Madame Clerk, are we ready? Madame Vice Mayor, we're ready to go. Okay. Good morning everybody. Welcome to the Monday, May 5th special city council meeting. Um, we are going to start with the pledge of allegiance. And I was wondering if Mr. Ree could lead us, please. Thank you. We'll move into roll [Music] call. Calling roll for Monday, May 5th. Reno City Council. Vice Mayor Taylor here. Council member Dor here. Martinez here. Eert absent at this time. Reese here. Anderson here. Shivy absent at this time. Madam vice mayor, you do have a quorum of the Reno City Council. Okay. Thank you. And we will move into public comment. Madame clerk. Madame Vice Mayor, are you okay if we just open the RDA as well so we can roll through public comment for both of them at the same time? Yes, let's open the RDA. Thank you. Thank you. Calling roll for the redevelopment agency board for Monday, May 5th. Council member Taylor here. Der here. Martinez here. Eert absent at this time. Reese here. Anderson here. Shivy absent at this time. You do have a quorum of the redevelopment agency board. So we're opening public comment for both boards. I have uh one member registered Bill Shrimp. All right. Well, good morning. Uh my name is Bill Shrimp. Uh I say this is kind of nice instead of the regular city council meeting. It's ever it's really boring. Nobody's here. Anyway, uh first things first, as always, thank you for being here. Thank you for doing the job. Thank you for doing the work. Uh I know a lot of times it's thankless and difficult and on a good day, uh you only make half the people mad. So, uh with that, I want to give you some something to think about that I hope takes you through your day. Uh today, you're talking about your budget. At the end of the day, a budget is about priorities. Whether you're a single mom trying to make ends meet on 15 bucks an hour or somewhat complicated government entity in a mid-size city with hundreds of million dollars in revenue, it's about priorities at the end of the day. That's what a budget is. Does a single parent pay the rent and the power bill or new clothes for that big job interview next week? All three choices are really important, but you can only make two because there's just not enough resources to go around. Today, you're going to make some choices. You're going to be presented with a bunch of information. Do you pay the rent and the power bill or do you get closed for the interview next week? You're going to have to make some choices. In the recent months and years, the action of the city and this body have made some very interesting choices. Half a million on a surveillance system that does not prevent crimes. A police station that was very necessary, but the budget was a disaster. Unlimited and forever tax breaks for real estate speculators in the form of a sewer credit. But if I want to pay my sewer bill using standard tools, you're going to charge me the fee for the privilege and my bill's going to go up in October or thereabouts. You have armed guards in front of the parking garage this morning to making sure I don't know what. But they were there at 8:00 in the morning doing I don't know what on a Monday morning gardens. You sided with a big developer in the Plumeis apartments over hundreds of complaints and valid concerns of citizens. Maybe you got the Jify Loop thing right. What it looks like is that a small business owner, not a big developer, lost. I wonder if the Jiffy Lu been owned by, I don't know, somebody whose last name ends with AUPS. Killing public engagement through statutory boards and commissions is another tick in the belt for big government and big business. This is the best place for people like me to meet with you one-on-one in the NABS. It really is. Okay. It's where we get the best access to our representatives. These boards and commissions are really important. It's where staff and it is a resource. It's staff and time. It really is. This doesn't happen for free. I've seen this. People are there. They're [Music] working. I argue that it's very smart. I argue that there's enough really smart and creative people up here, but most importantly over here. Thank you, Mr. Sh. Mr. that can keep the NABS alive. Keeping priorities straight. Madam clerk, do we have any public comment for the RDA? Madame Vice Mayor, we have no additional public comment and we have not received any correspondence on um the this agenda. Okay, we will close public comment and move into approval of the agenda for the city council meeting first. Move to approve. I'll second. All those in favor? I I I All those opposed. Motion carries unanimously and we will also ask for approval of the agenda for the RDA board. So moved. Second. We have a motion and a second. All those in favor? I I. All those opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Okay. We will start with a presentation by um will you please let the record reflect that I am here? Thank you, Madam Mayor. Welcome Vicki. Good morning Vicky Van Beern, director of finance for the record. Um good morning madame vice mayor, madame mayor and uh council members. This is the second workshop for the budget for next fiscal year, fiscal year 26. This aligns with the strategic plan with all of the priorities in the strategic plan because in short the budget is the tool that turns the strategic goals into reality. This is where you determine where that money is funded to make the strategic priorities uh implemented. Today's agenda I wanted to stop here briefly to talk about uh the layout of today's workshop so that you're aware of of what will be coming before you. I will be discussing the fiscical year 26 budget and giving you an overview of the whole budget. Um I have 12 slides and then I will be turning it over to various uh people to come forward. Lindsay Hatfield, our budget manager, will be coming up to talk about the fee schedule and the changes to the fee schedule since the last time you saw it at the last workshop. Any changes from that point and then she'll be introducing the capital projects section as well. Um in the capital projects area we have MUN court, municipal courts, parks, public works and utility services. So we have four departments that are going to come up and talk about the large projects that are coming forward in their areas. Similar to our last workshops, you will see that triangle down on the bottom right. And so we do have stopping points built in after each of these sections to kind of give good breaks for discussion and questions from you as council. So, and always if there are things in between, you can always speak up too. But we do have some breaks bolted. So, with that, are there questions on the agenda and and what's going to be brought forward? No. Great. So, I'm going to lead this off. I have 12 slides, including some of the ones you just saw. So, this is a summary of the tenative budget for next year. This was based on what we talked about at the first workshop which was March 5th. And then with the second um item that we brought up at the financial update which is on April 9th, we talked about some additional um areas that to bridge the gap in the budget. We have to submit a tenative budget to the department of taxation by April 15th. We use the information from that workshop, the financial update and then your comments as council um direction that we received at those times to build that tenative budget and that was what was submitted. This is the overview of that and shows the total appropriations including expenditures and transfers out. This does not include ending fund balance or cash balances here. This is just total appropriations as far as expenditures. Um, we build the budget always based on estimates of where we're going to end the year and estimates for next year. We use the best information that we have at the time when we build the budget. So, it is a working document, a living document. As we move through the year, we re-evaluate. We determine where we're at and what that looks like as we move forward. So, we do have some very volatile sources of revenue such as sales tax. And so in these spaces, we do have to adapt as we see changes in the market like we've seen this year. So as we've seen revenue starting to flatten, we recognize that pretty early on in this year and we've had a lot of communication with you as council um going forward from the point pretty much since September on we've been discussing the issues of the revenue starting to flatten out. And so we're going to continue those conversations because again, we're using the best information we have at this time to build this budget. Um, if you watch the economic forum that the state just held uh last week on May 1st, there was a lot of discussion on whatifs and what's going to happen to the economy and where's this going to go. They did mention many times during their briefings that the information that they had was only through March. So they don't really know the impact of the tariffs and the things. The information that they were reporting on was through March and doesn't include any of that. And we're using pretty much the same information. So as we continue to move forward, we continue to have to evaluate and look at where we're going to end the year. What what is this going to look like and how does this progress as we move forward? Um the general fund is the largest fund that we have and that's typically what people think of when they think of government services. That's where police, fire, dispatch, all of your support services live. Special revenue funds, those are those revenues that are dedicated to a specific um a specific item either by law or by policy. And so the revenues are dedicated to a specific purpose. Examples are the street fund and the um room tax fund. Those are examples of those type. We have capital project funds that fund large capital expenditure type items. We have bond debt bond payment funds. Those are our debt service funds where we pay the debt. Then we have proprietary funds. And in this space we have two different types. We have enterprise funds which are the building enterprise and the sewer enterprise where a service is provided and customers pay for that service. So they're run like a business. And then we have internal service funds where the city is providing a service to the other funds and we charge for that. And in that space we have our fleet um fund which does the fleet for the city. We have workers comp risk and then we also have our medical our self-insured health health insurance plan in that space. So those are the the four internal service funds that the city has across the board in all of these funds. We're really feeling the challenge of sustained high inflation. And so what that means is the cost for service and supplies, the cost for personnel, the cost of continuing to do the business that we currently do on everyday basis is increasing every year. And so that cost is really um compounding as we start to move forward in that inflationary way. We're seeing that across the board. It's not just a general fund impact. We're seeing that in all the funds having the same issues because of inflation. Um especially in the construction cost area, we're really seeing construction costs going up anywhere from 40 to 60%. And so um I know that council has received some recent conversations regarding the sewer fund and some of the the constraints there. And so we're seeing that impact as we move forward and as we start to see revenues really flattening. It's it's a challenge because the expenditures continue to grow as revenues flatten and revenues may not necessarily decline but we still see challenges moving forward even with flat to very little growth in revenue is still a very big challenge for the city. So because of the the challenging space that we're in as far as predict predicting what next year will look like and then also um the sustained inflation that we anticipate will continue to occur. We are not recommending any new positions for this budget as you see in front of you for next year. There are two positions that are being recommended in the redevelopment agency space and we'll get to those when we're in the redevelopment area. But the redevelopment is an area where we are seeing still growth. There's growth with new projects that were started prior to um you know couple years ago and those projects are now coming online. So we're tracking those. But redevelopment is an area where we are seeing growth and two positions are recommended there. But as far as citywide, no new positions are being recommended at this point. When you look at total positions for the city, we have a little over 1,500 positions in the city. A little over 1,200 of those positions are in the general fund. So about 80% of the positions across the city are in the general fund. Um and again like I said, just the two positions being recommended for RDA um in this budget cycle. General fund revenue-wise, uh we're really seeing that minimal growth and we recognized this really early on this year that minimal growth in a lot of these areas and meaning everything that you see on the right side of property tax, there's really not a lot of growth in those spaces. Um Cax is very limited as far as the last couple of years. We're seeing that flattening. We're not getting that compounding growth in that revenue space. um licenses and permits, business licenses are are remaining pretty flat uh with businesses closing, you know, in this economy having struggles as far as inflation and inflationary costs on them as well. Franchise fees actually declined year-over-year last year to this year, and we're seeing very flat revenues for this year. Charge for services, you'll see a little spike in there for the current year. that blue um middle blue bar there, that's because we have some fire reimbursements in there for strike team reimbursements. Those are one time in nature and they don't carry forward to next year's budget. So, it looks a little spiked this year. Um other sources, you'll see a little spike in there in that gray bar and that was ARPA funding that was um allocated back to the general fund by this council about $5 million. So, that created that spike there. So really, you only see that stairstep effect on property taxes. And one of the things um that I wanted to point out with property taxes over the last five years, we've seen about 7 to 9% growth in property tax. And for next year, we're anticipating about 6% growth. And that's due to that slowdown in that new construction. So we're starting to feel that. When you look at our general fund revenues, this is our proposed balanced budget. It is not a structurally balanced budget, meaning that we have ongoing revenues to support our ongoing expenses, but it is balanced in that we are using some one-time funds to balance this budget. So, we have $321 million proposed for fiscal year 26. We have $9.5 million in one-time funds proposed to balance it. These are from one-time funds consist of funding from property sales that have already occurred. They occurred this fiscal year. The money is being saved for next year. SAD fund excess funds. These were excess funds that we brought forward to US council to approve. It was $1.5 million to help bridge this gap. As well, we have some capital project funds that were meant for the um some projects that have either completed or are no longer going to be done. and that was $3 million. And then the difference to fund balance. And so we're using about 2.6 million in fund balance. And this will bring our budget from the 15% that you've previously adopted in the last couple of years for fund balance to 12.5%. Once that is done, but you can see the really big um areas, consolidated tax and property tax, those are our largest um revenue sources out of our control. We don't have control over those. um they are dictated by the economy and also by um legislature and so it really limits the growth that we have in these areas when we see these um declines in these spaces. When you look at the proposed expenditures for fiscal year 26, you'll see this is balanced at that $321 million and this is balanced in $16 million in reductions. So in the current year, departments um are anticipating to save 2% in their service and supply budgets. They have cut 5% from their service and supply budgets for next year as part of these reductions. contingency has been eliminated. Um, annual capital funding has been eliminated. That would be for parks maintenance, building maintenance. Um, and then the fleet program as well is very limited this year. And we have some um thoughts. We'll show you how we're going to fund that. Um, because you can't not fund something for maintenance because we do know that there will be some emergency maintenance needs and some maintenance needs as we move along. And so we do anticipate having savings in the current year that would be unspent in those areas that was previously allocated in this current year or prior years. And so those will be used for that maintenance type money that instead of the annual funding that we have and Lindsay will go over that as we get to that section. Um workers comp, we were doing some additional funding to workers comp to help fund some of our larger liabilities in that space. And so this would just be um eliminating that additional funding that we were trying to build up in that space. And then as we mentioned at the April 9th work April 9th financial update the freezing of 20 positions. So you do have attached to your packets the organization charts and other information for the departments as a whole. um the org charts. These position positions have not been eliminated from the org charts. They are just now marked as um frozen or unfunded. So they still exist on the org chart, but they are marked. You can see that now 81% of the budget is salary and benefits. So it's really become the big piece of this puzzle. Um service and supplies, very small portion at 17% and then debt service. there's really nothing left because we've really had to go through and scrub to make these reductions and make this um a balanced budget. When you look at general fund by expenses by function, we often get the question, well, how does the budget reflect council's priorities? How does that how do we know that what you're adopting is reflecting what your priorities are as council? Well, when we met with the workshop in March, council expressed the priorities of public safety and it was really reiterated that public safety is not just police, fire and dispatch. Public safety is about everyone that supports them as well. So you have IT, HR, you know, finance, city manager, everyone that supports them so that they can do their jobs is really a piece of public safety as well. And then we also have infrastructure, you know, maintaining city facilities, maintaining parks, providing spaces where people can go to do recreation and things to maintain wellness and that safety and wellness for the public. That's all really part of what was discussed at our last workshop at our last workshop um regarding, you know, making the community safe and well. And so I think when you look at this and you look at this space, yes, 65% of the budget is police, fire, and dispatch, but everything else really supports that as well as far as wellness. So reductions that were proposed from the March workshop by US Council were potentially looking at discretionary funds. So, um, those were reduced by $25,000 each in the tenative budget. So, that leaves 20,000 each per member there. Looking at memberships, if we could do without some memberships for the year. So, Nevada League of Cities and National League of Cities um being not um funded for next year. And then looking at changing some of the funding sources was brought up. So funding potentially things from different sources like room tax um or redevelopment agencies. So EDON is proposed to be spent out of uh RDA funding as they will be focusing in that downtown corridor area and then increasing the support for special events so that you can maintain those events downtown. you can maintain that activation to keep the city thriving um by increasing that support from room tax and that supports the general fund. Then the last thing that was mentioned was reducing boards and commission funding and so some of the boards and commissions have been proposed to be reduced that you'll see here and then other board funding uh was reduced except for minutes and stipens to really kind of make some savings in that space. the frozen positions and unf frozen unfunded positions that um were talked about at the april 9th workshop. Sorry, April 9th financial briefing. Um our total of 19.75 positions, so 20 positions, just rounding up. I put them on an org chart here just so that you can see which departments are impacted by the ones that are selected on here. And this is going to be an ongoing process as we move forward. So this is more strategic than just doing a freeze across the board because this allows the active management of vacant positions and the impact on services as we continue to move forward. What is that income pack going to be? And what um what uh is the ability for the city to absorb these continue to do these services? Will there be an impact? Yes, there will be an impact to services as we move forward, but the strategic freezing uh of positions allows a a different look than an acrosstheboard freeze. And so you'll notice on here that uh police has six positions [Music] um police officers on this list. They currently have um I think I believe a little over 30 positions that are vacant. They are having an a fire academy I'm sorry a police academy July 1st. It is intended that they will have a full academy run which is 25 that they normally do. they have a capacity as to how many they can actually put through the academy and so they will be doing a full academy July 1st. That is the intent. These six are in addition to that. So even if we weren't in this position, they most likely would not be filling these anyway because they can't put them through the academy. So this is a space where we can capture some savings, go ahead and freeze these positions and relook at as we know more about the economy as we move forward. changes from the tenative budget that we submitted on April 15th, we have had a few small minor changes as we move forward. Um, in business licensing and code enforcement, we needed to add $5,000 for some GPS tracking software that we didn't account for when we did the original tenative budget. Parking enforcement uh was transferred from maintenance and operations to police. And this is more of an administrative function. no dollar cost here. It's more of the administrative oversight of where that um parking enforcement lives. So, you will see that as far as org chart changes when those come out. Again, web-based fees move from Reno Direct to um it again that's not a dollar change. It's just a shifting of departments. When you look at municipal courts, they proposed initially to do some carpet replacement as a capital project and uh they've come back and said they have these other capital projects that they're doing and this one they want to move out a year. So this one would be proposed for fiscal year 27 as we move forward in the sewer fund. Uh island 8 was a project that was proposed for um transitioning those from septic to sewer. At this time, we have not heard back from the grant. We applied for a grant for this with the delays coming out of the feds right now. Um, we anticipate we won't hear back until probably till September toward the end of their fiscal year. So, once we have that funding and we know that um, we've received that grant funding, we can come back and augment at that point. But right now we're removing it from this because we have not received um that approval letter yet on the grant for the building fund in um development services. They have some projects that they became aware of just recently that will be coming forward for development. And so it's a netneutral increase because the revenues have been increased to offset service and supply. So they will be receiving planning fees uh anticipate planning fees more and they will be paying for some outside services to do that planning work. So it's a net no change overall to their budget other than um revenues and expenditures both increase. So that concludes my presentation of the changes here and I'm glad to take questions. Madame Vice Mayor, for the record, um Council Member Eert joined remotely at 10:19. Great. Thank you. Thank you, Vicki. Um, council members, I will start with Madame Mayor online. Do you have questions, Madame Mayor? Okay, maybe we'll start with the people in the room. Council member Oh, sorry. Vicki, thank you so much. Very much appreciated. Um, and certainly is a theme we're seeing not just with us, but all across Nevada and other states. Um I'm curious what are the two positions for the redevelopment agency that you mentioned? The redevelopment agency there two positions. It's uh two management analysts and um with the redevelopment agency they have that new um advisory board that has just coming into its own and so they really have a lot of projects that are coming forward. So you'll see when we get to the redevelopment agency, um Brian will be coming up to present the projects that we anticipate coming forward. So you're going to see a lot more activity in that space and you're going to see a lot of need for um people to manage that. Okay. Thank you so much, Council Member Anderson. I don't have questions at this time. Council member Martinez. Yeah. Thank you so much, Director Ramier. I had a quick question. When I was looking through the department summaries, m the parking enforcement officers are still listed under M and even under code enforcement. I think one of the notable changes this year mentioned transitioning from code enforcement to M, but in your presentation, you're saying they're going to police. So, I just want to make sure that it's clear if this is just capturing what's happening this fiscal year and this is a transition to fiscal year 26, which is my conclusion. But you can correct me if I'm wrong. Yes. Um, that was a change from the point we did the tenative budget. Um, so at that time they were still under M. So that's what your packet reflects. When we come back with the final budget uh for adoption on May 21st, they will be moved under police. So it's just a shift of that administrative oversight. Gotcha. Okay. Thank you, Council Member Ree. Thank you, Madam Vice Mayor. Couple of questions, Vicki or Miss Van Beern on slide 10, which are council reductions proposed. One of the ones that I'm not seeing on here is one that I received a memo on on Friday about the pause for 90 days for our boards and commissions. Where is that reflected? Is that in next year's fiscal year? And you're sort of summarizing how we finished out this fiscal year's budget gap. What are we doing there? I think the pause on the boards and commissions is more of a it's more of a take on staffing because we know that staff is going to be limited by the the freezing of positions and holding of vacant positions as we start to move forward. And it's really the the look forward of trying to um keep the services that we're currently doing and still be able to get everything done. So, it's a space where we're trying to create some extra staff time that they may be spending on these boards versus um doing some other things. And we're just really trying to split hairs at this point. And manager Bryant may have some further thoughts on it, too. Well, and and of course, I want to be start respectful. Uh Manager Bryant, I I think that a pause for 90 days is an acceptable solution for trying to figure out what our next steps are. What I do worry about of course is the plans we have for active engagement. I'm also thinking about the fact that we have currently one of our liaison is serving the National Guard and so that position is frozen in time and we don't have the resources. One of the liaison positions has been frozen for some time and so that one's not being refilled. So we basically have one liaison doing the council liaison functions which is largely uh interacting with constituents. So those are also freezes that are reflected in that. So sort of the idea is is that between these cuts and some others, it it is a small dollar amount, but I know every dollar amount matters, right? Because when you're looking at the difference between cutting a police officer or adding some of these other things, that's the decision I'm making. And you said at the beginning there is some prioritization that goes on in your budget process. And I think the public commenter said it was sort of a a choice between new shoes and uh you know, going out to dinner. I don't think it's that glib of a remark because I think ultimately what it is, it's the choice between public safety and not. And so I'm trying to balance those competing concerns when I make my decisions. So manager Bryant, those are the thoughts I had sort of initially, but I am interested to know where that's reflected in this sort of set of slides. Um, thank you for that question. So there is not a direct dollar savings at this time for the 90 days that would be reflected in the FY26 budget. What that time allows us to do is to engage with the public and assess whether we're providing the right engagement uh for that which is which our public is interested in. Um we do have staffing challenges associated with those boards and commissions. But over the 90-day period, we'll ascertain what the priorities are and whether all of those boards and commissions should be retained and at what frequency and we'll be able to come back to you with a report. So you're going to see the kickoff for the outreach on Wednesday with Cynthia Sparza and then you'll see the kickoff for the boards and commissions on June 4th. So we have a lot of things happening at the same time. Um all of it should kind of coales within the next 90 days. None of which is going to be reflected in the FY26 budget because of the timing. Okay. Thank you. And madam Vice Mayor, if I may just up one followup from Miss Bryant since she's on this topic. So, as I understand it though, um, for example, I I received a lot of feedback about this question about boards and commissions over the weekend, and some of the commenters, one commenter in particular, said, you know, I'm not sure that these commissions serve the function they once did. And of course, to the people who serve on those boards and commissions, it does. It's very personal because they've invested their time in a parks and recreation board or urban forestry or historic resources. uh but for our community at large at least one uh comment or you know sort of said a comment that resonated with me which is um there are different ways in 2025 to connect with people and it isn't always about appointing someone to a board and then taking that information. We do coffee with counselors. I saw a number of us had those scheduled already. Mr. Martinez is holding a town hall this week. I think Miss Der has routinely held town halls that are not the same thing as NABS. So there are other ways to connect with people and so I want that 90 days to be reflective of our desire to see what are the ways in which people want to be connected to us right all of us also connect with people on social media there's some um interaction personally people can call me text me all those things happen and so I just am wondering what in 2025 the public really wants and whether it is these sort of boards and commissions that people get appointed to or whether it's something different than that. I hope the 90 days will give you the time to figure that out. We'll definitely take that into consideration. Thank you, Council Member Der. Yeah. Thank you. Um could you go back to the slide? Let's see. It was pink and blue. I'm looking for the the page. I think it was midway through. It was about the It was like an org chart. Yeah. I just I I just following up on coun page 11 then just following up on council member Reese's question and also I'm going to go back to a different one. So, he mentioned holding u these positions vacant for um council. Where where do we find those on this chart? Cuz this is the piece that shows the vacant the ones we're holding vacant, right? Yes. And it's listed by department on here. So, so what department? Council relations. You'll see under that department that council lea. Oh, I see. I see. Okay. I skimmed over it really quick. So, um, and then, um, and all of these pink, they add up to how much did you say? 20. 19.75. So, 20. And then I guess I'm going to ask, presuming we approve this, that as funds change and things shift, and I know we could come back with more uh more positions that you want to hold vacant at the same time, we may look at opportunities to hold add some of these back. And that's why uh months ago I asked that they not be taken off the org chart but just shown on the org chart as frozen so that it isn't such a drama to bring them back one weekend. It might not be this year. It could be the following year but at least they don't have to go through the process of re um rejustifying them and at the level there are if they want to do changes they meaning our our staff leaders if if they want to do changes they could certainly propose that but at least there is a placeholder and I know speaking I mean I personally was a staff person for some 30 years um and or you know mostly as a manager myself and I know that enormous energy went into creating these positions in the first place justifying them to previous councils, maintaining the the need for them. I mean, we certainly need an HR director, for example, and we shouldn't zero that out and pretend we don't have that need when we do, and and should we have an opportunity to refill it, we should. So, I just wanted to make sure we're thinking that way. So, I appreciate what you said, uh, Vicki earlier. And then, um, let's see. We had another staff slide. It was one of the earlier ones listed all these positions and what funds they're in. Here it is. Oops. I don't know how to uh number five I think it was. And um so that was very interesting. I'm still grasping it. I'm not uh I think the the interesting column for me percent of FTEES and general funds. So where it says 63% for city manager that means some are allocated to other budget funds. It sounds like um in my remaining time I just wanted to mention follow up on two issues. I may not have enough time in 5 seconds. I don't but about the parking. So may me continue on or Okay. About the parking I I thought that I thought staff made um at various times over the last two years some really good comments about the need for a parking unit. And the reason it's important, one, it gives um support to the fact that we have parking laws. And I never believe in having laws that we don't enforce. So if we're not going to enforce them, well, why even have meters or anything? I mean, it's a waste of time and money. But if we are going to enforce them, it's an opportunity for further income. And study after study has shown that the parking team actually are revenue positive. They generate more money than they bring in than they cost. And I'm just wondering what the thought is there. Like it is maybe another two bodies or maybe it's just a a different focus on people already doing parking enforcement, but is there a way to capture those revenues so we can bring them into the budget? I think manager Bryant might have a response to your question, council member. So the revenues are in the budget through the general fund. Uh we did recently receive a parking study that recommended the move uh under police and it will allow us to coordinate better with the save officers. So we think we'll get some efficiencies there. Uh we also believe that we do need we have a long way to go to enhance our parking enforcement and our overall parking program in the city of Reno. And so we're going to be working over the next year in order to build out a more robust program uh to accomplish exactly those things. I don't believe we're at a point yet where we can say hiring two new people is the right answer. I I have no idea what that is. Yeah, but we are looking at it um significantly and we'll be bringing forward some ideas for council to weigh in on in the near future. And to that end, could we get a maybe we already did I missed it a copy of the parking study? Yes, we'll have that emailed out. Thank you. Okay. And then I have Council Member Duke, can I ask um Council Member Eert, do you have any questions? Council Member Eert. Yeah. Can you hear me? Yep. Hello. Yes, we can hear you. Um, yeah, I have some questions. So, I know that there's um recommendation to cut the funding for the senior advisory board. Um, I just really can't stress enough how important it is that we keep that board funded. There's so many activities and things that the city of Reno provides for our seniors with that funding, including older Americans month, which it is in May right now. Um just if there's any way I know we're paying EDON out of a different account. Um if if we could use some of that savings to keep the senior advisory board funded at least partially. Um so I just wanted to ask about that and and also agree with council member doer on the parking enforcement. Even if we just had part-time um employees working on that um I think it would be beneficial to the city. So, I don't know if there's anything you could share with me about um funding partially at least the senior advisory board. Do you want me to do you want to respond? Yes, I can make a um recommendation or at least I can give provide an explanation of how that came to light. The council has identified a series of priorities and the city of Reno um is facing a significant uh shortfall in revenues and therefore we must reduce expenses and the way I am recommending that those expenses be reduced is in alignment with council priorities. Certainly council is free to choose however they would like to um realign this budget, but that was a thought process be behind it. The city of Reno is um not responsible for senior services in this county. That is a WO county obligation. And and while I I love seniors, I'm not a senior hater. Um, I do believe that we must align our resources with missionritical objectives at this time and every dollar that we move from a non-m missionritical objective function is a dollar that we can move into a missionritical objective function. And so that was the recommendation. Um, I do agree that we have done some wonderful things and I would be willing to have a conversation with the county to see if they would be willing to engage on this topic and and pick up some of the engagement opportunities that Reno has been doing. But at the end of the day, it is not a Reno obligation and so therefore that was the basis for the recommendation. Okay. And may I ask um I know was recommended to um terminate our enrollment with the Nevada League of Cities and the um uh National League of Cities. Are we keeping our membership with the um Conference of Mayors also? that is in that's included in the budget to keep the conference of mayors and just um only these two would not be the two that are recommended as not being funded for next year. And what is the um cost for enrollment in the Nevada League of or the um League of Mayors? I believe it's $15,000. Okay, that's correct. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Eert. Um, I'll go back to Madame Mayor. Do you have a second round of questioning or comments? Yeah, thank you so much. Um, I would agree with um, uh, City Manager Bryant in the sense that we really have to dial down a lot of the services that we are subsidizing. You know, Reno has been subsidizing a lot of county services and we really haven't dug into what that looks like. There is a fiscal accountability study that I think we should have a a joint meeting on or figure out, you know, what that looks like. Maybe they do or don't want to fund them. Um, so I'm grateful that you brought that up, uh, Jackie. I appreciate it. I also had mentioned um that we don't have to fund the conference of mayors. I mean, listen, everyone is cutting where they possibly can. Um so to Miss Eber's standpoint, um you know, that is not a a you know, a hill for me to die on in any capacity. I brought it up in the past, so just know that. Um, and so if you want to take that money and fund seniors, there's certainly an allocation there. I'd be happy to do that if that's what you want to do. Obviously, that would have to be the support of the board. Um, but if that's what you're alluding to, I have no problem doing that in any capacity. I actually um allocated more money for seniors whenever I was their liaison than any council member has in the past. So I understand your passion and desire for them. Um I you know this is all about priorities. So at the end of the day I do think that we have to look at how we're subsidizing other jurisdictions and maybe there's a conversation there to be had with whoever their senior liaison is over at the county. So I think there's a way to get there. It just depends on what the council priorities are. But I I honestly I could care less about, you know, continuing um with other programs or memberships that we don't need uh don't feel useful. I think you are the liazison on National League of Cities. Um and so I don't know how involved you are. Some of those can be very beneficial for looking at grants. um we've received millions of dollars of grant through some of these organizations. So you also have to weigh are they at the table with our federal partners? Um because some of them really are and they're very effective. So it's not like hey, you know, let's just fund this for no reason. There has to be a good reason to fund um certain memberships and programs. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Uh, Council Member Anderson. Thank you. And thank you, Vicki. You have been you and your team have been really really instrumental for me um in my my time so far on the council and understanding the budget and coming in um my first year with these types of challenges. Although most people wouldn't want that, it's a really great way to understand what the real priorities of a city are and what are missionritical. So, thank you for the work that you've done to get me up to speed. I don't have any questions about the budget as it stands. I'm going to ask you um a question in a different way. In the coming months, the economy is going to be changing. We're going to have some good news and we're going to have some bad news. Northern Nevada, Nevada and Reno as a whole in the past has taken a let's see what happens stance and we see what is going to happen to us. What can we do as a community? What can we do as businesses in the community? What can we do as people in the community to help Reno survive and thrive through this change? So, what I'm asking you is what would be good economic indicators for you that you would be looking for that you're seeing that Reno, Northern Nevada that we're taking care of ourselves through this time and how would those help us in our coming budget decisions? Thank you for the question. That's a really good question. Um, I think one of the things that you as council have done and the community as a whole is really diversified the economy here. And so a lot of the challenges that we see um happening in the southern part of the state with tourism being such a big impact there, we don't experience the same type of um balance because we've diversified the economy. So that is something that US council has done to bring you know different industries in and to really make sure that um we trend a little differently. One of the things they talked about a lot at the economic forum on Thursday was um gaming and the impact of gaming to the state. We don't get those gaming revenues, but they're seeing tourism down in Las Vegas and that's a really big impact to them with the gaming and the tourism. Whereas we don't really trend the same way they do and that was really recognizable during the pandemic. um they had a lot more challenges than we did because of the diversification of our economy. And so we will watch those type of indicators. But again, you have to realize that our economy doesn't trend the same way as theirs does now, used to, but that has changed over several decades. And so that's to the benefit of this community and to this council. and you know um changing that has really changed the trajectory of trying to keep things stable. Council member Reese, thank you so much. Um I want to just say a couple things about uh the Nevada and National League of Cities. I think the National League of Cities has been a fantastic organization to attend their conferences. Meaning, I've learned a great deal about governance and best practices by being there. But as to the other elements of both the Nevada League and the National League, I am sort of non plused about. I'm not sure we're getting the value for what we pay for. A lot of the cost which is not identified in your slide there was sort of for general sort of I don't know lobbying efforts during the legislative process. And we have a great person in Carson City doing that for us. Mr. Sonone is doing a good job. So, I am um pleased to see them cancelled. Um with regard to the boards and commissions, again, the senior citizen advisory board here, this $40,000 is not about whether that board or commission exists. It's that at some point in time, we wanted that board to have its independent pot of money from which it could choose to do things. And the problem I have with this one is I think Miss Bryant, you said it best about aligning with our strategic priorities and who really should be paying for that. But also, I'm not sure that uh I would say that everything they've spent money on would be something that I thought was appropriate. For example, I see a lot of money being spent on cooking classes at the Elks Lodge. That that for me is not something that I think is appropriate. We could be doing that maybe at the California building where we've upgraded the kitchen facility. So maybe in the way that Miss uh Madame Mayor has graciously said, "Hey, if we need to cut the US Conference of Mayors to continue some funding allocations for senior programming, I I too think that that's probably a better route to do it, but of course it with some control, right? I'd also commit $5,000 of my discretionary funds, whatever it amounts to, for things for senior programming. I think seniors do face a lot of isolation and um either through our parks department we could be doing more but that would be really a parks thing then right and so or at Paradise Park we've got all this great activation for older Americans month so I'm both saying I I think it's great that our senior citizens have some recreational opportunities maybe we can do that through parks that I'll commit my own discretionary funds to it when the push comes to shove uh and also Madame Mayor was gracious I I do think we've gained incredible value from the US Conference of Mayors. Uh having had a mayor who was the head of the US Conference of Mayors, certainly elevated Reno, brought in incredible amount of resources economically as they came here for conferences. Uh so there has been incredible uh value for that organization. Um so again, um I what I would say Miss Bryant in the end and and Miss Vanurren is these all seem appropriate, right? Reducing the discretionary funds, cancelling these memberships. Um, I think everything, of course, every year might be up for rediscussion, right? Maybe this year we have to tighten our belt and there won't be a $40,000 line item for cooking classes, but maybe next year there will be. Um, so I I again I'm supportive of the staff direction on these items and certainly uh commit my own discretionary funds to plug some of the holes that will neverly arise. I think Mr. Martinez has the youth city council which has another line item which I I think it's probably been up and down in some years. They haven't even been able to spend it. Uh but I know that he's committed to the youth as well. So very similar. Uh council member deer did. Yeah. You want a couple more minutes? Yeah. Thank you. Um so I'll just carry on the theme. Um at the last council meeting, what I suggested was that we just cut the pot of money just like we've done for council funds. Keep at least some money in there even if it's 10 or 20,000. And the reason being I don't want I even if the seniors are officially part of the county uh responsibilities. We still want to participate just like I'm sure Sparks does on a regional uh senior recognition month. Like I I think we still want to have a role. Um and I also want to make sure cutting their funds isn't cutting their board. I assume their board is undergoing review just like all the other boards and commissions. Is that right, Miss Frank? That's correct. Yeah. 40,000. This particular board is unusual in that the council has previously allocated it $40,000 um to help with senior programming. And again, wonderful things to do. No, I understand. And I wanted to just say for those that don't have the longer history, before I ever got on council, I served on a back in those days. We actually had NAB money. So, we had like $20,000 per NAB and we would give the money to help uh grow grass in a particular park or fix irrigation in a park, do all kind of things that um they, you know, that just really needed some focus and it was coming from the NAB. Um we cut that out long uh before I started around the time that I started on council about 2014. So, just know that these things have eb and flowed. There is a history. Sometimes we don't know the whole history, but I with my time I also want to make sure on League of Cities I mean we could still attend a League of Cities. We just pay the non-membership price. Is that it? I believe so. Yes. And that's quite a bit more. But that's what it is, right? Very. Just a minimal amount more. So, but the point is is we can still be part of their organization, take their go to the conference and that kind of thing. That's my understanding. I believe so. Okay. Is all right. Well, I just wanted to speak to the boards and commissions issue. Um my main I know we're going to address this more it sounds like u May 7th and June 4th but I do want to say just a couple words. Um we have to be careful in trying to fix the thing that if it ain't broke we don't fix it. So if something is working we recognize that. And how do we recognize it? Well I hope that we include um engagement from our commissioners to get their input is almost more important than anyone's is they probably know what's working, what's not working and how they would make improvements themselves. So uh to you madam manager I would hope we would involve them in this process in some way and I'd also hope that we would involve council in the process too because you know for my my own uh I've probably had an opportunity to be liaison to about 80% of our boards not all by by no means all but maybe it's only 70% but a lot of them and I do have opinions from my time served about what was working. No one really ever asked me, so I those weren't things I volunteered. But I do want to be asked now. I if you're going through this pause, then I want to be asked and I want our citizens to be asked um how to do that. And I'm going to put in a pitch as soon as we can. I think we need to bring back the liaison because I'll just make one more point on this. A lot of the boards and commissions are not supported by the liaison. There's urban forestry supported by parks and historical resources is supported by history. There's no liaison involvement there and many are the same. So, just let's take a fine uh look at that. So, thank you. Thank you, Council Member Derer. Um I'm just going to say a couple things. Thank you, Vicki, to you and your team, City Manager Bryant, for all the departments. I know this is um we've started very early in this process, so we are not surprised, which I am grateful for. Um I'm going to sort of look at things at a global level. Uh I've had the opportunity to work through three budget cycles now. And I'm just going to say when we look at mission critical objective function from my point of view, I'm not sure we've been great stewards of the people's money. We have a $25 million shortfall, right, that you've been able to plug. And I'm not I'm not coming after anybody. I just feel like this is going to be very painful and we're going to have to work through it together and we're going to need everybody's help. So, we have to get down to what is missionritical. And we have 275 other thousand other people that we have to represent, not just the emails that we get and the people that coming here. They want sewer, they want roads, they want parks, they want police and fire. That's where we get our priorities. And we still have fire that we can't fill with this budget. Um, and that's our number one priority. So, a couple things that I'm going to ask. We have $6.1 million in debt service. Is that something we're going to talk about a little bit later? Yes. I'm working on a presentation that I hope to be ready for this round, but I'll have it at the next Okay. workshop to kind of well the budget adoption. I'll go through that a little bit more. Um kind of have to break things up as manageable pieces as to what we can get done. Um but we don't have new debt as far as what you're adopting here. Okay. But we can learn I would like to take a deeper dive into the debt. Deeper dive look at it. Yes. Into the debt service. That looks like it's about $6.1 million or deferred maintenance. Looking at those schedules, are we going to get into those a little bit later or? Yes, Lindsay will be dis. Okay. So, it looks like there's maybe $800 million, a billion dollars in deferred maintenance. Again, not everything needs to be replaced right now, but those are things that we need to fix. Um, I'm also interested, I think Madame Mayor brought up an audit, an outside audit of the city, uh, at one point. I would be interested in looking that or hearing how my colleagues think um as far as what we need to do financially. I'm interested in looking at where consultants can be used. Um and these are tough decisions because the people that work here are the people that make up this city and we're you know I consider a lot of them family. The other thing is um I'm interested in looking at how we run our meetings and what we do with our staff. We're going to be asking people to do more with less and we're reducing staff. So, Manager Bryant, um I'm just bringing on this. Maybe we don't have all of our department heads sitting here. Maybe we ask the city man, the assistant city managers to be responsible for doing the presentations or helping us get through these meetings so we can do the businesses business of the other city. I don't know. These are just ideas I'm throwing out. And then once we get to the RDA, um I think I'm going to be asking for some outside legal counsel specifically in the redevelopment space to see where we can and can't use that money cuz I've heard a couple of different things. We've had other colleagues um in the past say, "Well, yeah, we could use it for police or fire." I don't necessarily know if that's true, but I'd like to have an expert in this space with this budget tell us what we can do with our redevelopment agency funds and those um I think you had some comments to follow up on. Manager Bryant, I do. I thank you for that feedback. uh we can discuss each of those suggestions at a time in the future. But for wrapping up this portion of the workshop, um Vicki, would you move to the slide where it talks about the one-time items that we are not doing in order to balance this FY26 budget? Um nope, not that one. The one about the capital project that won't occur. The fleet. Oh, this one. This one. $16 million in reductions. Okay. I just want to be real clear. that we are not funding capital projects. We have pulled out money associated with maintenance this year. We've pulled out money associated with replacing fleet this year. Um we are focusing on getting new tires and a new roof for all the things that we have not done for quite some time. um we are down to brass tax. So we will be hurting in all of these spaces for FY26 and we do not anticipate it will get better in FY27 and in fact um to be very clear it will be worse absent some miracle. So while we've identified the $25 million to balance the budget this year, we won't have the same level of funding in one shot for next year. So when I say we are focusing on missionritical services, it is because if we do not, we will not be able to offer missionritical services. So, I just want to be very clear um with with council and and the employees and the public about where we are. This is a long-term game. We're in this for the next 18 to 36 months. Madame Mayor, I believe Council Member Ree had a follow-up comment. Go ahead. And I think this is my last time, so I'll try to be brief. I I will push back on one thing um Vice Mayor Taylor that you said not because your thought process is not logical but because it's perhaps not reflective of what's happened. So I've served now for this is sixth or seventh budget, Miss Der significantly more and miss Madame Mayor significantly more. Part of the problem is is that we have been very good stewards with our resources. We've paid down debt in a way that has never been done in the history of this council. Our bond rating has grown dramatically and improved. We balanced the budget for the first time in something like 30 years. Uh and even though this year it's not structurally balanced, it is still a balanced budget. And it is very challenging to go from one thing to the extreme very quickly. And that really is a reflection of the fact that our budget is tied to these volatile ways in which we receive income and revenue. Right? So if our growth trajectory had stayed the same and you sort of believe always I suppose that growth follows growth until it doesn't. Um and then very rapidly in a eight or ninemonth period the growth projections didn't meet what was budgeted for and and Miss Vanurren to your credit you've always conservatively estimated. Some years you projected 4% growth and we had 9%. You've never projected 10% growth and we had 2%. Right? I I think again I I just think um madame vice mayor I don't want the public to misunderstand what's going on here. There are debt things, for example, that we're paying off the ballroom and the event center and the bowling stadium, things which this council did not vote on, right? Um, and it's no fault of the councils who did do that. They made strategic choices about the train trench and all of those buildings way back when when I wasn't even thinking about city council life. And so, uh, again, I just would say we've been very good stewards, but there are things outside of our control. And given that 86% of our budget or so is really um public safety and our people, um it's also been interesting to watch, we still don't have as many employees today as we had even 20 years ago, right? And and they're doing more with less. And people of course to be competitive, to be in a marketplace where you have to pay a competitive wage, those wages have increased. Um and and still, I think the county is paying higher salaries than we are. Um other cities are making different choices. Um, again, I think we've been excellent stewards of our resource, but our resource picture has changed and with that change, we have to be willing to make hard decisions and and make choices about where cuts will come from. And of course, Miss Vampur, it is all of our hope that this ship will turn around very quickly, 36 months, whatever it amounts to. But we plan for the reality we have. And that's why our budgets are done yeartoear. That's why we have groups like the financial advisory board and the state overseeing our budget so they can look at it. may also answer why I'm not sure an outside audit in the way that you're positing it might be would would be I'm not opposed to it. I think it would be fine, but it may be money that we don't have to spend. Thank you, Council Member Reese. Ready, Madam Mayor? Madame Mayor, I had a followup as well. Go ahead, Councilwoman D. I I am so glad that you said that, Mr. Ree, because I put that down, too. I think it's a mischaracterization to say that we haven't been good stewards of the money. Especially for eight years, the mayor and I, all we did was pay down debt. We didn't build pools. We didn't build public safety centers. We didn't do we didn't even have part programming in the parks. We didn't do anything. What's that? Yeah. To the tune of $200 million that we would have liked to spend, but we couldn't spend. We didn't feel because we felt first priority, pay down our debt. First priority, pay down their debt. We have charts. We have graphs. Uh first priority, make sure things like workers comp are actually filled. Make sure that um accounts that hadn't been filled for years that are in reserves are filled. So we did all those things, not the fun stuff. And we are um inheritors of previous council decisions as when we leave, they will inherit decisions that we made. And they may in hindsight's 2020 may say that was a crazy idea to build a pool uh and we added debt or to build a new public safety center. at the time we felt we could do it. We felt that that debt was reasonable and we took it on. So I want I'm so glad you brought it up because I was sitting here thinking every um it's important to know that every local government in Nevada, not just Reno, Sparks, and Wo County, but every other one, every county is facing the exact same issues. They can't all be bad managers. We're all a, you know, a result of what is going on nationally, uh all of the trends. were being impacted by what is the lack of tourism in Las Vegas even more so than there. And so all of these things a change you mentioned in franchise that we have absolutely no control over whether someone use a cell phone or a desk phone. So I just we just have to be careful to look forward in a positive manner and do the best we can and to not look backward and say you know spank ourselves and say we should have done something different. And I think we were we were very astute in what we did and we really put off the fun stuff uh as a council members to pay the important stuff, police, fire, public safety, infrastructure. So, thank you. Um as soon as we can begin taking care my top priority has always been after those things is taking care of the assets that we have the roof. I mean, you defer the maintenance whether it's a sewer pipe, a water pipe, a roof, and we're going to pay double later. It it's very um um you know, a short-term look and it does it doesn't ex acknowledge that we're here for the long term and we've got to take care of our assets whether it's cars, buildings, or whatever. So, I think those are good things to support and I appreciate, you know, the work that's gone into it. Thank you. Thank you, Madame Mayor. Go right. Really quick, I just wanted to um build on support for the accountability and the reflection. There's opportunity in both areas. I think we can all agree on that. Moving forward, we have an opportunity to support each other and that's what we need to do and we need to start talking about it as a community. What does that look like? Because we can talk about how we got here. We can talk about how this is happening to us, but as a community, we need to figure out which humans and businesses are supporting Reno. And we need to make sure that we support them through these times. We need to spend our money in Reno. We need to support the businesses that are supporting Reno. We need to support the businesses that are investing in Reno and support the community organizations that are helping us solve these problems. So, yes, accountability, great. Reflection, great. We need to have new ideas. We need to accept the fact that we can't continue to do business the same way that we have always done it. We need to accept and rise to the occasion that we need to engage with our community in a different way and we need to support each other. So find the people in Reno that you can support and make sure that they thrive through this time and we will be better off as we move forward. All right. Thank you. Um Vicki, explain to me a little bit about the fab board. One of the sometimes I think it is good to get an outside set of eyes um because we see this and do this every single day. So we get kind of um I think programmed to just look at um programs and budgets um without having a different set of eyes. So I I really like the fab board. I feel like we should have more participation from them. Um maybe some of you know their outside perspective. Um so tell me a little bit about that because otherwise again it's probably if we're not then I'm not so sure do we see the need for you know those resources, right? Um so kind of talk a little bit about that. Absolutely. Thank you for the question madam mayor. The the fab board meets meets once a month. They meet the second Thursday of every month at 3:30. Um, Council Member Anderson is currently on that board. Um, we do review the information that's brought to you as council and that board is made up of 11 members. um those members have financial background, they have business backgrounds. They have backgrounds where they are able to dive into um the deeper things such as what's happening with our revenues and what's happening with expenditures. Um they have expressed a lot of concern when we meet with them regarding um what do we do long term because really the real problem um that we're talking about here is slow revenue growth. We're not talking diminished revenues. We're talking slow revenue growth. And so when you look at the forecast that came out last week from the state, they're looking at 2.1% growth in sales tax for next year and 3.3 for the following year. That's what their forecast is for now. And they're saying that if there's they're assuming there's going to be some type of um pivot with tariffs at some point where there's some agreements that are made between the nations that come come on board and we kind of get to an agreement within the next few months and there won't be such a tariff war going on. If there is, then that's that's another problem as we move forward. But if there's some type of pivot, what they really think is that we won't have a recession. We're just going to have very slow revenue growth. And what that means for this body is it's going to feel like a recession because inflation of costs continue to go up. You know this as business owners, you know, going in the community and being a consumer. I guess everything goes up faster. Okay. And the revenues grow. I understand that. I guess my question is what do you do with their feedback? Is that something that you implement? How I want to know how they are engaged with you and how much of their concerns are coming to the council. Yes, we do. Um we engage their comments with manager Bryant. We also um bring the budget forward to them for review as well as the fee schedule. We have presentations to them and they give us feedback that we provide to you as council when we bring the budget forward. Yes. Okay. And I assume you have a chair. Yes, we do. Okay. And so maybe there's an opportunity for the chair to also sort of give um a report to the council just so that you know it's also sort of an outside perspective, I guess, is what I'm looking for. Okay. Of course. Thanks so much. All right. Councilwoman Der I'm sorry I don't Okay. Uh Councilwoman Eert. Yeah. Um, I just wanted to clear up something that was said that wasn't accurate. Um, the Senior Advisory Board does not use their $40,000 allocation for the cooking classes. That's something that I've been funding out of my personal council member discretionary funds. Their $40,000 they use for other Americans Month, other things. But that is something that I've been paying for um, you know, with my council discretionary fund. use the same funds that others on council use for travel and things like that. I just use my funds for um cooking classes because that's how important it is for me for seniors to have a place to socialize and make new friends and stay active. So, just wanted to clear up that inaccuracy um with regard to using the California building if if it can accommodate over 20 seniors and I would love to talk with staff to find out if we can use that facility. So, thank you very much. Okay. Thanks so much. I appreciate it. Um, one of the things that I do want to ask uh, city manager Bryant, what for me it's always been, and I think a lot of council members, but I'm not going to speak for any of you, but I do believe um, I always say a safe city is a prosperous city, and public safety is a non-negotiable for me in any capacity. Um, so I always want to make sure that they are funded to the best of their ability, especially since we are growing so rapidly. But I also want to be very aware of the positions that we need throughout the city um and each department. So I want to ask uh city manager Bryant, how do you assess um the positions? And I'm not just talking about public safety. I'm talking across the board. Um what absolutely is necessary? Do you go to the department heads and they decide that? because that's where I'm looking at to see um maybe auditing of what cuz I do think that there are certain departments that um and I think everyone knows this it's the squeaky wheel that gets the grease. So if the department head is a little bit more um I I guess uh the squeaky wheel then they're getting more resources. So give me a little bit of an idea of what that looks like and how you make that assessment. Well, it's not the squeaky wheel that motivates me. Um, I've had two children. So, uh, a couple of things during this goround. We started with vacant positions in order to decide what we should use for freezing in order to reduce um the the gap. So, that's for this goround. You know, as you know, we do not have a significant number of employees in this organization. Vicki, will you flip to the slide that shows the number of employees? Um, we also, again, the challenges are with the general fund. So, we have a total of 1,230 general fund employees. We will have some challenges in the street fund sewer fund, but for purposes of FY26, we focus solely on the general fund. We started with positions that someone had left and we said, "Okay, well that position is going to remain vacant to the extent that we can continue operations. Um, we had a payroll manager depart the city of Reno. We have to have a payroll manager. That's not a position we could leave vacant. So, we we're filling that one. Um, but we have three parks and wreck positions that are sorely needed that we have put on the defunded position list because the work will still get done. It will just take longer. So the question from a policy perspective comes, how long does council think is appropriate for people to wait to have a slide fixed, to have the weeds picked, to have other maintenance functions performed. And the recommendation from me based on the overarching view um in this particular case was to not fill those three positions and add them to the list. So we did that as each position became available. We also have additional positions that we are not filling at this time because we're going to need the salarying savings for next year. the the calculation will be much harder um as the economic conditions deteriorate and we do not have enough salary savings or enough one-time funding in order to avoid um implementing other actions such as layoffs. If the economic situation continues to deteriorate, then we will have those conversations. But again, the the guiding principle is what are council's priorities and how do we mitigate against taking away from those priorities. At some point over the next two to three years, we will be impacting council's priorities and we won't have a choice. But that has been the process to date. Okay. Thank you. I appreciate me. Can I say something really quick? Thank you. Go ahead. Um, my intention with my last statement was not to criticize my colleagues before me. That was not where I was going with it at all. And I am sincerely apologize if that's the way it was took. The debt has been restructured fantastically. We're less we don't have an interest rate that's less than 6 1/2%. I don't think before that it was a little bit rough. So that I was saying that we need to look at what is mission critical. So if taken I apologize. We're we're going to have different policies and politics and priorities and I'm all on the tires in the roof right now. So, thank you very much. Thanks. Okay, Vicki, I'm going to send it back to you. Okay, I'm going to skip forward here. I'm going to call up Lindsay Hatfield to go through some of the capital, well, to go through fee schedule, but I do want to mention we do have some capital that will come up and be presented to you, but it's funded through other sources, not the general fund. um they do have specific funding for that. So we do have some capital projects that will continue and they have their own funding sources. So you'll see that come forward. Okay. Good morning, mayor, council members. Lindsay Hatfield, budget manager with finance for the record. Um I'm going to go through a few of the notable changes from the fee schedule that was presented at the first workshop on March the 5th. So at the time that we presented that original fee schedule um proposed for next year. The building valuation table had not been released for this year. It has now. So we've updated that in the documents um that we we do adopt that valuation table from the international code council. So that that is in your packet. Um and as I talk through these um all of these changes are in exhibit A in the new fee schedule that was attached for enforcement. We have a few new fees that are being proposed. Um there's a $5 fee for a residential permit change or replacement fee that just covers staff um or the city's cost for replacing that placard. And then there's a $150 recordation fee and a $25 certified mail fee. Both of these fees are proposed just to cover the cost of the fees that we are incurring and the staff time that we incur to process these items. Um we have county recorder fee, we have certified letter um fee and tracking fees. All of those fees go into that work. So this is to recoup those costs. There's also a $20 fee proposed for at 15 and 30 days for a late assessment for parking fines. And then the final on the enforcement page is for the DMV registration hold. This is just a pass through. This is what the DMV is charging us for it and and we're asking to pass that fee on to um to the users on the fire prevention permits page. Um, initially with that first draft on 35, there was a special event fire prevention permit proposed at $100. They have increased that from that first proposal to $1250. That is to align that permit fee with the um with similar permit fees on the building fund. We just don't want to cause confusion and have two different rates. Um so aligning that with the other and then also the um $25 late fee that has been discussed there for for those fire permits on the special events page. Um proposing a $200 per trailer per event fee for the flock surveillance trailer. Um use of this would be at RPD recommendation. Um it does help to provide a crowd control monitoring for those larger events. Additionally, on the utility services section, we have sewer connection fees. Um, in in our original draft that we submitted to you, all of those noted to be determined because we were still waiting for that rate study to come forward. Um, that has come forward. John spoken with you about that. Um, and we are working on an education uh campaign with the public. For now, we're proposing this two and a half% that is the CPI increase that is in ordinance. Um, and then should an additional fee be proposed um, or an increase in fees at a future date, that would come back later. But this is just the standard CPI increase that is currently in ordinance. And those are all of the notable changes from the last round. If you have any questions on the fee schedule, Council door. Go ahead. Yeah, thank you. Um, I do have a a comment or question. Um, and I brought it up at our last meeting. I was hoping it would be addressed be in this list of changes that you have. Um, you proposed um, having our fee for an appeal to go from $104 to $500. That's like a 500% increase. I had recommended when we adopted the $100, which was already a doubling of the previous fee, which was $50, that we then shift to a CPI. That was last year's discussion. I was very surprised when I saw a 500 uh% increase to $500. It may seem like nothing to us and a move in the right direction, but to the public, I've heard negative comment. And what they're concerned about is there sometimes is a perception that the people that are appealing what we do are very very wealthy and they could easily uh suck up a $400 increase, you know, from $100. But in fact, and I'd ask the council to think about um some of the people who have actually appealed some of our permits, they're up in uh uh north valleys. Um they're out uh at the interface between the county and the city. um they are are not wealthy people and people have said um this will impact my ability to access your system and who is paying these fees. Um who is paying is a person who is agrieved by an action that the city is taking to let's say award a permit that they have nothing to do with. This isn't their plan. They're not investing. They're not building something. um they've already paid when they bought their homes and they invested in their property rights. And what they're having to do with these appeals is to defend and bring to our attention information that we may that they are concerned we may not have received. So this is their opportunity to say, "Wait a minute. Did you take all of this into consideration?" And so it is really a they're it's a reactive thing. It's not something they're doing. it's something they're reacting to that this that a somebody's doing and the city is taking an action. So, I'd like to see that either stay at the $100, which would be my first choice, uh for at least one year. I mean, we've only had this fee in place for one year. Um increase by CPI, which I think you said is 2.5%. Um that's fine, reasonable, totally support that. even if it doubled to $200, that is more reasonable than going to $500. And um I talked to our manager, uh Jackie Bryan, and she formerly worked in um a area of judicial review, and she said this was always a debate um when they would have court fees, you know, how much can people pay to get their day in court, so to speak. Um so I'd like to ask the council if we could do one of those things. Um the total increase in dollars to us is something like $4,000 to $6,000. Um I don't think that's worth impacting people's uh right to access their government and have their day in front of us. So that's what I would ask. I've given you three options. Appreciate your thoughtful comments. I do I want to just um include in that when we go to city manager Bryant one of the things with the fee schedule I've always thought that it should be aligned with the other jurisdictions and what they're seeing um have we taken that into consideration because I think sometimes I hear oh well over at Sparks it's this much over at the county it's this much right and then it kind of becomes this thing where um you know it seems like we're doing something different. And so I've always been a fan of advocating so that it aligns with other jurisdictions. I don't know how much it is over there. Well, maybe we got a we probably got a presentation on that a while ago. Couple years ago. We did. And I know that um we have lower fees than they do on this particular issue. And I also know that Mr. Pingry, who's walked up, has presented that it's thousands of dollars. Someone I think Miss Taylor uh recently said something about all the people sitting in the room. Um most of the time when we have appeals they're not talking. They're listening but they're not talking. They're not part of the dialogue. So I'm sure it costs a lot of money to staff that effort and I'm sure we are charging less. And often I'm looking for consistency amongst governments but in this case I think they should be consistent with us. this is such a um seinal personal um philosophical I suppose issue about access to government and I don't want to make it too expensive to come talk to us and that's just no I appreciate it comments I just it's been with everything right it doesn't matter if this fee or that fee but I just feel like across the board Las Vegas we kind of always try to look at what other jurisdictions are doing so we know that we're in line so maybe you want to speak to Hi. Hi, Chris Pingri, director of development services here. Um, yeah, we've talked about this. We've definitely presented on this and just for, you know, just tone of the meeting, uh, you know, we we did go into comparisons with the other jurisdictions, you know, and anywhere from Wo County at $1,200 to Douglas County of 956, Lion County 750, Fernley 750, Carson City 250 plus an hourly rate. I mean, we are significantly lower in the appeal category than any of our other neighboring jurisdictions. And what brought us to this is the cost of what it takes for our staff to do this. Right? So an average average appeal is probably $7,500 in staff time alone. Um and that and that range goes from anywhere from $4,500 to up to $20,000. And that doesn't include everybody in the room. That is just the staff that we have, the meetings that go with that and the time that is um required for them to present that appeal, whether that's to planning commission, whether that's to city council. Okay. So, what was county? Wash county $1,200. Wow. Wow. Okay. I I didn't realize it was that much. Thank you. I appreciate it, Chris. But I also um I am very aware of how much staff that it takes um into the Wii hours too, right? So, thank you so much. I appreciate. All right. Thank you. Well, and I'm off to wrap up. Just if I may, Madam Mayor, I'm off. I I'm acknowledging that it costs more and I'm offering to even double it. Um I'm just saying trying to take this kind of big bite in one step is just very challenging. Okay. Thanks so much. All right, Councilman Ree, go ahead. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Um I'm somewhat in uh both camps, which is often what happens on the DAS and so I'm interested to hear my other colleagues perspective and we have this debate about this specific fee every time it arises. So about once a year we all have the same conversation again. Uh, Miss Der is not incorrect, right? We want to make sure that people have access to the powers and levers of government so they can make their voices heard. Of course, I think there are lots of ways that that can be done that aren't through the formal appeals process, right? They can do it through the processes that occur before that. Um, but at the end of the day, I I sort of find myself closer Miss Dur's thought process about it, about how much of a leap we take in one year. And so perhaps what we need to do is sort of set it on a escalating path where maybe this year we're doubling it and we see what happens with it, right? Um I if Miss Der is correct and it's really only the difference between $4,000 and $6,000. I'm not sure I want to go the other way and and jump to 12 or 14 or $1,500, whatever these other jurisdictions are doing. But somehow let's just make some effort to move in that direction, even if it's incremental over time. I the skeptic in me says that most people have a good intention when they file their appeal. They really do feel agrieved by it. At the same time, and Miss Derer should acknowledge this, some people appeal um without the good intention, right? We've all seen some of those over the course of the time we've served in office and and really we're trying to balance those. Yes, there are some very valid and legitimate appeals where maybe they're um they feel like they have not heard the important information that would change the outcome. Sometimes people appeal 70 decisions by the planning commission to us and wonder why we are upholding that planning commission decision because it's met the legal requirements for having done so. And so I think it's just it's a balancing act. We're trying very hard to make sure that people know that we wish for them to participate. The appeals process is incredibly taxing on staff and and of course on the resources that we have. But still we've made the halls of justice open to all and we have to make sure that we don't foreclose the possibility that that would happen. The last thing I'll add is maybe there is a way that we bridge both of these by saying you know there's some waiver process. If you can uh prove that you have a legitimate financial hardship for the inability to appeal but for our waiver of those fees, maybe that's something that we can look at because certainly there are folks who have again good and valid reasons for doing it and cannot afford more than the nominal fee. But the nominal fee often invites people to appeal even without good reason because they just take a flyer on the appeal. it's no skin off their back to spend the $70 or whatever it amounts to today and then it causes that increase in cost and time. So there's sort of a I I lean in towards Miss Der's good thoughts on it but also understand the reason why we continue to have this conversation every budget cycle. Yeah. And not to mention I think maybe in some ways like with Lidge you get a large group and then that's also really helpful too. Okay. Go ahead. Oh thank you madam mayor. I guess um for my comments on this is um I was able to attend a budget presentation uh or budget training with the parks and recreation department la last week uh with my colleagues over to the right of me and it was very interesting. They put it in a different perspective. What is the subsidy? What's the subsidy cost on this? So, if we're looking at appeal is $10,000 and we're charging $500, we're still looking at a $9,500 subsidies for this cuz we're a government and I've heard Councilman Ree say we're not we're not a business. We shouldn't be run like a business. So, I think from the very beginning I was I'm always going to be in favor of getting our our fees in line with our costs to recoup. And uh I guess maybe this will be the theme for me for the rest of of the meeting is just we are going to h it's going to be painful and we're going to have to make some hard decisions. So I'm going to ask Mr. Pingri what is your recommendation for this? You've done the research and all the other fees. I'm not going to pick out all of the fees. You I have to have uh confidence in you that you are doing the best everything that you can for the city. You understand the position we're in. How did you come up with $500? Chris Pingry, director of development services. Again, for the record, you know, we we've done our studies and we've done I mean, we're never going to recoup the entire cost of an appeal. Everybody in the room has to understand that. Um but to Councilman Reese's point, um a $500 fee in these larger appeals where there's groups of folks that are, you know, agreved in that specific land use appeal, they can pull that together for one. It's one one appeal is that one $500. We wouldn't have six appeals at $103 that we're currently at now where the $500 fee I mean really this was an equity piece for across the board of our other jurisdictions. Really that's how we came to that number. We were still lower than the majority of all of our neighboring jurisdictions in this topic. And not to say that they don't have as many appeals. We this year we are you know we obviously have had quite a few appeals. Um where last year we didn't. we only had four or five. I mean, it all kind of depends on some of those trickier projects that are coming through the entitlement process. So, I think that's kind of where we go. As land gets harder to develop, we're going to have more of these appeals in these infill areas. Um, and really the cost wasn't we weren't trying to go a 500% increase. This was more just based on the equity of the other jurisdictions that were that surround us. Okay. Well, I support you and I support your department and your recommendation. Thank you, Madame Mayor. All right. Councilwoman Anderson, I just wanted to to just add to how you just in support of how you articulated that. I I took so much away from that parks training last week and really what that real subsidy is. And what I think we need to really be mature about and and recognize as a community is that the appeal is a privilege and it there is real cost. There's real cost to the city for the staff time that gets put together to give you that due process. There is real cost to the people that are trying to bring the projects to the market as well. And so a symbolic raising to $500 of this fee, I think, gives more respect to the process that it actually kicks off and more respect to the decision that ultimately gets made. So, I will support your recommendation on this and thank you for doing the work and the research to bring us the surrounding communities and how they do that as well. All right, Councilman Martinez, thanks so much. Thanks for the presentation. I appreciate the robust discussion. I think for me, I understand the subsidy portion and uh the training that we went through, but in terms of making sure that we still have open access to our community members, I do think that uh making sure that this fee does recuperate some of our costs makes sense to me. Um but as uh council member Derer said, taking as big of a bite at this time or making sure that there is some sort of fee waiver application to allow folks that may not have the capacity to uh to pay the fee at that moment. Then having that opportunity could be a good way to segue both things that it seems like are h both conversations that are happening. I think the other question that I had there's a whole section under development services. So, this might be for director Pingri as well about noticing fees. Um, are any of those associated with the appeal process as well or is this just for It looks like master plan amendments are specifically called out, but just curious what the other two noticing fee new fees that you included in here are. Just in addition to the homework and the research we did with the appeal fees, we went back and looked at what other jurisdictions do as far as noticing. um you either pay for that in the application for the whatever entitlement or whatever you're applying to have performed. In our case, that was never really it was added into that initial cost of the application where we've noticed over time jurisdictions throughout the state have charged that additional fee for noticing that we are typically eating at this point knowing that we haven't raised our entitlement fees very very much over the last 10 years to where just adding that fee lets us recoup that cost the some of the hard cost that we pay for noticing any land use entitlement case. And then the other one that kind of stood out to me was the annexation. So if you could just help me understand the increase in that fee. I'll go let me go back pull up that document that we have. So an the annexation process is is very similar to the conditional use process as far as how many meetings we have the the noticing requirements the public process that goes with it. And I'm going back to see what we had charged historically was a very minimal fee. Um, and so we really just brought that fee current with what it cost for the conditional use permit or a process that mirrors that same process. So we had a fee. We we don't do very many annexes. We haven't in a long time. I don't see us doing a whole lot moving forward. It was just a good time and place now to bring that to industry standard. Um, where I think it just got left in the dust over the last, you know, decade of of fee schedule updates. Yeah, it just it was $118 at one point and you know that you know just about covers the paperwork and the uh the the data entry to get it in the system and the 3,300 is just really to mirror it's the same pretty much the same process for a condition. Okay. Yeah, I appreciate you pointing out specifically that we aren't many applications that come through this process. So, right, I'll leave it at that for this round. Thank you, Mame. Thank you so much. Um I Hold on one second. Councilwoman Eert, I don't know if you have your hand up or not. I'll just call on you. Yeah, I do. Thank you so much. So, um I also wanted to talk about the fee for filing an appeal. I know that I have um reached out to manager Bryant about having a waiver for um financial hardships. This this increase will absolutely make it so that people in my ward cannot um afford to file an appeal. Um, and I think that this is something that we need to keep accessible particularly in Ward 4 because that's where we have the most open space currently. We have a lot of development um coming through and there has been instances where an appeal was filed for a planning commission decision that was unanimous that council um then went the other way on. So, it's not unheard of. And especially if we're we're potentially not having NAS anymore, we're not giving people the opportunity to um provide feedback or get information um regarding projects that are coming, some of them literally to people's backyards. I think that's really not the route that we should be going. Um, and I I know I've personally had a a um constituent reach out to me, this is over a year ago now, um, upset about a warehouse going to be built in their backyard and she wanted to file an appeal. I connected her with staff so she could find out about the process and she called me back and said um, she couldn't afford the $60 to to file the appeals. So, she just had to live with a warehouse, go in her backyard and operate 247. I just think that's unacceptable. um people should not have to have a different um quality of life because of their pay rate. And I'll be honest with you, I couldn't afford a $500 fee. It just I couldn't do it. And I know our council salary is not um not huge, but I would not be able to afford that. And I know that I'm in a much better position than the majority of the people in my ward. So, I think this is really something we need to think about. And I understand there's a cost to do business, but there's a cost to do business in all aspects, right? We have employee salaries, we pay benefits. There's a cost across the board. Um, and there's areas where we can generate revenue that maybe we just haven't been uh utilizing with regard to the parking enforcement. I had trailer truck trailers parked all over the industrial area in my ward, some of them for probably more than a year. And it took until a couple months ago with the help of manager Bryant and um engineer Kofsky to finally get those trucks pulled out. But that's something that we could have been generating um revenue from for a long time. So there's areas when we talk about the cost of doing business, there's areas where we could be doing more to generate revenue. And it with regard to appeals, that's something that should be accessible to everyone, especially in the face of losing some of those boards and commissions and opportunities for people to um provide feedback and make changes or or get informed. Um, and you know, if if somebody doesn't have an opportunity to hear what's going on with this project, then you know, what what choice do they have but to file an appeal? And as as somebody that represents the ward with the most food deserts, the least amount of public service, um public transportation, um lowest salary range, this is just deeply upsetting to me. Um so I I can't support it unless there is some provision for a fee waiver for financial hardship. Um so that's that's all I'm going to say on that part, but I just cannot support $500 fee for uh filing an appeal. All right. Thank you. Um, you know, I actually don't think that this is that hard. I think if we took a and did a set aside on council contingency funds, um, then you can make it work. I think to Councilwoman Eert's point, um, you know, especially in her ward, so might do more of a set aside and each council member funds those. Um, that could be another way to do it. I think it would be really easy and it also um shows your willingness to work with your constituents in your ward. So, okay. Um what else? Anything else? Go ahead, Councilwoman. Yeah, two two things. I wanted to get back to the noticing fees and I'm I'm still a little confused. Could you come back, one of you? Um so, Mr. Pingri, um I I'm unclear. Were you saying that the city is paying the noticing fee or we're paying it but the applicant already did pay it? How does this work? Going back through um our application process of what fees are incorporated when they when they come in and apply for could be any land use could be you know anything that goes through the planning department. um the the anytime that we do additional noticing, we didn't have a mechanism in place to go back out if we change a meeting date, if we So, the city was paying for that additional noticing. This is just giving us the ability when staff feels it is the right time to to be able to charge an additional noticing fee to the applicant. Okay. It would be optional, correct? it would be used at the discretion of when when it's and I just want to reiterate a concern I've had for 10 years, which is that um I think it's it's also in this line of due um of justice, which is that we notice property owners, we don't notice all the people, including renters. So, renters don't get an individual notice like property owners do. And I just think that at the core, that is wrong. Um they are deserving as much notice as anyone that something's coming to their neighborhood. Many of the renters that I know have lived there 5, 10, 15 years. They never could afford to to get enough money to buy a house or they preferred to rent for whatever reason. But it doesn't mean that we should take away their rights to access again to their government. And this is something I've pushed for. So I want you to stay cognizant of that. That um you know these people deserve notice too. I and I don't think anybody in the room disagrees with that. We just follow it. We follow NRS per the noticing requirements. That's just but that's an ordinance fix that I've requested and that we need to do, I think. And the second thing on the um uh the the appeal fees. Look, it's obviously a principle. It's not about money. So, I had the mayor doesn't know this, but I had already told Miss Bryant that if this passed, which I I didn't think I could support the budget. I mean, I know it sounds crazy, but it's that important to me about access to justice that um I don't know if I can or can't support the budget, but I could support it if we could double the fee to $200 and not, you know, quintuple it to $500. And number two, she doesn't know this, but I already offered to pay every single person's fee, just as Alexis Hill offered to pay fees to change people's deed restrictions on who could move into their community. So, I am willing to put my money where my mouth is, but I don't think that, you know, Miss Eert, who has a series of poorer people in Hershey community, should have to pay more than, let's say, uh, a person representing my area or South Reno that happen to have more money. I I don't think that's fair either. So, my recommendation, and I hope once we get to a motion, is that we look at a $200 fee, which is a doubling. We also look at a waiver process, and if we if mens can't make it, then council pitches in. I have no problem with that as a as a way because it's not about money. Again, it's going to bring you a sum total if it was four permits of $2,000 and maybe up to $6,000. It's not about money in this multi multi-million dollar budget. So, it's a matter of principle. Thank you. Um and I would agree, but I do think council contingency that therefore everyone can decipher what their priorities are, especially now being in ward only. Um, and I have seen what a detriment that is. It is one of the worst things that has ever happened to our city because then other council members don't, and I'm not talking about all of you guys up here. I wouldn't say that, but then other council members don't have to care about what happens in other words. And other boards do have um, you know, different challenges. But I would say maybe set aside of cuz I believe contingency would be at 20. we could set aside at least 10 and whatever is not used it goes right back to you and then you can use it at future date and then that way um I think it's supportive of how you want to get there and the people that want to file an appeal. Okay. So while I'm here you I'm willing to pay but I mean I'll I won't be here in a year and a half. This permit fees forever. So okay, you know just consider it. I'm not ask I'm just looking for compromise. Yeah. No, I think it's great. So, um, also that I don't think it's I don't think it's fair to have it be contingent on what ward you live in and whether or not your council member is willing to do that for you? I mean, I'm willing to do that, but I don't know if everyone else is. And does that mean that you No, every council member would would do that. Every council member would make that commitment to do that. And I think that that's fair. Well, and Madame Mayor, just like I said earlier, I will donate discretionary funds to Miss Eert's senior advisory committee and to any members in her ward who feel financially that they're not able to do it. So, no problem for the time I'm in office as well. Okay. Thank you. All right. I'm just saying I think there's a if there's a will, there's a way to do it. So, we don't have to pick and choose between words. Okay. Moving along. Okay. Um, Lindsay Hatfield, budget manager for the record. Uh, we're going to move into capital improvement projects now. So, we're going to briefly touch on a special revenue fund, and then um I'm going to speak on the general capital maintenance, the state of that, and then we'll have a few departments come up and discuss their larger projects that are going to take place next year. So, for our CDBG funding, um I did want to point this one out because we actually are not currently sure what the award is going to be for the current year. So, we have um anticipated $2 million after speaking with housing staff. Um that is consistent with the what the award has been in prior years. We did have uh requests totaling $8.6 million this year. Um those projects span um ADA and pedestrian improvements, some parking lot improvements, some fire station repairs, those sorts of things. um those projects will be coming back to council on June 11th for you to um for approval and we'll know by that point what the actual award is. But just for clarity, we've included kind of a standard $2 million which is what we've seen in the last few years. Um if that comes in more or less, we will adjust that on an augmentation. So, I want to take some time to talk about our general capital maintenance needs. And what I'm focusing on here, this $188 million in deferred general maintenance. Um, this is the funding that would typically come from the general fund. So, we do have some other revenue sources. This is not um we're not discussing the sewer fund here or um the the neighborhood street program, that sort of thing. This is just for general capital maintenance. So from the general fund um for general capital maintenance that covers our parks. So we do have um 87 parks plus plazas and trails, hundreds of acres um that this money covers. They have about $84 million in deferred maintenance in our parks. This funding covers playground replacements, repairs to our irrigation systems, surface and path repairs, the um work that's needed at Virginia Lake. It's also the funding that parks uses for their grant matching. So, if they're awarded um a grant that requires them to match dollars, they would look to this funding to to provide that matching. Um parking lots, we have 77 parking lots, most of those at at those parks. Um for our facility maintenance uh we have 57 high use buildings. 22 of those buildings are emergency operations. So they are in use 24/7. These are going to be our fire stations, our police station, our sub police substations, those sorts of of facilities in use again 24 hours a day. We have 13 essential operation buildings. These are high employee use with some public use. So think city hall, all the buildings out at the corpyard, those types of facilities. And then we have 22 public operations facilities. These are your pools and recck centers. Um these are low employee use but but more for use by the public. In total for all of these facilities, we have over $61 million in deferred maintenance. So, when we're looking at facility maintenance, we are looking at roof repairs, repairs to the facade outside of the building, um HVAC and boiler replacements, um just those kind of things that that keep the facility from from deteriorating. Additionally, um I want to take a moment and talk about our fire apparatus replacement plan. A few years ago, um I believe the year before I came, um the fire apparatus replacement plan was brought forward and council reviewed and approved that. Um we have 44 apparatus in our fleet. Um the National Fire Protection Association recommends that the average age of your fleet be 10 years or less. um before we implemented the fire replacement fire apparatus replacement plan our average um age of our fleet was 17 years. So it was much higher than than what is recommended. Now after the past several years of funding this plan um and purchasing those new apparatus we have reduced the age of our fleet to 11 years. So, that's some really great progress that we've made um based on the the direction and decisions of this council to implement that plan. Over the next few years, we do anticipate needing about $8 million to continue um continue that trajectory and to to keep our our fire apparatus from aging out of use. So for next year, um we do uh on the those same lines, I did want to talk about the service delivery delays. I know um city manager Bryant mentioned this. There will be delays. So what what we're looking at with general capital maintenance next year, we know that there are no additional there's no new funding that's going to go towards these programs from the general fund. that was a way that we were able to budget next year was to eliminate that additional funding. Um, but there is some funding still available to these programs that we will be able to carry forward. So, I spoke with all of these departments directly. We worked together to to figure out what do you believe that you'll have from the current year unspent that you'll be able to carry forward for emergent needs in the next year. So, for our facility maintenance, um again, that's our boiler repairs, our HVAC, roof repairs, um our fire stations when they need um repairs done on their doors, flooring, um all those types of things. They do have $2 million in the current year that they do not believe will be spent in this FY25 um fiscal year that we're going to carry forward to next year. So, there will still be funding available to do emergency projects. We're not going to be scrambling if a boiler goes out. Um, but that funding will diminish quickly. Um, for the parks maintenance, I won't I won't talk a lot about this because we do have some park staff coming up to discuss this a little further, but they have $800,000. This was allocated in their facil their um parks maintenance plan. They had a plan for which projects were going to move forward with this funding. Um so barring any emergencies, they will continue with that plan, but the funding is there should something come up and they need to pivot um and look at at something more emergent. But it is really important to understand again those service delivery delays. So when we get complaints about um sidewalk and pathway repairs that are needed, it might take longer for those repairs to be made. for the fire apparatus replacement. They are still going to be able to purchase new apparatus next year to continue with that replacement plan. Um, currently in the plan for FY26 is the purchase of one engine and one heavyduty mechanic truck. They are also still um funding the $100,000 a year for their SCBA replacement. And this is really important um personal protective equipment that our firefighters need and we need to make sure that that those are replaced on a consistent basis and there that plan is a 10-year plan. So we allocate 100,000 every year so that when um that plan needs to be completely funded, the funding is there and I'm available if you have some questions. Um once we finish with this discussion, we're going to move on to departments and then they'll they'll speak to their specific projects in a little more detail. Okay. Councilwoman Door. No, Councilman Ree. Thank you so much. I wanted to focus specifically on CDBG. And so you have the one slide that talks about the 8.6 million requested. Um what and this is for the benefit of my colleagues who don't serve on CDBG. What have we voted to approve in CDB specifically in this budget allocation for FY26? Yeah. Is that or we haven't yet done that? No, they they will come back on June 11th. Yeah. I just want to make sure that I wasn't putting the cart before the horse. So, you're identifying capital improvement projects that we already approved in CDBG last year. No. um in your packet in um let's see exhibit C there is a list of all of those projects that were requested but because we do not know the full amount yet um they have not all we're not recommending that they're all funded because we know we're not likely to get $8.6 million. So we think that we'll get about 2 million and then um housing staff will be bringing that forward to speak to you about the specific projects on June 11th. Awesome. that that are being recommended and they should know by that point what the award amount is. Perfect. Thank you so much. Great Taylor. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Um I have a couple questions about the deferred capital maintenance and this was supplemental to our information in your presentation. So I don't know if you need to take a couple minutes to grab it up and it was something that I had said earlier about our deferred maintenance costs. When we look at FY26, total capital needs, there's about is it about $250 million. I think that's sounds correct. Okay. So, what I what I'm looking at is when we get into FY27 and 28, we have a looks like a 10-year plan that we're budgeting for. Well, we'll only be budgeting for 26, but we kind of keep this 10year. Um and specifically what what I'm talking about here is the general capital maintenance. So again it doesn't include the so the part there's other like stew sewer and special districts and stuff. So the deferred capital if I'm reading this chart right in the next 10 years is between 800 million and a billion dollars. Is that am I understanding that correctly? Yes. Okay. How do we prepare for that? I will add a a bulk of that is in um our street fund and our sewer projects. So that is um almost 900 million of the the total cost. Um those are planned out on I believe a 20 year 20-year plan um for what projects we are going to work on each year. So that is more of a structured plan. Whereas our general capital maintenance, we know that we have these needs and we know that a lot of them are not going to be addressed um because we simply do not have the funding. So Okay. Can you say that we're not going to address them because we simply don't have the funding at this point? Yes. Okay. Um and I'm not coming after you. I'm just trying to understand all of the parts of the budget and this seems like a big part. What? Um, we have a 20-year plan and I keep hearing we're budgeting, but costs are always going up. We always get to the point where we say, "Oh, we're ready to build a thing, but we didn't we don't have enough money. Construction costs have gone up from 40 to 60%." Are we including those metrics as we do these plans? Yes. So, we are anticipating costs increase. We also evaluate these plans on an annual basis and so adjust. Um, and then you'll also see that 20-year plan that is the model that is used in the sewer rate analysis. So, when they come forward and they say, you know, based on all this data, we're recommending X% increase, that is to make sure that we can fund these larger projects in the future. Okay. Thank you. All right. Anyone else? Go ahead, Councilman Ree. Thank you, Madame Mayor. I I suppose Miss Taylor, to you or Vice Mayor Taylor, to your point, uh, one of the things that was really alarming when I first joined council and was trying to learn about all the elements of the work we do is to learn about like the street fund. And I think on day two of the job, someone said to me, we have a $400 million backlog of street repairs. And I think what I've learned is that that is sort of a a number in the abstract. It represents if every street was paved to perfect conditions on uh day one and then we move forward. But of course, I've learned now that government doesn't entirely work like that. So, I don't want the public to believe that we have a billion dollars worth of maintenance that we're never going to get to. I think we get to it each year on a very programmatic way. And of course, as our revenue increases, as the community grows, you take each one of those things year by year. And I think our street fund's a good example of that. They try to move those street funds around based on the payment preservation decks. Same thing with sewers, right? Not all of it fails at once. And I don't think there's any government in the world that doesn't have a backlog of capital projects, street maintenance that is overdue. It's the nature of government. It will always have less money that it needs to do the things it has to do. Um, and so I try not to think about it in the billion dollar, you know, abstract because we will never have a billion dollars all at once to do the thing. Uh, but we'll take bites at it and our great staff will help us to prioritize as they continue to do. I I suppose I think about it too when I think about the debt we've accumulated for the downtown event center, the ballroom, the train trench, um, the, you know, bowling stadium. Those are things that, you know, I think are there and we live with the consequences of them. Um, but I think about more the debt that we pay to service those means we aren't doing other things that we might otherwise prioritize today. And as Miss Anderson said earlier, you know, what are we going to do to grow the community responsibly to pay for the increase in costs and services that happen over time? Um, I think that's part of the why we're having this very big decision this week and talking about the redevelopment agencies and what is the impact of growth in those areas. All those things mean a lot to me. Your point is very well taken though and I think uh worth sort of pausing on and just thinking about in both the abstract and what it philosophically means for us to make decisions about it. I I I do you mind if I respond m I I guess that brings up another question. Council member Ree when we say we have this number is there a assessment of like A B C D you know obviously we can't repay we all want a streets or whatever. Is there are we keeping track of what the quality is and when they're going to be done? So, okay, perfect. Thank you. Yes. Did you want to go? Yeah. I'm sorry. I can't see your microphone from other Here it is. Deon, can you just move that over there? There you go. Perfect. Thank you so much. Go ahead. Um, yeah. If we could go back to the slide which is on page 27. Good. Slide 27, isn't it? Um, did I jump ahead or? Uh, isn't this in the capital maintenance fund and all? Um, yes, but we have departments that are going to come up and speak to those. They're going to give those presentations shortly. Okay. All right. Well, I can hold till then. As long as we do get a chance to talk then. Okay. Councilwoman Eert, do you have any questions? No, thank you. Okay. All right. Go ahead. Um, okay. If there are no other questions, then we'll move on and Veronica Lopez, our court administrator, is going to come up and speak to the municipal court projects for Okay. Good job. You made it. Wow, what a morning. Good morning, council members, madame mayor, city manager Bryant. For the record, my name is Veronica Lopez. I'm the Reno Municipal Court Administrator, and I'm here today to inform you about two improvement projects the court will be implementing in FY26. Due to the current budget concerns and the need for these two improvements, the court will be funding the projects from its AA funds. Administrative assessment fees are designated to the Reno Municipal Court and regulated by statute. The first project is a replacement of the elevator that services the three floors of the Reno Municipal Court. The elevator was installed during the construction of the building in 2005 and parts are now becoming obsolete, leading to maintenance delays and eventually making repairs impossible. The approximate improvement budget for this is $384,000. The second improvement is a replacement of one of two chillers. The chillers service the Reno Justice Court, the Reno Municipal Court, and the District Court buildings. The county is currently in the process of installing the chiller. And the total cost of this is 715,000, and the allocated cost to the court will be 114,000. And with that, that's my very short presentation. Wow. Of the projects. Um, and I'm here to answer any questions you might have. All right. Thank you so much. appreciate it. Um, obviously you've been sitting here with us for a couple of hours and hearing about how and what we're prioritizing. Um, give us a little bit of an idea of what you guys are looking at prioritizing and uh, ways that you're looking at sort of rights sighting your budget. Well, you know, we we received the request to cut our services and supply budget. Um and that was something that we can accommodate the request by the city and so we are cutting 5% of our services and supplies and as a city other city departments are doing we're coming together and doing more with less staff less services um so long as the service is not a absolute need we are all pitching together to come together and meet that that request. What are you what about your staffing budget? Are you looking at that as well? We are. You are. We are looking at positions as individuals retire um move to other positions and determining what is that service need. Can we accommodate the request by the city to hold those positions vacant to generate more savings to help bridge the gap, the financial gap that we need to bridge? Yeah. Thank you so much. Appreciate it. Okay, go ahead, Councilman Ree. Thank you so much. And Madame Mayor, I think your point and Miss Lopez to you um is well taken. Um obviously all of our budgets are the reflection of our priorities and I want to thank you for the good work that a lot of your specialty courts are doing which reflect those priorities. Many times um you know the Camo Reno Justice Court or some of the other specialty courts are doing very good work. They don't always get seen by the people who are not participants in the program. But I do think those are a reflection of the budgetary choices we make and a lot of those of course are are funded through grants. So it's it's incumbent upon you all to continue the work that you've done to secure those grants and just really share the good news of the fact that you have received them that they cover multiple years. Um I suppose for this presentation I thank you for the fact that you have uh participated because you are us. we are together in this in the various um things that the manager's office has directed in terms of cuts and supplies and vacancy position freezes. Um the two projects that are here that look like um an elevator and the chiller replacement, those are coming out of the court administrative assessment fund, the AA funds that you mentioned, is that right? Correct. Yeah. I I think it's part of the uh capital improvement needs of that building and certainly appreciate that you all have put those monies aside for those ongoing needs. Um so I think it's a great update. Thank you again for the work that you're doing over there and and continue to invite us to uh witness firsthand those specialty courts. I think there are some really uh incredible things happening and the lives that are being changed with some of those. I missed the last camo veteran court, but I think it's the first one I've missed in several years because I really do believe in the program that you're doing there. And I know Madame Mayor went with us to one even the time before that. Just great work. Thank you. I appreciate that acknowledgement and these programs are wonderful and I welcome the entire council, city manager Bryant to come and and um observe any of those graduations or if not a graduation any staffing or court session that we may have. I know council um woman Anderson attended the last one. Mayor has attended. I know you've come in the last few times. But there is some great work that is being done over at the municipal court with the treatment programs. And I do want to say all five of those treatment court programs we have over there are fully funded by grants. Yeah. And we hustle and make applications to get what we need to get because we we want to maintain the sustainability of those programs. Yeah. That's awesome. Good job, Veronica. Um, I have to uh be in my office, Vice Mayor. So, I'm going to continue the rest of the meeting from my office and I'm going to send the um meeting to you. Okay. Okay. Thank you, Madam Mayor. And I'll just chime in from upstairs. Sounds good. Do we have any other questions? Okay. I think we're moving on to parks and recreation. Good afternoon. Uh for the record, Karina Mercier, project manager, park planner for parks and recreation. Um so, as some of you may know, um we have two major funding sources for parks capital maintenance projects. Um the first is the capital maintenance fund which as mentioned previously in the presentation we are not anticipating an allocation for in fiscal year 26 but historically this allocation has been $700,000 annually um and has been used um to fund purchases annual purchases of safety surfacing um sidewalk repairs irrigation head controllers and um some examples of projects that we are currently um completing completing this fiscal year using this fund include the Sierra Vista Park restroom project, uh the Miguel Rivera playground replacement, and the septic conversion at Sky Tavern. Um so the impacts of not funding this um allocation are that the annual purchases of um safety surfacing and repairs to sidewalks will not take place and the projects that were planned in the capital improvement plan for fiscal year 26 will be deferred to the following year and subsequently the years um will be deferred um following that. So the next fund is the residential construction tax. Um and this fund is limited as far as its use. Um it can't be used for regular maintenance or operations and it also must be expended within the fund the district within which it was collected. So this is an overview of all the projects that we are requesting approval for. Um and I will go into detail for each one. So, first up is the Demani Ranch Dog Park. This is a request for $100,000 to construct a dog park on the southeast corner of Deonti Ranch Park. Um that will include um fencing, pet waste disposal stations, and shaded benches for pet owners. And you can see the image on the right is um some planned improvements at Deonti Ranch. The footprint of the dog parks would be the green area on the southwest south east, sorry. Um, and uh there's also the the blue area adjacent to the parking lot. That is where we're currently planning to install the National Fitness Campaign fitness court, which should be completed this summer. Uh the next project is the safety surfacing at Dick Taylor Park. This is um the safety surface at this park is in very critical condition um and is high priority for being replaced. The playground has a pretty large footprint of approximately 5,900 square ft. Um so we are requesting 350,000 um to remove and replace the surface. You can see um the color coding has not only been eroded but there is some loss of volume in the surface of the playground which not conducive to its purpose as safety surface. Uh the next project is um a request of $300,000 to construct um a two approximately 22,000 square ft of asphalt path around the perimeter of the fields at Dorothy Melinden Park. So you can see the current conditions of the path there. Um it has large cracks, heaves, and is not compliant with ADA standards. So, our plan is to improve this park by um installing an asphalt path that is um complies with ADA standards and improves access to the park. Uh next, we have uh the asphalt path reconstruction at Miraloma Park. This is a request for 30,000 um to complete uh improvements to the asphalt path. The path that is in place currently has cracks and holes that pose um safety issues for park users. And we're prioritizing this site because um we have a current project to redo the sport courts at this park that we expect will increase traffic to the park. So, it's important to have a good path. Um next we have the Paradise Park pedestrian bridge replacement. Um this is anest request for additional funding. Um so we um are in progress with this project and we have $160,000 currently allocated which we found is enough to cover the purchase of a pre-fabricated bridge. So now we are requesting $140,000 additional funds to cover the installation of the bridge. And you can see the image on the right. Um the bridge is not ADA accessible. If you have a wheelchair, you can't use it. So, um we're looking to improve this bridge to um improve the ADA flow at this park. And then finally, um this is a request for $200,000 to um improve the courts at Barbara Bennett Park. Uh the current condition of the courts um interferes with the functionality of the courts, so people aren't able to play um basketball as well. So, the scope for this project would include a new overlay to the surface of the court, striping, paint for the backboards and posts, and then replacement of the basketball nets. Um, with that, I or our park manager, I'm happy to take your questions. Council member Dor. Yeah, thank you very much. Um, so first of all, can we go back to page 27 of your PowerPoint? Um, I want to say all of these projects seem desperately needed. I I'm, you know, the pictures speak a thousand words, right? Um, they tell the story. Um, I wanted to get clarity on a couple things. First of all, in this chart, it seems like there may have been a mixup in wards in several cases. Like for example, Demani Ranch, that's in W six, not four. And then for example, Miroma, that's in W three, not two. And then Paradise Park Bridge, that's in W three, not five. And so I think it may give it says Ward, right? I know that's different than the district, but it does list the ward. So I just wanted to be clear, there are none of these projects in W 2. And um uh my concern for a long time has been, of course, Virginia Lake. It's our third most visited park. Um what I'm very concerned about, you know, is the fact that the West Bank is uh we're losing it. And that means that the trees will fall in, the path will fall in, and it's just like what I said about maintenance earlier. It's going to cost us a lot more money to fix it once uh it gets further degraded. Now, I know that residential construction tax is supposed to be for new things, not repairs, but a lot of the things that you mentioned are repairs. Like Demani Ranch is a new thing, but then Dick Taylor playground surface replacement is a repair. Um the path reconstruction is a repair was there and we're repairing it. The reconstruction of the um miroma is a repair and I just wasn't I'm very unclear because I was always told we could not do maintenance and repairs out of this RCT money. Thank you for those questions. Um Council Member Der, I'm going to try to address them in order. Uh I'm very sorry about the wards. I I'm not sure what occurred, but I I'll take a look at that and get an updated list to you. Um the key thing here is the um RCT district cuz that's the balance um where the money's coming from. Yes. Um and then as far as the use of RCT, you're right. It can't be used for regular maintenance. Um, and I think Matt can explain it. At some point it goes to reconstruction and that's considered new instead of more routine maintenance. Matt Brazina, parks manager. Um, yes. So, replacement or improvement would be included in RC appropriate use of RCT funding. Um, now if we were to go out there and do a patch at Dick Taylor playground, that would be considered maintenance. However, replacement of the entire um yeah, since my time's running, I've had a project on there for a very long time. Maybe it's been addressed, but at Wheatland Park, which is in Wu, there is a section of cracks. It is a ADA issue. I have a person in a wheelchair right there, tries to go on this path every single day. Do you know if it's been addressed? Uh we have removed the um the damage panel and filled it in with DG, so it's um it's more accessible than it was. Um, however, uh, you know, part of replacing that would be, uh, part of the capital maintenance funding that we are not going to Well, I'd like to get that on a list so we could actually just put in the section of concrete so that it's a continuous path. The problem is it's been an issue for at least 5 years and it is a very important ADA issue. I've gotten a lot of complaints about the park that's not really up to snuff. I'm not trying to address that kind of bigger bigger issue today, but I am want I know we've applied for a grant for Virginia Lake, but but I have doubts that's going to come. And so what I don't want to do is just keep pushing it. It's been pushed for 10 years and I don't see it on any list today. So I just wanted to elevate. And you're speaking about Virginia Lake. Yeah. Right. Um so funding wise that the district um district 5 which is where Virginia Lake is uh has the lowest balance and that's because uh district 5 is almost completely uh built out and there's not a whole lot of um redevelopment in that area. So I believe the balance is under a million dollars. It's right around 900,000. And uh our initial assessment of Virginia Lake um led us to believe that the project would be about 1.6 six to$2 million to fix it. So, we don't have the full amount to fix it and then um you know, okay, doing partial uh replacement of that bank and probably isn't cost effective either. Sure. So, okay, we're going to move on to council member Ree and we'll come back to you. Y thank you so much and um a couple things. Number one, I think uh all of these projects as Miss Dwer said are outstanding projects. Um, I'm not entirely sure what happened with the wards there, but I think most of us know the ones which we're are in our wards or where they're situated. Part of the issue is, and because I've served on CDBG for uh the time I've been on the council, is that each time the allocation process comes up and CDBG meets, the lift at Virginia Lake is so large that it consumes the entirety and then some of the of the budget that CDBG has. So, we've never been able to do it through CBG because we didn't have enough money to both do the project in its entirety or we would have to hold it over multiple years. And I think our our subcommittee, the smaller group of us which meet to look at these has always tried to just um spread it out knowing that at some point in time we may have to do that. We may have to just say for the next two years every dollar that comes through TDBG will have to go to Virginia Lake Park. And of course, when you all announced that you were going after this grant that would move towards uh stabilization, it will be part of what we're talking to our congressional delegation through uh the next coming process of asking them to help allocate money for specific projects that they might be smaller and able to do. So, I think there is hope for them to come and stabilize those projects through uh that grant process or another one that we're working on. So, u Miss Eert has been a vocal advocate for um this restoration of Virginia Lake, as has Mr. Martinez and myself. It's just that we couldn't do it in the time that we've been on there because of its large price tag. Uh that being said, all of these are great projects and should be uh the hopefully approved by the body. Um and I think we'll look at this other one which I was aware of that Miss Der has raised and we'll see if that one could be put in included for next year. Thank you. Council member Anderson. Okay. I have a question on um the additional funding. So on slide 27, it looks like Demani Ranch Dog Park and the Paradise Park bridge replacement, these projects are already in place and this is additional funding to go towards them. Is that accurate? That is correct. Yes. Um Deonti Ranch Park, it was approved in fiscal year 25 in conjunction with the completion of the fitness courts. Um so at at this time we're just requesting additional funding to ensure that we have the full amount to complete the project as costs go up. Um and the same for Paradise Park. Um we requested what we felt initially was sufficient to complete the full project and then found that it was only enough to cover the purchase of the bridge. So essentially it's just a matter of cost going up and us um realizing we need more funds to complete the the projects. Okay. Um and then my next question is going back to this CIP cost summary table. There's a large um deferred capital maintenance plan and I just don't understand what the number is for 30 to 36. That's $81 million looking out. What is that for? I believe because every year it's like 800,000 700,000 700 what happens between 30 and 36. So, are you asking about the fiscal years or So, I'm looking at the general at the parks maintenance fund and there's a huge bump in the number from a year after year it's like 800,000 700,000 and then for the next five five years it looks like it's Carrie do you know I I think I know what you're referencing our capital maintenance plan so Um last year we did the we updated our facility condition analysis and in it we noted every project that needs to take place at all the parks. Um and we assign them a condition rating based on their priority level for completion. Um so I think there's over 360 projects on that list. Um and then based on that we planned um what projects based on their priority we should assign to different fiscal years given the what we were anticipating as an annual allocation out of the capital maintenance fund. So we planned that I believe for the next 10 years and then beyond that I think fiscal years I 29 through 34 we combined the remaining projects um that were not allocated to previous years if that makes sense. So if I'm understanding that's every single project project like councilman Ree was talking about under the sun included in that number. Correct. Got it. Okay. Thank you very much. Council member Eert, do you have any questions? [Music] No, that's time. Thank you. Okay, other council members. Okay, thank you for the presentation. Thank you. There was one thing I wanted to add. Oh. Um, when we were talking Virginia Lake, um, something that you could think about that might help is to look at the, um, for years we've talked about putting in a floating vegetation to deal with water quality. And that would likely be a much lower cost than replace one is $1.6 million to $2 million to replace the bank. And um the it's the water quality's already improved so much with the recirculation project that was put in, but this is more of a finishing process to deal with nitrogen and phosphorus. I see Trina is in the background. I suspect she knows a lot about these kind of projects. But I mean it it's a different way to start dealing with some water quality issues. Um, it's not exactly the bank. The bank's falling in regardless, but if we can never get to it, then maybe we should at least take a smaller stab at the lake from another perspective. Okay, you all right? Good morning. Good afternoon, council. It is 12:30. Yes. Um, for the record, Carrie Ksky, your public works director. Before I go into my presentation, I wanted to uh h listening to the the last presentation reminded me of something that that is um may be beneficial. One of the efficiencies that we have found through the years is that um you saw those numbers on the parks projects that are 100,000, 200,000, 30,000. One of the efficiencies that we do here at the city of Reno is we utilize our staff in public works to design and to manage those projects. And what happens is we work very closely with our our brothers and sisters over there in the parks departments and we're able to reduce those costs. So we are able to do that kind of work. So I just wanted to to let everyone know that that has been what we've done through the years and we would continue to do so. So um let's get started with public works. Um public works we have the responsibility for four major programs and those programs are prioritized by the condition assessments that we do. So we gather data and we take that data, we put it through programs and um models and it helps us to project what those projects are current the current needs and the future needs. Now we don't do that ourselves in public works. We lean on our uh our folks in maintenance and operations. So they will go through on the sewer pipes and they'll run the cameras down the sewer pipes. They'll do the condition analysis. Um they also do field inspections. Our facility maintenance folks, they will they have a a long list of um of facilities and they keep track of all of the the every little thing that you can think about that is included in a bill in a building and then we prioritize those sort of things. um street rehabilitation. We use uh our own people um and and we supplement it with consultants to go out and visually look at each street once every 3 years. So, we know the conditions of those streets and we're able to put those in the programs and then do our our uh our prioritization. And that's where that's where we are um with with the street fund um with the retract trench repairs. That is something new that we have in our program this year. We built that retra um facility in 2005. So it's 20 years old. We have spent very little on the on the maintenance or the the improvements for those for the for the retract. So we hired a consultant and they they are they provided us with a condition assessment. So a basis for for our um our needs. So, I'm going to go through kind of each one of these and and it's it's not a real long presentation. Um, but I'll start with our sewer collection projects. So, the you talked about missionritical. These are the things that are missionritical to the city of Reno. We need to spend money on uh pipe rehabilitation. Um, in some places the model tells us to increase the pipe size, the pipe diameters. Um we also are very diligent on taking storm water flows that are like we call them we call them um inflow infiltration. So where where a catch basin may be connected to a sewer main. We want to get rid of all of those and because we don't want to treat that water. We want those to go to drainage facilities. Sewer manhole rehabilitation. And then we've got um our infrastructure that is desperately needing to in the north valleys. We've got the uh corporation yard that we are um working to complete. We know that that's going to take some time, but it is it is important that that we know that that you know that the um the purpose of that satellite facility is to reduce the wear and tear. As you heard from Vicki talk about our our fleet, we want to reduce the wear and tear of that heavy equipment that goes up into the north valleys. um the the the largest chunk of this um in the sewer collection projects is $12 million. So that represents the yellow and that is basically for our um uh the rehabilitation of pipes that are in poor condition or in failing condition. We look at our street projects first. So, wherever we've got street projects programmed because we know we're going to be digging those streets up and um so so let's make those a first priority. We also look at alleys. So, we've got currently about 22 miles of alleys in the city and a lot of those pipes are in very poor condition. We get a really good bang for our dollar here because alleys are also drainage facilities and that if we have to dig up the alleys anyway, we might as well replace them with the the concrete and that that takes care of the drainage facility. So that's something that we're that we program in that $12 million in the in the blue section. We've is about $3.5 million. That's the capacity that I was talking about. So bringing um when we have these infill projects um within the city of Reno, sometimes the capacity of those pipes are not quite enough um to take the flows that that we need. So if we're doing street projects, RTC is doing projects, we'll upsize those pipes. Um we've got 2 million in I ini um manholes. So people manholes don't last forever. They last um they last anywhere from 50 to 100 years, but you have to keep you have to keep an eye on those manholes and make sure that you're inspecting them. Depends on the the number of gases and all kinds of different things um as far as their rate of of deterioration. Um we we put a million dollars into those each year so we don't have a major problem down the road. Um and then we put a million dollars towards the north valleys in from the sewer fund. street re rehabilitation. Um, so the street fund, we are talking about the neighborhood streets. You've heard me say before the city owns all of the streets. We may not maintain all the streets. RTC does not own the streets. We're responsible for those. We've got total in our inventory 750 centerline miles of streets. of that 500 miles are neighborhood streets. And what is a neighborhood street? It's a low volume street under 5,000 uh ADT and they're typically two lanes. Uh we've got 500 miles of those. So what our biggest portion of our street funded projects is that yellow uh outer line there. We've got $8.2 million set aside for rehab reconstructs. Uh Vicki talked earlier about the cost of things. This is where we're being hit really hard. Four years ago, one mile of roadway cost us $2.5 million to reconstruct. Today, it costs us $5 million. Sure, the the expectations have sort have have um elevated. We've looked at uh micromobility. We've looked at um other sort of um enhancements to our roadways, but the point is it's costing more. We're having a very difficult time keeping up. We use in the street fund, we use the strategic plan that that the council adopted in 1995. It was right, Kate. 97, excuse me, 1997. And that strategic plan has done a wonderful job of getting us to a PCI that we need to be. We started back it back in 1995 with a PCI of 58. We are today at a PCI of 76. It's a remarkable. So that goes to how do we plan these things so we're not falling off the cliff with our roadways? What we have just what what Katie's team is and I have been working on is we need to update that strategic plan because we are now seeing instead of the curve we're going upward. We're starting to come backwards. We're not being we're not going to be able to keep up. So, we've got to look at different alternatives for roadway reconstructions. We got to look at uh different methods that um may stretch those dollars a little bit farther. Um, we're working with the RTC to possibly take some of our neighborhood collectors, uh, Councilman Councilman Ree and Mayor Hillary Shei have been carrying their torch for us to to possibly get those those like those those neighborhood collectors which carry a lot more traffic, but they're not really art they're not arterials yet. Get those included into our our program. So, um, with that being said, the the second largest, uh, dollar amount is that gray line, and that's our preventative maintenance program. We, we set aside $3.5 million. That's to keep our good streets in good condition. If you don't do that, you're going to fall off the cliff. You have to do that. And that's one thing that we re we recommend, we realized through our strategic plan in 1995 was that was a key. And it held firm for years. But now we've got to look at at um other other things. So during this the workshop here in the fall, I believe it is, we'll start talking about some other methods and other options for our street fund. The next two buckets are rather small. Um we put got a a million dollar set aside for the um uh out of the $2 search charge and another million dollars for the retract. I'll talk about the retract uh first. There the condition report that we went through um was it actually came in pretty well. Uh it came in better than I expected. Well, I was hoping for the best. Um we they identified about $8 million of of improvements that need to occur throughout the years. So, we're going to program those. Um, one of the things that that that we're looking at is is in in 2005 when we when we took over the retra um men u the trench the um the it was in great condition um through several agreements with the railroad. They maintain the rails and the tracks. We get everything else. They are there by easement. We own everything else. So, we got to figure out through redevelopment now that we're using those redevelopment leases to to or we're taking those redevelopment properties and we're going to sell those properties, we have got to figure out how to fund those fund these improvements. Um because this is a this is a lifeline for us when when the council um went forward with with this project. And I think um right now Vicki, we've got about two we have about $1 million I think in that in the in that retract fund. But that fund was set aside just for um from the lease revenues to maintain the trench. We've got to we've got to keep our eye on that ball. Um so some of the things that we're going to do is we've got some spalling on the on the walls that'll need to be uh rehabilitated. And then the picture to the very right that shows the underneath um that's basically a street on top of that. Um one of the things that we're seeing is we're seeing a lot of water infiltration and it's coming in and sooner or later you know water does a terrible thing to rebar and it's going to create problems. So we want to pull those street sections off and then we want to um put a a vapor barrier or a seal down so the water can't get through. Um so those those are the repairs. the major maintenance that we're going to be doing on the on the retra the Reno Event Center and the and the bowling stadium. So, how those are prioritized are again by our facility condition analysis or reports. We have another step because this is the the $2 search charge. If you remember, um that committee was set us set up to oversee the maintenance of the Reno Event Center and the National Bowling Stadium. So, so the the process that I go through is I go through the $2 charge. Um we we present we as staff, city staff present the uh recommended priorities and then we get concurrence from that that group. And this year what we have concurrence on are the ballards at the Reno Event Center. Now the ballards are to protect the traffic from going into people. the I I believe when we have special events there they put the steel gates up and that keeps the people from going into the traffic. This here is is a been a priority for year for probably four four years for the um searchcharge group and then we have so that that project there is about 650 700,000 we're thinking right now and then we've got some um I let's see HVAC that was the other thing some HVAC items that we were going to work on at the national bowling stadium. I want to back up one second. I missed something on the street fund. When I said bridges, I went, "Oh, darn." So, bridge maintenance. So, we own the bridges also. We are fortunate that we have the regional transportation commission that most of our large bridges are on major arterials. So they are they're carrying that torch for us to help us with those find the funds to um replace those bridges because they are a transportation a significant uh transportation infrastructure. But the bridge maintenance that I'm talking about here is we we also have all of the other bridge maintenance. We call them bridges but in a lot of cases they are um coverts. Basically if the street wasn't there you wouldn't need the the the structure. So, we've set aside about um $500,000 this year. One of the bridges is the John over there by Patagonia. I believe one of the the the bridge uh bridges we were going to do is the um uh what's the name of what is it? Tom Cook. Tom Cook. Tom Cook. It's over off of Patagonia. That one. And then we also have some money set aside for the Sutro Bridge. We had a major fire over there and we've got some money set aside for the Sutro Bridge. So with that, I will stop talking and council member Ree or sorry, Council Member Anderson, do you have any questions? I don't. Council member Reese, Vice Mayor, I want to just pause for a moment on the capital improvements to the National Bowling Stadium. So, first of all, thank you, of course, to your team. You and uh Justin worked very hard. I was in the bowling stadium twice last week uh for various things and it looks fantastic and there's a lot going on in there. I'm told that the RSCVA is about to activate the uh movie theater again uh for the first time in some 20 plus years and that they're going to be doing movies there this summer. Um the um club that's in the top floor has some interest in some people. Um, so inside looking great, bowlers are happy with it. Uh, the Ballards are an important part and we have been talking about it for a long time. We just haven't had the funds in the uh, subcommittee to do it. Um, but I will say I read over the weekend about a couple of different tragic incidents in other communities where um, either by intentional or by unintentional acts, uh, cars plowed into festival goers. And so that's what these ballards are designed to prevent is that kind of a a occurrence. And so we have long prioritized them but not been able to fund them. I'm glad that you found a way through this budgetary cycle to do that. Uh because I do think it's part of having a safe area that's along that. Um and so those are my comments. Otherwise, of course, Miss Ksky, you're doing fantastic work all of these projects. Uh I know that your team has really tried to stretch the blanket as much as possible. Uh and each of these funds, whether it be sewer or uh streets, uh are all uh dedicated funds to helping us. And look, the public works team is just amazing. Always uh doing what they can with the dollars that we have. Um I hope they know how much we value their um good work. So, thank you for that. Council member Der, thank you. I want to echo the comments about what such a great job. I mean, whenever I run into your staff, whether it's in a building or out in the street fixing something and we stop and talk for a second, um, they are on the job. And, you know, a lot of the the reason I pull these items off the council agenda is because this is where sort of the pedal meets the metal for people, right? They're they're not as a certain percent amount people come here, but what they're interested in is what's their ride like? Can they get their sewer flushed away? What's the park look like? to speak to an earlier issue which often you are involved in in implementing that park project going out to bid and so on. So I just too want to say thank you. This is a lot of what people see or don't see. It's underground. Um one thing I'm hoping and I understand it might not be in this budget year. Um and I haven't talked to you about it for a long time but when we're tearing up streets I want to make sure that we are replacing all the utilities under that street. And I know you've heard me to say this over and over again, but I want to make sure, for example, on California, I was so disheartened. We go and put a not not the California you're just finishing now, but the California by the mansions, we go and put a beautiful new street in, but we didn't underground the power lines. What a missed opportunity. I mean, and now they want, you know, MV Energy wants to come and cut down most of those trees because they're inter interfect interfering with the power lines. and I don't know how I'm going to manage that as their new council member uh to say, you know, I know they're not going to be happy, but but wherever I think you brought it up earlier. You say the the scope of the projects have increased because we're looking at is there a walkway? Is there a bike way? Is the width of the street now we have five foot sidewalks instead of four foot sidewalks. All of those things add to the cost. But I want to make sure whatever it takes that we're coordinating with Tomwa. If if they need to do a um water pipe replacement, we do it together. If uh if there needs to be put in fiber or some other kind of cable, we're doing it together. And if NVY Energy, if there's an opportunity to underground, we're doing it together. And they told me years ago that they wanted to make a um a special project of undergrounding power lines near downtown. And I said, 'Well, we don't have as many power lines, like they were talking about, uh, Believe Plaza. Well, you know, those have been dealt with. What hasn't been dealt with is our nearby streets north and south of downtown where we still have power lines and where they need to be addressed. So, I know we can't maybe afford it this year, but it's not really uh it's actually a saving money over the long haul of not having to tear up the street again. and the California um the one on um Daniels where Tomat just replaced the water line. I mean they had to impact our street three, four or five times to replace a leaking power uh sorry uh water line and that degrades the ongoing quality of that street. So it's in our self-interest to do it together. All right. Thank you. Uh, Council Member Eert. Uh, I didn't really have a question so much as I just wanted to thank Carrie and her team. I know everyone at the city of Reno works really hard and I really appreciate everyone's efforts. Um, but I've I've had an opportunity to work quite a lot or quite a bit with uh Miss Koski and she's just been um a really great resource for getting some things um cleaned up and taken care of and in workforce. I just wanted to take a minute to just thank her for everything that she does. Thank you for that. Any other questions, council members? Thank you, Carrie. Thank you to you and your team. Thank you. Let's see where we're at. Okay. Good afternoon, Madame Vice Mayor, Council Members, and Manager Bryant. I'm Trina Mcun, director of utility services for the record. Um, and thank you for the opportunity to present our fiscal year 2025 proposed project improvement program. Um our team has made some significant strides in the last few years and we're looking forward to completing some highly complex um and large projects over the coming years. Um as you can see um our department has an enormous CIP for fiscal year 26 planned for fiscal year 206. Um however a number of these projects will span over a couple of years. Um, our CIP next year is categorized between the different divisions shown on this slide. At TUMORF, we have $17.3 million in projects. Um, of note, we encumbered or will have encumbered $22 million at Tamorph this current fiscal year. Um, we have $5.1 million planned for lift station improvements. Um, in the last four years, we have re completely rehabilitated seven of our 29 lift stations. So now we're tackling um more modest improvements such as uh electrical SCADA valving and those types of uh coatings and those types of projects. Um we are allocating $1 million to storm drain storm water flood control projects. Um that isn't actually a project per se. We're going to set aside money until we amass enough money to be able to complete a construction project with that money. Um, and we we plan to improve security features and fencing at the RZWORF plant totaling $600,000. Now, obviously on this slide, our largest capital improvement project for fiscal year 26 is in the north valleys where we plan to encumber the advanced purified water facility at American Flat that falls under the reuse category and is at $167.9 million at the Truckucky Meadows. Uh here's some other proposed project highlights. at the Truckucky Meadows Water Reclamation Facility. We plan to continue implementing our critical rehabilitation projects identified in our facility plan um such as aation and clarifier basin rehabilitations, replacement of a digtor cover, gas conditioning improvements, and we look forward to purchasing the mobile organic bofilm uh improvements and began a full-scale master plan for this process. Um it really we were seeing some really stellar performance during the pilot of that project. So we're looking to purchase that equipment and continue working with that. We also plan to commission a seismic study and update our facility plan to reflect recent improvements that we have performed out there and update project priorities based on safety and operations. At the Reno Stewwater Reclamation Facility, we plan to enhance facility security um with gate and fencing improvements and perform some minor reuse purple pipe improvements. Additional highlights uh for our CIP for lift stations. The Eagle Ridge uh lift station will be a full rebuild. Improvements required at El Rancho, South Dakota, uh, and retract lift stations include electrical work, new pumps, and drainage improvements. We're looking to encumber both design and construction of those facilities along with repairs and improvements to the Panther Valley lift station to mitigate deterioration, uh, reduce the frequency of repairs, uh, improve capacity, and reduce any potential impacts to public health. Next, our design team um working with our Seymar contractor just completed 90% design of the advanced purified water facility at American Flat. Um, we plan to bring the Seymar, that's a construction manager at risk contractor's guaranteed maximum price or GMP to council in the fall. Um, and begin construction of this long anticipated uh project that will create purified water for injection into the aquafer and provide multiple water resource benefits to the region. And then finally, as I mentioned before, our annual storm drain uh storm water infrastructure is kind of a placeholder where we will reserve funds until we have amassed enough to pay for a a project. Thank you. I'll start to the right. Council member Martinez. Thanks so much. Thank you uh for the presentation. I you just mentioned you made the same statement that you just made now at the beginning of your presentation and I'm just having difficulty understanding like what project you're referring to with the $1 million. It sounds like I don't know if you have something in mind or if you are just if it costs that much to just fix storm drain and storm water facilities within the city. Thank you for the question. Um the $1 million is how much we have allocated to spend in that um discipline, if you will, or on that infrastructure. We have about $600 million in backlog of storm water infrastructure that we do not have funds to fix and we don't have a storm water utility that has dedicated funding for it. So right now what we're doing what we have to do is we design a thing and then we sit it on a shelf until we've gathered enough money to be able to construct the thing and or um we've been seeking grants to help with that process as well. So this is just sort of set aside money until we've amassed enough to do one of the projects. We do have a long uh storm water uh CIP and those projects also have prioritizations in them. Awesome. Yeah, I know that helps me understand that at least the projects have already been identified and you know sort of what it takes. Just the amount that's allocated every single year isn't enough to cover one of those projects. Correct. Makes sense. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Ree. Thank you, uh, Miss Mcun for the excellent presentation. A lot going on. Let me start with the APWF program uh project. I understand that one of the grants that we re are relying upon to make that project go is currently under review. What is the timeline for that review by the federal government? I mean, this is where the rubber starts to meet the road, right? I know a lot of things are happening in Washington DC. Uh many of which I vehemently disagree with. Uh but when it starts to impact us locally is when it starts to matter, right? So tell me what you can just about the review process, uh where we are with it, anything you can give me justformationally. It's a very important project for our region for a lot of different reasons. Thank you so much for the question. Um I wish I had an understanding of the process or an understanding of the timeline. We really don't. Um we do try and check in with our partners and our um um lobbyists and try and understand where that what that sphere looks like. We really don't know. Um we have heard that things are looking in a positive direction but really have been given no timeline whatsoever or 100% guarantee that we will receive those funds. Okay. Well, for my part, I'll be tracking along. I'll be in DC in a couple of weeks with RTC to do some advocacy for work that they're doing there and certainly would have time to talk to our congressional delegation about the importance of this project. I know all of them have been supportive and so uh we're a little bit hamstrung, but this project could be financially impacted negatively if that grant is not received. It could be. Yeah, for sure. Um second, when will the Tumorf expansion come online? What what is the timeline for that? Um our expansion there. We don't have a tumborf expansion. I'm uh that's okay. Um APWF. No, our uh Stee facility we we're going to expand to 4 MGD. Sure. So we have already expanded the Renoad water reclamation facility from 2 to 4 MGD. However, we cannot use the 2 MGD. We're on a allocation program and a interim flow shave until this advanced purified water facility at American Flat is in place. And once we have that permitted, that's what opens up our capacity for that additional 2MGD. Th this body already approved and and it was constructed a $55 million expansion to RZWORF in John when was that complete? It's the it's the companion related question, right? So, and I'm sorry if I said TW, I meant Rizworth. I I want to understand because we're on a flow shave. We get updates about it. At some point in time, the flow shave um and the allocations will have been uh we'll get to the point where there isn't any more to allocate until And so you're saying now that until APWF expands or is is finished and the resworth cannot go to a 4 MGD until that project goes. Okay, let me sorry. Thank you. Thank you for the question. Let me try to clarify. So, RZWorf has been expanded to 4MGD. However, we cannot use that capacity um in the north valleys without the flow. We are using some of that capacity right now, but we're not using it at the plant. We're actually flow shaving it over to Tumorf and handling those wastewater flows over there. That's the part I call interim because that's not a long-term solution. That's where we are today waiting for uh construction of the advanced purified water facility. Okay. Um it it makes sense. I I'm not sure that I understood that we would not be able to uh change the method of the flow shave until APWF was finished, but now it makes some sense as to why. And then the last question is um sort of uh off topic from your presentation materials, but you've mentioned storm water as one of the elements of the presentation and I wonder why Virginia Lake is not considered a storm water collector, meaning there is certainly runoff that enters into uh Virginia Lake and as a result, it would seem to me that the project to uh make the shores um better uh that we talked about in the prior presentation should be included in uh some long-term long range planning for uh our storm water. And we do have Virginia Lake included in the um storm water CIP as well, particularly looking at the water quality improvements. Um we are really trying to find the funding between parks and utility services to make that project happen. Uh we're we're looking we're continuing to look into alternatives of what we can do now versus later to to improve the water quality. What needs to be done now versus can it wait a couple years? Is that you know is the shore going to erode enough to impact a tree or can we wait a little bit longer? So we're constantly monitoring that situation and trying to find a way to improve Virginia Lake. Well, and for my part, Madame Vice Mayor, there's $192 million in CIP in this. A large part of that is in the APW facility. Understand that. Uh we should be able to find a million half dollars to shore up Virginia Lake knowing the impact that it has with storm water runoff through this process. Just another way to do it. And I don't think it's always a parks project. I have often seen it as a water water quality project. So, I'm just saying let's figure that out together. Maybe we'll put it in for next year. We're all struggling to figure out where to find the money to repair Virginia Lake. This could be one way with the sewer fund would be able to have some role in that. Council member Ree um Derer, sorry. Yeah, thank you. Um well, this is one of my pet passion areas. um particularly the water quality piece that you mentioned about the storm drains and storm water and I think my colleague makes a really good point which is that um we did a study about five years ago on Virginia Lake and we found out that surprise it wasn't bird poop that was ruining the water quality it was mostly storm water inflows along with some geothermal seepage um yes some bird poop too but the the point is is that, you know, that then flows over to Steamboat Creek ultimately and that flows out the river uh as well over by Tumorf. So, you know, I I think it's a great point and we should look at that for future planning. It's very realistic. It's it's not necessarily the the shoreline, but the shoreline is contributing to the TDS, right? The total suspended solids, the the um soil that's in the water, you know, that's what makes it cloudy. Um that's a big storm water issues as well. So um when do you think changing topics when do you think the APWF will come online? Great. Thank you for the question. We are looking to bring the guarant the Seymour contractors GMP to this body in the fall. Um they will start their pre-procurement process. Construction is looking to commence in the end of calendar year 2028. And then there will be a prove up process that extends into early 2029. So it's a four-year process here for construction. 36 month. Yeah. I mean we're another six months from the five six months from Have we I know that currently in the legislature they're looking at a bill to change whether we need to do underground storage for the APWF or we can just use direct. What do you think of the chances of that bill or do you think that could come to fruition and would that affect the total cost of the project? I I think that bill really sets um the stage to look at direct portable reuse. That's what you're referring to. DPR regulations. It doesn't set the regulations initially. It sets, you know, go out and figure out what these regulations are. I think that that will take a number of years to, you know, work through that process. So, um I I mean, my guess is we probably won't have DPR by the time we're done with construction of this process. Okay. Um there is an opportunity at some point in the future to convert this project to DPR, but you know, we'd have to look at that then and what those regulations are and see what additional um infrastructure would need to be added to meet those new regulations. Okay. And then just to connect what Mr. Ree said and what I'm saying, the um the flow shave, when is that supposed to be added capacity? the flow shave. Um, as you recall, we come to this body to request, you know, opening up a certain amount of flow shave. Um, we have about 75,000 gallons um, per day right now remaining. We've not seen a lot of development in the north valleys in the last few years. We've had very little come in. Um we have um as a fallback plan knowing that we had this four years to construct APWF a well multiple reasons but we have a flow shave improvement project that we'll be bringing to council soon and really that is to increase the capacity a little bit but also knowing that we have to continue this flow shave. The RZWORF plant is struggling with those um existing pumps. They weren't meant to do a thing like flow shave. they were meant to sort of cycle on and cycle off uh intermittently and what we're asking them to do is just really not in that type of pumps um normal usage. So, we are looking to replace those pumps. It helps it will help with a number of things. Um it will increase capacity and allow this body to let us open up more, but it's also going to help for the next four years that our maintenance um out at RZWorf isn't constantly fixing those pumps because they're doing a thing they really weren't designed to do. And I can wait for another round, but well, the question is is just do you see a gap between the time that we've fully done the flow shave and when APWA comes online? Is that maybe a year gap or something? I I don't see a gap um sort of looking backward, but again, we don't know really what development is going to do forward. I I think it's going to bridge that gap. All right, great. Thank you. Thank you. I have a couple questions. Trina, thank you for being here. Thank you for the presentation. Um APWF Council Member Ree talked about some grant funding that we're waiting on. Will we know on that funding before we move into the Seymar project or Seymar process? Yes, that's our intention. Um, we hope to know in the coming months and again before we bring the guaranteed maximum price GMP to this body what we want to bring. Um, part of this process that you'll see next will be Vicki bringing the first and second reading of our bond that will be a piece of the puzzle for funding this project. So include the SRF loan fund, um, the grant funding and the GMP whatever cash portion that we pay of that. So, we will definitely have to have all the pieces of funding together. Um, if we don't get grant funding in that time frame, we may have to push the GMP a little bit or regroup and figure out if there are any portions of the project we can hold off until later. So, my other question is when was the how are we updating the estimate the costs for this project? The design engineer just finished the 90% design a couple of weeks ago. Last Friday we received the um independent cost estimator or ICE uh updated cost of the project and today we are supposed to receive the Seymar contractor's updated cost of the price. So pretty much at every you know 30 60 90 uh% design level will get an updated cost. I will say that on Friday the updated cost was about $3 million less than it was at at the 60% design. So it hasn't, you know, significantly increased, but we we're not exactly sure where the Seymour contractor will come in. And then those two will have to sort of get together and um reconcile their costs. Okay. Um my next question is sort of um you had a good pres you presented these big projects that we're looking at and then on another in another lane we're looking at a sewer a user sewer rate increase study that we're doing and we're getting some community feedback and I think as part of that presentation um you talked about or maybe Mr. Flansburn talked about some of the things that that is going to benefit or impact if it doesn't if we don't get that rate increase or if we don't do that. Could you go back to like your slide? I think it was 40. Um, and just talk a little bit about those projects and what how that might benefit those projects or what is the challenge if that doesn't go forward. What I'm trying to do is show demonstrate the need for the sewer rate increase um with the projects that we have coming forward. Thank you for the question. So yes, for fiscal year 26, these are the projects that we are looking to encumber. this is the type of work that we need to move forward with. Um, you know, each one of these buckets has a a reason behind it and it's safety, it's public health, it's all of those types of things that we need to move forward with these projects. We need to keep our facilities in good working order um so that we don't have permit violations or worse um public health type situations. if and and this CIP is based on getting that rate increase that John Fansburg will be bringing forward and is in currently in public. Um we're doing some public outreach on um if we don't get those rate increases, we will have to look at this and see what what are we going to push off, what are we going to delay, defer. Um but again, none of these projects go away. They all still need to be done at some point and they're all quite critical. Understood. Thank you very much. Um, council member um Eert, do you have any questions? [Music] Sorry, I was having issues. Um, yeah, I did. So, I just want to make sure I'm understanding fully and also thank you for the presentation, Trina. Um, if we don't get this grant, we can't complete the advanced water purification plant. Is that accurate? I if we don't get the federal grants, we have about $39 million in federal grants sort of in under department of government efficiency review. Again, we do think that it's likely they will move forward this, but what I don't have is a sense of how long that might take. But in a world where we didn't get those grants, we would go back and look at the project and see if there was a way to peel back on part of the project, maybe the public education center, things like that. Um, and see if we could make it pencil. I mean, it's and then and then on the flip side of that coin, we have the rate study happening. So, all of those things um would impact each other and we would have to take a look at what that meant. Okay. Um and with regard to the flow shave, if we do have a delay in completing this project for any reason, will this affect development that's already been approved for W 4? Like are you aware of how many um projects could happen in Ward 4? Like I know flow shave is is a a area of concern now. So, will this impede any future development from being able to happen? Well, again, we have a flow shave upgrade um project that we plan to bring forward to this body um for consideration in the coming months, and that will improve not only the the existing pumps, but it will upsize them to help us bridge that gap. Um it it really depends on what development comes forward. There's been a lot of chatter in the last couple of months about moving projects forward in the north valleys. Um what we have on the books right now through development services we can handle, but it's really the the larger projects out there that we're not sure when those will begin that we want to make sure that you know it's our job to stay ahead of so that we don't we're not the the reason that those projects that have been um that that land use has been approved that that we're staying ahead of. Do you have any other questions, Council Member Eert? Oh, yeah. Sorry about the M again. Um, so I just want to make sure I'm understanding. We're confident that we will be able to um build the advanced water purification plant, but we might not be able to add some of the amenities available to the public. But like as far as a processing standpoint, will it be able to operate? Well, I guess what I'm saying, um, thank you for that follow-up question, is that if we don't get the grants, we will have to go back and evaluate the project alongside with what type of rate increases we get um through the process John Fansburg is working on. Um, there's a lot of unknowns there. So, I can't say exactly what will or will not happen, but there are opportunities to take a look at the projects and see what we can do based on what comes at us. Yeah. And some contributing to the cost of this as well. Correct. That's correct. Is it possible to um increase the portion that they paid for? I would imagine that would be a renegotiation of our interlocal agreement with TAMA on that and that I'm not sure how that would go, but we can certainly take a look at it. Okay. Thank you. Okay, council members, any other questions or comments? Okay, we um I think we're supposed to be moving in Thank you very much. I think we're supposed to be moving into the RDA after this. We have Or do you want to finish your slide? I just have Vicky Bamban, director of finance for the record. We just have one more to kind of talk about what the next steps are as we move forward. So on the 15th of May, I'll be presenting to the financial advisory board getting their feedback based on the information from today and the tenative budget and then bringing that forward on May 21st is actually the public hearing and that is the scheduled uh budget adoption date for the budget and the fee schedule on that day on the 21st. So, we'll be taking all the feedback from today um making any changes and bringing that back for the final adoption on the 21st. Um June 1st the budget is due to taxation and then July 1st that fiscal year begins. So, these are just to give you an idea of what the next steps are coming forward to you. Today, what um I have before you is just the recommended motion um to take the feedback from today and then come back to you again. And we still need to get a presentation on the RDA. Yes, that will follow after this. Correct. Okay. Do you want a motion right now on this or there are two separate motions? There'll be two separate motions. So, if we can move forward with this, that would be great. Madam Mr. Mayor, I'm prepared to make a motion. Okay. All right. Um I move forward to direct staff to move forward uh with the FY26 budget and fee schedule, including increasing the fee for appeals to $200 and implementation of a fee waiver process. and based on other feedback received from the council during the meeting today. Second. Hold on. I just got um I need clarity on why you now that we have a first and a second. And then council member Derer, are you saying that you want the fee uh reflected as uh $200, right? A doubling. And then that's what you would like to see coming back. And that um as I understand it, Carl, then that would be how it would come back if that level of specificity is included in the motion. Thank you. Yeah. Okay. We have a motion in a second. Do we have any discussion? No. No. I I think I for for my part I I feel um I I want you to be able to support the budget. I want to be able to support the budget. I feel a little hijacked by the $200 um thing. I know you said you couldn't support the budget if we went to 500. Um, I feel I think our staff did a great job and um I guess um for my part I I I think you have done a really great job on this budget. I do support a $500 fee, but I the bigger issue to me is the budget and getting this passed and moving forward with it. So, I will support the motion to move forward, but I would have supported the 5002 and I want I want people to know that I'll stand behind it. So, all those in favor I All those opposed motion carries unanimously. All right. Uh, thank you very much. I was sorry. What? Council member, what was that? I was on I said I was on mute. I don't know if Mickey needs to hear me on the record. So, I was just saying have an eye. Okay, great. We're going to go ahead and take a 15-minute break and then we're going to come back and hear the RDA. Thank you. And madame vice mayor, I was just I'm not trying to hijack anyone very clear, but I recess leaning leaning in on that. Thank you. Madame clerk, are we ready? Madame Vice Mayor, we're ready to reconvene at 1:42 at this time. Council member Dur um and Mayor Shivy are absent. Perfect. And we will get a presentation from the redevelopment agency. Council member is present at 143. Good afternoon. Brian McCarter, revitalization manager for the record. Thanks. Thanks for having me. Today we'll be uh giving an update on the redevelopment agency uh budget and operating plan for the upcoming fiscal fiscal year 2026. And just to reorient with the redevelopment areas, uh there are two redevelopment areas. One is uh in the yellow noted above that is mainly the downtown area. RDA2 is the areas in pink. It's non-ontiguous. It does have uh a few character areas that we've uh highlighted in our um status report that came out uh a year ago. And just to highlight the background on redevelopment area 1, it was created in 1983 and does expire in 2043. That leaves about 18 years left uh in redevelopment area 1. The redevelopment area 1 does have one main asset that is the downtown parking gallery that was built. It is currently managed by callers. uh the revenues and the expenses uh for operating that facility do go through the RDA1 budget and any repairs or anything like that that are needed as well as security, capital improvements, parking, software all go through uh that budget and the RDA1 does receive a bit of motor vehicle privilege tax that was allocated when the area was collected. That generates about $128,000 a year on the debt funds. And so RDA1 has a general fund and a debt fund. And on the debt fund side, there is still the $1.2 million loan that RDA2 gave to RDA1 uh many years ago when uh RDA1 had some challenges meeting its debt service for um some of the bonds that it had taken out. And so that uh $1.2 million that is left on that loan is expected to be paid off this fiscal year, FY2025. And so that isn't reflected in next year's budget. um that will likely be done in the next month or so. So that loan will be paid off and there are some existing bonds associated with RDA1. Those mature in 2027. So we have two fiscal years of debt service payments left on those bonds and after that uh not only that the the bond debt service doesn't need to be paid but also the money that we are holding reserves in RDA1 for those bonds will actually be freed up for future projects. Switching to redevelopment area 2. Um it's not agency 2, it's area 2. That was established in 2005. It concludes in 2035. Under current uh legislation, uh redevelopment areas last 30 years. So that is the 30 years. So we have about a decade left to capture increment. As I mentioned, there are there are seven different character areas in RDA2 because it's non-ontiguous. Uh we view it as one area, but those specific areas do have nuances. Uh so Cabela's is is out by itself there. The baseball district is unique. Uh the area around Plum Lane as well as the Grand Sier Resort are all unique character areas, different economies, different residential bases. And RDA2 is currently paying the $1 million annual agreement to the baseball park. that is for baseball park operations and to pay for the construction of the stadium and all the retail developments such as the freight house district which was uh bars, restaurants, etc. There is one small bond that RDA2 does pay. It's about $50,000 a year and it goes to the Cabela's bonds and so that'll be paid off $50,000 a year till 20 through 2035. I know we've seen this chart in years past. Um, and we're right at that point. We can see the light at the end of the tunnel where RDA1 is now starting to uh create some increment above the base and above the debt. So, RDA1 does have funds available to it this year. You might notice the green line RDA1 uh going from estimated fiscal year 25 to 26. It does increase a little bit and that is because we're using the amounts provided to us by the state of Nevada. Uh they're projecting lower than what we projected. However, those numbers usually come in higher uh as they have in the past few years. So, their initial estimates are fairly conservative, but when we round out the end of the year, it's always higher. So, we have to use those numbers, but likely um it'll be a little bit above what you see in this green line here. That means that we can do a bit more in RDA1 this year. Uh on top of paying off the bonds, paying off um some other commitments, uh RDA1 will have funds this year, and I'll get to those in a second. RDA2 as you see is virtually out of debt and a lot of the increment created is free and available for RDA2 to expend. There are currently uh eight and a eight and a quarter positions under the redevelopment agency in this fiscal year. We're asking to add two management analysts. Uh the workload is increased. We have six or seven tiff applications we're working on. Uh we're doing the restore program, other events and activities. uh a marketing manager brought on. So we have a lot going on. Um we're requesting two new management analysts to help us with various functions of the agency. And so that'll put the total team count to about 10 and a quarter. The operating plan for the next fiscal year 2026 as I mentioned above RDA1 is coming in at about 4.6 million in new increment and RDA2 is generating about 10 million a year. Uh we do have the parking gallery revenue there uh the motor vehicle p privilege tax and then we do make some interest off of some of the uh accounts we have but really wanted to highlight an operating plan. This is the year we start to really outline how we are going to use the redevelopment agency to do projects. Um there is salary here. There's professional services. We've moved all the economic development expenses from the city over to the redevelopment agency going forward. And so a lot of the economic development functions uh attraction of businesses of of developers in the area are now operations of the redevelopment agency itself. We still have about $3 million in bond service that we have to cover every year as an agency and we've planned $7.6 million in capital improvements as an agency and I'll get into how that separates between RDA1 and RDA2 going forward. I will say that there's a Wo County School District set aside that was legislative um that was in the legisl legislature uh when RDA1 was approved. And so if there are funds available above the debt in RDA1, we have to set aside 18% from the for the county school district to utilize in RDA1. Um and this is the first year that it's creating uh some some revenue there. professional services from the outside that weren't estimated when the uh tenative budget was started earlier in the year is that we have retained outside counsel for some upcoming items. We would like to continue to retain outside counsel for some issues or just for general advisement of the redevelopment agency. That is not uncommon. Uh in the past the redevelopment agency has retained outside council and then in conversations with our um parks parks team as well as Washo County there is an opportunity to do a parks and river service plan and so we've committed um some funds to be a part of that so that at the end and that was itemized in the Truckucky River vision plan that a parks or river service plan be started so that we can figure out how to dedicate resources to the river so that we have a long-term uh sustainable management plan for the river. And lastly is the capital improvement projects proposed. As I mentioned, RDA1 has about a million dollars. Uh RDA2 has about $6.6 million. What we would like to do is bring back the restore program for another million. That's what it was last time around, but it was supported with ARPA funds. And we would split it between RDA1 and RDA2. So half a million dollars to each one of those districts. We uh are proposing a vandalism improvement program. This is something Long Beach has done and it's fairly uh unique tactical um program that if someone has their storefront graffitied or something gets broken or a window gets smashed, we can quickly give someone a small tactical grant at a 50% match for them to take care of it immediately so that these things don't go on and create code enforcement issues long term. um we would be able to do a lot of little tactical um quick fixes with those $50,000 in here for both RDA1 and RDA2 is a small walls program through uh supporting the uh arts team that was highlighted in the uh public art master plan that they work with economic development to do more tactical murals throughout the area. Uh we do have some funds for placemaking pilots as we continue to do tactical improvements. Um the big one is the historic rail depot. Um you know we didn't have much money what m funds left over in RDA1 and we're looking at all the potential projects that could be done and really doing some improvements to make sure that we can separate the historic re rail depot and sort of turn it into something in the future. There are some improvements now that we could do and working with Amtrak to make those. And so it was the right size, the right fit um to do those improvements. So, we've put those in here. And then upgrading banner poles throughout downtown. Um, some of them are bent, misshapen. Also, with the Nevada flag shape, they whip around a lot and those things don't last very long. And so, we're proposing going to double banner poles on all the flag poles. Uh, that's just as simple as buying new arm attachments that go onto the Sternbergs throughout the area. Switching to RDA2, we're proposing a four street revitalization plan. We only have 10 years left to really do a lot in RDA2. And with all the talk about the gateway district, the university coming into downtown as well as the improvements happening along Four Street, uh we would like to do a four street specific redevelopment plan. When we brought the city's property plan forward, there were properties identified along RET and we proposed that the city sell those to the redevelopment agency. So, we've put in here $4.5 million to acquire those properties from the city of Reno. And lastly is event barricades. Um, with some of the challenges, uh, as council member Reese mentioned earlier with the safety of events, there are some new technologies in event barricades for closing streets. And so, we're proposing the RDA purchase um, on the city's behalf and for special events. these new barricades to be used for Midtown dancing in the streets and four street closures and Virginia street closures. Uh part of redevelopment is encouraging experiences throughout the downtown area and making sure people are safe are part of that and so we feel like this is can definitely benefit our special events. And then lastly is the record street demolition. This is a cost that's going to be covered by the redevelopment agency but it'll be recouped when the building gets demoed at the close of sale. they will reimburse us for those development or uh demolition costs. So, it's a summary of the budget and I'm happy to take any questions. Okay. Uh I will start to my right with Council Member Anderson. Yes. Thank you. Thank you for the presentation, Brian. I have a question about um stir up our imaginations if you will about things that in the future we could potentially be looking at being a possibility for Reno with these RDA funds. So let me ask you like for one pie in the sky thing. I think it would be super cool to be able to have I'm going to say trolley or shuttle or some kind of a micromobility that is free. It's an on, you know, hop on, hop off within redevelopment agencies. That's like like a super cool idea that I maybe dreamed up one day. Would if that was a possibility, would these funds in the future be allocatable to something like that? I just I don't think that in Reno we've had the ability to really imagine what this agency can do for us in a way that we haven't had access to before. So, can you help us with some of those ideas? Yep. Um, it is possible. I'm not familiar in how the uh the what was it called? The Sierra Spirit was a a former bus that would go in a loop all the way up to the university down to the Museum of Art that had just opened at that time. I don't recall how that was funded, but the short answer is yes, that could be something that is funded through the redevelopment agency. Either the purchase of the vehicles, um, maybe m running the program for a while. What redevelopment wouldn't cover is the maintenance needs of that going forward. Uh unless it's an entire program run by the redevelopment agency, but it is possible. I think parking circulation, moving people around is one of the goals of the redevelopment redevelopment agency and so it would fit within that uh overarching goal. Council member Martinez, thanks so much. Thank you, Mr. Ricardo, for the presentation. And I know you talked a little bit about some of the capital improvement projects for RDA1 that include the banner poles and we had talked about like fixing light poles not in the redevelopment agency but one of our previous meetings and just curious if that's something that the RDA can cover as well or is it just something that the general fund can can maintain? If it's for the replacement of the Sternbergs, thank you for the question. If it's for replacement of the Sternbergs, that's a general fund. I think it's actually a streets fund and there's some funding that comes out of room tax. The redevelopment agency purchased all those streetscapes and purchased those Sternberg light poles in the first place and that is kind of how the redevelopment agency works is that we can pay for all the improvements. What we don't pay is the the long-term maintenance and using those tools. Um so going forward uh unless it's an entirely new streetscape design and we go through and do wholesale brand new light poles throughout the area that is continued to be a general fund expense. So something like a replacement program wouldn't necessarily qualify under the RDA. No, unless it was part of a overall like improvement of the street or adding new Sternberries in other areas. Got it. Or light poles in different areas. Okay. Thank you, Council Member Ree. Thank you, Madam Vice Mayor. Um, thank you for the presentation and for a little bit of understanding. I want to make this uh both about the budget and also about the slides. So, as the budget, I think it's a great presentation and I I'm not sure I have a lot of input other than what you've identified as the priorities for it, but the slides have given me reason for three questions. The first is RDA1 was uh created in 83 and set to expire in 43, so 60 years. RDA2 only had 30 years. What happened there? and and and ultimately I suppose I'm making the case that perhaps there's a need to extend RDA2 but I don't understand why one was set up at 60 years and one was set up at 30 years. Thank you for the question Brian McCartle. So uh that is hard to explain. I think RDA1 was originally approved for 45 years because the legislation back then said 45 years and as it kept going they I believe got two 15-year extensions or one 15-year extension and that was in what year was that? 2017 during a lot of the budget discussions it was decided to extend RDA1 for future well and I'm guessing that what happened was in any redevelopment agency's life it gets set up everyone has the best intention for it the economy goes like this as it does in this country at times and you often times have to extend those areas in order to make them fulfill the promise for which they were created right so I'm just saying seems like a rather normal thing beyond the scope of our discussion today but one is significantly um shorter and one is performing now where it has not performed historically. And so I'm just worried that we are truncating our opportunity to make either one of them perform at their best if we shorten their lives or if we just say they were created in this path and therefore they should always be on that path. The second thing is can money be generated in RDA2 and then spent in RDA1 or vice versa. What is the the requirement there? Because you've set out essentially two budgets within a larger budget. one saying these things must be in RDA1 and these in RDA 2. So why the dichotomy the the the investments in one specific area have to be to for the benefit of that area. So RDA1 or RDA2 each one of those specific area is capturing the property tax and that the thesis is those get reinvested into those areas. So it has to benefit the areas that they were created for. So I can't take money, generate an RDA2 and build something in the South Meadows unless you can make the case that it is for the benefit of people living in would be very hard to do. Um what about um this question? So we had a presentation earlier by Miss Kofsky about the $2 searchcharge subcommittee spending a million dollar on ballards. Seems to me that the event center and the ballroom and all those spaces are inside of RDA1. Why wouldn't RDA1 be paying for the Ballard? Why would we put the $2 search charge on that? The $2 search charge has lots of needs. So, I'm just trying to figure out h how we arrived at that. We we could put the ballards in RDA1. It would seem you could possibly do that. Yes. If it's for safety, if it's in the streetscape, if it's in the public realm and it is truly an improvement, yes, if it's for the benefit of those individual businesses or properties, whether it's owned by the city or not, um could be a discussion on who pays for that. But if it's a streetscape improvement, it could be paid for. Worth re-examining, right? Worth re-examining. Okay, that's my time in this round. Council member Dor. Thank you. Thank you. Um question came up earlier about the the length of time of these RDA. And my question is you said RDA2 it expires in 10 years. We've heard that a few times in the last month, couple months. Um, but when it does expire, the revenue that's coming in, would that just go to general fund and it could be used there still or it could be used elsewhere? Yeah, thank you for the question. uh after 2035 the redevelopment agency loses its ability to capture the new increment created and so in that it just goes to the general distribution that all property tax goes through and I think the city of Reno gets 26% of that and but with the RDA we get more than 26 or we still get 26 or right now under the RDA under RDA 2 RDA keeps 100% of new property tax increment created Well, I thought um in other conversations we've said of the increment, it's still the the WO county still gets theirs, the school district still gets theirs. Oh, right. I can I can answer that question. Okay. How redevelopment works is when you create a new redevelopment area, you freeze the tax base. And so you go and you tell all the municipal or taxing entities, whatever you're generating now, receiving now, you will continue to do that into the future. Um, so it's a commitment that whatever the tax base is, it'll continue under the current split, but from that day forward, every new dollar created, 100% of that goes into the redevelopment agency, okay, bucket. So, let me just understand, um, we it was frozen back in 2000 2005 five. And so what what I've asked this question before, but sometimes I think I've gotten some different answers, is a new project comes in for the RDA, then a new base is set. Is it only for that project or is everything since we started the RDA, all that money? I it's confusing to me which pot and which base? When a new project is built, it gets reassessed. And so um on a project by project basis um they get reassessed at a new higher property value. Yeah. It goes to the state treasurer. They allocate back they pay the base and then everything left over they give to the redevelopment agency. So it's not by project by projects. It's the overall So it does go back to 2005. Yes. So like Wo County Wo County schools they're held at 2005 whatever they were getting. Mhm. Okay. From that time for, so this is the reason we wouldn't want to uh do away with RDA or or is there a benefit? Like if we do away with RDA, like let it naturally expire, don't we have more freedom and how to spend that money? That's where I'm struggling a little. That money would be unrestricted. You would just be receiving 26% of what the redevelopment agency can receive. Okay. I think I understand. Thank you. If I could add a color to that for some help to your point, the benefit of redevelopment agencies is the reinvestment in blighted underserved areas. And so while you have flexibility, as Mr. Ricardo mentioned, you do have a lower percentage that will come in. So the idea is you're freezing that base and then reinvesting that money in those surrounding areas to improve them in order to bring all boats up in that high tide. So there's incentive and reasons to continue them. And that would be something to your point, um, Councilman, staff would be bringing forward an assessment in the future years to identify the financial benefits and shortfalls to bring forward a council for you to take a policy decision on if you'd like to move forward with requesting extension or not. All right. Thank you. And oh, I had one more thing, but I can wait for another. Okay. Um, so I have a couple thoughts. Did this budget go to the advisory board? Yes. uh Brian Macaro revitalization manager. Yes, it did go to the redevelopment agency advisory board and they did approve uh this operating plan. Okay. I would like to see us get creative in this space and I have yet to see um first of all I think you're doing great work. Um love love the effort but I want to know what we can spend the money on and what we can't spend the money on. So I hear you say well if it's a benefit to the people that live someplace. So that's was my comment earlier about an outside legal or professional services of I want to get really creative of where we can use this money. Um because it's the only money that we have and I want to make sure we're doing a good job in the redevelopment space. A couple other things I have questions on is so we have $4.6 million in RDA1, 10.2 in RDA 2 according to one of your slides. If we have 2.8 8 million in debt on RDA1. Why wouldn't we not pay off the debt in RDA1 with that? I just need to understand the reasoning a little bit behind that. They're um I don't know if those bonds are callable. See, that's what we need to figure out. You can look um and we do have some reserve commitments and things like that. And so it's it's um we do have two more years of of debt service payments. We do have some funds left in reserve. I believe we have to keep one year's um payment in reserve and so it could be it's just I don't think we'd have the ability to pay them off completely this upcoming fiscal year. So when I look at the slide 10 of the capital improvements projects and again just coming from a a standpoint of what what do they call me? Killjoy Kathleen. When I look at slide 10 of the projects, these are a lot of wants. These aren't needs. So, what do we have needs that we need to take care of that we can use the money for in these spaces in RDA1 and RDA2? I think all of these are great programs. I've I'll support them all, but I'm wondering are there things that we are missing that we need to be spending this money on that we can is are do we need to you know do sewer upgrades or whatever or infrastructure improvements for developers to come in in the space? I'm just not sure. So, how did you come up with the capital improvement projects? Yeah, so the I appreciate the question. Typically, redevelopment is for the benefit of the area to increase the economic base, to improve experiences, uh to improve uh visitation in the downtown area. And so, it typically has to go towards benefits that will increase economic activity to make new development happen to make people's experiences a lot better when they're down. So if we wanted to from what you're saying we could say the bowling center is an under we could put money into RDA1 and maybe activate that first floor. These are things that are opportunities that drive tourism. Are those Am I on the right track? I just don't understand the full idea of what we can do and what we can't do. So um I will I have another round of questions coming back. Looking to my right. Oh, Council Member Ree. Thank you so much, Mr. Micardo. Just want to make sure and follow the thread. Um it sounds like uh each of the things as to RDA1 we've discussed, but one that we have not is the historic rail depot improvements. Tell me what that is. Yep. So we have the historic rail depot right on commercial row. Part of that was the Amtrak station was added on uh at a later date. I think when the turf club came down and Retra was built, that new Amtrak station was built on that site. The challenge is that the property lines are blended to where the bathrooms are on the historic side. Amtrak doesn't have their own bathrooms and so we need to do some clean up and do some improvements to make sure we get the historic side back and make sure that Amtrak can operate independently. So it's building some walls, moving some bathrooms around. Once that is done, we can plan out the what the future of the historic rail depot is and how we can do improvements to get tenants in there to turn into a retail space. Um, you're talking about the end cap furthest to the east, right? Which right now is just a vanilla shell. We've been sort of patching, keeping the outside maintained by paint and some other things, but you're saying to put it into service as something, let's say a beautiful speak easyy or a restaurant. We have to do some things. Yes. And you're saying these $350,000 will help us to get closer to that goal. Correct. What helps us to bring the uh fountain out of the basement and put that somewhere where it can be honored uh for being what it is? Haven't looked into that to be honest. Okay. Uh but it could be part of a redevelopment. Well, something to put on the radar if you haven't seen it or been in there or know what I'm talking about. Please just go check it out with the team. It needs to be somewhere else than where it is today. Uh somewhere else that's protected and and made to be honored for the beautiful piece that it is. Um, and then you know again I'll go back to something else here that is in RDA2 now. But you're saying the property purchases once we purchase the properties as from ourselves and transfer them to the redevelopment agency. I make an assumption then that the lease payments that could have been had or would be had on those will no longer go to maintain the train trench. And again, I'm suggesting to you that we saw a presentation earlier in the day that to connect the dots to all of this, I want to make sure that we are servicing those either the Ballardge project or the train trench uh upkeep and maintenance with the right funds. So, just be thinking about that with your team, with the city manager's office and the teams uh in public works because I do think that those are important. Um and again long term um I understand why we don't necessarily pay down debt in our own personal lives. Debt is different than when debt is maintained by an government entity in which it's bonded for. So the bond holders don't necessarily want you to prepay their debt because they've already sold your debt on the open market or ch you you're using it to finance something else. Um but you know not all debt is the same debt is what I would say. So paying off debt doesn't make sense if we can just pay it off according to the amateurization that we had already planned for it. Council member Martinez, you have a question, right? Yeah, just very quickly. U Mr. Maro, I saw in RD1 that you have a placemaking pilot. Just curious how that's different than the Virginia Street placemaking that took place with the ARPA funds that we had. Yep. Um, I will note that a lot of the projects done to date were ARPA funded, supported through the public works department. So, Westry Plaza, a lot of the river improvements, locomotion plaza that's getting done out, all those were ARPA improvements. Uh, and we're also fortunate to have a lot of planning done. So, the trek revision plan, the um Virginia Street placemaking plan, the public art public art plan, the parks and open space master plan. We did all these plans and um what we'd like to do in the future is use all those plans to help educate us on what a capital improvement plan for redevelopment area looks like or redevelopment agency looks like. Uh but to your question specifically, it is when we have small simple ideas to benefit the public realm. We just wanted to have a budget available to do some small tactical things like maybe you've seen some of the improvements in Wester Plaza. If we need to just put some tables and chairs and possibly a shade structure somewhere, we have a little bit of money to do something very tactical. So essentially, you're taking what came out of the original industry plates making and using LAR funds to implement some of this. Yes. Okay. Thank you. Council member Eert, did you have a question or comment? No, thank you. Council member Der. Yeah, thank you. Um, I just wanted to go back to um, Council Member Anderson's comment about the trolley. I there there's been a lot of effort. I've talked to private developers on developing a trolley both going down Virginia Street, which would be RDA 2, and also going east, west. So, I I think it has people have sketched it out, looked at it. I I've been in some of those team meetings. I think it's a really good idea, you know, to facilitate, but also maybe we could also get a cost sharing of course from RTC because they're supposed to care about this stuff too, right? Um, and everything isn't the same like, you know, having a different kind of bus, you know, an exterior for kind of a tourist season is very attractive. So, I just wanted to support that kind of thinking. And it's been around for a while. there there are some big names, Miss Anderson, that are are right there with you that you could capitalize, meet with them and and sort of work on that whole project. Um, I just wanted to ask um on the was it the the sorry the historic rail depot. Is it possible to I don't know how you're going to do a bid on that. um you have 350,000 here, but as one, if we do move the fountain, is one of the ideas to set up stalls in there. You know, you and I have been at places like Columbus where they have places like this that are kind of markets and and that might be able to both meet the interest in uh seasonal markets as well as permanent markets. Like for years ago, uh, Mayor Cashelle, this is when he was still mayor, uh, took me and about 40 of us in Reno on a bus trip to San Francisco to see some of their markets, uh, at at the ferry station, for example, what could be done. And and I I think it was one of his visions that we would ultimately be able to take that model and do something with it. And I think the tra the train station is maybe potentially a a perfect place for it. What do you think? That's certainly in the realm of possibility. We're just assessing what needs to be done now to get the building to even be usable in that sense. Yeah. Um and we could possibly go out for RFP to get partners either through a P3 to possibly operate the the rail depot um much like what other cities have done. Yeah. But there are some there are some things we need to do now to even open up that possibility. And so that's what this budget is. So this is just like a first phase. Mhm. But it wouldn't include like a a request for proposals or something. I don't think we'd be at that point afterwards. We just had such a small bucket of money in RDA1. Yeah. Um in fiscal year 27, we should have about $6 million in RDA1. Right now, we we don't have much at all. Well, I give us the break. Are you going to show us like what does year 27, 28, 29, 30 look like in these RDAs? Nope. This is just this year's uh operating budget. Okay. We are in this plan. We do have um a five-year well in this as professional services. We're going to go out and do a professional 5-year capital improvement plan and identify the funding sources, what projects could be done, and slate those every year. Okay. So that we can really showcase what the next five years looks like. All right. But you said 6 million for RD1. Uh if the numbers, that's how it looks right now. Six year $6 million capital improvement budget for RD1 next year. Okay. Well, maybe you can get started. I think I might have missed something that you just said. There's a 5-year capital improvement plan or we need to do that. I think that's what I'm missing. Part of this budget is doing a five-year capital improvement plan. And where is that? To create one. It's in the professional services budget. Okay. Tell me about the fourth street revitalization plan. Uh so with the gateway district with the university coming across the freeway uh south of Are we going to have another study? It's going. So, right now, uh, if you go look at the the area south of the Gateway District, Evans Avenue, all the way going east on Fourth Street, there are no plans. There's the 2007 RET track plan, which is a great plan, actually, uh, but it's almost 20 years old. And so, if we're going to tactically use RDA funds to make change in that area, we do need a plan. And so I I hate going out for more plans, but this does require it's more of a land use sort of master plan in a way, but it'll sort of also feel like the the uh the Virginia Street placemaking study. Okay. Um we need to know where we we need to deploy funds. I I just don't know. Okay. Um my other question is uh people. We have lots of people in our redevelopment agency that had one person I think two years ago or two people. I have I know they are paid out of the RDA budget. I understand that they are not hitting the general fund, right? But it's roughly 23 $3 million. Is that your It's 1.8 million. Oh, okay. because I was looking at professional services. I want to make sure that we're being very nimble and efficient in this space because there is a lot of opportunity with the RDAs and I am worried about when the RDA is closed or the economy and if we don't have money in the isn't sometime ultimately laying off people. Um, I also want to make sure that, um, you know, we're doing what we say we're going to do with these dollars. And one of the things I'll talk about real quickly is we haven't done a good position job of marketing the redevelopment agency. And I think we're seeing that as some of the applications come in, there's really no place the website. Can you just give an update on that? We need to these these positions, I think, really need to be showcasing what the development agency is, how we can help. And I think you're on the same page, but I'm just not seeing it yet. Maybe I'm not I'm not patient. We're Thank you for the question. So, we are currently under a rebrand for the redevelopment agency, and we can't use the city's channels to do a lot of the stuff we want to do to be proactive in the space. We can't go out and attract private developers to our area or do economic development with the channels we currently have based on the city's website. And so, we do need a brand. we need some channels to go out there uh and start being proactively proactive in the space and so that does require us to invest in some marketing. So, we're on it. Uh in the next three months, we should start having some things coming out of that. Okay. Council members, other questions, comments, council member. Yeah, council member for the record. Um don't we use Edon for that? like, aren't we paying Edon $1,000 a year to do this type of stuff for us um and RSCVA? Like, don't we already have resources that are supposed to be helping us with this? Yeah, thank you for your question. So, there are different types of economic development. So, I would say the RCBA does attract visitors, events, entertainment. I would say Edon attracts employees, attracts companies to the area, works on our workforce. I would say that no one's really taking up the space of attracting investment to our area in building things in doing infill development uh bringing office tenant workers downtown um we will work with all those entities going forward but there is a specific role in I call it place-based economic development that no other entity currently in the region is doing. Okay. So I know that we have the Reno master plan. Would that type of advertising include any type of like um planning, more specific planning for an area? Um I know that's something that I've been interested in. I know we have zoning, but maybe we could be a little more um proactive in saying what type of development we would like in a specific area. We are doing that type of master planning for the four street area that is in this fiscal budget. Uh so we will be going and doing sort of a a neighborhood master plan of of four street. Um we can do that in other redevelopment areas in the future. I think with the downtown action plan for RDA1 is very robust plan. We're achieving a lot of the uh items mentioned in that plan. And so we do kind of have a plan for downtown. Uh we do not have a plan for for street. Uh I would say Midtown with the RTC improvements that have already done already been done along Midtown along Virginia Street there. um it really doesn't need that much attention, but Four Street does and so that's why we're proposing a Four Street neighborhood master plan. Okay. And then just kind of a little off topic, I know this is for RDA, but is there any like would any of this kind of advertising include um kind of soliciting um developers for areas outside of Reno or are we only looking to do this for the RDA area? I'm sorry, not out of Reno, but out of the RDA area. We would, the intent is we would tell people Reno is open for business and would love to work with developers who are looking at investing in the area. Uh, with a focus on RDA areas one and two. If a developer did come into town and want to look outside the area, we would certainly point them in the right direction and entertain their interests. Okay. So there won't be like um you know citywide kind of call for for different types of development. Not not sight specific. No, unless unless it's in one of the redevelopment areas. Okay. Thank you. Council members, any other questions or comments? Council member Ree. I'm prepared to make a motion. Okay. Oh, Madame Vice Mayor, I move to direct staff to move forward with the 26 budget based on staff report. Second. You have a motion and a second. Madame Mayor, you just did you have any questions that you wanted to No, I've been following. I've been in my office. Okay. Uh, all those in favor? I I All those opposed I. Motion carries unanimously. Madame Clerk, I think um do we have any more public comment? Sorry, just getting all my notes caught up. Um, if you would like to move back to our Reno City Council meeting and um, do we want to close RDA? Sure. Okay. Do we have any comments for the redevelopment agency, council members? Okay. And there's no other public comment for RDA. We have no public comment. Move to adjourn the redevelopment agency board. Second. Second. We have a motion, a second. All those in favor? I I motion carries unanimously. We'll move back to the city council meeting. And I believe um we are on comments and reports. Item C1. Yeah. Council members. Nothing. Madam Vice Mayor, nothing. Oh, seeing none, uh we are on public comment comment. We have none registered and have not received any correspondence. Okay. Move to adjourn. We have a motion. Second. We have a motion to second. All those in favor? I I I. Thank you.