to those in need need through tax revenue a critical component of providing Community Services in many cases a family's place of business or any place of business provides a livelihood to a family the employees as well as their customers and other businesses I'm here to express support and encouragement on my behalf as well as on behalf of the businesses on Fourth Street some of which have been providing services and products to the residents of our city and Community for over 50 years think about surviving 50 years of business through the ES and flows of our city and state these are family businesses serving our community for five decades these are not businesses selling the next typed product these are hardworking individuals selling essential services and products to our community hence the longevity of their existence and success due to the current limitations of patrolling the railroad tracks the track area which is a vast amount of downtown Reno unfortunately provides a safe haven for Mischief my customers and I experience this Mischief daily and more importantly those residents and members of our community experience when they visit Fourth Street to support local businesses by purchasing products and services they need for their families and businesses I could spend hours detailing uh the hassles and expenses realized on Fourth Street I could also spend hours discussing the value of efficient Commerce and the value that Commerce provides to the community in the form of essential Services however the value of a safe Community without vandalism crime or harassment is simple and a short discussion and is known to be critical to the success growth history and history of that Community town or city I support this amendment encourage you to do the same in an effort to support those families businesses and members of our community have who have committed to making Reno a safe and enjoyable place to live and work thank you thank you Mr thorough Tammy Aon followed by Art Rangel followed by Will truth good morning mayor councel my name is Tammy Atherton I'm a local business owner and our business is on Spokan street right off of 4th we back up to the railroad um I wanted to thank you for your time and I am here to speak in support of uh the amendment uh E1 the amendment to RMC title 8 that would allow everyone to be trespassed from the railroad tracks and ask for your help for the rest of the the area in the homeless situation my family and I have been small business owners in Reno for over 40 years our business is located on Spokan as I said the street dead ends into a dirt lot which is um ends up right next to or adjacent to the railroad tracks the homeless population that occupies space along the railroad tracks in our area have cut a hole in the fence next to a locked gate in order to gain access to and from the railroad tracks the dirt lot and that portion of Spokane have become a throughway for homeless population for the homeless population in that area it is a daily occurrence to see dozens of homeless people walking up and down the street in front of our business leaving garbage everywhere and harassing our employees and customers for a handout the mess they leave in their wake is an eyes sore to say the least but also a public safety issue as it usually contains drug paraphernalia or the like the camps that they the camps they have set up along the railroad fence that can be seen as soon as you turn down the street toward our business have defaced the area so much that we have seen customers leave because they don't want to do business in the area we've had customers directly tell us they have stopped coming to our store because they fear being in the area passing this ordinance to amend the title 8 would exponentially clean up the area around our business and allow us to see the growth that we have work been working so hard towards we've also suffered numerous burglaries inside our store and our adjacent lot in Rec years due to the increase in homeless population in our area The Back Fence of our lot is along the railroad tracks we have incurred thousands of dollars of lost revenue and repairs to theft and burglaries just over the past couple of years we had to close the feed store portion of our business because the area became unsightly excuse me it became unsightly and dangerous that customers stopped coming to see us we have had to escort customers to and from their vehicles because they were afraid to come into our store without escort we've had several altercations Through The Years with homeless in our area one such altercation happened just a couple of weeks ago wherein someone came into our business asking for water when we refused to give him water he made a gesture towards my mother-in-law that made her feel in fear for her life this is not the way we should be a have to do business passing this ordinance would greatly help us and and grow our business we implore you that you do this in support of the local businesses that support the city thank you Miss Atherton thank you so much and I mean the heart all of our hearts go out to what you've been experiencing and we're definitely going to be addressing that later on our agenda so thanks for being here today for the record art Rangel um 255 North Sierra Street um I had a statement I wanted to share with all of you but I'm not going to these last three business owners have pretty much Illustrated what we're all dealing with um what I did want to say is that uh at the July 31st meeting uh Naoma Jordan um made some comments very candidly I really appreciate her cander in this about what the downtown business part partnership is dealing with down there as well as your staff all these issues um and the fact she even made made a comment to the extent that um they've the staff sometimes deals you know tries to communicate with people and they can't even communicate because of the mental ill illness that some of these people are are dealing with and then she shows today the pictures of people living right there adjacent to those tracks and what happens if if I'm looking at it from a health and safety standpoint somebody gets killed from a train I I so much support this for a variety of reasons one of which is uh I'm a a taxpaying I'm a property owner in the downtown partnership and we're paying for all of this uh this constant constant constant cleanup and it's time that we start utilizing those limited funds by both the partnership as well as the city for things to improve our downtown not just constantly clean things up thank you please adopt his ordinance all right thanks so much Mr rangal will truce followed by Alex farside followed by Patrick Coleman good morning Madame mayor manager Bryant and the Reno city council my name is Will truce and uh thank you for allowing me to read some prepared comments I'm here as a small business owner in the brewery District along with a board member of the brewery District Coalition which informally represents about 18 small businesses in our neighborhood the livelihoods comfort and safety of our families and employees are greatly impacted by the continued sense of lawlessness in our streets moreover it continues to hinder the revitalization of our neighborhood as we constantly hear it's why more folks hesitate to coming down to our part of downtown the most significant sources of this lawlessness are the abandoned properties at 306 400 and 424 East for Street along with the daily encampments that EB and flow near the train tracks walk along our streets or sit in our businesses at almost any time of day and you'll see blatant crimes being committed from drug use and alcohol use to indecent exposure and violence to graffiting and property destruction to public urination and defecation the lawlessness spawned by these abandoned properties and the unregulated activities along the train tracks are continuing to desecrate our downtown community there are two items before you today that we're hoping you'll take immediate action on we're commenting in full support of the the staff recommendations on taking steps for items D4 and item E1 for item D4 we ask that the council act with urgency to sell 315 and 335 record Street to a local developer that knows the area can move quickly and can make something real happen without strings attached or contingencies the proposals being presented by Baxter construction and Marmet properties would both lead to a dramatic and positive transformation to our downtown neighborhood for item E1 we ask that the council approve the ordinance to amend Reno code strengthening the prohibition of trespassing along the train tracks while lawlessness is inspired by the abandoned properties I just talked about it often happens along these tracks giving RPD greater authority to police these areas will help transform one of the scariest and most dangerous parts of our neighborhood back into a safe calm and historic Corridor thank you for your time consideration and support of our neighborhood all right Mr TR thanks so much Alex faride followed by Patrick Coleman followed by Justin Ross thank you Council and Madame mayor uh my name is Alex Fireside I'm one of the owners of business called coffee and comics and I'm here to talk about the business license code revision project um I was recently made made aware of this and I was told that is a code cleanup and I understand the need to clean things up every once in a while I need to clean up my garage every once in a while cleaning it up means throwing out things that I don't need anymore and reorganizing the things that I absolutely do need I was able to join a zoom call with the city yesterday to go over some of this code cleanup however we do not mention any of the current code getting rid of any of the current code rewarding of any of the current code or bringing old codes to current needs we spent an hour talking about pages of new codes that were suggested on top of the current code the person leading this meeting was very nice and he seemed to understand that many of these new changes were completely ridiculous and had no benefit to both the city or the PE businesses um affected keep in mind we focus on just one section of the 24 sections that are being redlined um that one section was 55 page document I don't know about you but when I clean out my garage it does not mean that I go out and add hundreds of pages of documents to my garage as a small business owner I pour my heart and soul into my business I work 12 14 16 hour days at times to keep it alive I sold my house my car my furniture everything I owned to open coffee and Comics 5 years ago it was horrible timing four months after Co started because we opened at the end of 2019 and not the beginning we acceed we received basically zero assistance from the government because we did not meet qualifications um during that year I did not take a single day off I worked average of $100 weeks I'm not up here looking for pity I'm just telling you things that small business owners do to keep their small businesses alive live um and any other small business owner in this town or city would agree with me and um has done many of the same things these small business owners care deeply about their businesses and the City of Reno um but we are simply not lawyers and we appreciate the fact that you want our input on these things but as a small business owner here um I would much rather be at my store helping customers doing marketing and doing the things I need to do to keep my business alive um if we want to keep small awesome unique businesses in Reno like Press Start glass eye cra um anything that's cool and fun and unique um throwing thousands of pages of new documents of code um I don't think is the best way to go about it if this truly is a code cleanup I would love to help clean up some code bring things to current conditions and help small business owners um but forcing things like expensive equipment proven not to work for checking IDs forcing small business owners to have certain employees on a certain times forcing paperwork um these are things that are just not really going to help anytime that you're adding something to a small business I just hope you keep that in mind that the small business owner has some kind of a cost whether it's their time or buying equipment and that if it's not absolutely necessary that you please don't add it to the small business owner needs um again thank you for your time I appreciate it and those are just some of my concerns as a local small business owner Mr farside thank you for taking the time to leave your business today and come talk to us uh you're one of my closest coffee shops I love what you guys do I hear from a lot of other people in our community about how cool you are I mean not only I appreciate it but many you know what you know what's happening there thank you um but anyway we appreciate the input and we're going to keep working on this code we really are and again it isn't something that the council's trying to impose on anyone and this is for everyone in the audience it's something that our staff feel it's very very outdated and maybe cleanup isn't even the right word but you your points are well taken so thank you thank you Alex keep working on this code my staff is gonna meet with you just like a million ridiculous a joke he's gonna connect with you so we can meet thank you Patrick Coleman followed by Justin Ross followed by Shay Gillum hi memb is Council Madame mayor good morning um I'm also here to talk about the code updates um a little different perspective when we this Council approved those updates it was March 29th the meeting uh it was agenda item B2 and it was labeled updates there were a lot of questions about what that would include the scope of work and exactly what we were asking for as staff and I thought Ashley turnley did a great presentation about the things that were stated at this Council about what was wanting to accomplish on that meeting um when asked specifically about what things were trying to be accomplished Ashley said there are five things we're trying to accomplish one modernize our code getting R rid of things that are Antiquated two we're looking for streamlined processes for applications three we're looking for change in timelines of renewals four we're additionally looking for better tools as us just mentioned referring to a council member's question about these things for code enforcement and compliance officers to enforce this code that this Council has adopted and that's important to me because we're still talking about the current code and we're still talking about updating things that are Antiquated five this would be the last thing that was listed as the things trying to accomplish that this Council voted for the last thing I would like to note is that this Council has identified a strategic priority as efficient Service delivery currently I would say our staff is doing the best they can with what they have but we are not as effective as we can be because of these older systems that are in place again referring to our existing code so I think everyone in this room is perfectly fine with updating Antiquated language making sure that things are clear and defined well our code is old it does need some updates fast forward to July and what was released as the proposed draft code um um is a drastically different code there's thousands of new ordinances um there are not updates there's just throw the whole thing away and go from there so I don't know where that mission creep happened um thankfully Jackie Bryant has been helpful in getting more Outreach and more meetings but discussing a code um asking for input of something that's so unreasonable to our businesses isn't legitimate input reading the code that we have proposed um which I'm told was at this point referred to as a consultant report which if it is there should be one draft code is draft code consultant reports are consultant reports so I would challenge this Council to look back at that meeting review exactly what was asked and what was voted for and if that's not what you voted for agendize titles four and five to be closed so we can go back to the drawing board and figure out how to update this code not create new code that hampers businesses and turns us into California all right thank you Mr Coleman we we hear you loud and clear Justin Ross followed by Shay Gillum followed by Todd Gillum hello my name is Justin Ross for the record um can you aim towards that mic a little bit sorry you're good you're fine I'm usually known for being loud so I'm not used having your mic not a problem I am here today about the same thing about the code cleanup the when you use words words have meanings and cleanup is not a remodel so when you come and you say you want to clean up a storage room I figure you're going to sweep it you're going to vacuum it maybe wipe off some walls or some shelves I don't anticipate you tearing down walls and trying to put up a new divider and things like this words have meanings so when you use words and then you don't follow what you say using those words it comes across as very deceitful and the last thing we need from the people that serve us as a public as a whole is to feel deceived it gets no trust from you so I would like you guys to do as has been said I'd like this reopen if you did not vote for what you thought you were voting for I would like to see it brought back forth so all of the business owners and all of the bartenders who I've been meeting with And discussing this with can come down here and speak to you more in depth they can't do it today except through open comment right now but we would like to a bigger chance to address this instead of private meetings with uh couple of members of the staff here that actually handle this we would like this brought out into the light to take away the appearance of Deceit and like something is trying to be passed over on us and the everybody talking today before the last three or four people was coming up here to discuss Fourth Street and the uh train tracks E1 or whatever it was and I don't think that they understand how much all of this proposed code could affect them just as much if not more than the one little thing that they're here for today so I would like to thank you for your time and you guys have a wonderful day all right thank you Mr Ross uh thank you received message received Shay Gillum followed by Todd Gillum followed by Pat caselle good morning uh my name is Shay Gillum and I want to express my opposition to the prop proposed changes to the business license code it will have a substantial negative impact on my ability to run my small business I would like to see you resend the entire proposal and start over to clean up up the Antiquated language which was the original proposal that's all thank you all right thank you shay very much Todd Gillum followed by Pat celle followed by Yale Spina hi my name's Todd Gillum I'm also in opposition to the changes to the business license everything's already been said one of the first questions we have is why with the train tracks and the homeless problem that's a problem that you can see and we're looking for a solution what's the problem we've never had a problem with our business and now you're going to increase our costs our Administration and the background uh requirement is going to force us to lose probably half of our staff why what's the problem and so that's again we're in opposition of it thank you all right thank you Todd Hello nice to see you I I do want to add something um I I guess I think it was Mr Coleman was it you I think you did a very good job outlining what was proposed to this Council when I started to go through it I was shocked and very unhappy not only that um I've also asked to have a special meeting on special events as well and for small businesses I need all of you here at the table super important um I want to tell you that you know I I don't know what has transpired between staff and the council um but there is a big disconnect and it's um something that uh it's very very hard to understand where we're at because we want to be um small business friendly you guys know I'm a small business owner and um it's absolutely not something that this city Embraces in any capacity so um I would like to have you guys make make sure give recommendations um I would say the whole thing should be thrown out at this point so I just want you to know I guess the reason for telling you this is that I'm going to have a special meeting on special events I think that's gone incredibly sideways we are supposed to be the special events capital of the world um so let's make it that way but also let's be the best small City uh for business as well so um thanks you guys I just wanted to let you know um you know it's one of those things I think where staff wants to come and propose something and they think it might be something that um the council's a meable too but we have like councilwoman dur said we've listen we've heard you loud and clear and um so sorry it's we'll we'll get there but I need your voices too we need you guys to help make it better because I think there's a lot lot of things we can do to make it better but anyway I did want to address that because we will have a special meeting when we do I need you guys to show up and if you are are also into special events I need you to show up it's really important that we hear your feedback because if we don't then um you know things can take place that aren't going to be very business friendly so anyway okay good this has kept me up all night well not all night for the last two weeks it's been keeping me up so anyway I'm very frustrated but anyway okay all right we get back we get back sorry Pat great to see you Yale great to see you uh Pac shell CEO of Sky Tavern um good morning Madame mayor interim city manager and city council um I'm here to just uh uh tell you I'm in favor of item B4 which is the expansion of the sewer system at Sky Tavern it's vital to the growth of Sky Tavern um not to the just the clients alone but the environment as well um Sky Tavern I can tell you and we we'll be on the agenda in September to give you the yearly report the annual report and so I'll go into more detail then but um Sky Tavern is starting to Boom um this summer has been short of just amazing the number of mountain bikers uh at the mountain bike park that we're seeing on the hill so and our winter signups are um exploding right now so love that um great things going on at Sky Tavern but um the sewer system has definitely become an issue and um if we truly want to expand the operations at Sky Tavern we need to address the issue of the sewer it's a it's a dire need and if you guys do approve that um I'm not able to be here for the agenda item but I just want to say thank you um I've also been working with the county they're asking for an $887,000 hookup fee um which um I'm pretty sure um knowing that you all are in for expanding the infrastructure of the sewer system that they will most likely hopefully I don't want to speak for them but I'm hoping they will wave those fees to help this along because I know that Sky Tavern although we're growing cannot afford $887,000 so um but I want to let Yale um he's just going to take his time right now and speak to a little bit more about the impact of the SE system on Sky Tavern thank you Pat um Madame mayor city council thank you for hearing us um I just want to talk about um our obligations within the lease we have been adhering to that and exceeding the expectation of that lease we are producing an annual part every year we do have a reserve account we are maintaining the property and it's under a big cleanup right now the whole parking lot is being cleaned up and we are on a mission to in increase the sense of arrival and make it so much more beautiful as they come in I want to talk about the septic systems that's 70 years old every year we maintain it we dig it up We Fix It We Fix fix it we fix it and with the extension and the expansion required within our lease to uh get more uh utilization of Reno's largest park we're doing that people are there but we need to have we need to be connected to the Sewer so that we don't have a a problem that no one wants to see and I'm telling you we are working every day to make sure that that system that's in in existence right now is maintained clean organized and when the minute it goes down we fix it right away but it's a patchwork quilt and it's a forever project for Sky Tavern is to dig up the ground and repair the septic system so I implore you and and request that you support this measure because it's going to give Sky Tavern the ability to sustain itself with more business and when we get more business and we're serving our community like we're supposed to we all win more kids more kids more kids kids on the mountain kids thank you thanks y'all I'm Pat good to see you guys can I say something real quick I just wanted to say that um I've also reached out to the county to ask if they can help with the fees just because this is such a great community resource so thank you guys for coming out today and and hopefully they can help out with some of those fees but I also just wanted to say that it it's great to do things like this for our kids and I hope that maybe we can work on things like this for the the golf course um up in the North Valleys because there there's a huge value to um providing outdoor activities and sports for our kids all throughout the community so thanks for coming out today Dennis McDonald followed by Tracy Wilson via Zoom followed by Paul Colter via Zoom H good morning Madame mayor councel uh um well I'm here for the same thing with the the business proposal uh business license proposal code proposal um my name is Dennis McDonald for the record um I'm here on behalf of uh I work the uh Fourth Street Corridor right now uh seller stage this is my first time standing before this actual Council it was a veteran of this place a long way back but um I'm here today to uh request the council to um resend upon the uh upcoming proposal of the business license code um and actually to close on title four and five um of course comes on the premise of the old quote or the old saying of if it's not broke don't fix it uh I fully understand that preventative maintenance is essential to a well-oiled machine that being said this is not the kind of preventative maintenance I think that would um do anything better to better the situation um in moving forward uh the I truly believe that the proposal as it is written or the The Proposal of the code that is written the way it is written would be the exact opposite of preventative maintenance and it would result in a dramatic assault on the local small businesses its employees and hinder future e economic growth for our city and I hope you uh take that to heart I mean it's uh it's something that we all feel really strongly about and like as you said you you agree with a lot of the stuff that that might not be proper in there so I just wanted to state that all right thank you Mr McDonald for being [Applause] here Tracy Wilson via Zoom followed by Paul couter via Zoom followed by Damen Cole good morning Madame mayor Madame vice mayor interim city manager and council members my name is Tracy Wilson and I'm the Nevada state director for American Wild Horse conservation volunteer liaison for Wild Horse connection and an assistant supervisor for the technical large animal rescue team can we Tracy can you just stop for a moment can we get the Mad vice mayor it's up as high as it can go so I'm not sure if it's on the other end can you uh speak as close as you can to the mic Tracy we're having a little tough time hearing you yes is this better um a little just do what you can like as now you're you're great okay um I'm sure you've all seen the events with the South Arena horses that has unfolded over the last week um I want to start by thanking vice mayor dur and this Council for creating the emergency creek access as well as the larger access that's about to be created a handful of horses that were standing at the fence suffering from dehydration were humanely relocated to this amazing water source um while horses are incredibly smart they're creatures of habit and some of them have been going to the previous Source their whole lives they go down they drink they go up to the hills throughout the day only they found themselves standing at a fence instead of going to water and some found themselves standing at the fence trying to leave um some years ago when bellista 2 was owned by a different company I stood before the council and said horses would stand at the fence and die of thirst unfortunately despite our best efforts I wasn't wrong um I'm sure you know that there's been a lot of community upset and heartbroken but uh I think that we we basically you know while the horses didn't come through completely unscathed we believe that a much larger tragedy was prevented thanks in part to the City of Reno and the hard work that has been put in um I thank the city for the codes now in place for developers and I'll be meeting with staff to revisit those and see where they can be better or where they can be adjusted to help prevent future emergencies again and the support we've received from vice mayor dur and other City staff to help us be successful in Saving Lives has been incredible and I speak for many when I say thank you Paul col Paul Colter via Zoom followed by Damen Cole followed by Jurgen hone good morning mayor and council members my name is Paul Cotler I own four Street bar and four Street Brewery and four Street Brewery is actually a coffee tea Brewery and that is a safe space for people that are in recovery and what I'm here for is I concur with Patrick Coleman in reference to throwing out the business code proposal as written I also concur with Josh in reference to amendment to title 8 item E1 I agree with that and that should be in place in reference to what's going on on the railroad tracks that needs to be cleaned up I'm not going to reiterate anything else they said it all and I am on the same page thank you so much Damen Cole followed by Jurgen hone followed by Ryan Watt via Zoom Council and uh mayor um I um the city was built around the railroad in fact the original property that eventually formed the city was bought by Central Pacific and most of the property that surrounds the railroad was railroad property until retrack and uh either paralized or as a public RightWay uh trespassing has always been uh something that the railroad has fought against so it's not a new issue uh however this ordinance is and I just want to point out some facts that that I'm I'm concerned that there might in the future be illegitimate uses of this ordinance that I read um I don't think I need to remind anyone but plenty in the in plenty in in plenty of times in history have ordinances and laws been created which at the time seemed like they were good ideas and then were used for illegitimate purposes um the Reno Arch is 90 ft away from the railroad tracks that's how much of this city has been built around the railroad um I remember on in July that the prompt that was given to staff was to create a law that included the word encroachment I read the ordinance and I didn't see that word anywhere in fact I also remember that the original idea for the ordinance was to prohibit um encroachment into City owned properties and I didn't see that wordage in the ordinance anywhere either so I understand that there's a legitimate reason why people should not encroach on the railroad tracks because it's it causes a danger to the public immediate danger and to the railroad property itself but people don't realize that many public places including public streets are owned privately by either private properties such as Third Street in front of El Dorado and other what people think are public rideways and I feel that in the future illegitimate reasons for citation could be issued should any uh law enforcement officer decide to to do so uh I only have 10 seconds left I leave it for there unfortunately I wasn't able to get all my thoughts out but I just want to CAU that it looks like that the wordage uh the verbiage that you get my point okay thank you Mr Cole appreciate you being here today is there anyone else followed by Ryan Watt via Zoom hi my name is Jorgen hoen mayor council thanks for listening it's a hard job you guys have it's a hard job anyway anyways I'm here to support and speak in terms of uh E1 and D4 so I grew up in Germany and then uh we moved to San Diego and in San Diego there's one railroad track and what happened over time especially in Oceanside was the unhoused moved into the railroad track because there was the easement right so I I bring perspective of safety why should we pass E1 for safety for the unhoused because I talked to a paramedic and he was incredibly casual oh yeah the UNH house get hit all the time all the time and I really don't want that here and I'm proud to be in Reno I'm happy to be here so from that I say look at the safety perspective I urge you to pass E1 and also D4 to help redevelop thank you so much for your time all right thank you so much Ryan Watt via Zoom followed by Robin Palmer via Zoom good afternoon council members hope hope you all can hear me okay I'm Ryan Watt with ulys Development Group here to speak on agenda item D4 uh ulys Development Group was the second ranked applicant under the request for proposals for development of the property at 315 to 335 record Street prior to city council rendering a final developer selection for this property just wanted to make a few points clear to council members regarding the proposal that was submitted by ulys Development Group um first of all just wanted to highlight that you know our proposal calls for the development of 136 units which is the most of any proposal submitted under this RFP in addition our proposal calls for all the units to be restricted at 60% of Ami a much lower income set aside than some of the other competing proposals uh which primarily were at 80% um and lastly our proposal commits to the longest affordability period of any proposal uh with a minimum term of 30 years um based on the market research we've done uh and specifically an annual housing progress report published by the Nevada housing division City of Reno has a deficit currently of about 45,000 units of affordable housing with affordable housing defined as unit restricted at or below 60% of Ami and So based on this information the market research we've done a project with units restricted to 80% Mi is not addressing the most critical housing needs in the community and so um we believe our proposal can do that and if selected you know we look forward to being able to partner with the city to uh deliver a a new affordable housing community um we appreciate the opportunity and consideration from city council thank you so much for your time all right thank you so much Robin Palmer via Zoom Robin if you can unmute Madame vice mayor yes um we do not have any response from Miss Palmer so at this time we received 15 comments which were General in nature and not directly associated with an agenda item prior to 4m. yesterday a August 13th these comments were voicemail and or written correspondence received via our reno.gov online public comment form or by email to our office copies of these have been distributed to the Reno city council and are available to the public on reno.gov meetings one letter in favor five letters in opposition and nine letters of concern additionally we did have um one more live public commenter not wishing to speak in opposition um of a title for Amendment all right thank you madam Clerk and I'm just going to make one public comment myself just from my seat I just wanted to say it's been a very challenging week on many fronts but um just following up on something that happened at our last council meeting where we adopted a resolution to send to the Public Utilities Commission to let them know we are very concerned about their proposed rates and somehow our action I think got misinterpreted by many and uh perhaps the wording wasn't strong enough of our resolution but the intent was certainly there to speak on behalf of our residents uh and to that end I've sent my own letter I want to let the council know uh on behalf of myself and our my w 2 residents um strongly opposing the rate increase on several uh main points having to do with conservation solar use our low-income residents and uh poor public policy it's it's contravening to the things we've done at city council to support our um our most vulnerable here in the city from housing uh to other programs such as sewer rebate and so on um so that message has been sent there's another opportunity for people to comment in about two weeks uh there'll be a another series of public workshops that the PC will be holding and it's a time to make sure if you're interested in this issue that you do attend um there'll be information posted and I'll put it on my Facebook but uh more importantly probably on the Pu website the second thing I just wanted to comment this week made it very challenging um and it is related to U Miss Wilson's comment earlier um this has been one of the most heartbreaking episodes in my career as a city councilwoman so over 10 years which is the um confusion the REM over our um Wild Horses uh the removal of the wild horses 24 of them have now been removed from um the range and uh taken down to the state prison where they'll be made ready for auction um something like this has not happened in 10 years it is the first what I'm just I'm making public comment and um yeah and then the um the other thing is that um but we're very grateful that other um land owners in the region have stepped up and are working with the Wild Horse folks and um things are starting to settle down and uh the point that Miss Wilson made about the um City's uh water space is very very true it's it's being utilized as we speak so it's it's a real win for the city and a real win for the animal and I'm going to just uh final finish my public comment by saying um a quote that I think we can all relate to which is the greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated and I don't know care whether that's cats dogs uh horses uh any other kind of wild animals it's very important for us to understand what's going on with them and to to be kind and use our human um human kindness and understanding so that ends my public comment thank you Madame mayor and that ends all public comment so I'm handing it over to you uh to continue the meeting okay all right thank you so much Madame mayor we're moving on to item A4 approval of the agenda all right thank you madam clerk um all right give me um a motion to approve the agenda I think City oh hold on a second City maner Bryant here so I'm going to try to figure it out um go ahead um city manager take it away thank you mayor we have a few changes to the agenda today we will be opening the RDA meeting immediately following the consent items item C1 Bell Vista Ranch Phase 2 PUD amendment has been postponed as requested by the applicant item D4 disposition of record Street will be taken immediately following RDA item E1 railroad ordinance will be taken immediately following D4 and uh we will have a labor briefing during lunch okay all right I hope everyone noted those go right ahead um just in the interest of conversations with the county and the um the fees associated with um Sky Tavern and their sewer connection fee would it be possible to push back our vote on that just to see um what kind of contribution the county will make towards connecting them to septic um here's here's just what I would say I don't know if because I just looked over and looks like Pat and Yale have left the room um so I don't know if they have like a specific timeline okay I would say we could move forward with it and still have that conversation because I would imagine that they would be open to a collaboration or regardless cuz at least that way can move on with it if that's what the council wants to do I don't know we haven't voted yet but I'm just saying if we wanted to move forward then we can still have the conversation if you want to do that I just don't know maybe um Miss kosy I would assume there's a timetable on it so yeah because I know the commission is going to agendize it and vote on it but I don't know like the timing of things I would just say because sometimes these have to be done on the timeline to get the project in front of it so yes for the record K kosty your director of Public Works yes the time line is it is very short so we would need to get started as quickly as possible um to get it done before winter hits okay but I I agree I think we could do we could work with them in collaboration for for uh reimbursements and that sort of thing that would be a great idea and we've done it in the past two so I think they'll be open to it okay so would it have to come back to council or would it just happen like the reimbursement would come back to council but we would go forward with the bid award yeah great perfect thank you okay as to the agenda as presented by the manager with the floating privilege of the mayor to move items I'll move to approve the agenda all right I have a motion second I have a second all those in favor say I I I all those opposed motion carries all right um we okay Madame mayor we're moving on to our consent agenda items to be pulled in disclosures all right at this time I'm going to ask council members if they have any items they want to pull off of consent I'm going to start with you Council neighbor take it away yeah I have items oh right here uh B4 and B13 all right4 B13 Council M dur yeah uh b14 and B15 all right Council ree no council mom Taylor no Madam May councilman Martinez for me mad councilman breus all right uh I would like a motion to approve all the other items on consent agenda so moved all right I have a motion I have a second all those in favor say I all those opposed motion carries now we're going to open RDA okay I'm all over okay Madame mayor with that we are going to open our Redevelopment agency board so we're calling to order the Redevelopment agency board for Wednesday August 14th 2024 our first item today is roll call council member Breet here D here Martinez here eert here Taylor here Reese here shivy Madame mayor you do have a quorum of the Redevelopment agency board we're moving on to item A3 opening public comment for RDA and I do not have any registered at this time we do not have any hands raised in Zoom so we're going to close item A3 public comment for the Redevelopment agency board we're moving on to item A4 approval of the agenda for the RDA August 14th 2024 second all those in favor say I all those oppos okay we're moving on to our item B1 on the RDA and I do have a public commenter on this item art Rangel thank you madam chair and members of the board um yeah I wanted to speak art Rangel for the record um as a former Redevelopment staff member and consultant I can say most of the programs outlined in the report are good Redevelopment practices uh if I had more time I could elaborate on why I'm saying that the challenge I see is that Redevelopment is a very specialized discipline it's a great tool to improve the economic Vitality of a city but it's not widely used in Nevada as an example when I did research some years ago I only found 15 Redevelopment area uh projects in the whole state of Nevada when I was practicing Redevelopment as a staff member and consultant we had hundreds of of Redevelopment projects in throughout the whole state as a result there were a lot of people with expertise in Redevelopment law and practice in C California that's not the case in Nevada um that's why most Nevada citizens don't understand Redevelopment and that's perfectly understandable the fundament fundamental reservation I have is that the existing Redevelopment project plans are outdated the downtown project plan was uh last updated in 1990 uh Redevelopment project area 2 was adopted in in 20 uh 2005 a lot has changed during those 24 and 19 years notwithstanding how Co up uh just completely St uh U affected how we do business throughout the world Nevada law requires that a Redevelopment plan must be consistent with the city's master plan that Master Plan was adopted by the council in 2017 updating the Redevelopment plans would assure consistency with the policies within the master plan as required by law updating the Redevelopment plans would also help educate the public about the benefits of Redevelopment thank you if you have any questions be happy to answer and again just for the record members wishing to attend the meeting May do so by registering through the following link https colll i n k s period re n o period G o VCU n c i l-14 with that Madame mayor we have no additional public comment on item B1 all right thank you so much I believe we where are we at staff presentation I have a whole new agenda here so I'm trying to figure it all out so hi Mr Mardo how are you I'm doing great how are you nice to see you good morning good morning good morning Madam mayor council members assistant city manager Bryan Brian mcardell revitalization manager pull that up for bringing up something we have yes this is a presentation was that uploaded it was know we need to do is thank you for your patience um you know what in the notebook great all right are we good to go hey can can we just say something when I'm on the prime gu meeting viewer it says today Reno city council final there's there's two meetings we have a RDA and a regular so we'll have someone come pull up the RDA yeah because I can't I can't bring up the matal I'll have someone come pull it up please okay up to our internal system you're probably using that exterior it is loaded if you'll give us just a second we'll get it pulled up it's not under today I don't know what the presentation okay I think I just saw I okay great think we're in business all right so Brian Mardo or violat manager for the record uh we're here today to present to the Redevelopment agency board um two documents that allow us to to get the Redevelopment agency re-energized and and active again the two documents that I'm going to summarize and is going to be a lot of information because what we're trying to do here is summarize 40 Years of Redevelopment history give you a snapshot of where the Redevelopment agency is currently today its capabilities its goals and objectives and then also outline a process on how we are going to proceed as we engage uh the public and private communities uh private investors Etc uh that'll give us some direction and guidance on how we proceed how this aligns with the Strategic plan is obviously we're dealing with taxes tax increment uh and development projects and so uh over time that bucket uh is a huge resource and asset to the city at large and so it does hit our fiscal sustainability plan as well at the end of the day what we're really talking about is economic development in our downtown which is something many people have discussed uh that is in importance to the city and so this is a great tool that we're going to utilize to to invest in our our area before we get going um just to summarize you have the Redevelopment agency which is a an entity and then you have two Redevelopment areas um the Redevelopment agency actually has its own goals and each Redevelopment area one and two also has goals listed under those plans but the agency in general has seven broad plans in that 1990 Redevelopment plan and so these are the activities of the agency it is to drive business attraction and the visual appeal of structures throughout the area is to create quality of quality housing uh and the growth of residents and not only growing residents but also the diversity of residents as well uh transportation of people throughout the area whether they're walking Wheeling biking driving uh is of importance so it focuses on the flow of people throughout the area uh investments in public spaces Landscaping the public realm art can all be facilitated through the agency the real goal at the end of the day is to remove blight and to bring underutilized areas back up to usable State get them back on the tax roll broad goal is to enhance the overall quality of life and the last is to preserve and emphasize the heritage of historic assets through the area but before we get to that that is the that is the what we're going to get to the how how does Redevelopment get facilitated in an area and it's through tax increment and right now uh for every dollar created in property tax as it before the Redevelopment area gets split to the city of Areno and through multiple agencies and so as of right now normal property tax 26% per dollar goes towards the city of aro's general fund and the remaining gets split up between was County School District the county in general and the state Nevada when you create a Redevelopment area it creates a tax increment District where what you do is you go out to all the existing agencies and you freeze the tax base and you say from now on until the sunset of this area you will continue to get the property tax being generated in this area but for every new dollar created after the creation of the area it goes into a spec special bucket and those funds be reinvested in that specific area for the goal of increasing more property tax increasing more investment more development and at the end of the sunset of that Redevelopment area all those Future Property Tax created gets distributed back to those agencies back to the City of Reno as they were before the area was created so this is the 40 year history of Redevelopment uh it was started in 1968 when the City of Reno created the Downtown Development uh commission uh this is a nonprofit created uh during the urban renewal phase in the late 60s and that nonprofit was called renovation Inc and they actually produced a a report um but in the 80s uh we're going out of urban renew and starting to go into what is Redevelopment which is a a bit more uh Equitable uh it's anti-displacement it provided for the social benefit of an area and so Nevada passed uh legislation that allowed certain areas in the state of Nevada to create Redevelopment areas and so in 1993 or 1983 sorry uh the city approved rga1 the downtown Redevelopment plan number one um it didn't really create an agency it just listed five projects that I will summarize that they wanted those funds to go towards five specific Improvement projects but later in 1990 uh it was realized that we really do need an agency and so the plan was amended in 1990 to give the agency goal rules bylaws and so when we talk about a Redevelopment plan um the plan is a bit of a misnomer the 1990 Redevelopment plan is really the document that created the Redevelopment area and it's sort of a bylaws or a charter on how the agency can operate it does not dictate what should be done in a certain area it does not dictate zoning or land uses it's just really the rules and guidelines of the Redevelopment agency in the in the '90s we did a lot of reports studies commissions uh streetscape design and in 2005 Redevelopment area 2 was also approved uh that plan and in 2007 the retract Corridor study was completed very good plan uh but after that we went into the Great Recession and that plan really wasn't um implemented but taking you back to 1969 under renovation uh the opening statement for that document is in Reno as in every city downtown either must change to meet today's needs or abdicate its role in The Heart of the City and become a lifeless slump um what was happening in the late 60s uh is mainly due to Park Lane Mall uh Park Lane mall was built and a lot of businesses were leaving downtown as they were in other downtowns to move to the concept of a regional mall or a shopping center and so we lost the Woolworth wwor moved from downtown to the Park Lane Mall a lot of the Jewelers a lot of the banks they were all vacating and so there was some clamoring on you know we need to bring back downtown back to life and some of the things proposed were the these metal globe lights uh along the streetcape reinvesting along our river that picture is actually the Mason's building and where the padio is today in the middle uh and it proposed a pedestrian bridge from Wingfield park over to Wester Plaza back in 1969 fast forwarding to 1983 uh this was the the creation of rda1 and it had a city of light theme uh and it said to concentrate public improvements on the balanced development of the two main axes of downtown Reno which is Virginia Street and the trucky River and I mentioned that this plan didn't really talk about an agency it just identified five projects and so the first project was a pedestrian Mall down Virginia Street the plan was to take Virginia Street into a one lane road do double trees on one side allow more there were a lot of pedestrians back then so they needed shade so to put trees and to do these lighting structures over some of the the intersection I imagine they were like a plexiglass neon sort of lit up um and the Mapes was still there at the time and so that Pedestrian Mall uh continued all the way to the river the second project that was proposed is a retail Garden on the corner of Sierra in the river uh you'll recognize the site is the site of the movie theater but back in 1983 it was a potential Redevelopment site and it was proposed that we put sort of a retail Mall uh on that site so that was one of the plans uh project sorry the third was a a the Reno River room which was to extend onto the Reno post office this very glass gazebo type structure and to turn the whole entire Bridge area and the parking lot of the post office into this uh restaurant multi-use space uh that didn't that didn't occur um the the the last project that I wanted to mention is what everyone thought City of Reno needed in 1983 and that was survey says lasers so one of the proposals was to put structured Towers uh at the intersection of I80 uh and on Wingfield Park to do lasers that would sort of um you know shine light and then radiate throughout the city um the 80s were great that wasn't uh completed obviously uh there was a six project that was amended in 1986 I believe and that was to purchase the land for the autum museum so at the time the hara's car collection was sold to Holiday Inn they wanted to sell off the cars the rcva and the Redevelopment agency did a deal where they would build a structure and the Redevelopment area would buy the land and so Redevelopment agency purchased the land I believe rcva gave some money to build the structure and we were able to keep the auto museum here locally but in 1990 it was realized that we really do need a Redevelopment agency not to do just projects but actually to do a lot of things throughout the area uh and it created these goals specifically for RDA one and that is to create diverse experiences not only for visitors and residents throughout the area focus on circulation patterns traffic patterns Etc focus on more commercial and Recreation uses uses uh focus on the attractiveness of the area drive more housing in the area do some public improvements Drive private development remove light focus on preservation and the last one is to kind of drive and coordinate development and give sort of some design standards for the area so those are the goals listed under rda1 and throughout the 90s there were a lot of plans done this one's called The Blueprint there was a river river corridor plan there was an entertainment core plan there was also a streetscapes master plan which is how we got the Sternberg candy cane lights uh and the stamped concrete and I apologize for the maroon paint throughout the area and in 2007 there was another study called called the retrack corridor study this is actually a great study um a lot hasn't changed since 2007 a lot of the empty lots are the same uh the corridors are the same there's a lot in this plan that could be could be utilized uh today it even goes down to which trees we should be planting in downtown and how far to Space them it's very detailed very good plan um but of course the recession hit and we were not able to implement that but the Redevelopment agency has done a lot of projects throughout the area the river prominade as you see on the upper upper left was a Redevelopment agency project as well as the parking Gallery associated with the theater the padio in the movie theater were projects the ballpark was possibly the biggest project underta undertaken by the agency the bowling stadium and Wester Plaza were all past RDA projects before it really became to the point where they couldn't support financially new projects during that time as I've mentioned in the past downtown Reno has not seen a lot of development but there has been some development occurring uh the kings in was converted to uh what is it West Street Flats no Third Street Flats sorry Third Street Flats uh we had the student housing project Canyon Flats come in and the mod to a Riverwalk and in rda2 we had Reno experience District uh Midtown actually got an apartment complex called R1 apartments and the Reno Public Market came in and why this is important is that these projects were built and the tax created the property tax created by these helps fill the Redevelopment bu bucket so that we can make investments throughout the area so in this plan that is in front of you the status report was is really just a capture a moment in time uh it says that through the life of the Redevelopment agency we could see roughly $413 million be reinvested inside rda1 and rda2 over the life of both districts there are two Milestones you have to remember so 2035 is when RDA 2 ends um it is predicted in 2035 rda1 should be spending out roughly $13 million a year in increment and rda2 at its Sunset should be producing roughly $21 million a year that means every year we get to invest that money inside rda1 and rda2 by the end of 2043 rda2 had been will have been expired by then but rda1 downtown proper is spinning out n about $20 million a year just something to consider the current Financial State is in the status report of both rda1 and rda2 as I mentioned RDA 1 was created in 1983 and sunsets in 2043 so there's 19 years remaining to to do any Capital Improvements and drive development there are three bonds outstanding that were taken in 2007 just before the Great Recession uh there is a $1.2 million loan that was given from rda2 and after the sunset of rda2 the rda1 area has the obligation to continue paying that $1 million annual agreement to the baseball um that was part of the deal these aren't listed at as debt the million dollars because it is just an obligation for the agency and I will mention that it is rda1 is not out of debt just yet um and there are some funds sort of coming in 2425 it is planned uh Vicky van ber mentioned that we would pay off that loan first and then start paying off the debt as fast as we can so we can get some money to start doing rda1 projects rda2 is doing pretty good rda2 is uh spending out roughly about $6 million a year and has been for a year or two now but there are 11 years remaining um and so if a project we approved today takes two years to construct take another year to start assessing the property we only have roughly six to seven years to actually spend the money created by those projects and so time is of the essence if we really want to utilize this tool to drive development um and as I mentioned rda2 ends in 2035 so that is just the status report that is based on current information past plans what we know today uh I've been here two years and it was even challenging for me to go and find and identify the history uh and so we needed a document that could educate not only the public but everyone else including myself on the status and the capabilities of the Redevelopment agency but I want to switch gears that was the what I want to switch gears to the how um the how is the participation program and Redevelopment is to drive investment in our downtown and so the agency will seek to partner with existing property owners who currently own property in downtown prospective developers and investors that will make Reno that will do meaningful private investments in Reno's revitalization and so in NRS 279 556 um it requires that the agency do this by entering into particip agreements and it also says in NRS that the agency shall have developed and created guidelines and rules for the format and application of those participation agreements and we didn't have those we have no process for a private entity to even approach and engage the Redevelopment agency and so we undertook an effort to create guidelines and processes so that people can come and approach the agency and that is what this document does the first part is it it outlines the eligibility for redevelopment projects the first one is it must bring an a benefit to the area that it's in whether it's an rda1 or rda2 um the two biggest ones you have to understand the is the but four test the but four test is really important it says that but not for the Redevelopment agency supporting this project financially this project would never occur if this project never occurs you'd never take you'd never create the prop Future Property Tax and so if you're okay with the status qu fine but this project will not happen if not for the Redevelopment agency supporting this and so projects have to show that they have to pass the but four tests that these projects will not work without agency participation and the second one is that all projects must be prevailing wage uh if it if they take more than $100,000 the entire project must be prevailing wage uh they must provide an employment plan not only for the construction but any future uses uh and contracts must be done through public B bidding because then they'll be receiving public dollars the eligibility eligibility criteria is fairly straightforward property must be inside one of those areas it must be properly zoned or request to be rezoned they must have all their fees Uh current and paid for contractors must be property LIC property licensed criteria five it says that the property must be vacant or underutilized or blighted or stalled uh to justify the use of red funds and if a project is stalled they are uh able to come and request support from the Redevelopment agency and they have to have no felony convictions or bankruptcy judgments and so those are the general guidelines that if if they satisfy those they can come and approach the Redevelopment Agency for support there are five programs being highlighted we went out and talked to uh I think seven directly seven Redevelopment agencies across the country we physically went and met with them and toward their cities we looked at roughly 80 Redevelopment agencies throughout the nation uh and captured some of the best practices and these are summarized here and one of those is to uh formalize the building imp uh the building facade antenna Improvement program we're already doing this with uh restore arpa funds that was uh given to us by Council that program is seeing some impact and so we want to make sure that continues so the program will roughly stay the same the the one change is that if someone wants to do a larger project let's say they want to redo their entire sidewalks and redo Landscaping in the public way we'd be able to match them for up to $200,000 uh a little bit different than just focusing on their business facade and if it's a historic property they would get a $25,000 historic bonus on their match the second one is a catalyst project assistance and this is for very large projects think ranchera think um uh Medical Campus or something like that if it's that large they can approach the Redevelopment agency uh and really through negotiations try to find a solution that will fit but these projects could be cumbersome they could be multiphased multi-year uh and so those will little look a little bit different the one on the upper right is your standard tax increment financing assistance would me which means a developer would come and say we're doing a $50 million project we have a $3 million gap can we get support from the city or the agency to make this happen and through some due diligence uh and looking at their proposal it could be done where the Redevelopment agency does support them the last two is uh is a capital Improvement plan specifically for RDA 1 and rda2 the goal is to not take on a lot of debt if there's $10 million in that bucket we could do $10 million in capital Improvement projects every year the question is which ones and so annually uh we'll bring before the agency board uh to review and prioritize those Capital Improvement projects based on the funding available and then the last one one is Property Disposition so the agency does have the ability to acquire assemble Sell Off Lease dispose of land and so it does give some guidelines on how the agency does that there's also a lot of NRS uh guidelines that we have to follow as well every so we're developing a process for participants to come and apply and so every application now will have a scoring process of 200 points and it'll be split in half so the first 100 points is it a viable project and so the question is does this developer have some performance do they have the financial capacity to do projects is this impactful to the community so they'll have to submit that and it'll be reviewed on a 100 point scale the second point is is it really achieving the goals of the agency and is it providing a benefit to the area and so that is does it improve quality of life does it provide some social benefits does it provide ground for retail which is something we need throughout our downtown and the last last one is sort of the bigger the project the bigger the impact financially and so there is a scale of of points based on uh if projects are are are larger than $2 million so there's a process that applicants would follow uh we encourage applicants to have a pre-application meeting with agency staff uh and we are encouraging them through the process to actually go out and get do one or more public engagement sessions before they even make an application to the city or to the agency my apologize if they satisfy all their criteria and they meet the scoring threshold we'll bring that application before this board before the Redevelopment agency board uh and all we're looking all we'd be looking for is the agency board to say please proceed in negotiations and come back with a negotiated deal that would allow us to do any due diligence needed on the project uh get additional public input and then bring back a final agreement for this board to approve uh and once those are approved uh any agreements in there will have to be ratified with with a memorandum meaning if they agreed to build something in five years they agreed to do some sort of uh off-site improvements that would be ratified and captured and so I know that was a lot to take in um but I do want to let you know that this this city council in this capacity is the Redevelopment agency board so you have the full capacity to to dictate how these funds are spent get involved uh and and really it's no different than regular City Council meetings you're just wearing a slightly different hat with that okay I will end I know it's a lot to take in well it is and I know we're going to have questions and I just wanted to start out by saying that was an incredible presentation Brian and I know you put a lot of time into this so how long have you been sort of pulling all of this paperwork together we working on on this about nine months being engaged in consultant yeah uh we I kept every month I found a new old report that I had to read so uh yeah and and going out and seeking input from other Redevelopment agencies well I think that's super useful because you know success follows success if you've got a good model and it sounds like um you do it sounds like we have some good models to look at and I I hope you'll bring some of that information to us as we get into this whole process um I'm going to have a few questions but I just wanted to ask um probably my biggest question I had a a chance to read your whole report and other documents and what I wanted to ask you was um the the one thing that I thought could have used a tiny bit more focus and I would love to see it is the good work that the agency did before and you you you showcase the projects but I would love to see a table that lists the projects and how much we actually invested so we have you know they always say you know the past is key to the Future what have we done before how did it work and the only the only thing I want to just say is that some of the projects over the last 10 years I've that that you highlighted in your report such as the bowling Stadium the ball field Etc they've all they've been phenomenal projects but they've also brought some challenges to the council terms of um having to talk about Bond repayments um uh you know the ball field having to put in a million dollars at certain periods of time and so on and so I would like love to know how they worked you know how they went actual understanding of what we did what's here today how much did it cost was it Redevelopment all re Redevelopment money how much did they put in how and many of them such as the bowling Stadium the ball field and then you had the auto museum and so on it would be great to understand the public private partnership but anyway I'm going to mayor's back I'm going to hand it over to her and um I have a number of questions and comments things I hope you'll dive into with us so thank you really well done thank you okay to mad I'll bring it back to the body Council Eber you have any questions for mrle yeah I did in the in the um the proposal or packet there was a a piece in there about eminent domain can you explain how that works in the Redevelopment yeah through n through Nevada revised statutes Redevelopment agencies in the state of Nevada have the power to do eminent domain and there's also a lot of language around relocation of residents facilities users um that is there's a lot of language in there um we didn't really summarize it in the report mainly because it's an on NRS Okay so if we were to do that does that mean that the city would purchase a a property or something or how would that work yeah uh the best example I could give to you is let's say a property is extremely blighted or creating a nuisance uh let's say a uh private developer or other private entities have tried to purchase or negotiate or improve are building or something sure uh and then the Redevelopment agency goes in and also tries to make an attempt to purchase to redevelop and after all attempts have been exhausted to remove the blight and if it's shown that that blight will continue on that site until something is not done then it opens up the ability to use that eminent domain legislation okay and then is that like a market value thing or there different rules about that okay thank you all right councilman Rees thank you madam mayor I'll keep my comments in this round a bit more General and then I have specific questions I first of all the presentation and the work you put into it is phenomenal um perhaps one of the better presentations and undertakings that I've seen in the time that I've been on this body so kudos to you and your team for putting it together I felt like we were on some archaeological Expedition a history lesson I mean it's fantastic truly but it does help us to explain a couple of things that I have thoughts about the first is um you know broadly speaking the RDA um is really a catalyst for helping us to uh re-energize a particular area of town right an area of town that we have uh since the 1960s struggled to really get um moving in the right direction sometimes when I'm interacting with community members they say well downtown used to be this it used to have that and and look we are not going backwards um we are not going to revive the Heyday of casinos being everywhere Woolworth being downtown JC Penney's where you know I bought my first clip on thae you know those are the kind of things that we're not going backwards but we can look forward I think we've been fighting the very same fight for about 40 plus years and and for me it's time that we get going and do it because you've identified report after report after report studies I think you may have missed a couple I'll flag for you the Urban Land Institute uh study the downtown action plan studies ones that I have looked at is more out of historic curiosity than for what they really portend for today but you know at the end of the day and and I'll use a phrase that Madame mayor uses which is Reno is definitely open for business everyone who comes through that front door this provides the transparency that we need for those folks to be able to have a process for people to know what it is um I think for my part I'm even thinking about things that are later on our agenda today and how they might be positively impacted by the type of um RDA related programming that could come from this um and so we might have to have that conversation in the second round because I think the the CAC site speaks a lot to some of what you're talking about and I wonder uh whether some of those proposals might have been made differently or could be reformulated in a way to take advantage of some of these things um I like that you mentioned that you have studied dozens of rdas you've researched them you've visited them um I think best practices are always what we're looking for as a body and that's what I think you've provided a guidepost or or kind of a a road map for us to do I don't think you've asked us to jump off the deep end today and start approving projects or doing anything particular but it's more of that historic look back the guide um how we move forward I think there's going to be multiple chances for people to really Ray in on what their expectation is we of course want the Public's input in in all things uh but there are things like each project going through its own normal review process having a neighborhood Advisory Board public meetings the Planning Commission I I want people in the public who might be looking at this and wonder what we're doing not to feel like we are Reinventing something or creating something whole cloth it has been there for you know 70 years it's time for us to take the range of it and with the financial picture that you've painted this is a good time to do it uh and so I thank you for the presentation and I'll have more specific questions in the next round C Taylor thank you Madame mayor I don't want to steal your thunder but I'm going to so I think the headline I thought the presentation was great but we should have led with City of Reno could possibly in invest almost a half a billion dollars in the RDA I mean that's a phenomenal opportunity that we have so I'm super super excited about it very grateful for the work that you and your team have been doing and just based on a couple of um the public commenters we heard I have some Global comments right now and then when we go back I'll um get a little bit more in depth this isn't new like um councilman ree says this is something that we've been looking at and when we did our work and our due diligence in the budget these are things that we talked about we talked about RDA funds how we were going to use them how we were going to hire some people and now we've asked you to go and research this and bring it back to us and it sounds like you you researched over 80 agencies so you do have some best practices so things that I'm going to want to understand a little bit more about is um I am interested in in an Advisory Board a very specialized um expert Advisory Board to help us with some of these decisions because I think it's a lot of money um I know it's a lot of money and I think um there we could benefit from that I'm interested in having that conversation with my colleagues um more about the timeline and the urgency of getting these funds online in the application process what that looks like with them suns setting um I think it's important also to think about the prior leadership and councils that put this into place because I think one of our biggest jobs here is to plan and prepare invest in the future and I think this is a tool that is going to be able this is going to help us get there with with um with this tool um a couple of things that I heard in public comment were um what was the staff who is the staff going to be and I think we were're able to answer that in some of our budget discussions about the planning districts and um I will ask you more about it but it's my understanding that they are basically defined already in RDA 1 and RDA 2 we're not going to change the boundaries of those they've already been set the participation programs how you came up with those based on best practices and then the public process um I was really interested in in your squir uh snake diagram there it seems like there will be multiple opportunities for public process before the agency board or the council Redevelopment board actually even starts seeing these projects so those are Global comments and we'll dive inep deeper but thank you very much I'm I'm estatic about this thank you all right councilman Martinez thanks much mayor thank you uh Mr Mardo for the presentation great delivery on the lasers appreciate that do you want lasers you can admit I don't know if we we're in favor I just like your delivery of it and the way that you presented uh and the overall context that you put us in in this conversation so thanks for diving deep into these conversations doing your research checking best practices Across the Nation and figuring out how we can provide some of these guard rails we're at a great opportunity in time for the RDA um and looking at ways to build more private partner Public Partnerships um and so I want to appreciate you and the staff that have worked so diligently to get us to this place and expanding our opportunities to do that I I had a question when you're looking at your evaluations I think it was slide uh evaluation process slide 23 uh when you're can you define developer performance history for me I'm just trying to understand if you are categorizing this in terms of like the number of development projects that a developer has worked on or what are you sort of looking at in that specific area yeah the types of projects they've done in the past the quality of projects the number the size and scope of the projects um you know we do want to make sure that we're bringing in people that can do the projects um do quality projects that benefit the area yeah and at the end of the day I think the goal of the RDA is to help spur some economic development in area and fight blight so I think those are great uh ways to Define that thanks for diving deep into that one thank you all right Council and braus yeah could you bring up slide five from his presentation so I have a long history with Redevelopment I started working on in 1993 and I'm pretty familiar with with it here and elsewhere um so I take a little different view of what's been done and if we're all talking about transparency and upfrontness you know being upfront is staff's been working on this for nine months and uh there's no prior Council Direction given it says in the staff report but here they have administrative forms to for people to roll in and ask for money and that's the part participation program General application so administrative forms to to give money to private parties well is that the business we're going to be in you tell me I think we should have a discussion on that before we create forums to take taxpayers money and give it to private people and that's what I'm seeing here we haven't given direction to that you have up to TW half billion dollars to invest in downtown you have upward of a half billion dollars to give away to people and how has that worked the update doesn't go through the history of the agency which has had some tremendous troubles Miss du referenced those those should be chronicled okay and these and so you know and we should take it at a global set how much do we want to give away do we want to give away any money okay do we want to get into these deals that's a a real big question I question some of of these because the um we have a poor track record but we haven't even looked at the track record of that and this isn't play money see his slide there 26% of every doll every dollar would go to the city's general fund so I'm seeing what 20 million in the out years that's five million more than five million that can go to the general fund that's five million that's not going to the labor contracts that we have okay so is developer Joe who's going to build you know a I don't know we got a bowling Stadium we got a ball stadium a pickle ball stadium is developer Joe who's going to build the pickle ball stadium and we're going to put all this money in you know where what's are we going to wait for the trickle down on the for the general fund those are the fundamental questions that need to be asked and I because I have such a long history with this I want to ask NRS 279 608 says me material deviation from amendment of Redevelopment plan now we've got administrative forms to come in and ask for money we put 10 million aside for the fire station it's not mentioned in the plan the fire station like the retail Garden or the lasers I want to ask the attorneys if we start working on these programs opening up this form are we doing a material deviation or Amendment of the Redevelopment plan 279 608 are we just ready ready to go for business or do we have to amend the plan no it doesn't look like we're amending the plan can we start spending this money projection on these projects staff has outlined without amending the plan in the transparent way that NRS 279 well I think any money that is going to be spent would come back to the council in any event so you're still going to have the answer is no amend the plan because we've already started spending money on the fire station and it's not in the plan and my colleagues want to do transparent open public but the number fundamental of doing transparent Redevelopment work is doing the plan so that's question number one I I will continue on another fundamental question um is because Redevelopment uh abuse is so well known in the urban history of America so absolutely well known and if someone did the time to research how we have done they know that it's been poor okay and that's why I objected to the extension of the Redevelopment agency without amending the plan but let's talk about condemnation of land okay all right I'm going to move on okay go ahead councilwoman Eber it's all you yeah so I have a question about the funds um you said it's about $1 million for was it RDA no $13 million for RDA 1 annually and $21 million for RDA 2 annually so I know that we only have so much time to use but are these funds just accumulating like it's not like yes so these funds have materialized today we don't have that today um but every other year uh Finance goes through a process where they sort of predict future development projects and so predicting that out if the projects proposed today get built we will have $13 million a year uh to spend an rda1 okay but this isn't like an arpa thing we like we have to have it decided and used by by 2035 like as long as we identify it and we start using it like it's just the money will stop coming in or stop being available um you know in 11 years for RDA 2 and um I forget how many years but it ends in uh 2043 for R1 yeah those are the two Milestones so in 20143 uh if the money is not expended in rda1 in 2043 and there's money left over uh you can either Council can agree to encumber those dollars as the after the agency sunsets or they would just transfer into the general fund if they're unused okay all right thank youc thank you um Brian could you turn to your goals page it was one of the first pages that you showed on the PowerPoint um I too wanted to just talk about our Advisory board that would be um part of this and I thought that um I think I think the Advisory Board its makeup and all is laid out in the bylaws which is laid out in the plan you mentioned which was last updated in 1990 but then there was another plan in 2005 right for the other agency so I just wanted to put out um this which is that um I think that as we go I think one of the first things we should do is bring back the bylaws and let's adjust those so that when we put an Advisory Board together maybe uh one or two people could represent each of these areas that are the goals so for example um if it's housing there should be a housing person on the visory board if it's about transportation number three we should have a transportation kind of person if it's uh investment in public spaces Landscaping someone that knows about that uh history we we talk about preserving and emphasizing history I would love to see a historic person on there that understands the region and then I'd also like to see someone that's not in the district you know uh and I don't know that those people need to live in the district or work in the district I don't know that that gives them special privileges but um certainly what the people that are working Within These districts you know that are generating Economic Development they need a very important seat at the table because this is development that's going to surround them and affect their business and then potentially a position that is outside the district because what happens in the district May enhance R the city or may actually pull maybe a development project that they were hoping was down in South Reno back up to more North Reno or something something wanted to happen in North Valleys down to you know Center Stage so that's an issue um I'd love to see us lay that out who's going to be on this Advisory Board what the roles are um I also wondered um all in 2005 and I'm sorry I've got so many pages marked up from your report there was uh the goals from the 2005 plan and you've already mentioned it but I think it's important to reiterate which is that the promotion of Maximum participation of residents business persons property owners and community organization in the Redevelopment of the Redevelopment agency I mean it's stated in the 2005 plan very clearly so I think it's something we just need to understand um I had a similar concern to something council member Becca said which was I was a little nervous about the participation form and I I will just be clear I'm hoping we can actually bring that back um I have a lot of questions I'm not sure they'll get out today given our three minute time frame but I I thought it was well done and very thoughtful but it made it brought up questions for me so for example one of them is the evaluation criteria applications will be reviewed on a first come first serve basis well like council member breus I was wondering I'm concerned because I too have learned about the history of Redevelopment agencies and the potential to squander or misspend and we want to do all the right stuff and um so the valuation criteria just my question on that was should it be quarterly or a set time many agencies that give out grants do it twice a year even four times a year should it just be open all day long so we'll come back with more thanks all right Council re thank you madam mayor um Mr Ricard I I suppose I want to start with the Redevelopment agency Advisory Board the RAB right so we do not currently have anyone on such a body is that correct that is true and no no acting appointees and and we usually with our other organizational uh things like nabs we have a council leaon and then they make a appointments to that is that how the bylaws here are constituted I believe so it would mirror how the city creates uh agencies and Boards well and to my colleague M St the vice mayor's point you know we all probably have ideas about who might best serve on it I I think for example Mr Rangel would be an outstanding person to be on such a body but I I'm sort of um positing that that might not necessarily be that each one of us are going to appoint a person or even that we need it one of the things I'm concerned about having read the B laws extensively and understanding the structure of it is is that we're not reconstituting another NAB right we we have a Nab in the downtown area a couple of them might overlap I haven't looked at the way that the maps divide downtown um it might all be inside of w one after the new configuration November but it's not an Architectural Review Committee they're not pausing to pass uh their ability to think that the Project's a good one the Raab as it was created and is designed is really to look at the financial side of it for us right is to evaluate whether it meets the goals of the RDA uh not necessarily whether it's a a good project so this why I'm I'm having concern slightly about what people believe the function of the RAB is it is very narrowly defined and the things for which people would be qualified to sit on it are not just an architect a historic resource person or whatever maybe it could be maybe that's something we could have a discussion about that's how it's constituted now um I also think it's important to think about the way in which our own Capital Improvement projects in the downtown quter might be implicated by the Tiff that could be generated or any of the RDA monies because I think that there are some strategic Investments that this body has long wanted to see like the train station um the bowling stadium has some Capital Improvement needs that are fou outstripping the ability of the $2 surcharge subcommittee to pay for the Lear theater is another example of a building which of course is a priority for this body to make sure is uh maintained um the other thing I notice in it maybe it's in this slide or maybe it's another one I think it is important that if we and I suppose it's in the um the policy document about how we score people I would like to see a uh women minority owned business owners um scoring part I don't know if that criteria existed at the time um the rdas were constituted but I think it is an important component of um our commitment to equity that's right okay so if there is an opportunity for a a wbe kind of scoring criteria to be added I think that's important and then the last thing I'll say before I turn it over is you know again the example today that we have later about the CAC a couple of the proposals are really talking about the Gap in financing and funding to layer for that project and this is um it's a concern to me if we don't get moving on the RDA you know setup when these projects come in we have no way to evaluate them so the transparency that we all are wanting we have no way to do and so we end up getting all these unsolicited proposals like zero Riverside or the CAC when it came to us the first time and so I think what you've put together is really a path forward for that greater transparency and I think that's an important part of it yeah um Mr ml can I just ask you the the criteria that I see up here is that new criteria that you're proposing or is that something that's been in place for a long time these are mostly based on Nevada revised statutes and what is in the existing Redevelopment plan okay from the the butt for test is in NRS uh prevailing wage is in NRS public bidding is in NRS and I believe the employment plan is required of all large projects as well okay I was just wondering if those are new things that have been added or those are just existing and you clarified existing yeah okay good all right counc M Taylor go ahead thank you Madame mayor um I think I'm gonna spend a couple minutes on the The Advisory Board um first of all actually I want to ask now that we've made this announcement and I think we're starting to get some interest and people understand a little bit more about what the rdas are is there anything from stopping somebody from coming forward with an unsolicited proposal now and asking for the money there's not no so at anybody at any time could come in and we could have a flood of uh unsed proposals to deal with so I think the timing is important to start looking at a process and the participation process and moving forward with that I also want to make sure that um you know we understand that this is new this is a lot of money so we are going to need to give ourselves a little bit of room to grow and adjust and make some make some uh changes I I think that we'll have some learning curves and I think that's expected and we shouldn't be afraid of that um I would look to an Advisory Board to help us with some of those decisions in the the partip the evaluation criteria maybe and the application process so if we were to approve that today I think that we would be able to ask if we wanted an Advisory Board to help us with some of those decisions and maybe make some recommendations um I will also say I appreciate your willingness thank you for agreeing to meet with uh Mrs Barber I'm disappointed that she did not accept our request um she had some serious concerns about this and um was hoping that we could have a meeting with her that didn't happen and a couple of things that I was thinking about is like you know a commercial real estate person an economic financial advisor some Land Development legal expertise like councilman Reet some very finite expertise and the biggest concern for me is um I would not be support of the city bonding for anything um I don't think that was in The Proposal but I did read a little bit into that that that would be a possibility in some of the rdas so that would be something that I would be a hard no on um but I'm I'm excited about getting started with this so th those conclude my questions thank you so much right council member Martinez thanks so much appreciate the discussion Mr Mar just a quick question on slide 22 if you can go there for the capital Improvement plan it looks like some of those can be initiated by the agency am I understanding that correctly what are some examples that So the plan for the you know fortunately with council's direction we were able to use arpa funds to do a lot of plans and so um council member ree mentioned the downtown action plan some other plans that are currently out there I'd only summarized the ones that were initiated by the Redevelopment agency but the city has done a lot of plans and we've done the Virginia Street placemaking plan we're in the middle of of uh the Trey River Vision plan a public art master plan the um parks and open space master plan we've done a lot of planning uh and this is now a tool for us to all the implementation plans and all those plans now we have a funding source to go after them um but it is not just for what the city has has planned we will open it up to have other agencies whether it's RTC uh whether it is one try River uh possibly the downtown Reno partnership to suggest public improvements that they want to see uh it will be curated and then we brought before this body to be prioritized and then based on the funding available you know get going and that will be on an annual basis so every year we'll be able to keep doing projects awesome thank answer your question yes thank you all right Council breus go ahead yeah so staying on slide 22 here tax increment finding aning assistance which is generally taking taxpayers money okay and giving it possibly to some else okay that's what it is it's a transference of some tax money that is not being used for its purpose to another place and let's remember Reno has the longest established Redevelopment agency and the only reason it was able to be extended out to 2043 is because we got a specific law to allow that so we could pay off debt we you know we were going to go under on our on our indebtness and the legislature laid it you know extended it okay so let's be a little wary of what has happened like Miss Taylor said I don't want a bond well amend your plan and put in that I don't want to condemn property and give it to a private person I don't think we can I think that needs to be a little fact checked but let's have a plan and 279 608 material deviation from our amendment of Redevelopment plan if he goes off and starts administering all these it is a material Amendment okay the unsolicited proposal that comes in that was said oh someone could just come in for an unsolicited proposal let's say they do let's say they come in they want the pickle ball stadium um they want you know x million dollars from us don't you think that should be in the plan well let's look at the plans that he just went over the laser the river garden those were all specific plan projects in the plan that's how Redevelopment Works do you really want want to work against how it's done maybe the first thing to do is get a new Redevelopment attorney to advise you because I think you're being poorly advised second if you want to have transparency do the plan can we go to slide five please and Slide Five I want I want to bring up something because it's going to be relevant later on okay the biggest money that's getting shorted is wo County what does Washo County do they provide Social Services right so every year 38% of this 20 million is not going to washa County they do a lot but to do some social services maybe in your buckets you should carve out a lot of money for social services because we're not doing things this railroad ordinance you could toss people off of there they'll be on the river you know there are actually a lot of good examples of communities starting to do and solve these problems I'd give a 100% I I'd maybe give 50% to the city for um infrastructure and 50% to Social Services some places are digging in that big private folks you know what when they get the better environment they'll start investing it's all trickled down it's failed before don't do it come up with some large policy buckets is my recommendation I I have a few seconds Madame mayor is address through an amendment of a plan the indebtness the eminent domain and your large buckets here okay okay all right thank you Council can I answer that question real quick yes please um so we are not proposing any amendments to the to the plan and actually the plan is why we created a participation program so on page 39 Section 8 it says the agency shall have developed and created guidelines and rules for the format and application of participation with owners and Property Owners throughout the area to improve their properties you need to outline the projects you need to you need to outline the projects that you're going to be doing all right thank you I appreciate your passion and I listen I don't think that you're wrong I think there's a lot of things that you're right about knowing the history watching it happen you know this is the first time I think since you and I have been here that we are sitting here looking at this so in nine months much further with forms to give money to people than having these conceptual discussions here and that's why I'm really the point of why we're here today so what I want you to be careful of is having sort of this anxiety feeling that's what we're starting at this is the first conversation that we've had I think going back and looking and and I brought it up at past Council meetings and I think you know this looking at RDA director um you know I think we we also have not had this opportunity for a very very long time and we do have this window but I also think that she's right that I think in the past we've kind of shot ourselves in the foot and maybe I think your message councilwoman breus is more about maybe we can avoid some of the mistakes that we made in the past and I want to also be careful because there you know there's some statements or innuendos about transparency and um and I think it is important to make sure that everyone has the opportunity to weigh in like we're doing now this is part of the process am I right have we done anything different or have we done something that has not been transparent no maybe you can explain thank you and I appreciate that because I think you then give the public concern that something else is transpiring here and I think that that's unfortunate and I think it undermines the council I really do even though um I also think what you some of the things you're saying are valid but I think you also have to be very careful to um steer clear of a lot of this fearmongering but we don't want to I guess duplicate the things in the past um that hurt the city because I do think councilwoman breus is right in some of that capacity so let's avoid some of those things and maybe you can talk a little bit about because I I don't think that I heard it but um some of the things that did hinder the city in the past so so the public understands what those things were well to to respond to the first question so it's not like this uh application process will be sort of approving or denying projects this is the minimum requested information for staff to say that this project meets the threshold to bring it to the agency to make a vote um and so this is just standard due diligence uh for minimal materials uh with a ranking system so that we can bring projects forward if we don't want to bring projects forward that will not certainly mean a minimum threshold and so that is why we looked at some best practices create an application form because otherwise we have no standard operating procedure on how to bring anything in front of this body and what I feel I guess bad for staff is that they are just doing what people bring to them they bring it to council and then sort of we're damned if we do we're damned if we don't and I've watched that sort of happen as well and I do think that that um sort of doesn't help with Innovation or you know being Forward Thinking and so I want to be careful um you know sort of those kinds of things because up here you can tell that it gets a a little negative and it it really shouldn't be to that level so I know you're just um trying to figure it you bring something forward and you he's like wait a minute that wasn't what I thought so I want to be able to also help you guys Foster Innovation and vision and the future I would say this is an exciting time because we have not been able to hear um how RDA can transform our city so I think being cautious at the same time but I also think we can do a great job of having experts in the room like we're talking about um sort of having this board that can bring um a different perspective than what the council can also bring so I think that's good okay where are we at Madam clerk we have a busy agenda what do you what do you need from us are we on Final Round are we done we've done two rounds per council member so we're looking for a motion on this item I'd like one more minute to ask some questions that I haven't had a chance to ask um okay I will grant you one more minute go ahead yeah you know um a lot of times when you hire a consultant there is an author ship attribution attribution and you didn't I didn't see that on your status update so who' you hire to do this we went with applied analysis to help us review other plans put something together okay agero Jeremy Aguero okay um I don't know his expertise I know you know lot about him by reputation um I you know did he did they oine he's a he's a economist I guess but did they opine on the need to amend the plan we didn't ask them to amend the plan what we asked them is to capture the history the RDA okay well you know I would have liked to have seen the projects reviewed in more and some of the loan programs because I worked on one of a fail blown program here okay to businesses I remember that cleanup but um where did you go who went and did any of the elected officials go on these tours to re development agents we had uh t question so we have um gone to some conferences and while we're there we usually find an opportunity to visit the Redevelopment agency that's in there and so during the US Conference of Mayors we met with Oklahoma Ci's uh I think it's sorry not Oklahoma City um Columbus uh Columbus Development Corporation uh we went to Boise and got a full tour with their agency staff met with their mayor as well to talk about how Boise uses Redevelopment agency funds to facilitate they've tripled their downtown population in 7 years so they're my Coles go on those trips we they were invited we did invite uh those to who could make it there were some instances where we were in Denver we met with people we met with uh Boulder uh we met with Cal with Calgary as well and I went up there for an economic development confence I don't remember the invitation to Boise um that's another thing of you know nine months of work and it's it's baked with administrative forms I really you know I'm going to tell the council is you know Urban renewal Redevelopment is the poster child for urban abuse urban renewal abuse from kilo to you know overspending it's got wiped out by Jerry Brown in California tread very carefully and the motion before you is to absolutely go in the wrong path the direction should be amend the plan and tell us how we're going to amend the plan thank you all right than appreciate your concern I think that's always good to have on the radar I do but I also want to be careful of like comparing us to that that's pretty negative okay I don't know if anyone else want a one minute one minute yeah thank you I just um I do think we are getting a little ahead of um a little over our ski so to speak and what I would love to see I think Mr ree identified he had read the bylaws of The Advisory Board and it was more of a financial group we we have a finance Advisory Board generally that we've leaned on we have a good Finance team I know we need other Specialists you know it's been brought up we have a debt management commission which is filled not just with electeds but experts in finance but I I am with council member um Taylor in that I think that we need whatever proposal comes in to be able to have that reviewed by a a wide ranging group of people that specific proposal in a public setting so so we are speaking to the transparency we are getting input from a variety of experts not just Finance if we also want a very detailed Finance Advisory Board that's fine too I I'd written that in an earlier comment but I I do think before we start accepting applications it would be good to establish our Advisory Board and determine its role all right councilwoman neber go ahead nothing okay anything for actually I do just real quick so all wait till there's a motion actually okay um do you have any more questions well I I I I'll use my one minute Madame mayor since you've come to me I I want to make sure that um I am clear in I think the last time I looked at it in the state of Nevada there were 12 or 13 active local Redevelopment agencies between here uh Carson City Douglas uh Clark County uh at the time I last looked at it there was something like $1.5 billion doar in assess value in those agencies and um really the purpose is defined by Statute it's not that we can just spend it on whatever Social Services we find important or we can put it into the buckets that some have suggested it has to be spent for the purposes of reducing blight in an area it is really about the energizing of physical spaces uh buildings uh property it does not concern um the other things that have been suggested so NRS 279 is the you know the gravamin of what we have to guide us I think we'll be capable of doing that I think the work here has been good and I'm happy to support it all right councilman Taylor I'm going to head to you um I'm prepared to make a motion Madam Maye okay I'll try um I moved to adopt the Areno Redevelopment a agency status report participation program and application documents and then I'd also add like to add that um we create an Advisory Board all right so I have a motion from councilwoman Taylor do I have a second for discussion second I have a second go ahead councilwoman breus yeah yeah I'll be voting against this motion because one I think it's inconsistent with Nevada 279 it offers up in this status report so many deviations that are material from the plan that the plan needs to be amended two it is a scheme with these application participation programs of taking taxpayer monies from some and giving it to others with very vague nebulous outcomes that these people must deliver which would be in the plan if this body decided to do a plan which it should be doing um and three I guess it just really repeats the failures of the past of Reno rad development yes there's a lot of others and it would have been nice to have people outline the difference between Renos and those other Nevada jurisdictions that work out under the law and then they'd see the difference between Renos that goes out till 2043 needed a special law because it was an indebted Redevelopment agency and this is absolutely repeating the past of putting Redevelopment into a bad path in downtown Reno okay thank you so much Madam mayor go ahead um you know I'm I'm also inclined to not support it and it's not because I don't support this whole process I'm I'm ecstatic that you have put this all together my concern is that we had to have private investment in order to generate the Tiff right it had to come kind of organic and naturally and businesses had to come here whether it's investment in downtown or down south wherever so private investment has been happening and you've said these are the issues that are just they can't make it the butt for test they they'd like to be here but they can't quite put it all together they need public financing in some way so my my comment is that um that's the reason we have money I'm a I'm a little anxious about giving money to those who haven't been able to put together their performers I'd love to see in the status report where we've been the projects we've approved where they stand today what do we owe on them you know how what have they generated Economic Development I I am confident they have helped our region I'd just like to see it as part of the staff the status report in in black and white and um I would love us to actually bring back to our board um the bylaws for this and actually go ahead and set up this Advisory Board and then you know move forward I want to move forward I just think we got cart before for the horse myself are bylaws for the Redevelopment agency Advisory Board yeah it says that there must be nine members uh they have three they have three tools uh they must do an assessment of proposed projects okay so they're reviewing the but AR just finances or opportunities for the Redevelopment area as well as to review and comment on matters related to the Revel I just want us to put main goals yeah okay yeah so what happens if this doesn't pass like what are we not able to use these funds do we just not have a process for people to apply what what happens if this is we will have no no process in line for anybody to come and request support do projects uh they would have to submit a letter of interest um and we would have to bring this to this body without any guidelines to guide how we do that okay would you guys come back with maybe a different proposal on how to work on that there would be no guidelines on what we would propose it would just be us presenting it to the board saying you have a letter of interest to do something seeking support for a Redevelopment project and we are bringing it to this body to get direction on how you'd like us to proceed and how is that different than if we approve this motion uh if we approve this motion today there's a process there's actually some place to direct people to to say hey there's an application a process please fill that out start the rec men do a pre-application meeting with staff let them know how the process works um go out engage the community to get some input if you feel like you're ready put it an application staff will review it for the minimal qualifications if they pass it comes to this board seeking Direction on you know go negotiate with these people this is what we want to see and it would give us guidelines to proceed correct me it's the same that you've already brought to this Council you've already you've already brought those proposals to council through a letter of interest yes yes so remember the project I believe um that back bash brought was the same way and also and remember staff was criticized for doing it that way so it's better to have something in place here's the process so everyone knows how it comes before Council yeah if someone coming from outside the area in the area uh would like to do a project and would like to seek support from the Redevelopment agency and calls the agency says what does the city do what the city can do the response would be there are there is nothing defined whatsoever other than we do in fact have a Redevelopment agency um and the only opinion or option we can give them is you're welcome to submit a letter of interest to Kickstart the process okay is it possible to come up with like a master plan for this before we we do this the Redevelopment plan from 1990 is is the plan that created the agency gave the agency its tools and guidelines and goals um I will say in the future the goal would be to do more neighborhood planning like revitalization planning on what neighborhoods could look like what Parcels we want developed but that would come later today is really just defining a process okay so at what point does that come like I'm just worried about doing this and having stuff come in peaceful and we're dependent on applications I'd like us to make sure that we're more in the driver's seat when this is involved and we have a a greater vision and something falls into something that you know that the council approves of that the City of Reno wants and um you know that we just have a little bit more control over what's coming in we do we do have the we do have the reagin reimagine Reno master plan we do have the downtown action plan uh we have placemaking things like that so we have some direction as well as our zoning um to dictate what types of projects should and could go where okay but there's no requirement in this this plan that they need to conform in any way that they need to uh add to this any of these plans that we currently have the reimagine Reno or any of the plans that we've created using arpa funds any of that correct it would be if if one of the criteria is it must be a current zoned use or so it's just a Zone use but not necessarily something that we've identified as a as a priority for Council correct okay yeah okay all right thank you all right so I have a motion I have a second all those in favor say I I all those opposed no opposed okay motion carries okay uh where are we at city manager Jackie Bryant tells me that we are C1 um it's up to her any Redevelopment agency board comments I guess that's where're I guess I have a board comment is that where we're at yes okay um my comment is just um I want to be clear on why I could support the motion I just feel like it's a premature but my comment is is I'm wondering if the Redevelopment agency staff which I only know of one at this point could you update the status report it's really important that in order to not repeat the p understand what the past is and I don't think any of us on Council truly understand where the agency has been and the projects that they've done is that appropriate getting that information is is a bit difficult um there's 40 Years of History summarized well there's some big projects right yeah we could do um per project we could do a financial or like a um forensic analysis of you have a list already you have a picture and there is there is a list on the website currently of every project that Redevelopment has done I didn't know that so maybe you could get that to the website that needs to but it does list past projects uh which agency which area they were in uh and what year they were built but do we know what commitment we made in the Redevelopment Agency for those projects any commitments other than the bonds that are currently outstanding have been met completed and finished I I understand that but I'm wondering what it was did did we give $20 million $10 what what do we do yeah and what's our relationship and was it we filled a finance Gap and and they paid 80% I I just don't have no knowledge I I hear the direction to go out and to in a future date bring forward like the fiscal impact of past projects what they are that will be an Endeavor but we we hear you on that I'm not asking for an entire economic analysis I just want to know what they are what we spent it's just a pretty simple I think what she's asking um Brian is that that that's where I was kind of going with what were some of the things that hindered Us in the past um so that we don't make those same M good things do you want to answer that Miss turny thank you Madame Mayor Ashley tney assistant city manager for the record uh yes so to speak to that we were discussing there were projects that were made downtown significant Investments um that may or may not be where the direction wants to go these days uh single use facilities are something that help with tourism however they may not help reach the rest of the agency plan and goals so I hear the direction question you're asking uh we will bring forward get the information to council all of the list of projects what the city's investments in those projects were and to let you know any outstanding debt and contemporaneous with that a previous council member come and they can give us a little snapshot of what they were thinking they doing at the time um I think that would be very helpful to have some institutional knowledge there are a couple of council members that I'm sure could weigh in yeah heavily on what was needed at the time okay great thank you so much and then can you as part of that status report then can they bring back are you going to be developing The Advisory Board what what's your next step part of the motion that was part of the motion so there will be as we mention The Advisory Board does already exist pursuant to the current plan it's laid out yeah correct but the direction that we will receive is we will be bringing an item back before Council that will give you Authority and option to look at what you're looking for for that board composition and make sure that we're moving forward there and the last thing I just wanted to say as a board comment is you know when Brian was answering earlier a question it made it sound like it was a binary choice you do this or you do nothing and that certainly is not a position I was taking I just want to be clear it's not just leave it to a free-for-all I want to move forward in a very um proactive Manner and I already complimented you on the work you've done and the details but truly there are things in here such as what percentage you told me uh about Boise and that they set a fouryear they get 100% And then no more payment back I thought that was a very good principle but do we do we get to weigh in on those principles at some point yes so that will be one of the things as um Mr Mardell mentioned is that this is one of dozens of decisions that are going to come before this body over the next handful of months in order to properly re-energize the agency um as he mentioned both agencies have been severely saddled with debt for the last 20 plus years so you are in a really incredible time to be able to launch as was mentioned almost half a billion dollars of investment back into your community there will be dozens of items that will come before this body for you to say yes we want this no we don't want this this aligns with what we want this doesn't feel so great how did they do it in this other city so this is not a one and done however this is the space in which you've created a front door for everyone to walk through sure with the same standards okay I love that part I do thank you all right I'm I guess I'm just frustrated when it gets to the negative point and then we get paralyzed and so we do nothing I think um you know we have the opportunity to look at our past which is a great indicator and why some of the things transpired this council is different uh this council's done a lot of things different councilwoman you would remember how much debt we've paid down exactly and all the things that we didn't get to do this is what's beening in my ears is I didn't want to go in debt so I appreciated my colle long time that we have been very fiscally responsible and there were a lot of things we didn't get to do and so now we have an opportunity of course we don't want to repeat the past but there are a lot of things that um I think are going to predict an exciting fut future and I just get frustrated whenever it's like oh this transparency and you know this and that and we can keep being negative we can keep going and being negative that's not the city I want to be so anyway thanks so much we move on thank mad may go ahead uh Madam clerk thank you Madame mayor we're moving into closing public comment item D1 for the Redevelopment agency board I have no one registered okay thank you and no hands via Zoom so we're looking for a motion to adjourn Redevelopment agency I have a motion I have a second all those in favor say I I all those opposed motion carries unanimously we need to go into a break and let me ask we have Labor oh I guess I guess we don't have you Carl we'll have uh HR all right thanks so much we're going to go into break it's 1:00 we'll be back at what two okay thanks thank you thanks Madam clerk great job I'm sorry I'm I'm suffering from a little bit of e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e okay Madame mayor so we're reconvening at 206 and council member vice mayor D is absent at this time all right we are heading into correct me if I'm wrong item D4 that is correct we're opening item D4 okay do you have any public comment on this item comment I do all right we do have public comment but they're not in the room so if you would like to go ahead and move into presentations but I would like to note for the record that we received 10 comments prior to 4m eight in favor one in opposition and one of concern okay thank you so [Music] much hey Mr Mardo nice to see you [Music] again oh is it on sweet uh Brian Mardo revital revitalization manager uh we are here to uh have get direction from Council on the potential disposition of properties located at 3155 355 record Street formerly known as the community Assistance Center so the property is located at 315 355 record Street um we brought this item to council uh and received direction from Council to release an RFP process uh and that was on June 4th and we released that RFP uh to available to any and all who would be interested qualified who can do a physically feasible or financially feasible project and we received four proposals um two of them were for housing uh one of them was for an office Rehabilitation project and the other one was for um shipping containers which we noted uh they didn't submit enough information to be qualified so we're not sort of addressing them here and the way this aligns with the city's strategic plan is obviously The Proposal is to sell this property um to recoup any costs associated with that so it does hit the fiscal sustainability as well as um developing the property for potential Community Development or Economic Development and so previous Council action um a letter of interest was received from bash capital on April 10th that was taken to council and the direction received from this body was to yes the council would like to proceed with um preparing this property for sale and that is going out and getting appraisals putting out a request for proposals on this property so that anybody including any agency or entity would have an opportunity to submit ideas or projects they would like to see in the site and also start the process to conduct a reversion to acreage there is a mixture of parcels on this site as well as a potential abandonment of a portion of record street so the proposal was released on junee 4th uh responders had 45 days to respond uh we received the four proposals and those four proposals were reviewed by five City departments and they were scored based on the rubric that was provided in your in your packet and they're reviewed based on the following scoring criteria and that was alignment with City goals and that is a mixture of what is listed in the city's master plan as well as a downtown action plan some other uh items that have been submitted in goals for the city uh the experience of the development team that was proposing the projects on site the potential design of the structure the financial structure based on the profas of the development how they plan to pay for it the financial capacity of the developers do they have the funds to do this project as well as the timeline and so those were ranked uh by the Departments based on those criteria and part of the process when the city disposes of property the NRS dictates so we go out and we get two appraisals and we determine the fair market value of that property based on the average of those two appraisals so the first appraisal came back at $3,350 th000 and the second appraisal came back at $3.4 million and so we averaged the two so the fair market value of these properties assembled is $3,375 th000 why staff sees that this is a benefit to the community is that with the current state of the building it has created a blight and a nuisance in that area there are other nuisances in that area but this project is large enough that it is uh tremend could be a catalyst project in that area we do want to see these projects be used for some sort of Economic Development use that gets either creates jobs creates development you know the revitalization of four street is an important one um it is possibly the fastest growing District in the area we have the Jess hotel that is located on the corner we have the depot Brewery Ballpark Apartments is opening this month just Southwest of that site uh and then as well as the old record Street Brewery Brewery building in the Alpine is currently under construction uh by Tahoe airworks and they're doing a rooftop bar they're putting a ton of work and investment into the building so you see all this investment happening around in the area um as a thriving Brewery District so to get into the proposals the proposals uh as they are presented here are in order of how they were scored and ranked and so the first proposal in front of the body here today is from Baxter construction and their offer is for $600,000 they're proposing developing 116 mixed income units 10% of those would be affordable at at or below 60% Ami um but over the whole entire project they're proposing that 80% of the units would be 80% or below Ami so when you do income averaging across the whole project the whole project would be um technically affordable they're proposing amenities like bike storage roof rooftop activation gyms and workspace and their property manager manager for the project is proposed is Greystar who I believe is the property manager for the new Ballpark Apartments the second proposal received was from Ulisses Development Group they're devel out of Iowa no wait uh Colorado I believe uh they do they're an affordable housing developer they have four affordable housing projects in development currently uh they have one here in Reno The Ridge at Sun Valley uh it is not open yet so all their projects are currently under construction and their offer was for 3.4 million the full appraised value of the site but through a sellers note that they would pay off over 15 years once the project is completed uh they're proposing 136 affordable housing units 100% of those would be below 60% Ami they're also proposing 200 square 200 2,000 square ft for a the I don't know what CSA stands for Community Services yeah agency uh for a child care facility and their proposed project manager on the site is fpi Management Group the third proposal is from Mara properties there wasn't a rendering to provide but their offer was for a million dollar and what they're offering is rehabbing the existing structure to make it a nonprofit Office hub that would offer Class A rents at 50% of what the market rate rents are in the area so it's it's very hard to compare these projects because one is a market you know not a market rate but it's non affordable one is Affordable one is an office building and so we've created this chart a sort of summarizes the the nuances and differences of the three proposed proposals the first one backer their offer price was 600,000 ulyses was 3.4 million through a sellers note and marma was a million first two are multif family residential projects and the last one is proposed Class A office bace they're all offering a one to one parking ratio um I do not know what the existing parking mix is on site of the current CAC but I'm guessing you know whatever whatever satisfied that building in the beginning would continue to satisfy the construction cost for the two multif family developments came in fairly close Baxter was at 32,7 74,000 and ulyses came in at 31,6 126,000 so fairly close given the the unit count but the cost per unit is is kind of where uh the biggest differentiation is um Baxter came in at 277,000 ulyses came in at 232,000 per unit uh maret didn't give a specific cost on what it would cost to either renovate per square foot or per office unit um I will say one of the concerns was that 232,000 uh under the ulyses proposal is very low for what we're seeing to develop multif family housing in the area even taken into consideration that there's no parking structure being provided on the site all of them are somewhat proposing a public benefit to the area backer construction is what would you would call a mixed income development and they're offering 10% affordable housing units um ulses 100% affordable housing at or below 60% Ami and obviously marmit is 50% of office rents Baxter did show that if they paid full price of the property it wouldn't be a project that would be very sustainable financially and so they're requesting a $2.8 million discount off of the sale price Ulisses did have a funding gap of 6.4 million uh they proposed to fill that Gap through a $3 million loan from the Nevada housing division um that they would have to get through their process and then the remaining 3.4 thank you the remaining 3.4 million would come from the city of Reno through a sellers note I will also mention that that City of reeno Reno sellers note would be subordinate to the developer making their fees on the project so if it ever came down to it the developer gets paid back before the city would get paid back the timelines are fairly close uh each of these would guarantee that the project get developed within 3 years uh um but the biggest thing to take into consideration is the 20-year fiscal impact on the city backer construction it would get this pro project back on the property tax role because it would be considered a naturally occurring affordable housing project with the 10% affordable uh the whole project would pay property tax and so over 20 years paying the purchase price and the Future Property Tax it would generate $6.1 million uh in future property tax since affordable housing projects do not pay property tax ulses would pay the 3.4 million through that loan over 15 years um but no future property tax on that property would be generated the mara property because they're proposing $8 million in rehab costs it would be safe to assume that the Improvement value would be taxed would be done through property tax and so over 20 years that would generate $2.6 million in Future Property Tax um so a different way to look at those those proposals through that scoring of the five departments uh of a total of 500 points backer came out on top with a score of 409 points you know it was close but baxer scored an average of 81.8 points Ulisses came in second with a average of 80.8 marma came in a 42.8 and the blocks did receive some points but we deemed it unqualified uh to to summarize here and so with that staff is based on the scoring uh and the process is recommending that staff enter into uh exclusive NE exclusive negotiating agreement with Baxter construction also based on input from this body what they would want to see in a future uh negotiated agreement and we could possibly bring back that final deal in front of this body before it's before it's ratified or you could inform us what deal points you would like to see and we can go um and execute on that can you yes out there yep that was my last side anyway so y of course okay i'mna start yeah yeah I was really surprised earlier in the day to see an email on was County letterhead from an email from a city county staff person named Candy Ramos to I think commissioner Mike Clark that said we've talked to the city and they have another vision for the property other than and having it be a place for social services which was how it was built 20 years ago who had that conversation with someone from washa County I'm not familiar with any conversations you haven't spoken to anyone from washa County Miss Bryant do you know who spoke to that I do not okay I was also copied in another email where commissioner Clark wanted to bring this to the board for a full discussion about should they propose and I think the timing of it it wasn't able to happen um how how long was the RFP open for 45 days yeah I think uh I'm I'm really concerned you know I think that was a building that I saw go up I saw you know Bob celle was the one who was really the impetus behind it uh it was operating well um it's not like we don't have a Social Services need we heard a lot of testimony about a lot of folks on social who are experiencing you know encroachments encampments along the railroad Corridor um connect them to Services connect them to Services here we have a purposely built building for services and someone at the city is discouraging the Social Services Agency of the region from putting in and responding this RFP I don't get it I don't get it and I I'd like to know who that candy Ramos has talked to because if someone and maybe it's someone at the table maybe it's someone well I don't know I don't know who did candy Ramos talked to that said don't put in a proposal it's not the city's Vision where has that Vision been discussed I thought everything was on the table so that's question number one really um I'll just I'll hear from my colleagues but I I think we have a tainted proceeding frankly waso County waso County social services is saying it's we're not going to propose it's inconsistent with the city's Vision who's Pro propo predisposed that Vision who who had a different Vision I mean are we really not going to provide social services and just you know give up on a building that was built for that and not let the Social Services Agency come through the door who did they talk to I I don't know but councilman breus no they didn't talk to anyone up here we've been talking about this for a long time so I don't know but I want you to be careful about insinuating people up here have been talking about it because I welcome any conversation with the county when it comes to Social Services and moving those things forward well I think we should put a pause if someone is speaking out of turn to the county manager's office well it sure was a it sure was a legitimate here and this is where we get to make the decision so let's keep it here and you just give your direction and we'll keep it here and not worry about what other people are doing let's worry about how we can make change moving forward okay thanks so much all right councilman Martinez go ahead thanks so much my mayor um M Mahar if you could maybe go through the timeline with us I think that's the only thing that I saw missing from your presentation if you can kind of start us of where when you received the letter um of interest when we open the RP if you can just kind of give us the dates of how we got to this point I think there's been a lot of speculation and comments about how we've been doing things you know in a smoke filled back room um but it seems like at least being the one who made the motion and opening the RFP the last time we talked about this that was the intent of that is making sure that everybody had the opportunity to come and propose that and the fact that folks didn't feel that 45 days was enough for an RFB being open if that's the case or enough time to move um it just seems like there was ample time for folks to put something together if that was their interest so just wondering if you can give us sort of that sure um probably in February we received a revised letter of interest through bash Capital which it was qualified enough to bring it in front of the the body here um and on the April 10th meeting there it was discussed that was the you know it was asked was the county given an opportunity to propose a use of this building where other uh so Social Services agencies were other groups and so through the discussion it was you you know we should put this out for request for proposal to allow all those entities and anybody else interested give them opportunity to propose something and we put in there any and all ideas that are physically and financially feasible and so we didn't disclude any ideas we didn't even signal uh what uses we wanted on that site um and 45 days is not uh too big of a a time crunch to produce a proposal that would get you into this process yeah I appreciate that I think the only other part I'd like your help and demystifying is the folks that were involved in this review process you said there were some City departments if you can just reiterate that for sure yeah so we um looked at you know who would have input on the building the pass use the challenges with the site and so we got uh support from development services planning maintenance and operations the city manager's office and the uh housing and a and neighborhood development team uh they see a lot of projects they see a lot of Prof foras um they work with Developers as well uh and each of them rated the project as the from their experience okay I think that's all I had for this round thank you so much and then also I wanted to go back because this wasn't like this just happened yesterday when was the first proposal um when bash came to us uh that was April 10th April 10th yep okay so there's been talk about this building even before that and um you know and I have good relationships with our commissioners um I didn't talk to Mr Clark I didn't talk to anyone saying that the city would not be interested you know me I'm all about re Regional collaboration and especially Health and Human Services side of things um but I always would be open to any conversation if that's what they were wanting to in the direction they want to do and so my point is it's been longer than 45 days so um and I'm always happy to work with them I'm sure any of us up here are so I'm just trying to let you know that the 45 days it was way before that that that um we could have or there conversations could have been had all right go ahead councilwoman Taylor thank you Madame mayor um my biggest concerns are I want a project that is real that we've done our due diligence on that's actually going to get built um I want the least risk for the city financially and um I want the largest benefit to the community my original or my initial research it looked like uliss had a better performa or more in-depth performa in the numbers but I have concerns on some of the financing that they are putting together um again from working on RHA it sounds like some of this can be pretty complex with Nevada housing division loans and litech funding and then I was hoping you could explain a little bit of what it means of a the development as a seller note because that seems like that that's a bigger risk to me I mean I like the idea that they're offering 3.4 million for the land which is the highest price but then I think as we go down and look at the big picture there's some um negativ or some disadvantages to that approach too so the the seller note really con concerns me and then the Gap funding and how they're going to secure that causes me some concern yeah um it would be that the sellers note it's a it's a note carried by the city over 15 years from the completion of the project but as I noted in the in the summary and their RFP it said that that that debt that the city carries um on behalf or they carry but the city holds um would be subordinate to the developer making their fees on the project first so if something complicates all that so first of all we have to carry Debt M and then the second thing is if if it goes south the project goes south we don't get paid first right correct the developer gets paid first okay that I have a little concern that with that actually have a lot of concern with that and then um on the the backer proposal when I'm looking at the benefit to the community what is the vision for this area is it just housing or is it mixed use do we T I heard you talk a little bit about wanting some retail and some other services within this downtown core so it sounds like there's different I mean back ulyses provides the most housing yeah and Baxter adds how does housing plus some other stuff you know the future of this area I believe for street is an upand cominging area has a ton of potential as we bring the university more into downtown it's more likely that it gravitates towards this area um this site specifically is a challenge there's no Street Frontage access um so when you're talking about these sites specifically it's very hard to do a mixed use just because there's no natural foot traffic on that site but when you look at the whole area yes the goal would be to provide 18 hours a day 7-Day use activity so there's people on the street there's vibrancy there's people living in the area um you know job creation people go to work during the day they come home they frequent the businesses in the area uh that's how you create a real neighborhood and so can't speak to these sites specifically on adding a mixed use on it um but the whole surrounding area in the future for Street yes it would be a full District okay thank you madam Mar I might have some more questions um quickly I was wondering comparing again uh which companies are local like I've never heard of some them and and I would say now obviously marma I have um ulyses never heard of them and are they also because I saw something um up there with fpi management are they also owned by them I think not entirely sure I think that's an important question and not to mention I do think that um and it looks much better I will tell you this I think the other two um could have been much more competitive I don't know how that works if you can show them you know what everyone else is putting on the table so that they can also say hey we're also willing to do this I think like councilwoman Taylor said problematic whenever uh the city is going to um take a backseat and I think also governments are known to be easy prey um and also coming in and saying you know we're going to offer you this very small amount for the property um which is a so really concerning and it's I don't know is there something that you were it's I mean unless you said hey start at this number MH right um because some of it can be offensive yeah obviously you want to see the best and highest offer I think that's why we did the 20-year fiscal impact is that although you know we talked earlier about Redevelopment funds and helping fill the gaps to get projects green L and in this scenario we're not proposing that but what the developer is asking Baxter is to Discount the property so they can make the project work um and so you're giving up a little on the on the sale price today but as we see over the next 20 years you make you make that up over time um and it's not over 20 years that property would be would be generating property tax till forever and then the other one was um would it change because usually it's about a 30-year deal whenever you have the affordable housing side and we've also seen those expire so I think that's something the council should be aware of we have seen it expire at 30 years where seniors end up um you know trying to figure out what to do next so as much as we think that 30 years sounds like a long time if you're living in that home during that particular time and we've seen it here at the council um then it's something that you have to be concerned about and that 30 years an agreement that they have with the federal funding they take uh for those using federal funds for affordable housing um but the 10% affordable it could because it's a naturally occurring affordable housing project um they're not restricted to hold it for any period of time and so that's something that council could give direction on is hold make sure they do it for 10 years 20 years 30 years how long do you want that commitment for the 10% of the units to be affordable okay thank you go ahead councilman ree thank you madam mayor um Mr Mardo thank you for the presentation for my part um I'm going to focus on the backer and ulyses presentations I think Marmont is a fantastic local Builder um I'm not sure there's a need for more office space so just generally speaking it's why I um was not paying as careful attention to what marmont's proposing although there's may be closer to what's possible in a very short period of time and again great folks who have done incredible projects so I just want to I'm going to slide that one to the side and then you and I focus on the other two um I think this is what happens when you have proposals and that's that I see benefits on both of them and I also see the opportunity perhaps that we might inquire of the principles of those organizations about mixing and matching elements of that and so I'm not trying to do that necessarily from the dis but I I'll tell you for example for one um I think any project that we place there should have um mixed income housing mean I don't think it needs to be all market rate or all affordable I'd rather see a blend in part because I think there is a benefit to having um mixed incomes living under the same set of circumstances uh I think there's lots of um information and and study that suggests that when you have various ranges of income and and ability it it lifts all the boats in the uh property and so um I think that's something to be thought about for both proposals um on the back maer side which is I suppose where if I had to just pick one today I might be leaning towards I think there's something um good here about um the public benefit but I would like it to be higher for example I think 10% of the units being affordable uh perhaps is a little low we've mostly conditioned our projects in the city at being somewhere in that 20% range when we've given sewer credits or different things to allocate in that regard so again I'm not trying to retweaked suggest that there might be an opportunity for us to engage in some negotiations over it um the second thing is um I want to think about these proposals in light of our conversation this morning about uh the Redevelopment agency and I alluded to that in our conversations this morning about that um both projects are proposing a gap in financing and ultimately the tool of Redevelopment is to get through the but four test that you identified so I wonder if we have now found ourselves having approved something this morning which is designed to help projects that but for the economic conditions would not pencil and now we have a project in the afternoon that might meet those criteria and whether that means we should take uh the time to investigate the linkage between those two things so maybe you could speak to that because that was really the only question I've asked yeah if uh you know this isn't this property is in rda2 and so if they if it was approached differently and they came and they said here are the true cost to develop the site there is a financing Gap uh and they would go through the application process as we discussed this morning it could be a scenario where they do pay the full price but then they get the property tax increment paid back to them so you're filling the Gap there's two ways to do that you know you fill the Gap by giving them some tax increment back to help the project go or in this case you'd be discounting the sale price of the property I make an assumption that either the backer folks or the ulyses folks and I don't know if they're here and so I apologize for not knowing if they're here might rethink their offer knowing what we now have proposed as potentially the framework under which those projects could be proposed so I'm just uh positing that there's something here to be worth that's worth exploring in the end I think m madame mayor has um really some um thoughts that I think are instructive about who are the folks what we don't want to be in the situation of doing is uh allowing a project to move forward um and then it doesn't come to pass because for example that happened to us on the P3 development at the old uh Reno City uh Plaza which was you know circumstances changed but that's what we're trying to do and and Miss Taylor said it wisely we want something to happen here we we don't want to wait and have years go by with another um situation where it's not being um it is becomes blind and we did bake that into the evaluation process do they have the financial resources and capability to do this stuff but you can never fully der risk a project being completed based on market conditions or something but it's surely our intent to make sure that these projects move forward all right Council M door yeah I'm waiting for them to sorry just so you know um so thank you I um I think what's needed down here here is residential um to to we we're getting a lot of development of restaurants I think it' be a great mix I love um I could probably work with both projects backer and ulses my preference is for the ulyses because I really think we continue to have such a shortage of affordable housing but if I was have my perfect world and I've said this many times my favorite project has been Anova which is started out as an 8020 project the only in the state the only one in the state and ended up closer to 75 25 and I think it's something to Aspire to I really think it brings a lot of benefit you have maybe people that can afford some of the higher-end bars and restaurants there or have different kind of jobs working uh you know similarly I uh I've been advocating it since since we did that project and I asked you to be prepared to and I don't know if you are prepared to talk about it today but let me just get my points out before you answer um I do have um I I'm not too much of a fan of this $3.4 million note I I don't think the city should be in the Pro uh role of financing projects but I do like the idea of using the Redevelopment District I really do I think it housing was listed as one of the uses potential projects that could be we have funding gaps on both projects I really think we should explore it I do um couple questions the 20-year fiscal impact I don't have any idea how you calculated that you have the fiscal impact of ulses exactly the price of the building I don't get that that's 3.4 million but the other project they pay less but they bring more and how did um that's going to be one of my questions is how did you get there so 8020 and then how did you get there with the 20-y year fiscal impact and then um I I'm not comfortable with us being in second position on a prepayment of a note you get all your profit and then we we might or might not pay you I I don't get that at all I I think that has to be tweaked and then finally I had heard in The Proposal this use of fpi um at Management Group and there are a variety of management groups in Reno and I don't know how they is this a partnership with them are they they part of the project and I I will share I continue for the last several years to have some challenges with fpi even over the weekend I got text about some challenges that fpi manage properties that I have to turn over to code enforcement so I just I mean I'm not trying to bash any company but I'm just saying I didn't know if it was a firm marriage or they it's an option um and let me just see did I have another question oh was any of them asking for sewer credit but that's another option for filling a gap right is to wave the sewer connection fees because especially on the affordable housing oh we're out we spent how much we've allocated but but I mean I hear some conversation you're saying we spent um Jackie or whoever [Music] good afternoon Monica Kur for the record uh we are just about at the um the cap of what council um put in place and we have several projects coming forward uh in the next that are ahead of this one yes they I they have building permits in they're ready to go um and there will be a shortage for those projects already okay and then the only way to get out from under the shortage it's not an annual review right it's a total like we've given wasn't it $11 million I think we've given out $1 million and so we're done forever or until the legislature maybe comes up with a program to help us offset that um that's one option and in January of 25 uh Mr flansburg will be doing a reanalysis of of um the sewer fund and and we'll see what that looks like at that time and something might come forward to council at that time but we are through the next session looking at some options um for these this funding coming through the legislature and are we done with the 100 100 homes 120 days or I I mischaracterized thousand homes and are we done with that program that's not an option set I believe all right well anyway if we could go back to Mr McArdle the question just to remind you was um the 8020 the 20-year fiscal impact primarily so on the 8020 so uh thank you for the question so we did reach out to the Nevada housing division Monica uh was on that call as well um that was the that Inova project was the only one in the state has facilitated that 8020 um that was a very complicated project uh they took out 90 million in bonds it was um the bond capacity of the Nevada housing division it doesn't sound like there's a a large appetite to do something similar to way the way they did it uh when they said that you have a naturally occurring affordable project like that's even better because there's less strings attached and it's far cleaner um and there are ways to go after litech credits and other Federal sources um but that that project it sounded quite complicated from from their perspective were they are is the is this affordable project proposal are they using any of those things home funds any nothing uh sorry on the backer one no backer is what you call natural natural current on ulyses so ulyses has that $6.4 million develop uh financing Gap and then we're proposing is $3 million come from uh low-income housing tax credits they're provided how much did you say 3 million okay would come from the state housing div Nevada housing division okay in low-income housing tax credit ltech credits and the remaining 3.4 million would be the city seller notes so that's how they're planning to fill that 6.4 million but that could be maybe under this new Redevelopment process uh no so it's very difficult to do affordable housing under Redevelopment because and this gets to my your next question you had is why is it 6.1 million and 3.4 yeah when you accept federal funds for affordable housing it makes you exempt from paying property taxes and as we talked earlier Redevelopment is based on property taxes yes and so if it goes to Baxter uh and it's a naturally occurring affordable housing project they paid their full property taxes and over 20 years that property tax accumulates to $6.1 million that's how we got to the 6.1 million so the fiscal impact is All To Us yes it's income to us well and there's Nuance there after the sunset of RDA 2 it would go back to that 26% split with the county but the property tax created would be $6.1 million just in that 20 years it would continue to make property tax after so ulyses is planning to use some Federal Financing like home funds or this litech yes and those would then uh Wipe Out the need to pay property tax which you know okay all right Council I'm moving on yeah go ahead councilwoman [Music] Ebert yeah I just I'm not ready to ask questions yet just let me know when you are okay okay um let me ask you this so what's the thought behind and maybe I missed this um just 600 600 what I don't know purchase price yeah the purchase price um they did submit a proforma that showed that there was a financing Gap and 600 was the number they proposed MH to help fit and it really is about um the the uh the irr rate return to do a project like this and that's why they said paying the full price of the project it would not give them return enough to do to Greenlight this project and so their proposal was 600,000 I can't comment much more and also is there what does that look like for negotiating room on any of these so um I I refer to the City attorney but it's it's very hard to negotiate based on the rfps um I think the process is you have to look at these RFP PS as they were presented and make a judgment however if you select one as the winning proposal uh and you want to spec to request specific deal terms and negotiations that is how it would proceed but it's very hard to negotiate based on what is in front of you right now yeah because it's interesting because you'll see we absolutely need the affordable units right so of course everyone up here is going to be like yes all affordable units and then whenever you see 10% affordable units which I I do believe there should always be a mix in any housing I think it's important that we all live amongst each other not necessarily hey everyone that can afford affordable housing or can't afford housing is all going to live there I think that that's also um I I think that's also a bad way to build housing but I mean you see it and you're like yes that makes a lot of sense and then you see the difference in the tax increment and it's quite large so um I guess I'd love to know from the city attorney side um what does negotiating look like because maybe you know the council is like okay we're okay with this but we think this needs to be modified so what do you think Jasmine Jasmine Madea for the record um as Mr McCardle said it it is difficult in this position to um to be in a position to negotiate with the proposals that are in front of us but if you uh selected one and then put some parameters that you would like to see um you know obviously those would be part of the negotiation and then whatever come you know whatever that negotiation comes out as in terms of uh an agreement that would come back in front of council and you could decide whether you want okay so just like any contract any legal contract we would also say this is also not binding based on X Y and Z right as long as it comes back to the council and we're going to vote on that so it sounds like you can really negotiate as you would with any legal contract obviously the council would have the final vote moving forward but what you're saying is it would be it would work just like a regular contract yes okay that we can negotiate the terms well well I I mean in the in the position where we are right now with proposals in front of you it would be um more uh I guess more solidified if if you picked a proposal and then said but we would like to see X Y and Z yeah so you're saying pick one dial down some of the things you want to see and it come back you'll go and look at that contract yes and work it out from there okay perfect all right okay councilwoman breus go ahead yeah I mean let's let's let's think about this this candy Ramos she's the communications and meia manager for was County I just looked it up now maybe she has a misrepresentation that she thinks it's not the city's Vision but whatever someone at a high level at Washo County thinks that it's not where we want to go to have this 20 year-old building 22y old building that we have $20 million in that is specially built for social services that we don't even want to entertain their thoughts about it won't even put it on the agenda for a discussion okay we don't want to hear it you know not putting on the agenda a waste of time that's you know let's let them give them the time to come in and have a discussion in public because you know by not doing that we're basically saying all the social services issues of downtown are solved or we're saying we don't care about providing social services and those in need downtown and it's you know as we discussed before it's very close to the bus stop so you know who are we building downtown for these are the sort of things the Redevelopment amended plan would discuss we want to Target Social Services on equal position to business economic you know trickle down tax Theory because no one else does social services but government and some Churches or philanthropies so I just want to pause that with you all right now for a minute and that's where I would go but I want to talk about Baxter versus ulyses Baxter seems to be basically a construction company they did a hotel casino they did a Historic Hotel re renovation 99 room home to Suits not a lot of depth there um the ulyses group is a standard new to the Market subsidized housing group they've got real deep experience the deal is not that different with the Deferred um price property price because it's just like other land we've given to people who then it helps them go deeper into their subsidies so they're a solid group um and much better offer um you know an 80 80% Ami rent for the one bedroom for box is $1,550 it's 1139 for ulses so you know it's a very standard deal goes to the state gets the money doesn't even com compete through our process here the money is deferred you know um versus a 600,000 and then maybe we'll bring some Tiff into it it it really is stance up above both on their expertise and what they bring to those in need in our downtown where all of our policies say go as deep as we can on housing so um it's it's truly a a superior product and I'm someone who worked for the housing division so I know how this re is a realistic deal but at the end of the day I think the boat has been missed if someone is conveying that we have a vision that we haven't articulated here and discouraging someone from proposing who has a real need to provide services in our community so I think we should um pause this and give washa county 90 days to have a discussion at the table if they want to put together some proposals for providing Social Services in this building thank all right councilman Martinez anything I'm good all right now thank you Goode councilman Taylor and then I'll come right back to you thanks Madam Mary I guess just for discussion I don't know who candy whoever is and um I'll just say my vision for this based on the discussions that we've had is to bring this out to RFP which we did so I'm fully prepared to move forward with the direction that we have given I don't see any need in asking Washo County for 90 more days but I did have a question on the uh funding for again elses so when we're looking at State funding and home funding and all that other stuff is that guaranteed or is there a competition process for it and then then my second question is if we were to approve this would we be able to um as part of the negotiations ask for an independent economic or financial evaluation um of of the performa that we select to go forward with just to give us a little bit more confidence yeah Brian McArdle uh for the record so yeah the federal funds of the Nevada housing division yeah it's a first comfor served competitive basis and so there's no guarantee so there's no guarantee that they're going to have these and that goes back to my question if I want something that's real I mean that's that's really important I think both companies are great I think they've both done great things um they both have depth I think they can both perform I want a little bit more confidence in the financial performa in in Baxter um just because I think it was a little bit light on that side but what would your parameters that is something You' like to see so we have um the considering yeah Third Party Support Services to go out and help us do all Financial feasibility uh due diligence reviews okay of any future development project thanks Madame mayor all right councilman Reese oh sorry go ahead hi um yeah thank you so um I also wanted to thank everybody for all their work on this and um I'm also concerned about the the email regarding um you know the the County's position on this um this wasn't just you know a random email was from somebody that obviously works at the county had some kind of knowledge you know we don't know who that person was that they were communicating with but I think that does say that you know there might have been an interest there might have been a proposal there but they were told not to to bother so I do agree that it's it's a missed opportunity there but it doesn't sound like there's any interest from the rest of the body to um provide uh an opportunity to to investigate that further um but I did want to call out that a difference that that I notice is important to to me personally between these different projects is um ulyses has uh uh something in here about using Soler as part of their um their project and that's something that I think that um as a city we've kind of tried to PR promote and um I like to see that in projects so um I think that's kind of um another uh uh checkbox for me I I I think we do need more affordable housing I think that's a a priority that the City of Reno has stated um and I think solar power is is something that we want to pursue more in the city so um just based off of those factors um and and the the need for more AFF affordable housing um I think I generally favor the uls's proposal more thank you yeah Madam mayor can I yeah pleas thank you appreciate it it's hard to interrupt you madam vice mayor uh just to be very clear for this body and for the record uh we can't speak to any conversations that are alleging that have happened there have been none of these conversations with anybody from waso County from Redevelopment from City manager's office that I'm aware of U to go back to the direction from this body on April 10th the direction was very clear to open an RFP process that was open to any and all participants staff followed your direction and we brought forward all applications that were received including the one that we deemed non-qualified by the group that reviewed these so I would say this Council was very clear on your vision and your vision was open it up to the world and bring us what comes along and that is what's in front of you today so I felt like that was very important to put on the record right well and to your point I mean having been in the world of um working with nonprofits as a government agency or government to government usually they're paying attention and if I think if they needed something they would have reached out to our our hand group or you know the manager's office or said we'd like this property correct I would agree with that Madam vice mayor we I would say that we work very collaboratively as a region and we didn't receive any phone calls communication or email from any of our regional Partners in that space just so you know I don't think I am I getting my second three minutes here that seem like 30 seconds or something I'm not sure but anyway I I think it was I think was like a one minute buzzer or something but anyway um I'm no it's been a little bit off it was like going like in Reverse I'm just trying to pay attention Moves In Reverse in this room sometimes it was part of her turn it was her time they hadn't restarted the clock for me okay can you restart the clock for me please um what I want to say is so thank you for answering I I think they're paying attention and if they needed this property I would have been very open to talking to them as we have been at every government agency I've ever ever worked at there's something we can do with another government agency that's kind of a priority for me but I haven't heard that and they've known about this building availability I've never heard about it in a year two years in the last 45 days so I'm I'm setting that one aside um on the ulses if we did go with them could we then say but not comfortable with this $3.4 million note come up with something else or lower your priced to 1.5 which is still more than the 600,000 and and find that money somewhere else so that's a question can we tell them to explore all management agencies is that reasonable ask can we we have to remember that although we have a fiscal impact at the end of the day that's not our biggest driver our biggest driver much more important to me is getting affordable housing okay that's my number one it's been our number one forever I I obviously don't want to be impoverished by anything but 3.4 million is a reasonable return so I'm pretty comfortable with it I'm just uncomfortable with the financing I like to council member Ebert's point I like the fact that they have already evaluated and made a commitment on afford um alternative energy solar and it was put in specifically to lower the resident bills how often do we see that not very I think that's fantastic so I just wanted to say I'm still leaning here even given everything I've heard um I think there was one more thing um oh yes I wondered and maybe this would help them financially could they consider adding inste this may be uh but maybe instead of 100% affordable maybe it could be 80% and add the 20% back in market rate I mean there's plenty of people probably that would like to live in this General District the Fourth Street district and um is that even I would love to have that conversation with them if you add in in a market rate would that help you with the financial picture you know getting income MH I'm looking over at the city attorney's office because I believe uh what's going to be needed from Council today is a decision on which one which one and then if you have specific deal points at that point then I'm giv my thoughts is more of a not a must have but a um desire so that's it okay thank you all right coun no okay all right go right ahead thank you so much Madam mayor is someone from ulses in the room I would to the clerk's office to see if ulyses is online uh we did notify all of I got to tell you that was one thing that I think moving forward in some of these presentations I think it's important that they also show up and present you have so I can people he from them and I think like I don't know even who we're dealing with like it can say a lot about seeing someone in front of you with their own presentations to ask those questions so kind of in a way like I think part of this process needs to be that they also need to come and present um because this it doesn't seem like we're even Madam mayor you're so right talking to people or or even like it's just not doesn't seem natural thank you for that feedback Madam mayor so Ashley attorney assistant city manager for the record we did extend invitations to all of the RFP respondents to come to this meeting uh to note we do have two of them in Chambers today the third one as you noted ulyses was online this morning they're online are online so they're online they didn't even come if you would like to ask them questions via Zoom they are available via zoom and we have two in Chambers today okay Madam clerk can I get my time restarted please yes please all right hello ulyses are you there if yes please let us know Brian I assume they're not there Monica Kur for the record I just wanted to answer your question about the um maybe changing it to a 20 20% 80% and we talked to the Nevada if not 20% would be market rate correct yeah yeah we talked to the Nevada housing division about that last week and based on the number of units in both of these projects it wouldn't be feasible they wouldn't what does that mean they wouldn't be able to issue the tax credit or the bonds qualify they need so many rooms do okay how how about this since we are having technical difficulties Miss Kur can we have a conversation first of all thank you for being here you're welcome you've had an opportunity to look at the proposals in front of you I take it I have and which one of these feels more real to you do you have an opinion I do the world the world according to Monica that's right I mean Miss kch I I have been doing tremendous work in this area and your knowledge about the layered financing that goes into it is integral into how I understand evaluate the projects so of course if one of these is one that you think is more likely to come to pass and has the financial worth all larest to happen because of your knowledge of these May layering please let us know you know you know I love affordable housing um it's what I do uh I personally like the backer proposal more more I thought the price per unit um was more realistic um we see we see typically closer to $300,000 per unit um and in just in this area it felt like a better project to me personally um that's just with the brewery District right there um that's just my cost per unit to build is that what you're say the the 232 seemed pretty low and does not seem realistic to me so financially um realistically the baure looked better to me um I do like property tax revenue so I liked that coming in also over the years and um just naturally occurring um affordable housing units that would save some of those resources um for some larger um complexes that need deeper subsidy um was also another promoted can you promote the another area that I was thinking the state the state has limited resources also I ask her a question go right ahead you work closely with was County do where do you think they got the impression that we had a different vision for that property I don't know I don't talk to them really about those types of things they didn't reach out to you or they've never had a disc no one's ever had a discussion with you or any of your no not not me and not anybody that I know of and I don't know who the person is that you're speaking about yeah and it's hard because I sit on boards with both maril loose and Alexis and they have never ever ever mentioned it um and I think they're doing a lot of really good work as well and you know they're getting ready to open up um oh West Hills and the crisis center they're doing a lot of really really good work I would think if this something that they wanted to do they would have jumped in a long time ago this has not been a secret that this building has been um available in any capacity so I I just want to say I think there would have been a conversation I mean we t i I know you want to keep going on this C I mean they they somehow have an impression it's not our vision that's a manager there and and their protocols maybe that they get it to the table to give their manager the discussion and a county commissioner was trying to get it to the te I'm just saying have the discussion I have conversations with them regularly because we sit on so many boards together because we collaborate together and I'm just and I'm just saying I think if there was some strong desire to do so they would have expressed it to us which I love that would be amazing because they do all the mental health aspect of everything but theyve had signals from someone that not to apply and not to use that building for social services just saying like that would have been great but that has not been anything that I've heard but what if the opics are look the city council just doesn't want to do so Social Services downtown for people and sell buildings to people for 35 million property for $600,000 we're working on the mental health and Addiction Center together I don't think so at all all right um mayor shie we do have we the other two applicants are on Zoom if you wanted to speak and I believe we have one here present in the room all right that's fantastic house one but where are we at Madam clerk as far as rounds I think some have had to some have had one so I think those who had one indicated they didn't want to speak a second time okay so this time Madam mayor uh we would turn it back over to the body all right and I'm going to hand it to councilman ree go ahead Madame mayor um are you asking me to Hazard a motion no I think you were trying to ask the app I do have questions for the folks from ulses so if ulyses is on the line hello good afternoon C members can you hear me we can hear you just fine can you tell me who's speaking yes this is uh Ryan Watt with ysy Development Group uh senior associate upville and Ryan have you watched our um our meeting well kindly call it a meeting today have you been watching our meeting yes we have we have been listening in the entire conversation uh we weren't able to speak a few minutes ago but looks like it's the theum is working now okay so I I had the opportunity to look through the proforma that you submitted and I think first of all the proposal was very comprehensive it speaks to your depth of knowledge and your experience in this area um there are elements of your proposal that I find very attractive one of the concerns however I have is about your cost of the units that you hope to deliver and and I don't know how you arrived at that number it could be said that perhaps your your consulting fee or your management fee or your developers fee is singularly higher I I don't know where you arrived at that um so see yeah we can see you in Chambers too by the way so thank you so much for being here we we are struggling because we're trying to balance a lot of competing concerns among seven people with various backgrounds and experiences so I'm asking a very specific question about the how you costed your perun cost which seems lower than I would have anticipated yes thanks the question council member Reese so this uh our construction hard cost was based on a pricing estimate provided by a general contractor local to Reno um and it was based on the design that was submitted as a part of our response so we shared the drawings and specifications with the contractor and they provided an estimate based on recently completed projects of of you know comparable size and scale including one in the Sun Valley area right you you've built a project here in Northern Nevada that's right we have a project under construction in Northern Nevada uh that was financed with 4% federal tax credits and taxes on bonds to the housing division the same uh you know Financial Resources we're proposing and is ulses willing to consider not requiring subordination of the City of Reno to its greater lean interest I I didn't understand that part of a proposal yes so we're absolutely open to negotiation um in this case when we're deal working with the Nevada housing division they have certain financing requirements that are you know we're going to be subject to and so all we ask is that uh you know we re we seek to reach a position that both meets the requirements of the Nevada housing division at the state level and the city level okay it was represented to us I think and maybe it was either our misunderstanding or misreading of The Proposal that your interest would be in Prior above the cities on a note that we carried is that Mr McCardell is that how you characterize it so I I don't think I'm in error in in identifying that what about that is a requirement of the various funding sources you would reach I mean I understand that the state or HUD or someone in the government side of it might be superior to us and to you but how would you be superior to us in the lean right position right so we we would not be proposing that we're superior to the the city's loan we would you know again make that loan subject to a 15-year term uh meaning that would have to be paid back within that time the only requirements outside of that are we're complying with section 42 of the tax code which is the 4% federal tax credit program so all we want to do is make sure number one we're providing you know that loan being paid back over the required term and also complying with the federal tax requirements those are our only requirements for this proam let me may I ask the question I think I Mr thank you madam mayor I'm finished with my time Mr re okay M mayor may I ask them the question hold on one second and I'll come back to you one second councilor I I would love to ask a question okay sir uh I'm Naomi derer and my question is first of all I'll just go right to it um you you stipulated a management company do you only work with FBI or is that just there in our markets so you selected them or are you open to all I I don't want to uh quer any deal you have with them but I just didn't know how how that showed up in the proposal thank you for the question um we we worked previously with fpi in this market um and so we you know we in initially proposed them as a management partner on this project we have not made any commitments to them we're absolutely open to using alternative groups okay well I I just wanted to understand was that a baked in requirement in your proposal or is just sort of a placeholder it sounds like more of a placeholder um is that correct then on your 3.4 U million doll note um so I want to understand that you're asking us to carry the note at a certain interest I I I I wasn't like we would be the lean holder so or the mortgage or and you would be paying us back and had you proposed an interest rate or was it zero or right so we proposed a seller note structure where the city is a note holder uh and that note is subject to interest we didn't propose an interest rate we assume that would be negotiated uh later in the process okay um in terms of the payback again we're proposing a 15-year payback okay and the only folks who would be superior to that seller note would be number one our senior lender um and number two you know the Nevada house okay so you'd have a second lender that would be senior is that what you're saying thank you so we based on our conversation with the Nevada housing division they would there's a supported loan they would provide that would be okay that that would be supplemented by the seller note and the cash flow will be split between those two pay okay and then I heard something about the apartment rents you might and it was reported here today $1,139 does that sound about right would that be across everybody would be 60% Ami oh oh here's Brian did you have a different I just like a comment um looking at the RFP with the developer fee being subordinate and I just have I can read it out here if we need to was it a mischaracterization in their proposal or nope it says uh sorry if you let me um it says that uh ul's Development Group that the seller note be structured with a 15-year term with payments made from available property cash flow payments are proposed to be subordinate to to deferred developer fee payments to ensure DF DDF is repaid within the 15-year period structured by section 42 of the federal tax okay so can you address that absolutely thank you for the question so section 42 of the tax code is very clear that any project Source must be full or any project use must be paid within the 15year tax credit period And so that includes developer fi and so the reason that that is required is because developer fee is treated as extra contingency for the project if project costs come into hotay if other sources are not available developer fee will be cut from the project in order to balance the sources and uses and so in section 42 of the federal tax code it says that any developer fee must be paid back during that time and the reason for that again is to ensure there is developer fee available to act as contingency for the project so we are just trying to comply with the federal tax calling it contingency but then it developer fee to us is usually something that's paid as basically profit you know making sure you make your money while you're working that you're getting paid so maybe we're having a mix of terms I I think so I think this is a matter of the the nomenclature in the tax code and the the federal tax program versus what's what's typical uh maybe in market rate okay okay all right well I think I'm done thank all right thank you Council BT no all right Council one breus yeah I just I just um want to ask you know a lot of times the developer fee does not get paid and putting your development fee ahead of our loan repayment is a little problematic um I'd like to see our loan repayment come ahead of your defer developer fee or some you know prata or maybe some pay in the front end you know I think we need some room on that that I don't think that you all should um put your developer fee ahead of the three and a half million to US that's that's problem for me okay knowing that a lot of times those things don't even materialize so um that's that that would be a a sticking point for me um do you have any thoughts on that absolutely thanks for the comments uh my thoughts would be we are abs open to negotiation on on tweaking the terms of that seller note to ensure that it's paid back in a fashion that's satisfactory to the city um again our only concern is making sure we comply with the requirements of the federal tax credit program and the requirements of the Nevada housing division yeah I have no concern about that I work for the housing division I know they know how to do things by the book you know and and the structure then is Falls beyond that from you know your senior you know your senior note holder their money and then everything else um so I think if the council is a mind to go that way I would give direction that there's some negotiation in terms of modifying off their proposal that our 3.4 million gets paid after their developer fee I mean well that's how they have it written and this is Jasmine MAA for the record I just want to make sure that if if Council wants to negotiate um you know with any of these uh uh proposal um applicants then it really should be open to all of them to be able to negotiate really it would be better to make those parameters something that you direct staff to go and negotiate versus you know doing it now yes well mad that was one of my questions when we look at the criteria of the scoring it seems like we're talking about things that have already been scored in the RFP and we're opening up things like design Financial structure Financial Capac capacity that we would have to open up to all the other proposers when we're having this discussions right here we're trying to fit ulyses into something that was already reviewed and scored based on the criteria where Baxter came out so one we have one one proposer that has given us everything that we said that we wanted to the most of the ability with the housing the financial capacity the design our vision and we have the second person or the second proposer that came in that we're trying to fit into something that we should probably open up to everybody again so I just want to make sure that I guess we're we have clear guidelines from our legal of what we should be asking for are we going to say okay Baxter can you put solar in then can you do a higher price or Marmet can you change your design struction it's just doesn't feel consistent to me thank you um Madam mayor would you like a motion have we finished our round I just want to make sure we um have to go to is there public com Madam clerk Madame mayor give me one moment toble check for you Madame mayor if I can speak to council member Taylor's Point um I would say at this point the council has asked for concessions of sorts from one of the proposers and they have given you a verbal response to that um if that is the will of this body again the other two applicants are in the audience if you have questions for them just so you're keeping your process open and equitable Madame mayor yes I did have questions for Baxter is that what you're asking for if you want sure okay who is Baxter I believe representative for Baxter is Brian boltini and she is here in the audience she can come up Miss bullentini thank you so much for being here and for being here for most of the day um I thought the proposal that you all made was excellent I had a question about the public benefit component which was the affordability component um if we should choose you and we're we're trying to be mindful of what our lawyers have told us um this affordability component seems low to me and I don't know if it was based on the proom that you posited that that's how you came to that number or can you just give me some understanding of how you arrived there yes U Brandon boltini for the record thank you uh we are open into negotiation on that it was a number that we did out of percentage of the units and to clarify how we got to that many units was a one to one parking that came up earlier today as well so um we based it off of percentage so we make sure that we can be mixed income also we are mixed use I think that came up as well uh so it's trying to accommodate to make sure that it is um for multiple dwellers and and that number isn't fixed on x amount of units it's it's a percentage to throw it at we're not full low-income housing and so the unit count was derived from the parking is that what you're saying correct one: one parking surface parking today there's 116 parking spots there today I see yeah okay thank you so much all right at you madam clerk mad mayor thank you Madame mayor so we were experiencing a little bit of technical issue earlier today when we open public comment for this item so we do have a public commenter registered Lily Baron Lily if you would unmute state your name for the record and begin speaking hello my name is Lily Baron um can you hear me we can thank you thank you as we know school started this week and many children went off to their first day with empty bellies thanks to the governor's veto on free lunch and breakfast I have a free refrigerator pantry and Resource Center outside of my home over the years and I've seen more families children disabled senior's visit and since January I've provided over 500 meals a week without enough options for transitional supportive and low-income housing there is no way out especially not when we prioritize gentrification over Humanity the women who have lost their children who are likely sitting in a foster home because we couldn't provide housing display particularly heartbreaking and troubling signs of psychological distress and often share with me their sexual abuse incur at cares and as I frequently say cannot get into our place because we are continually without beds I hear a lot of business owners and people who live high on a hill with a wine seller infinity pool speak of the issues they see with people experiencing homelessness but I have yet to hear from someone who lives in the neighborhood and hears our stories every day these folks aren't at all oblivious to these meetings or what you say about them in fact you'd be surprised to know how much they do know you can move them around at $50,000 a pop every other week by just shuffling the deck but at this rate you'll never finish the game each track sweep I see folks spill out into the streets and end up in front of my home often times the refrigerator is empty but I go inside to grab them food and water because I know there are no water fountains none of these people that are served outside of Hampton house are unaware of the services available some are young people like One 19-year-old whose mental illness has rendered him not able to return to Edy house because of conduct and without robust Mental Health Services being available he is roaming the streets hungry thirsty and mentally unstable and like many others with no safety net unfortunately I do not provide the services these folks need but I do provide insight into the gaps I'd like to invite anyone sitting to sit on my porch for an hour or two any time of day to get some on the ground experience and compassion and listening not as an authority person with a title but just another human being I'm increasingly concerned this week as a mother myself about children with empty bellies women lgbtq and youth Turing out of foster care with mental health needs the number one cause of homelessness is left of affordable housing with every rent increase of $100 homelessness goes up by 9% and then Reno landlords are raising rents far above that each month and we the actual residents of this neighborhood see our house neighbors we can UNH housee without with the blink of an eye these projects will never succeed unless we address the needs of these folks we aren't your playground to clean up so you don't feel bad tripping over people in distress to get a guilt-free cocktail we are an underserved community of people suffering who deserve more funding for our actual needs James Baldwin who would have been hundred this year said we have yet to understand that if I'm starving you are in danger if people think that my danger makes them safe we are in trouble if you'd like to donate through the black community Collective or just stop by drop off Aid to mitigate the harm being done daily by non-evidence-based practices we are hellbent on pushing through please do so also I am worried about the amount people that probably did not get to public comment due to zoom not working pretty much since 10:00 a.m. I've tried to get in um five times thank you all right Madam clerk anyone else Vera Miller via Zoom okay hi can you hear me we can thank you state your name for the record and begin speaking uh my name is Vera Miller um I don't have a fully prepared comment um so bear with me but um just with hearing about um this project um and hearing from um other public commenters and living in Reno um I just wanted to express my frustration at the lack of like care and the lack of diligence with actually coming to the table with people that are directly impacted by some of these measures and some of these projects and initiatives um I drive for Uber for instance and I hear a lot of different people and a lot of different people's perspectives um and when we talk about um housing and rent and some of the things that like workingclass people and like lower income people deal with we deal with like really crappy landlords and we live with really dire circumstances even if we pretend like we don't um most of us are just one bad paycheck away or one firing away from not being housed and yet within the same breath people will talk about um cleaning up the the filth of the city or like cleaning up downtown or Midtown right I don't want a brewery I want something that's going to help stop my landlord from raising my rent randomly like $100 even though they didn't do they didn't give me Central AC or anything like that we still have to buy our own AC units like that's horrible um and there are people that need to be taken care of and if we take care of people then we can open a brewery together like it's really frustrating to always come to these things and never really be heard um and it's frustrating that um folks like Lily who uh almost got on on city council but lost by 15 votes was not able to get on city council um and like it's so I lost my train at thought but um it's frustrating and um I think if we meet the needs of people that are just the same as us then we can open a brewery together like um and it shouldn't we shouldn't have to wait um from 10:00 a.m. to 3:30 right now to be making these comments for like technical difficulties um we need to meet the the needs of people we need to stop trying to sweep people away like they're trash so and that's all I have to say all right Madam clerk thank you madam mayor with that we have no additional public comment on item D4 um one thing the one question I do have Brian is this um is the um expiration on on the project is it 30 years I think it is in order for all those for the tax um incentives and all that the requirement am I correct yeah uh because I kind of feel like if it's by the city then it should be forever it shouldn't have a date on it there is a Brian McCardell revitalization manager for the record um there is a cost to the city to do this type of monitoring um on these projects long term that is something in consider when considering these stay forever um the 30-year requirement is a federal requirement I believe under receiving Federal affordable housing funds um the city could match that the city could go a different direction um it is up to this body okay there's no requirement that the city do a certain number of years [Music] um okay so wait we could put that stipulation on any proposal correct with Federal funding I think I don't know if that's an attorney thing Jasmine made it for the record are you ask asking if can we put that in our proposal that it must stay in perpetuity um affordable I mean that is that is one of the parameters that you could um direct staff to negotiate um but as as Mr McCardle said there is a cost in in monitoring that and ensuring that they're yeah um complying with that so that's also something to consider okay I would say this the cost is going to be much um probably much lower than having people displaced so I I do think anytime the city is doing something on the affordable side it should be forever so that those residents can continue to stay in those we just we saw one I don't know how long ago was that five six years ago so anyway it was not good pretty heartbreaking and super frustrating so it it is in um I guess in recent years the contracts through the Nevada housing division with litec properties have change some to limit those loopholes where some of those things can happen um in addition my team actively watches uh complexes that are going to come out of their periods of affordability and we work with them to try to possibly um Infuse some other rehab dollars and then get like another 30 years um and again those are projects that if we're if there are federal federal funding put into them um we have to monitor them um audit them there's there's a great deal of work that goes into that making sure they're charging the right the right rents and all of that um our sewer credits uh or not the sewer credits but um the uh the sewer waiver program we typically do this the the body has chosen to do 20 years on that um most ltech properties now are 30 years uh there's a few things like perhaps maybe the uh Reno Housing Authority some of theirs are in perpetuity because that is their their um their mission uh even HUD has changed back in the old days they used to do 99-year terms and they have gone away from that just because of the administrative um burden on that and and just a lot of things that happened over 99 years so hopefully that answers that question a little bit okay thanks all right Madam clerk any more public comment I don't think you do correct okay all right um I'm going to need a motion yeah to make one do you want to go for it I'll try go ahead okay um look this is challenging we have some great Alternatives here um I think we have to look at our overriding city objective our our number one priority for the last several years has been affordable housing um even over making money it's getting people housed and so um they're very close the backer and uluses both have compelling um you know aspects to them but I think I'm going to lean towards recommending to the council uh make a motion to approve uh moving forward with the deal I guess I'll call it with uh with ulyses uh and to direct our staff to um discuss and potentially negotiate with them on a couple points and I'm not saying what the answer has to be but do your best uh one would be to look at the offer price and its financing okay see what you can come back with based on the input from the council number two is to review the length of affordability to extend that as much as possible if 99 years isn't the right number what is the right number um and let me ask the rest of the council I don't know if there's any other if if anybody's interested in this one are there any more deal points that we would like our staff to look at from anyone I think that's a good question maybe there's something Jasmine legally to put in there in case that some deal Point comes up can you give us any making advice uh Jasmine made for the record I I mean perhaps what you are seeking to do is is maybe enter into an exclusive negotiation agreement yeah that we could then you know have time to negotiate with that particular yeah that's exactly what I had in mind for negotiation of yeah yeah I'm recommending um offering Ulisses an exclusive negotiating agreement is that what you said and um to have listen to this uh recording the issues that the council brought up um whether it was parking affordability length of affordability the financing piece and to come back for staff to come back with us with a a proposal for us okay so I have a motion from councilwoman dur do I have a second I'll second for um discussion yeah Madame mayor go ahead um does that include the deferral of the development agreement yes I should have and the loan repayment okay clarification that the city would not take uh sit in a secondary position potentially and we can do enas under City of Reno and not Redevelopment agency can you say what that stands for I'm sorry are you asking whether we can enter into an Ena an exclusive negotiating yeah okay okay all right any other do councilman Martinez anything no no no okay councilman Taylor I guess I just have a question if that's okay um what is the personal guarantee of of the uls's agreement if they walk away within like 6 months or 7 months or 8 months and I'm not against it I just don't I have again concern over the financing that is something that could be put into the final agreement but I don't have any specifics to share uh because there's no um sorry Brian Mardo for the record uh there's no interest money or earnest money being put up I guess if they're not paying for it if it's a seller's note so that is something that had to be would have to be look at looked at and that wasn't part of the backer agreement is that accurate so under the backer agreement because there they would be purchasing it for a price uh before we go into due diligence and due closing docu documents there'd probably be some earnest money put up while we go through that and if they walk away prematurely we would keep that earnest money so is there still it just seems like there's more risk to the city with the ulyses proposal in the finance department and I'm not I'm not sure if I'm right or if I'm just not reading that right or the paxter agreement seems cleaner to me and I want to make sure before I vote if I understand that right Ashley attorney assistant city manager for the record um council member I would say that from a clean standpoint yes it is clean because you are entering you would be entering into a purchase agreement that transfers the city's Severance we're done at that point um as far as additional risk and what would happen if they pull out at some point through this process as Brian mentioned there's no earnest money so the city's put forward tremendous amounts of Staff efforts um additionally it would delay anything happening on this blighted project if you get to a certain point and nothing happens and then we'd be back before this body again in some unknown period of time okay I am probably not going to support the motion with that information thank you and Ashley if I may before you leave um maybe I can add that too um that when I asked to explore this $3.4 million note that the city would carry which if they've already you've already heard that we're not too excited about um I would expect that they would the part of the negotiation would be what are they putting down are they putting down $10 600,000 anything you know to hold the property and then the second question is is does this go forever do we want to set a timeline that we want to a proposal back so that we don't just sort of live in perpetuity of not knowing so we would recommend that through the ENA process staff would be recommending some clawback time periods and Milestones within that process um because again council's identified this is a blighted site and you'd like to see something happen sooner rather than later um but if Council has specific things that you're looking for of when you like this agreement to come back in front of you you're welcome to give that direction four months a reasonable time frame um we think that's what's that yeah four months feels like a pretty extended period of time based off of just trying to get a response so we're all interested in sooner rather than later but we also know nothing's coming on our calendar in two weeks so I'm just saying when could we expect it back on Council you have to go out you have to negotiate you have to bring us something back we may or may not like it correct okay um has to get on an agenda uh thank you can I suggest September 11 yes fine Madame mayor Madame vice mayor um uh we're in the discussion on the motion is that correct yes um so for my part I probably have been leaning towards the Baxter group um and so I'm just going to say if it should pass what I would like to see in the exclusive negotiating posture is that that 100 100% affordable units include units at 30% Ami as well not just the 60% one of the areas where we find it most challenging is in the areas in the 30% Ami so whether it's some smaller number of them 10 units 20 units or five units it's where I would like to see that concept be discussed again I'm not saying I am intending to vote for the motion I'm just saying that if it if the staff is going to be in a posture of uh exclusively negotiating an outcome that would be an outcome I would find favorable and one other thing is to balance that they may come back with a few units at 80% and maybe that gets to you know they can't oh it can only be 60 okay yeah the other thing that we don't talk about a lot and it does cost money so it t typically doesn't become part of the conversation but that's disability housing and I think that should be included in there as well because it needs to be thought out out bottom level there are things that need to be put in place to make sure that um it's accessible and modified housing but we don't talk about that nearly enough and I think every time we look at an affordable project we need to include that point very good point so do I need to recap the things that I feel like we've got robust notes okay excellent and there should be something in there keeping it sort of open-ended any anything that needs to be negotiated yeah we allow our staff to have those conversations that sort of went without saying but yes I agree all right so I have a motion and a second um all those in favor say I I I all those opposed no no I think you're going to have to do I don't think it passed Madam clerk how you mad mayor yes council member breus am I dur i Martinez no eert yes Taylor no Rees no shivi yes that passes all right okay next Madam clerk really quickly okay not a perfect world all right it's really good for the okay thank you Madame mayor we're moving on to item E1 look if they come back and can't make deal will'll go to back I I don't think there's a Madam clerk any public comment on this item we do have public comment from Damen Cole I guess I have to go to um I have a whole new scripture I cannot see it I'm sorry um no I'm trying to get through here it's just a little bit different um okay I'm going to send it over to our city attorneys do you want to do you want to weigh in Carl at this point and then I'll I'll Madam mayor I'll go to public comment after thanks so much ordinance introduction bill number 7275 and ordinance to amend title 8 chapter 8.1 Z of the Reno Municipal Code entitled offenses against property prohibiting trespassing upon railroad tracks and other matters prly relating there too all right Madam clerk thank you Dam comment Damen Cole hi thank you um I am neither in opposition or uh for the uh ordinance I am on on the concern side the language in the current draft of the ordinance to amend title 8 chapter 8.10 of Reno municipal code is vague and subjective which creates potential for broad overreach of power in which it could result in loss of constitutional protected civil liberties the history of the railroad property in Reno is long and complicated the city Corps was built around the railroad in grades and areas at grade we have a public park that overlaps on Railroad property Oxo nature uh study in areas with grade separation we have public streets and sidewalks on private Parcels such as Third Street and Commercial Row Downtown right next down the street from where we are no Provisions are set in the ordinance's language for this the Reno Arch is located 90 ft as the crow flies from the tracks we have private businesses on Railroad property which as far as I know there is no problem enforcing existing trespassing laws are they being enforced the language of the proposed ordinance leaves it up to the individual discretion of responding officers whether they believe someone is guilty of trespassing and interfering with railroad operations the city was built around the railroad such as commercial row Reno owns the land due to retrack but Union Pacific was granted an easement with 30 foot air rights through the retrack corridor so that immediate rail land is their responsibility not the cities Reno PD does not Patrol it as far as I know unip Pacific is responsible for policing its easement itself so add language regarding the grade separation and air rights in that sense the ordinance under the proposal is two-dimensional while general in general context it would be absurd to think that someone standing on the tracks which are inomed in concrete it is conceivable that under special circumstance under direction from superiors the language of this ordinance could be conceivably allow Law Enforcement Officers to accuse members of the public of being invit violation of this ordinance when they are not therefore it shifts the onus of the law from the city to the individual it casts what is currently a civil liberty of freedom of travel in public space into the realm of a defense used in court to prove one's innocence it risks that a citation and or a risk for failure to comply with police instructions could occur and that is a threshold which most people would be unlikely to cross especially by those of lower classes meanwhile okay um there's a lot more involved with it but basically what I'm saying is here's my uh recommendations add encroachment as which was voted on in July 30th which is not in the current ordinance language um it if it can't be added for legal reasons then rethink the concept rather than allowing for a situation that creates room for broad overreach add language addressing the differences between public RightWay near the tracks versus parcelization I just have one more sentence is that okay um consideration for signs placed on each privately owned parcel perceived by the public as open space or RightWay reaffirming the Public's right to pass stand loiter and otherwise engage in recreational or business purposes finally add a sunset Clause all right thanks so much Madam mayor we have no additional live public commenters we did have individuals sign up earlier today um one in favor of item E1 and three in opposition of E1 additionally we did receive public comment on this item as written correspondence 10 letters nine in favor one in opposition those have been distributed to the Reno city council okay thank you so much all right Travis and Mr sui nice to see you we never get to see you you're always in your office all right nice to see you both nice to see you as well uh my name is Travis Trel I'm the director of Maintenance and operations hello Madame mayor and city council um item E1 is our ordinance introduction for prohibiting trespassing within 100 ft of the railroad tracks um this item aligns with our strategic plan in the areas of Public Safety infrastructure climate change and environmental sustain uh sustainability so kind of just a a quick review of where we are in this provided a presentation regarding downtown public safety and Direction was given to staff to address the railroad Corridor on July 24th uh presentation was provided to the council to discuss kind of some of the issues we have in the area um issues with maintenance and predominantly issues with Public Safety Direction was then given to staff to bring forward an ordinance so that brings us to today and in the time between the last meeting in this meeting there's been a lot of work that's gone into uh collaborating with different departments in the city and uh a lot of work mainly on our City attorney side with Brian sui sorry that advanced a little too far there we go so kind of quick recap uh from the July 24th meeting bring us all back up to speed again there there are several reasons why this is necessary uh the first and for most the reason for this is is Public Safety it the railroad Corridor is a very dangerous place to be it's it's an area that um varies in size um it it if if you think about it the the railroad itself or the train that that we see the trains plural that we see running through town frequently they're very large they're sometimes pulling 100 cars they're pulled by a 200 ton locomotive these trains cannot slow down quickly they cannot maneuver out of the way when there's obstacles trash debris and people on the tracks they don't have the ability to get out of the way and stop and um this this is our foremost concern from a maintenance and operations perspective we have a lot of challenges in this in this area uh we have a lot of infrastructure within the 100 ft from the tracks we we are responsible for maintenance of city- owned fence work fencing walls the signs that are city-owned in the area we're responsible for electrical that that powers the uh safety lighting it Powers the um ventilation systems in retrack that are needed to make sure the exhaust gases from the trains as they run through ret trck or functioning properly and not uh poisoning people uh from a public safety perspective they our Public Safety responders our First Responders have the same similar issues that we have it's the ability to get to the infrastructure that we need to get to um again on the maintenance operations side we in our infrastructure we have sewer and storm dra or pardon me storm drain systems that are our ditch systems our inlets our coverts and we need to be able to respond to these very quickly in times of uh storms moving in we need to be able to inspect these areas make sure they're functioning properly we need to often bring out heavy equipment to make sure we're clearing debris as it washes Downstream and not having ability to get on and through the public access roadways that are adjacent to the tracks uh drastically hinders our ability to to effectively um respond same thing again with Public Safety they need to be able to quickly get two areas of emergencies we have fires that break out along the railroad unfortunately very frequently and again these it needs to be responded to quickly a lot of the space adjacent the railroads are open space a lot of vegetation it can burn quickly and get out of hand if we don't have the ability to respond and then we have medical emergencies that also need to be addressed quickly so it's imperative that we we have open access to our infrastructure and open access for emergency services this map here um shows the rail system throughout Reno uh we have obviously the East West Route that everybody's very familiar with but we also have line that runs up into the North Valleys and north of Reno it's pretty extensive and with all that being said I'm going to be turning this over to Brian sui from the attorney's office to kind of discuss the nuances of this ordinance all right good afternoon Madame mayor city council Brian suudi for the record Deputy City attorney uh so before I dive too much into this I was asked to to create a law and one of the the first things you do is you don't want to reinvent the wheel and now as a born and raised nadaan it pains me to admit that I go and do some research and California has a state law that does exactly what this is so I will tell you that this is a mirror of California state law that was passed in 1992 I was probably like probably in junior high school at that point um Middle School uh at that time so this law has been in existence for a long time so it is a in essence a copy of that law and I like doing that as an attorney because it shows me a few things number one it's longstanding it's within the ninth circuit so it's obviously has had time to be enforced it has had time to see the court and it's still valid law so when you see something like that as an attorney it makes your life a lot easier because now you're not creating something from scratch so with that said the nuances is not really much I will explain what has happened with our state law our state law has trespassing and it uses for lack of a better term a landmark to determine what is trespassing a building a building is very easy and definable but when our legislature looked at open land because we're in Nevada and we have a lot of open land that makes it a little bit more difficult to have those those landmarks those defining points where someone will know they can't be there and what they did was is they said okay you can fence it right if you fence off the property it's very clear that someone can't be there well you go even more rule Nevada fening becomes very expensive for large lands so they also created the opportunity to post signage every 500 feet so that's what our law operates on is this Landmark Theory now signage for our railroad track extending pretty much I'll just go east to west or west yeah west to east from California state line to Sparks that's an astronomical amount of land 500 ft a sign has to be posted now the law has a loophole in it if the sign is not post to every 500 ft you can't just go out and charge someone trespassing now you'd actually have to have the owner or agent there to say hey you're on my land you can't be there it invalidates the law you heard from Travis in the last presentation one of the big issues they have is the signages are getting ripped down so now we have to start all over again obviously if you had to fence off the entire railroad track that probably would not look really appeasing to the eye as well as it would be an astronomical cost so when you look at the Spirit of the state law and what we were trying to do and then compare it to what California has done the landmark in it of itself is the railroad track right that's your definition so the railroad track is your Landmark that can be defined people can see it you can gauge how far you can go from that so that is why it says from the tracks 100 ft and that that's how it fits within our trespassing laws and then the uniqueness of our railroad track and we have obviously downtown is a lot more condensed and then as you go further west or even further north it becomes more open land there's more space out there so the 100 ft was what what staff had wanted so we put in the 100 100 feet there are the concerns regarding what if there's a sidewalk by the railroad track right well the sidewalk you have a lawful right to walk on the sidewalk this law that would not impact them because you have a lawful right to be there we were questions about fishermen fishing along the river and maybe it's within 100 feet well you're there you have if you have a lawful right to be there you're doing something legal you're not trespassing already you can continue to do that activity this law is just trespassing it's already in existence it's already enforcable it's just that there are some loopholes fences get torn down signs get ripped down so instead of having to combat that use the railroad track it's going to be very hard to rip out a railroad track um I don't know much about railroads but I don't think that's an easy task to do so using that as your Landmark is a solidified thing California has it Oregon has it Washington has pretty much almost every it's a state law that that you know we're kind of jumping probably ahead of our state um the uniqueness obviously you get much more indents uh demographic down here the lands more condensed you go further west there's a lot of still more open space along those tracks cars are parking along those tracks Union Pacific doesn't want Vehicles parked along those tracks because if the train derails it's going to hit a car so they're they're also eroding the uh track line as well and they have to go back they just did a major repair on the west side of of our railroad so it costs money it costs time so this is a way to enable law enforcement to enforce the law and not have to have like if a sign's gone to actually have the owner agent be present on scene or you know have it completely fenced off to be enacted that is the reality of this but it is already against the law to be out there there is no lawful right unless the City of Reno on their land said you can be here or Union Pacific said you could be there they're already violating the law it's already in existence it's just that we're trying to connect this loophole and fix this problem um with that you could probably skip to the slide and uh I don't know who's next after me oh that's it so that pretty much concludes our uh presentation at this point all right thank so much all right uh bring you back to this body go ahead councilman breus yeah Mr sui so um modeled after a California state law so why don't we bring a bdr to the state of Nevada to put it in state law because pretty clear when you read NRS 20720 says you got a post one legal expert I said said felt that the fencing in sometimes could be enough but seems like it has to be in state law not in an ordinance so a couple things one is the landmarks those are landmarks they're using a landmark if you go back and look at the legislative intent that's what it was for it's for the landmarks so we're still staying within the intent of the law when they originally wrote that and it's it's been a long time when that law was enacted also our uniqueness and our Dynamics this was written without realizing the cities were developing around railroad tracks now we have that problem like California did in 19 1992 they did the same thing I it's going to pass mustard federally for sure and if you look at the legislative intent of why they enacted it and how they enacted it it was to do trespassing is to form the person they're not supposed to be there how can you do that well you educate the public and say the railroad don't be around the railroad it's no different than a sign it's just using the railroad in Li of the sign yeah I don't know if I agree with that I mean you know and I you know you get a civil rights attorney and maybe it'll pass Federal Master but it sure doesn't seem to be consistent with state law and you know because state law is very specific you got to post and I don't see a framework where we can pass the city ordinance that preempts state law that's very specific so we're going through our bdrs and I don't understand why we're not recommending that we do it that way now um so that's my question for you for Mr truhill let's talk about this in practicality right now and I do know a fair amount about railroads as a matter of fact come from a railroad family um and I guess I'll talk about the main line but I have a lot of concerns about the north south spines going up through you know where maybe adjacent to Federal lands up there around Anderson Acres okay you know we know the railroad has a rideway but people cross in informal settings sometimes to access federal land but so what what's the plan then you get this great great authority to go out and do sweeps okay which you don't feel you have right now the authority to do sweeps so are we going to be doing sweeps that the railroad should be doing and monitoring their private property we maintenance an operations are not performing any sweeps as well I mean the city Arena and if you're the wrong staff member we'll pause the clock and bring that person up there's currently as things sit when we need to access our infrastructure we are asking for assistance um and that assistance is in the form of public Outreach it's in the form of of um police assistance and so but it you need it needs to be understood that our infrastructure is not typically within the railroad um easement specifically or their RightWay in some cases it is when we're talking about retrack but it's usually with in that 100 foot area right outside of the tracks so this a lot of this area is areas that the the city either has property on or the city has a legal easement to be to have that infrastructure placed there well if it's our property we have the right of a property owner I'm just let me let me just include this I'm GNA move on councilman and I'll come back to you councilman Martinez yeah thanks so much Madam mayor thanks Mr Trill for the information and uh the work that's gone in already I I was curious there was comments about you know like sidewalks and maybe the river being how would folks know if they are within that 100 ft of the railroad and if we get a call is it up to the dispatch or the officer that shows up Court enforcement that shows up to kind of make that call or what would be the process I guess I'm trying to understand that if someone is found within under feet well I think I think the the first approach we always take especially on the Outreach side whether it's through one of our River Rangers dealing with the river or it's through clean and safe and one of the partners with clean and safe there's always the information component of informing people there's um I have yet to see anybody from any of our Outreach groups just come in with a heavy hand and and not try to inform people first and so I I believe this would be the continued practice um but again as as Mr sui brought up the the railroad itself the rail the tracks is that um is that monument that marker that would allow people to be able to identify that yes I'm too close to the tracks I shouldn't be in the space okay and then with was it your example about someone being in the river and potentially being within 100 feet of that have I been Mr I gu if someone has like traditionally gotten to the specific spot to fish all of a sudden this is like within that distance just trying to understand what happens there so Brian City for the record a a few things um if they have a lawful right to be there obviously if it's open land and they can fish there they can remain there even though they're within that 100 feet because they have the lawful right if it's a sidewalk they're walking on the sidewalk might be within 100 feet Areno Arch might be within 100 feet there's a sidewalk there they can be there there's other laws to address the activity that they might be engaging in like if they're standing in the middle of a roadway you can't do that that would be the law that would be enforced not the trespassing along the tracks additionally we also have several other laws like no camping along the river within 350 ft it's not posted it's not signed and in essence carries the Same Spirit as our state law for trespassing so we've used that for many years I think since the early 2000s um but that that won't impact them if you have a business and people are lawfully on your business doesn't impact it if Union Pacific owns land that extends past 100 ft outside that 100t they'll have to go back to signage and and fencing for it to be enforced it's only within that 100 feet Corridor of the track that this law would would do away with the fencing and signage requirement okay thank you those are all the questions I have for now thank you madam mayor Travis I have a quick question for you I just learn I think I learned a fun fact talking about railroad experience before you were in this position what what was your railroad experience it was a long time ago I was quite young um I used to be I used to work on the Virginia trucky railroad I started off as a mechanic and uh um finished my my career with the railroad as an engineer running their locomotives up there oh so you might have a little experience when it comes to built the track I've maintained the engines and spent more hours than I could possibly account for running the uh the steam engines up there yeah good enough for me thanks for all your help my qu my comment is based on what we heard today from the businesses and this is probably more for the enforcement side is I understand what we're doing here today but I really think we also need to focus on the enforcement side of this ordinance should it be adopted and I think that's going to be extremely important and I think our our um law enforcement and our our team knows that so that is my only comment thank you so much thank you for work on this just generally supportive I'm glad we're addressing it it's it's very reasonable I love the research that you did uh with other states and the fact that it was in The Ninth District and it's been upheld for over what 40 30 years um so I think that's a good way to go I was concerned about the um I guess it is the complexity of enforcing where it begins and ends and the fact that we have railroad right next to near the arch or near other places where people can be and your point was you the places the public can be trumps where they can't be I think is kind of a way to put it so if you can be on a road or you can be on a sidewalk or you can be in a park that are within that 100 feet then you can be there is that correct just to get the final point on that Brian City for the record uh that is correct and you know I also reiterate that you know I've been with the city for almost 20 well 20 years now and and worked with the police department for many years the men and women of the Reno Police Department do a wonderful job at educating the public I'm sure you know Chief is here today but they'll do an education program as well as warnings it's not always the first you know the first thing is enforcement and we have staff the river Rangers Clean safe that also you know they do the Outreach and everything there'll be enough warning there to inform people before enforcement even occurs and educate them that if they are engaging in activity that would impact the railroad within 100 feed those warnings will they've always done that yeah as a prosecutor I always love to see that first before we'd ever charge somebody sure yeah thank you and quite honestly we need to look at doing and this is something I I feel like maybe and maybe this is part of clean and safe but emergency relocation Services um to be honest with you some of those people should actually fall to the top of the list over um for Housing Services but there the community communication typically um is very fragmented because obviously they're living outside in those in those types of things so like we really need to look at because we can all say this all day long but the bigger issue is where do they go where do they go right now listen this is the responsible thing to do people are not going to like what I'm about to say but it's the responsible thing and I'll tell you why it's the same reason with the river if there is a fire or flood on that River you can bet people will come and say how dare you mayor shii how dare you how dare you it is a tough thing to do it pulls it your heart knowing that people need places to homes roofs over their heads and so that is very very hard to do same in this instance but if something should happen where we have an incident and hundreds of people I mean that could easily happen on the river um because there are people living there but the bigger issue is where and what do we do and that's where I think we need to have a really big comprehensive emergency relocation program looking at this and really identifying and honing in there I think Cynthia maybe you could come up and speak a little bit about that because I mean we can talk about this till the cows come home but really that's the big issue that cities have not been able to figure out and quite honestly until our states and this country wants to get real about the crisis of mental health and addiction we're going to continue to just yeah just keep moving people doing nothing uh Cynthia far as a chief equity and community relations officer for the record uh our team is ready and equipped and open to having those conversations with individuals uh Outreach is always ongoing and if someone is ready to make that transition whether it's to the shelter uh at Caris campus our place or you know would like to apply to live at the safe camp or other uh transitional opportunities within the region we are ready to do that I guess I just get so nervous about how are we identifying them right because some people I know that we put people in housing but really they actually needed treatment couldn't sustain housing right so it has to be very comprehensive but it's complex too it's very complex and we'll continue to work with our regional partners and Community Partners to ensure that we're all on the same page and Rowing in the same and it does remind me of one thing to our city manager CU I know we've talked about this um but we had had those units on order 200 of them where are we at uh Village at Sage is Monica's still in the room we are close groundbreaking I believe has occurred and we should be moving people in by the end of this year okay all right yes all right that's great news all right thank you and it has a pet facility yay that's important thank you so much appreciate it okay councilwoman Ebert yeah um just reading through the staff report and everything I I'm concerned about the enforcement because I don't see anything here that says you know there's you're allowed to be in this area if there's a sidewalk there or anything like that so I'm concerned that you know that there's a specific intent in the way that this is written but when it comes to how it might actually be enforced that if if there's not anything in there that says you know unless you're allowed to be on sidewalk unless it's specifically called out that that this can be used against people in ways that we don't necessarily intend it to be um so I wondered if you know if that could be added in there at all once again Brian C for the record we don't normally write when you write a law you don't always say Okay accept this accept this accept this accept this except this um you normally the only time you will see those type of exceptions is for like Ada um disability those type of of things but we to write a law especially one like this that extends geographically through a large area of our city to Encompass every single type of activity that might or might not be okay would be probably virtually impossible only because what you see on the west side of of McCarron like going fourth Fourth Street West the activity that's occurring out there is a lot different than the activity that's occurring in the in the central Corridor of downtown there are problems on both sides you just don't hear about the activity on on that side of the off-roading the eroding of the tracks because the vehicles are are driving over areas where they're not supposed to be and so the reality is if if it's an approved easement already or access point or an area someone can be like a sidewalk that will always supersede this law it it does that with we do that all the time with all of our all of our laws um and then once again I I'll go back to to law enforcement and how they enforce their laws you know there's a criminal justice system as well is in place I served as a prosecutor for 12 years you review these cases and and you would look to see if is it provable right you look at those things too we have a lot of checks and balances that a lot of times the General Public doesn't get to see all of how it actually operates you know it's not like in a vacuum there's a lot of hands that look at cases but it all starts with the officers you know and their education and their approach and and the way they've always treated our our you know the the citizens of our community has always been with respect and compassion and and I don't if they are going to abuse it then they're going to abuse it but then that's a different issue altogether that's for the court system that's my concern that is if you know if somebody gets cited for something and they happen to be in that area that it kind of gets thrown on because you know now it's an extra citation because you happen to do something within 100 fet of a of a railroad track that now you're also trespassing you does that make sense that's that's what I'm concerned about but that activity already exists so if if if Union Pacific put no trespassing on their property let's use let's use them well actually we can use City of Reno puts no trespassing on the area where we say no trespassing right right on the fence line right here when you go by amtr it says no trespass well the ones that are still standing technically that's our land and we said we didn't want you there but there's a sidewalk right next to it right so technically there you it would be trespassing but the sidewalk is what's allowing the person to be there so that's how it works so in reality this is all in place like this law is not doing anything it's just removing sign and fence requirement and using the railroad as as your Landmark okay does this also make it easier for the city to do any kind of cleanup stuff on Union Pacific land at all because that's another um area of concern and that I get from my constituents is people either dump stuff along railroad track areas or people like set up camp there so does that help with this at all so the goal would be is to in prohibit that activity from occurring in the first place so therefore all the dumping wouldn't be there that's if someone dumps property on someone else's property it becomes a property owner's responsibility the City of Reno can't go on to your house and clean it clean it for you right that's your responsibility so the same thing with Union Pacific and there's other Parcels of land that the tracks intersect that are privately owned as well as um publicly owned by the state and was County as well and if someone goes out and dumps prop you garbage on on those lands it's their responsibility to clean it just like it would be ours if someone dumps something on um the retrack commercial row area Okay so just to make sure I'm understanding this is Union Pacific's property they're 100% responsible for maintaining cleaning it up but the City of Reno is is going to write an ordinance to enforce the trespassing on somebody else's property that's to remove the fencing requirements for somebody else's responsibility so it's already state law so yes we well we I mean the police if it's posted or fenced on your property and you're not home and there's someone there you don't want there right and they can tell that they don't belong there they have the authority under state law to go there and remove that individual off that land right now okay so that's that this doesn't change that this isn't creating something new or or doing anything different than what's already there except no fence no sign okay the railroad is your Landmark thank you so much I'm moving down to council woman breus go ahead yeah so along those lines um I guess question number one is the line that goes north from record Street my understanding is that only goes up to stead to like a pallet place and then it's V then it's abandoned from basically dead Panther Valley all the way up to the California line and it's still going to be in place where there's no trains running and it's basically been abandoned by the railroad and so what if what if what if that's federal land I think that cuts through some federal land over there and then it also cuts through say you know private land do we need the forest service to say um you know come get this camper or someone or you know contact the Orange County guy he may not have the owner from Orange County may not have it posted I mean is that what this relieves does so Brian see for the record uh it would require um commitment from the property owner to allow police to enforce this law Union Pacific has already done that the City of Reno has a letter from Union Pacific to say yes that we have trespassers on our land we don't want them there go out and remove them if there are other railroad land that is not city-owned or Union pafic currently we do not have any letters giving us uh giving the Reno Police Department the authority to access that land so we have police can't enter on someone's land without consent Union Pacific has given the police consent to enforce already already trespassing as it is right now okay um so if it goes further North and it's aband I I don't know I I have no idea um if it's abandoned or not but whatever land it intersects if it's federal land then the federal government would have to give the authority to the renal Police Department to access that land I mean it seems you know here's the practicality of it in my mind and it's two pieces one I was very moved by the property owners up here talking who would go along the the corridor and and the and I've talked to the eagle window guy for years you know about you know the camps and sett ments and it was it's kind of being portrayed that this is a saball to those people those people please vote for this ordinance we've been so you know harmed by all this but you know it's easy for us to write an ordinance first reading second reading get the attorneys involved but it's not so easy to solve the real complex problem and you know we're looking at $20 million a year to come from the Redevelopment you know agency it's you know we've all got stars in our eyes why not amend the Redevelopment plan and say we're going to spend half of our money on subsidized housing you know to eliminate poverty cuz what do homeless people not have homes right so you know instead of having fors for people to come and get money want to open breweries why don't we just say we're going to use half of this new tax revenue to fight homeless there's some real bright bright signs coming out there's one in the New York Times today about um or maybe it's the LA Times about um no it's New York Times about um Subway you know Transit Rider safety and you know why don't we do the hard stuff and and go deeper rather than portray to the public that this ordinance is going to do save all these things because it's not but I'll tell you one other thing council members as the person who sat up here the longest with the mayor and have seen this heat up and represented the river Corridor I have driven over those overpasses and said thank goodness those folks are on the railroad track and not on the river cuz we're on the river they're C lot closer to Residents they're causing fires and so on and so on so be careful what you ask for because Mr Trill may get all of his sanitary sewer easements and everything all cleaned up and kept them all clean but where are the folks going they're not going to the CAC for women and shelter you know where are they going that's what we need to be focused on this discussion about criminalization or solving problems is is really CER it's not it's not easy it's complex but it's not fooling yourself that an ordinance that basically give us Powers we already have is going to do it Council on breus thank you thank you thank you okay just deep breath okay councilman uh councilman Martinez thanks so much just one quick question there was some few comments about encroachment I know that was part of the conversation when we had first discussed this so just wondering what shift from that verbage being used and why you decided to go this route so Brian City for the record and I apologize I just got Invisalign so I'm learning how to speak all over again um so I'm sometimes slurring or sshing my words uh so encroachment is trespassing it's it's one in the same it's just a it's a language term and for legal purposes when you write laws our state uses trespassing instead of encroachment they so it's just it's for public purposes of Education of the public and enforcing the law is keeping consistent with what terminology we use but when you encroach upon someone's land you trespass upon their land so it's one and the same it's just legally when we look at our laws and how how they're drafted that's the terminology that we used in our state so hence why we keep it trespassing instead of encroachment okay just want to give us you all opportunity to address some of those issues thank you all right go ahead councilwoman Taylor I'm ready to make a motion Madam please I move to approve the ordinance introduction in Reno Municipal Code title 8 chapter 810 as chapter 8101 prohibiting trespassing upon railroad tracks all right I'll I was okay never mind I have a motion and a second discussion councilman breus go ahead yeah yeah I mean I'm just gonna say again you know in light of we all know the Grants Pass case came out and I've been looking and looking and looking to see what our statement is going to be on the Grant's Pass case because a lot of cities are moving after that and we haven't had a statement as far as I can tell it's a real time for cities to take a time out and say Here's what we're doing here's what our commitment is some cities are going very differently you know California is sweeping a lot through state government a lot of cities are sweeping where they haven't some cities are saying we're trying this approach this is Reno's approach is this ordinance which you know I think it's going to have unintended consequences of sweeping people onto neighborhoods in the river to keep you know the sanitary sewer Network comfortable two I think it's a big fat lie to the people like the eagle window and everywhere that this is going to solve their problems you know the real issue should be finding housing and you know the the that great resource out there is that Redevelopment fund and we just quickly passed some you know application documents for people to come get money to build breweries instead of a substantial commitment to we didn't do that that's not correct that's what I saw I saw for that's not correct so I vote no and I'm sorry today you seem to be very angry so just take it down a minute thank you but no one said they're going to go build breweries Jenny I I'm I'm working on Mental Health every single day I know how tough this is tax increment that's not going to police not going to W County not going to Social Services after this break we're going to keep Tak that's fine for me I vote no call the vote mayor all right all the opposed I just wanted to say that I I just agree that I think that the Public's perception of this is not necessarily accurate I think that this is perceived as a way for the the city to keep these areas clean the the city specifically and I don't think that um you know some people are going to be happy with the end result of this that um you know there there might be more freedom for um enforcement of some rules and stuff but it's also not going to be like a Magic Bullet to keep everything from happening around so I also sympathize with the business owners that are struggling with problems I also agree with the mayor that we need more help and service um and I just I don't want people to think that you know this ordinance is is is this the magic solution for this cuz it's not um really it's just you know getting rid of signs basically is as you stated so I just want to make sure everybody really really is aware of what this is I mean I know we're discussing it but the the the public knows that this is not giving the City of Reno the ability to go out and um take take over Union Pacific Land and enforce all these rules on behalf of Union Pacific so I just want to make sure that that's you know on the record and and really clear for everybody but it does it did come from our chief of police giving her more tools and her team more tools to go out and enforce what is there understand that but I think that's important too and we don't do anything very quickly or very fast so this was a very thoughtful discussion and we're here and we're going to make Pro progress and we're going to keep moving forward so I think that's important to not too yes but when my con consents call me specifically to let me know about the garbage that's been dumped on Union Pacific Land and encampments on Union Pacific Land when they hear about this ordinance this is not a vehicle for me to say okay well we pass this ordinance now I can call Travis and get a crew out there to clean it up that's not the way this is going to work and the trash are not going to go out and pick up the trash for me you know who we haven't heard from Chief n you're in the room I'd love to hear from you I think it is are you going to go pick up trash for me when when there's trash on Union Pacific well that's not what this ordinance is about exactly thank you the ordinance is about preventing people from jumping the trash in the first place by educating everybody that being on the railroad is a crime and they cannot do it it requ it allows us to when we do want to do the enforcement and I don't think I introduced myself Chief Nance for the rest I think pretty sure it was clear when I was coming up here but just in case but it gives us the opportunity when we are going out there that we don't have to warn we don't have to give these other warnings we can say you're not allowed to be here you need to leave if they're repeat offenders or people that are repeat camping on the railroad tracks causing very dangerous conditions both for our officers for maintenance and operations when they go out there for our fire department and for the people themselves let's keep in mind that people are sleeping with their heads right next to railroad tracks I just saw a photo that was appalling to me that somebody would do that people are going to get hurt if we are not proactively stopping this this allows us to enforce something without putting up signage that's going to be knocked down gives us that enforcement opportunity doesn't mean we're going to arrest everybody or side everybody because that's never what we do we are always in the business of trying to find somebody a different place to stay some help if they would like it a lot of people tell us no but that doesn't mean they're not going to tell us no on our fourth fifth or sixth contact we can continue to make that progress so for me this is an added tool that we talked about one of the restrictions and one of the inhib one of the places that we were inhibited in our abilities and after looking at it and having a broader discussion with other department members and other department heads they have a probably bigger impact than we do on how this impacts them negatively especially when you talk about maintenance repairs picking up garbage all of those things that are very hard on um every organization here so it's not about police it's not about homelessness it's about really keeping both our city employees safe which is very important preventing trained derailment which if you've watch the news you know that does happen around the world and it's caused some very big problems and keeping our community safe by not allowing them to be in a dangerous space yeah thank you so much I appreciate it all right so we have a a motion I have a motion in a second all those in favor say I I all those opposed opposed motion carries all right I think um Madame clerk where are we going Madame mayor we're now moving back to our B items so our first item today is item B4 pulled by council member Ebert all right Council Ebert go ahead they're probably gone for the day I just wanted to call out the um just a partnership that the C City of Reno has to Sky Tavern and that you know we're trying to work with Washo County to hopefully have them donate some funds towards hooking them up with their sewer connection fee and just kind of thank Sky Tavern for their um work with the kids in the community so all right do you think they're gone all right give me a motion motion to approve can I discuss this too oh okay go ahead you know this is Sky Tavern it's our property it's an unincorporated washa County getting them off septic and I would be very neglectful of a 12-year concern that I've had about the large extent of homes existing some facing red tag uh one at least did recently from West Plum Lane all the way up to leonda if you all know where the nuns have their um their Convent up there large large stretch the Thomas Jefferson remember we had the nice family come the other day with the little park and the the child who had the idea of making a way to walk over the park that whole neighborhood Ben Franklin Thomas Jefferson um Alejandra Hamilton lefon Drive Driscoll Drive no sewer what does this have to do with Sky Tapp we are committing our resources to hook up a property to sewer we have not for 12 years and even longer than that cuz we annexed this land made any efforts plans or programs to hook up probably 2500 residents to sewer and their septic tanks are failing all right but also too I just wanted to again highlight the fact that we do help Community Resources that um are important to us and important to children and um just wanted to highlight again the need for that kind of support and help for the um Sierra Sage Golf Course in W 4 um that is struggling to pay their water bill so just wanted to call that out again um but motion uh to approve all right thank you so much I have a motion I have a second all those in favor say I I all those opposed motion carries all right item B13 eberts councilwoman go ahead hold on a sec here yeah I just wanted to see a little bit about where this is the location and the project thank you members city council Mike Michelle engineering manager development services for the record before you this afternoon is the approval of a Regional Road um impact fee offset agreement between the city RTC and lemon drrive Villa Properties LLC in the amount of 346,000 if IED in RTC CIP this particular riff offset agreement will reimburse the developer for the installation of a traffic signal and Associated Street improvements at the intersection of Lemon Drive and Vista null Parkway SL Sunset View Drive this intersection is a bit north of Lemon Drive and Sky Vista the development of record is the Lemon Drive Estates project that's currently under construction along the east side of Lemon Drive and the Highland project along the west side of Lemon Drive that's that's not under construction today I've already mentioned the value of the Riff offset agreement um this agreement was approved by RTC board in June of this year uh it's recommended that the city council approve the subject riff agreement I'm available for questions all right thank you so much go ahead was was the um cost for this paid for by both developers or was it just one the the developer of record includes both of the particular development okay so they both contributed to this yes it will okay thank you all right you want to give me ation I'm sure I'll make a motion to accept all right I have a motion I have a second all those in favor say I I all those opposed motion carries unanimously all right heading into b14 councilman dur yeah I just wanted to I was glad to see it but I wanted to understand um with the 79,000 this is the um vehicle exhaust removal systems I just wanted to make sure this this is from are we doing all of the stations or is this just some or what's the story here so if you don't Dave Cochran M fire chief I have online virtually Sam steer who did fantastic work for us on this project so I'm going to let her handle this because she should rightfully get the credit so she can answer your question thank you and can we put her picture up too yeah Sam if you can unmute you should have access ACC star 6 oh she's on phone she's on Zoom good evening council members Sam stair management assistant with the Reno Fire Department um so the question was I just wonder how many um fire stations we have Al together how many we're going to be able to do with this grant of course so we have 14 fire stations along with our uh Fleet Services or Fleet Maintenance facility um our hope is to do all of those unfortunately yeah unfortunately the amount that we receive is is a little bit less than what our initial uh quote was so we're going to put it out to our and see what we can do with that so you think this may or may not be enough money to do them all is that what you're saying uh yes that's correct okay well I really appreciate this effort anything to get exhaust out obviously of an enclosed space I mean this is a very dangerous type of environment you don't want exhaust from anything right a car a generator um any kind of heat Source going into your house and into your building where you have to work and they they live there they sleep there they eat there um right I mean this seems like a very proactive move on behalf of you know a safety move on behalf of our employees so do are do any of them have these now and are they being retrofitted or is this brand new so all of our stations have a system currently they are very old so we're having a hard time finding parts to get them fixed so our only like our best option is to replace them completely okay great all right well thank you so much for the info thank you for the good work and it looks like you're standing in an awesome place I don't know where that is but are you out in a ranch environment uh I'm actually at a fire Camp up in Idaho Fire camp in Idaho oh my goodness well that was not necessary I think Chief could answer this question sufficiently but thank you for joining us that's okay okay thank you for Sam Sam did such good work and she deserved to get the credit well it really is a fantastic project it seems really good so thank you I just want to know that conversation happened right Chief hey need you to jump on the phone by the way stop everything you're doing I know you might be in the middle of something but okay all right okay thank you so so much Sam thank you thank you and I'm going to make a motion if there's no questions uh to pass this item Motion in a second all those in favor say I all those opposed thank you uh motion carries thank you so much y thank you all thank you all right Chief councilwoman uh B 15 really quick um when this was presented I did have a conversation pre sta uh pre- meeting with the staff to better understand this but I just wanted to get confirmation when I started reading the staff report it was explained a little better it sounds like it is part of the development and could you just explain that really quick Mike yeah it's nothing to do with the Reno ice it just happens to be called that uh for the record Mike Michelle engineering manager yeah the this Reno ice way uh property it was conditioned on the Village South Apartment project to construct and that and they constructed that back in the 2015 2018 time frame okay but it's it's in the city Areno obviously it's not because right there there's a city county boundary it is in the City of Reno perfect okay I mean it could have been in our sphere because it's right next to a County property where Reno ice is right it's adjacent to the sphere of influence which is subject of the Reno ice gotcha per se all right so long overdue so motion to accept this street okay have a motion of have a second all those in favor say I I all those opposed motion carries okay okay great Madame clerk I believe we're um heading back into our regular agenda that would be item C2 that is correct it do you have any public comment on this we do not have any comment registered and additionally we have not received any correspondence on this item so this is a staff report and discussion potential approval of the collective bargaining agreements between the City of Reno and the Reno Police protective Association Madame mayor I have a disclosure to make please do Madame mayor Federal City Council Members City staff I a partner at the law firm of Reese ring velto and the law firm represents the Reno Police protective Association rppa on legal matters unrelated to item Charlie 2 a collective bargain agreement between the City of Reno and rppa on these matters I have sought guidance from the city attorney's office pursuing to NRS 281a 0654 and five I have a commitment of private capacity to the law firm as my employer and the rppa based on the law firm's continuing business relationship with the rppa I also have a pecuniary interest in the client fees RP PA pays my Law Firm consequently have been advised that the independence of Judgment of a reasonable person in my situation could be materially affected in taking action and voting upon these items in order to avoid the appearance of impropriety I'll leave the room for the duration of the item Madam clerk please Lodge this disclosure on the record all right thank you so much Jesse pit labor relations manager Jess how are resources I'm good how are you doing good all right good take it away the floor is yours perfect so I am here today to present you the tentative agreement between the release Reno Police protective Association the rppa and the City of Reno we've come to a three-year agreement uh we do have some salary adjustments throughout those three years we have 5% effective in July of 2024 we have an additional step effective in July of 2025 and this is really the correct uh classification and compensation issue that was was brought up during the classification and compensation study that the city performed we have a 5% increase in July of 2025 with the potential for a reopener pending The Purge rate if the purge rate increases it triggers a reopener on salary and wages only we have 5% effective in July of 2026 and an additional step effective in July of 2026 uh some other economic items um that are in the contract an increase to the Deferred Compensation match currently they get $20 per pay period this brings them up to 2% per pay period which brings them closer to some of the other bargaining groups and then we've also restructured the special assignment incentives in the contract to be percentage-based incentives instead of dollar-based incentives and that's more in line with what what we're seeing in in other agencies and jurisdictions on this slide we have the total fiscal impact for the rppa agreement in year one it's about 3.7 $7 million and rounding up in year two it's about $7.3 million and in year three it's about $12.2 million and that includes the costs from the previous year then before you I've got a recommended motion and I'm happy to take any questions okay thank you so much I appreciate it councilwoman breus go ahead I don't have any questions you don't okay your lights on I just oh thought sorry okay all right anyone else all right with that being said oh I'm sorry I have I have just a couple couple questions um this is a lot of money um obviously our employees and labor is our number one priority and Public Safety is so I just I wanted to ask a couple questions about how we can pay for this this year and then what the plan is um for next year and um the third year if you if you can answer that I can't but I'll defer over to our finance director Vicky vuran thank you sorry I didn't lower the microphone oh you're good adjust it for you but that's okay I know how it feels that's why I feel for you Vicky vanir Director of Finance um yes we've been working very closely with Labor uh negotiations with our HR department during their labor negotiations um they're keeping us a breast of what was going on we're doing costing doing all of that um as far as for the current year um we still don't have all of the agreements you know coming forward to council but the plan moving forward we do have some money budgeted because we anticipated increases when these contracts were coming forward um and then we are having to use some of their prior year savings to cover these contracts in the current year for going forward we've made projections to make sure that we would still be fish fiscally uh sustainable going forward um we will be having to make some tough decisions but it still works going forward but there will be some top decisions coming before Council for the next budget cycle okay and that's what I just wanted to understand I think um you and your team and Jesse and Norman and everybody have done a really good job and this wasn't an easy task but I think um for me I'm going to be I try and be very thoughtful anyway with the financial aspect of the city but I think we're going to be in the next couple of years looking at some some different challenges financially but thank you for your work on this okay anyone else vice mayor go ahead I I'm glad we're at resolution I'm sorry it's gone past time you know we would have liked to complete something like this prior to July 1 and we're in August um the numbers are pretty high to my colleagues points um am really concerned about what it means for the future I know we we wouldn't approve anything we can't pay for but it may crimp us going forward um I made comments when we approved the other uh um contracts with the other employee groups they settled um they agreed to much less um in contrast is is what I've as I recall in looking at all the contracts you're neither nodding this way or this way you are correct I was correct okay so I had put out a great um shout of thanks to the other bargaining units that they were willing to um settle and understand our financial position I understand everybody you know that we have sort of set a bar want to be top of class right we want to be able to pay our employees as much as possible retain a very intelligent educated committed Workforce and pay goes a long way and benefits you know at you know sweeten the pot um so I I am just sounding a note of caution about you know the future and how challenging this is right now I don't think we see this um type of contract next go around you know uh because I think we're going to be in a different Financial world at that time but anyway thank you for the hard work and and thank you to uh the bargaining unit for getting to closure I mean that's that matters so thank you all right give me a motion um uh okay well I will move to approve this uh contract and it I would just want to get the right number um the uh got a motion you can read up on screen we got a motion I got the motion right here but okay I'll read it uh motion to approve ten agreement between City of Reno and Reno Police protective Association okay I have a motion do have a second a second you want a second discussion okay discussion go ahead councilman breus yeah I want to State before I explain how I'm going to vote on this two two facts of known is one um this is our largest bargaining contract dollar-wise two ethics are A Private Matter okay we have a member not here who has a conflict I'm not talking about that I'm talking about why I'm not going to vote for this and why it pains me so much to vote after being on here for 12 years for this group that means so much because they do so much hard work and they deserve and we've always been good to them but I think they their leadership has approached this bargaining agreement in bad faith in hiring one of us to represent them has created an untenable situation an appearance of impropriety and is very wrong okay and let me just elaborate upon that okay the leadership of this group decided to hire one of our sitting members who now cannot participate that's fine but what does that do to us up here okay we want to have good relationships with our colleague and we know he has a financial wait a minute are you insinuating what are you insinuating I am stating that he put that the bargaining group hiring one of our colleagues puts us in a tough situation because we all know that our colleague has an interest in the outcome of this contract okay and our staff when they go to the table they know that there's a council member who they have to work with a lot who has a financial interest in how that come that that is wrong no I just need to set the record yeah I need to set the record straight so Norma santoyo interim assistant city manager um the rppa is represented through this negotiation from a stagy law firm which is out of the Sacramento area unrelated when we started the sheet showed the another law firm and furthermore that firm rppa has hired there's a lot of attorneys who do labor law in the Nevada they've hired a sitting member and that is very much an appearance of impropriety and put staff in a pad position opion please tell us who the attorney is on on record here please yes so the law firm is M stagy and I don't recall the other but they are completely different and not from this area when we started it was Alex VTO his partner as the representative and that's fine even if it wasn't we've got a sitting council member representing one of our bargaining groups it's an appearance of impropriety he can arms Lake than stain but I think it creates all throughout the the organization to our staff and to us here that we have a member who has an interest financial interest in the outcome of one of our largest labor contract and so my vote no is a message to the leadership of rppa maybe they should reconsider who they hire because it's bad faith and it creates very uncomfortable negotiations in my didn't councilwoman breus also have a conflict in one of the negotiations that was a personal interest too I mean it's just I'm sorry the this this theater whatever we're calling it now that something is going on is absolutely I know long has been insinuations andorre it's not true I I know but it's the scare tactic and conspiracy theory that we're always hearing from over here and it's really unsettling so I want to just move on get through this meeting get work done cuz this is what uh we were elected to do and I want to stay on point um other than you know being I guess angry all the time um you know I mean have a motion I was just going to say Madam mayor Point order I've made a motion I have a a motion in a second on the floor all those in favor say I I all those opposed no motion carries okay moving on thank you Council yeah thank you thank you all right moving along Madame mayor we're on item D1 a hexagon update okay hi how are you nice to see you it's been a while but you I don't know what it is about you but every time you come the room gets a lot better so there you well I hope so uh Cody Shadel for the record uh director of Public Safety dispat fetch I'm also one of the project coordinators for the topic we're about to discuss I was asked to come here today to give you just an update it's been over just nearly a year since the last time we discussed it at Council and I just wanted to give some exciting updates about what we've accomplished in that time frame uh we for some of the body that's been here I just want to orient you to the produ project so hopefully in briefly I'll talk about the background we'll get to some key accomplishments that we've already achieved we'll talk about how that's going to meet our goals regionally and then we'll talk real quick about what's left ahe of us before we go live I am joined today by representatives from the city of Sparks the waso county our vendor as well um hexagon and remza so all the agency coordinators for those organizations are here with me today so as I mentioned this project started a long time ago and I'm sure a lot of you have heard this for a long time that we've been looking at trying to replace our CAD system uh in combination we've also been looking to replace our RMS system this started back in 2020 when we hired a consultant to come in and actually build our RFP they assisted Us in evaluating that RFP they're now continuing to assist us in implementation it was an extensive process we did um site visits we had vendor demonstrations it took over a year for us to get through that RFP simultaneously while we were working through that project uh if you recall some of you may have been a part of the concurrent meeting that happened in July of 2023 where we talked about regionalization of fire service I'm sorry that was 2022 we talked about regionalization of fire and EMS response as well as the 911 process at large and one of the key priorities that came out of that was saying that technology was a huge obstacle that we needed to overcome technology was limiting our ability to share information between dispatch centers it was causing delays and it was something that needed to be redesigned in our system and that's pretty much what we're here to do out of that uh we proceeded forward and as you recall from last September we uh finalized a governance agreement which allowed us to go into contract with the vendor back in September the governance boards that we set up for this we did because everybody loves extra boards uh we did create a manager board an executive board and a change Advisory Board the goal of that is to truly just provide some transparency to the public about how this large investment in our public safety system was going to be managed and overs overseen for many years to come is also to ensure that the the resiliency and the wellness of their actual software product could be maintained and it also kind of give voice to all the partners who were deciding to join into this together what were their um what were their measures of assurance that not only would their voice be heard but they would be able to provide appropriate assistance to their constituents as I mentioned we did select a single vendor which is hexagon and I did mention we have a one of our project Managers from hexagon here in the room with us today I'm excited to have their support he is local which is a huge benefit to us uh because that's very rare when you get a large National Corporation actually gets to be have a personal stake um in the benefit and success of this of this project so we are bringing on on call dispatch and on call record these are the systems that are used regionally within our system and we've actually expanded the project to include remza which is not currently a partner on our on our current system so some things that we've already accomplished so we signed the agreements in September we really started the work in January that's really when the boots hit the ground um we've already installed Hardware the background infrastructure the servers the equipment uh we've already brought in the software and brought that online and our teams have been working diligently to start building that so that's where you see that initi initial system build that's putting all of the data into the system that's getting all of the information into it so that we can start configuring it making it work for us we've actually started configuration this is how our end users are going to operate and access the system it's also designing the responses and things that we want to accomplish out of the system something that kind of goes understated but we've brought a lot of third party Integrations into this project um it sounds crazy but there's 57 actually when we started it was over 50 um third- party Integrations that were trying to basically bring these over-the-top systems and make them integrate with our CAD system for the purpose of streamlining our processes making information available and accessible because the last thing you want is imagine a dispatcher you call 911 and they can't get your location they have to go over here to another system try to bring that location information in and then they have to type it in two different places that just speaks delay delay delay and the goal of this project is to really prioritize that experience and eliminate the delays in the system so I'm really excited that we're actually getting of these Integrations brought in so why is this important as this body decided and gave us Direction back in that July 2022 meeting we talked about what do we want to do we want to redesign the 911 system we want to provide and prioritize the user PR provide an exceptional response and prioritize the user experience that's the caller so when a caller calls 911 at the end of the day they don't care who shows up they just care that they show up they show up that they care that they show up in a timely manner and they don't need to be asked a million questions to get that help and that's what we're trying to accomplish so some of the things we've already been able to do during the design phase is we're talking common language we're working with with our partners in medical and fire and police to call things the same thing and it sounds really simple but in actuality it's really hard it's really hard to go from years of calling something a heart attack or chest paints to calling it a cardiac event and agreeing that we're going to call it the same thing so that when we tell the public that this is how we go to a cardiac event all four of us can stand right next to each other and say yes that is how we respond to a cardiac event so that's that's what we're go that's that goal we are building some integrated responses we know that we already provide automatic Aid in certain areas we know that we already provide closest resource in some certain situations so instead of relying on phone calls back and forth to coordinate those responses and rely on dispatchers to make those decisions we're going to just build those responses from the from the get-go we're going to say yes you two agencies have already agreed to provide automatic Aid response let's send both of you let's make that recommendation and then we don't have to delay that response what goes hand in hand with that is automation if anybody I think we've always used the medical example up here you call 911 you're going to be asked a series of questions you're going to be asked information about your location you might be asked some information about uh the type of event that you're experiencing or somebody else is experiencing around you you're then going to be transferred all those same questions are going to be asked again the part that the citizen never sees of that is at that first phone call the call is being entered into that first agency and for example in Reno we'll enter a call that goes to our fire dispatcher they're going to dispatch fire resources they'll also dispatch police resources however that call is then not digitally transferred to Rema we have to manually transfer that phone call Rema has to then ask those questions and they have to enter their own call and those two things are blind to each other they're not connected with Automation and being on the same system we can now submit one entry we can say I want to enter a call for police fired Medical all at the same time we can eliminate some delay and we can provide all that information to our to our partnering agencies so that way they maybe they don't have to ask the same questions again but they can just confirm that the information is correct it's a huge valuable tool and I'm so excited to see our citizens kind of benefit from it we've had extreme cooperation we've had representation from all the four partnering agencies and again that's remza Reno Sparks and Washo at all of these builds at all of the work that we' put into this and so we've really tasked those groups to say I want you to think outside the box of We're just trying to fix something or replace something I want you to think of how can we make this better how can we build something different and we've really kind of owned that process of how do we redesign and re architecture something that needs to be better and so in looking at those processes we're going to say instead of this is how Reno needs to do it and this is how sparks needs to do it in any possible case where we can say this is how we can all do it we're taking that approach and we're going to say as a region this is how we're going to do it and surpris L you know we've we've had some bad history in the past between each other but realistically the people working on this don't have that history and they're doing a phenomenal job working together and I can't read I can't restate that enough I've already mentioned information access that's just the getting everybody on the same page having the same information working out of the same dictionary talking about the same things um it it's it's immeasurable realistically we're going to provide information vital to the response of our citizens on the same platform and we're also going to be able to provide officer and responder safety um quickly you know if if I'm taking a 911 call and we have medical and I say I I'm sorry I don't take calls anymore uh much the Su of my staff but if my staff is taking a 911 call and they get information about a gun or a weapon or some citizen or some scen safety issue that changes they want to immediately notify every impacted agency and being on the same system will provide us that access and so that is that's going to be the the biggest success out of this whole project so what's left not much actually it seems like a year but it's going by already really fast so for the rest of this year we'll be configuring that system that's September to January starting between January and March we're really going to be testing the system we're going to put it through the through the ringer we're going to try to break it that's how we test these systems we're going to say I want to break you so that we know how to fix it and we can make sure that it won't break again so we're going to we have a really robust testing schedule that'll test everything we put into the system uh and then we've committed to training over the summer which is something we usually avoid Summer's busy we typically don't ask our staff to train in the summer when it's busy but this is a priority and that's the time to do it so we'll be training and the thing to remember is go live is going to be in September that's when we're going to go live so September next year I will be happy to be here and tell you about how we went live um I'll be excited to tell you how we went live and how successful it was so currently things to remember we're excited to say we're on schedule this the date of 9925 has not changed we are on budget our vendor has guaranteed us well guaranteed but they've committed to the fact that we are fully supported we have the right resources they feel confident that we can hit our goals and we are prepared for that go live on September 9th of 2025 so that's end my presentation if you guys have any questions I'm happy to answer thank you so much for being here um this is such an important project we've been talking about it again the whole 10 years I've been on city council at this point it was a dream it was a vision it's a huge Improvement to the health and well-being of our residents who are calling in right it saves time and time saves lives and I I just am so appreciative of the work you personally have put into it but this whole integrated team that's trying to figure out all the bugs all you know all the whistles all the angles to make this actually work and I mean to your point I once worked on a committee we were just simply trying to get a database to talk to each other uh on things like temperature in the database do we call it t for temperature or temp or spell out the word is it centigrade is it Fahrenheit do we write 0 F0 C do we write degrees at all how do we have I mean it was so difficult now it was across many more agencies um you know probably 18 counties were included in this project and they all had a historic data groups that were very committed to their tea or whatever and it meant having to reconfigure the databases right and which is What's Happening Here is they have to reconfigure these systems although maybe what I heard you saying is we're putting in one the same system could you explain that part just a little bit more yeah and the benefit of getting everybody into a a single system means that we no longer have to translate information from one agency code to somehow communicate across you know a space to someone else right I mean it is the same system I just want to it is within the same system yes when you say within the same system what does that mean sorry may sound like I'm it may sound like I'm parsing my words but reality is right now in our current system we Reno Sparks and Washo all operate on the same CAD system we can see each other's information we can see each other's calls by adding and bringing in rem into this equation they will have the same access they'll be you know within some limitations as far as confidentiality and criminal history goes but uh they will be within the same system they'll be to see the same information real time all right well let me ask is Council have any comments questions at this time what's that you're good anyone all right um yes uh council member Taylor thank you Madame vice mayor I just wanted to say thank you to you and all of our partners um I think this is really important obviously I haven't been here for 10 years but I've been in the community for my life and I know this is something that we've always been talking about and I think this is the first step to bigger and better things down the road I hope and um I think I think one of our assistant city managers JW HW where is he did he leave where are you hiding come up here Cody had his time I know you don't like this but I just want I wanted to say thank you very much and to your team chrisy I know you guys are working really hard on this and um you're making great progress you're on schedule you're on budget you're meeting the goals and and I I don't know personally how tough it is but I I can only imagine and it means a lot to our community what you guys are doing so thank you all of our partners well thank you and thank you to Cody and the back row of people that have been doing all the work to get this done so thank you council member I I've been eyeing those back row people frankly I don't know them all but I said I know they're here for this what I can introduce them if you like awesome uh left to right I have Eric willr he's our agency coordinator with was County uh we have she delicious ill from Sparks same agency coordinator uh we have Kenny kits with remza and in the far back we have David banini with hexagon he's our project manager from the vendor okay cool all right well I think our action here is to accept the uh report and so I'm looking for a motion who who made the motion I made the motion all right I made the motion you seconded it council member Reese all right all in favor please say I I any opposed all right motion passes unanimously and then we're moving on I believe to item D2 which is about our city manager search and we have a special guest with us uh representing the Bob Marin Associates group so Council interm city manager nice to see you again for the record my name is Cody Freeman HR business partner for the city's HR department today I'm joined by Executive Vice President and recruiter Gary Phillips from Bob Murray and Associates we are here to give a presentation on item D2 which is the Reno city manager search yeah I was going to say we don't to begin I feel it's important to bring up our goals and strategic priorities as the Reno city manager plays a pivotal role in the as the administrative head responsible for planning directing managing and overseeing the activities and operations of the city in doing so each one of these priorities in front of you are applicable to this item very shortly Mr Phillips will be up here to discuss and receive Direction on the following items the first one being the approval and use of the recruitment brochure a brief discussion about the recruitment strategy once the brochure is approved and then seek some direction on the number of qualified candidates that Council would like to see brought forward at a future council meeting so at this time I would like to invite uh Gary Phillips to the podium thanks for for the record Gary Phillips with Bob Maran Associates nice to see you all again so um what I wanted to talk about first you know we met um back in June I I came here I was given some direction to begin what I called the listening tour so I went on that listening tour I met with each one of the council members uh individually I met with the three assistant city managers uh I also did three lisening sessions for department heads to join and give feedback so I was able to use that feedback that I got from the different internal stakeholders uh along with working with staff to get a lot of the material for this brochure to develop this draft for you folks to consider um it's it's very similar to the city manager brochures that we use for you know most of the other city manager recruitments that we do the area that um the area where we try to customize that is the area of the ideal candidate profiles so that's where I took the feedback that I got from all the different stakeholders and tried to bake that into uh to that feedback there so um so so that's the what we've got in front of you here today and hopefully you've all had a chance to take a look at it um you'll see there's different sections uh in there the first section is the community and that's a lot of the material in there was was already developed and so we just use existing material the city of Reno the position that comes from the job specification so it's really the ideal candidate profile section is what what we my office developed based on the feedback we got from the stakeholders then of course there's the compensation and benefits uh information and how to apply so um I wanted to see if there was any feedback you know with regards to the brochure let me just ask um how you know you do a lot of these so how different was ours I mean did it just I mean a city manager city manager city manager was it 10% different than your standard or way different I mean what's your assessment it wasn't very different I mean you know when you think about the qualities that you're looking for in a leader um you know they're all kind of the same I mean that's what I think the important thing is to really describe describing the community and and the City of Reno and giving some stats and some details yeah um but that actual description of of what you folks are looking for leader is what most people are looking for well I assume that but I didn't want to assume so all right well um I'll just call on any um member thank you madam vice mayor all right councilman ree goad thank you so much Madam mayor um my question really concerns the section about compensation and benefits and so I wonder if there is any utility in identifying a range meaning I I think if someone sees this this is very comprehensive and complete and of course everything is negotiable in life um but I just wonder if there is a benefit to us in having a range identified that's actually a good question and um over the years we've typically uh done open de depending on com on um qualifications that gives the council the most discretion to do what they want to do with the candidates um I have seen we've also used a range we've also stated this is what the the the incumbent of the previous uh city manager was making to give people an idea of kind of where the number might fall um you can do any of the above I don't know if there's a a benefit a lot of cities don't have a range right so they might have a range for every other position in the city but some a lot of times city manager there isn't a range because it's negotiated number my only thought is that inevitably when someone calls you and says hey I'm thinking of putting in for this what's the range I mean you're going to have to provide them some back I'm going to fall back on the number that the previous city manager was making this right um that's sufficient otherwise it's excellent the brochure is great um it does a good job of highlighting um what an incredible opportunity it is um it'll be interesting to see because when might this go live so um our plan um part of our recruitment strategy was to time this around the election right so um with the goal of presenting candidates in in the November 20th meeting to the new newly seated Council so we backed away from that and said we'd like to do our the bulk of our marketing where we're actually doing our targeted Outreach and social media and sending this this document on to everybody that'll happen last week of September and the entire month of October so that five to six weeks is when we would actually do the targeted Outreach we could go live tomorrow right right well I I only ask because of course this fall there'll be you know icma League of cities a bunch of different kind of gatherings of persons who might otherwise be interested right and so just want to make sure it's out there and then when it is live I'm sure that each of us has our own networks of people that we might want to share it with so my recommendation would be that once the brochure is approved so it's on our website right now as an upcoming opportunity I've already got four applications right and but they but they're applying without having this information right so if you approv this brochure we would put it live on our website put attach the brochure to it now when we go to the league of cities and all these other uh meetings people will have that additional information we'll just hold off on placing all those targeted ads until that end of September time frame but we could have it live as soon as you folks approve this thank you so much okay any other questions go ahead uh thank you mad I just was wondering and I apologize if I missed this where where is this brochure going and how is it going to be used thanks for asking that question that's a good question so we use it um in a multitude of ways number one it's going to be placed on our website attached to so when people go to our website to look at for opportunities it'll the the the PDF will be attached to the city of REO uh city manager recruitment right so somebody can click on it and the PDF will pop up we're also going to use it um to do Direct Mail campaign so we do email um blasts right so we have our database has over 50,000 people in our database that if they're in similar positions we're going to blast out an email with this uh electronic copy we're also going to do uh we're going to print out hard copies and we're going to do hard copy Direct Mail campaigns to um Target a target audience right so and then we post it on all of the social media so LinkedIn um Facebook um Instagram we'll also post it on a regular basis so that it's in people's feeds so you're not just it doesn't sound like you're being passive with the recruitment you're actively going out and pushing it and trying to find the best candidate with the information we we use it for targeted Outreach targeted thank you so much yeah all right any further questions see that they're not um move to approve I have a motion actually there's one other thing that I wanted to get some some direction on and that was the number of uh qualified candidates although I think it is in the um uh in the motion but I wanted to make sure that we discussed that a little bit because of Nevada's open meeting laws um I wanted to make sure that we all understood that the impact that that has on candidates right I'm so glad you're mentioning this because this was problematic last time right so so it it changes it it changes our strategy a little bit in that I don't want to bring candidates I want to bring a a a select number of candidates forward to present to you folks in the 20th because there be a public me meeting because if their names are going to be put out there I want to make sure that their qualified candidates and that you folks actually want to interview them so I think that should be a smaller number right so part of what we're asking for is to to agree or give give me direction on the number of candidates and I think what I've got it the way I've got stated in there is up to five uh top qualified candidates to consider so what we do is I present candidates to you on the 20th up to five uh for your consideration if you folks agree we would then move to interviews and we would look at in the December time frame getting those interviews done um so that you can make a selection at that point I think that a good idea but it is really hard because some don't want to interview just there they're going to be certain folks that don't want the exposure so they'll they'll opt out of not applying because I'll explain to them up front what the process is is going to be and so they'll know at this point your name would would become public um and so I think people are more apt to go through with that if they know they're one of three or four or five versus verus if they're one of 10 they're more than likely going to say I don't it's not worth the risk yeah and then let's reiterate just so people know mhm that this process is exactly the same for a candidate outside the state versus someone that is local I've been sort of messaging a lot of local in the last couple of years seeing candidates come from the outside that really aren't invested in the area or know the community I mean I think there's benefits to both right but I want to I guess uh reiterate that the process is same for both it is and my goal is to make sure that I can bring you both C both types of candidates yeah great okay anything else all right so I had a motion I think in a second all those in favor say I I all those opposed motion carries unanimously thanks for hanging out with us all day long I'm sure you've you've been exposed to many City Council meetings thank you take care all right next up Madam clerk Madame mayor we're on item D3 legislative bdr all right Nick come on [Applause] up okay Madam clerk do you have any public comment on this item Madame mayor we do not have any public comment on this item additionally we have not received any correspondence on item D3 hey here we go good evening Council Nick Sone government Affairs manager Office of policy and strategy for the record today I am here um following our July 24th meeting where we discussed and got preliminary feedback on the five different build draft request proposals that we had received either in briefings from various committees or from this body so um today my recommendation will focus on F fiscal sustainability Public Safety Economic Opportunity homelessness and affordable housing um as a reminder the City of Reno is allocated up to two Bill draft requests but the city does not have to submit a bill draft request if we do not find it um appropriate or timely for a the city to be asking for an individual Bill sponsored by us so just to go through the process again since uh the end of last session we had been Gathering ideas most from this body from stakeholders doing preliminary research on what might be Fe feasible and working with stakeholders to understand what might gain traction or support in the state legislature uh at the July 24th meeting I got some discussion and direction that helped me form my uh ultimate staff recommendation and we did a little bit of additional research and Outreach and then again the deadline in order to submit a bill draft request proposal is September 1st so as a reminder these are the five bdr request ideas that we had discuss the charter committee recommendations they had a concurrent meeting with you on July 29th where they presented their ideas for a bill draft request uh changes to the capital search charge fund we uh met with the capital search charge committee on July 30th and generally the feedback at that meeting was that uh the individuals that sit on that board were not willing or did not want to raise the rate from $2 to a different amount and uh in preliminary discussions with other hotels in the area they did not see fit or did not want to pay the additional $2 for Capital maintenance in the downtown area uh the third would be the changes to residential construction tax and I know this is a lot of information so I have the slides at the end if you would like me to go back over the the various ideas uh and the fourth so from the direction or the discussion from this body uh on July 24th it was generally seen as supportive uh with respect to finding another way to uh subsidize or find a way to replenish the cost of waving sewer connection fees and building impact fees for affordable housing development since that meeting the Nevada League of cities has met once and entertained the idea of uh sponsoring a bill from the Nevada League of cities to create a state fund to replenish those costs for cities when they wave those uh they have a meeting next Monday and I will be there to provide uh any answer uh answer any questions that are asked by any of the members of of the league of cities and then fifth would be an update on the fire regionalization and consolidation conversations so again these are the factors uh ultimately we're at the council input phase this will be the last meeting before the um last meeting with this item before the September 1st deadline uh we looked at how these bdrs would align with our strategic priorities what is the impact or need um and is it uh urgent or is it something that needs to take a little B more time to actually build out and uh make that request so that we can effectuate that change and working with stakeholders and partners in order to make sure um that we're not surprised and we're not surprising others when we're build bringing our bill draft request ideas to them next session and finally political cap capacity this is always admittedly hard to gauge especially um early and before the elections happen in advance of the next legislative session um but that is another factor that we take into account and again as IID mentioned we're working very closely with our stakeholders uh I have had the honor and the privilege to work very closely with uh the city of Sparks government Affairs folks and the was County government government Affairs folks uh recently uh we actually we get together and um meet quite often to discuss what's coming up in our cities what's coming up in our counties what's happening at the Nevada Association of counties what is the Nevada League of cities discussing and also what is the Nevada Housing Coalition um this discussing especially as that relates to an incredibly important issue for our area which is affordable housing so ultimately uh my recommendation is two-p parted and so I decided to just break them out pretty clearly uh housing and housing affordability are not going away and they are absolutely going to come back next session U doesn't matter what party there will be different ideas and so I think we will be in the best position if I have the flexibility and I continue to come and update this Council on those bills and can focus on those bills both on the defense and the offense with something like um the sewer connection fee state fund and so that way I can prioritize those discussions and they and see how they align with the legislative platform which again I will be back in January for you to adopt for 2025 and the second recommendation is for us to continue working not pause not stop continue working on fire regionalization efforts uh further analysis is needed we need to continue will work with our stakeholders uh I can't say confidently that the other partners are ready and willing to go or that we have all the answers to the test I don't have all the answers I'll be the first to admit it and so we need additional time in order to flesh that out and work with our stakeholders and the community to look at that analysis so that we can build out a good ask and so that in the 2027 legislative session we are prepared and the region is in uh unanimous is unanimous in their recommendation for Bild draft request that would lead to the ultimate regionalization of our fire services and there is the recommended motion again I know it's a mouthful um but what I am looking for you today is for a direction to me to focus on housing affordability next session and continue to use my staff time working with our regional Partners to look at fire regionalization in advance of the 2027 session okay Nick I think you did a tremendous job um I think you're on point for you know both bdrs and also the conversations because it's really too soon to tell what it's going to look like how it's going to change I mean it's just it's a moving Target so sometimes I mean going out way too early in front of these things is not even not even necessary right so I would also prefer that we watch what happens and support where we can be supportive and not be negative right because they also have tough jobs so just to continue to educate and see where we can be helpful so I think good job all right uh we're going to hurry and move on go ahead coun woman last me time we met we talked about I think it was the mayor's idea uh was to invite some of our legislators to meet with us in session um and I had happened to talk to one which was Serena Selena laru hatch assembly woman and um she was very excited about coming and I talked to you I didn't know if we've extended any invitations yet I have not yet extended an invitation but I am more than happy to do this uh do that with all of our regional Partners I would ask every single one of them that represents any portion of the City of Reno that we could choose one day where they all come so we can um ask questions and also educate because I think there's a lot of things that they also have no idea that we struggle with um so I think on both sides it would be really beneficial and also hear what their priorities are exactly and of just ours right so okay so I love that and then I support uh the direction of the motion I I do think it's um I think you've picked that top two things we care about we just did housing and we um you know you and I had a fairly in-depth conversation about the regionalization I think there is a ton of work to do there so but I finally understood and it's I think for the benefit of the group it's very similar to what we did with the flood project we had a Coordinating Committee yep and then we went to legislature to get a joint Powers Authority yeah so while we had a consolidation of after fashion with um the county and Reno it wasn't under a joint Powers Authority where we had a separate board and separate abilities to to take actions and so and it wasn't unified and we didn't have a voting structure and I know that was one of the drivers for deconsolidation was people didn't feel like they had an equal voice so I I do support this direction thank you all right before we go any any further I'm so sorry madam clerk do you have any public comment on this item we do not Madame mayor all right just want to make sure okay that being said give me a motion sure Madame mayor I moveed to direct staff to prioritize efforts to advance affordable housing legislation that lines with the city's final legislative platform and to continue work with regional Partners to identify a funding mechanism for the regionalization or consolidation of Fire Protection Services in the trucky Meadows in advance of the 84th session of the at of legislature all right I have a motion and a second all in favor say I I all opposed motion carries unanimously okay good job thanks so much Nick as always you're rocking it doing an amazing job okay all right Madame mayor I'm I we're on item F1 Frank one ordinance introduction okay thank you so much do you have any public comment on this item we do not have any public comment registered additionally we' have not received any correspondence okay perfect uh then I'm going to send it over to the one and only car take it away uh thank you once again Madame mayor this is an ordinance adoption ordinance number 6683 case number LDC 24- 0052 Chism mobile home park master plan Amendment and zoning map Amendment ordinance to men Title 18 chapter 18.02 the Reno Municipal Code entitled zoning rezoning are plus or minus 3.48 Acre Site located south of the unit Pacific Railroad RightWay and north of West Second Street from plus or minus 0.57 Acres of General commercial to mixed employment plus or minus 1.56 Acres of industrial to mixed Employment Plus orus 0.17 Acres of General commercial to multif family residential 21 acres per acre 21 units per acre and to establish the zoning District of mixed employment on plus or minus 1.18 Acres together with matters which pertain to or necessarily connected there withth word one move to adopt all right I have a motion to adopt second I have a second all those in favor say all those opposed motion carries all right moving right along uh Madame clerk do we do you have any public comment on item G1 I do not have any public comment registered and have not received any correspondence okay uh this goes to councilwoman dur yeah thank you um it was a tough choice they're both awesome uh but I I've come down on the side of Analise hakus I think she'll do an awesome job and um I look forward have a motion in a second all those in favor say I all those opposed motion carries un name I just want to say I look forward to at some point uh talking more with Barb and getting her more involved as well that's great and uh the hijas say are amazing is what they're amazing oh they are yeah okay um Madam clerk any public comment on this item item G2 no public comment registered and have not received any correspondence okay I'm going to going to send it over to council member Martinez or no I guess I'm Martinez it's Martinez yeah he Steed out so he asked me to had to step out so councilman Taylor you going to step in go ahead I am I recommend Kylie Quigley and Justin soulmine soline all right I have a motion and a second all those in favor say I all those opposed motion carries unanimously okay city council comments any city council comments no seeing that there are none public comment you have a public comment no I said final public oh final public I thought you said I have a public comment go right ahead Miss Brian all right um any any public comment Madam clerk Madam mayor we don't have anyone registered for public comment if you're in zoom and would like to make public comment please raise your hand at this time for the record I'd like to state that we did receive six letters of Correspondence after 4M yesterday or that we just general in in nature um four letters of opposition and two letters of concern those have been distributed to the Reno city council additionally we have no hands raised in Zoom so we are on item K motion to adjourn all right I have a motion I have a second all those in favor say I all those opposed motion carries unanimously thank you so much everyone thanks for sticking it out with us I know it was challenging at times so I really appreciate all of you and all of staff and um have a good night