing what they can do so thank you for your time all right thanks eddie thank you penny brock followed by renee rosentes city council members penny brock ward 2 i have attended earlier this year for county commission meetings on the election process i have studied ab321 that gave us our current voting process in that law it allows for paper ballots and hand counting the ballots it is up to the decision of the county commissioners perhaps one option is to have this special election even on the general election day buy paper ballots and hand counting the ballots um we know probably the turnout will not be that great in ward 5 that it couldn't be done um i'm just proposing that that would be one option to get it done in the general election um by paper ballots and hand counting it would and this would be up to mr hall um legal counsel to decide that but i'm just proposing that that would be one option to perhaps get it done at the general election thank you very much thank you penny renee rosentis hello rene rosettas for the record um i also um was thinking that something like the paper ballot with the hand hand voting hand count i think it would be great to uh to do that i mean it would almost be like an experiment almost you know even though we used to do it all the time but since we haven't for a long time and relied on the machines this would be a great experiment experiment so also i really appreciate councilwoman dur your comments um and about taking maybe reconsidering and looking at everything first because i know that jamie had to step in at the last minute she doesn't have a lot of experience and i think that um in going through the process that that um councilwoman doer suggests not only will she become more educated about what can be done but all of you will also and i would really appreciate that i would really really appreciate that so um i i i'm with eddie lorton i you know i i i like the fact that there are other ways to go about this i especially would would love for you to go to the registrar and um have these meetings so thank you not be surprised if that happens thank you very much thank you all right madam mayor with that we have no additional public comment however i should state for the record that we did receive seven comments after 4 p.m yesterday or either general in nature one in opposition and six concerned those have been distributed to the council and will be uploaded to the meeting portal at the close of this meeting and madame go right ahead councilman doerr um i um thank you for allowing me to make a public comment i just um you all heard what i said i don't need to say it again i'm disappointed we have to go this way but i think it is in the best interest of word five but i am counting on the people in the audience that have written into us to get involved in this process to meet these candidates whoever self-selects they'll probably have something like two weeks to apply um encourage good people to come forward it is a hard job i have to tell you it is a time consuming job it is not a simple job they might have to quit their other job if they want this job i mean it is a and everything you do is wrong make sure you have there everything you do is wrong but i want to make sure since we're in this position that we picked the very best representative for ward 5. and if there was an election there would be a lot of different opinions right if there was and i think council member reese was right if there were a hundred of applications for an at-large there's probably gonna be 20 applications at least at least for the word five so i i would just beg you to get involved to meet them find out about them send us your thoughts i am i'm very open to hearing what you have to say i'm a pretty good interviewer and i plan to do those you know utilize my ability to screen out people and and evaluate them and their integrity and their commitment to job so i just i just want to go on the record and i think everybody here will do that i think we'll all work really hard to get a good representative for ward 5 and i'm going to be very involved in the process even though we're very short on time given everything else that's on our plate but right now this just rose to the top of my plate this is so important thank you and if any of you are ward five you need to sign up all right anything else that's it madam mayor just looking for a motion to adjourn all right me i have a motion second i have a second all those in favor say aye aye all those opposed hi motion carries unanimously what would we do if we didn't approve that motion would we all stay here all day all right thanks