stories from the city of phoenix palm trees are everywhere in phoenix they grow well and thrive in our hot summers but the palm tree is not native to the area and before 1880 were virtually unheard of here historian steve schumacher has the story of phoenix's first palm tree and how they proliferated and came to be a familiar part of our landscape but first steve set the scene of what small town phoenix was like in 1879. yeah in 1879 phoenix was just a small little village really i don't know that there was even a thousand people running around the roads were still dirt the town site was like a half a mile in diameter there just really wasn't much there i mean phoenix had only been discovered and inhabited nine years before that steve's research led him to a prominent venetian by the name of alexander lemon and what he brought back from a trip overseas in 1879 well edie lemoner alexander lemon was one of the first attorneys in phoenix and in maricopa county later became a very prominent judge in the state and he was quite wealthy as most attorneys at that time frame would be and he had made a trip to the sandwich islands and he brought back some seeds for palm trees back in phoenix alexander lemon knew clara evans a woman who lived at 2nd avenue in monroe lemon and evan socialized together and had a lot of common friends she was a resident of phoenix and owned and operated at teacher training academy on monroe and about second avenue they knew each other they hung out together alexander lemon gave clara evans some of the palm tree seeds he brought back from the sandwich islands and she planted it in her front yard and from there it just took off well clara's palm tree grew tall and in a desert town where cactus ironwood mesquite and sage were the dominant plants it became somewhat of an exotic attraction people when they came through phoenix wherever they were headed stopping at her place and taking a photograph of that palm tree was a regular occurrence she was always on the list of things to see and take a photograph of was this original palm tree in her yard and once she planted that and people became accustomed to seeing that and became interested in it obviously others took other seeds and seedlings and planted them and having palm trees on your property became a sign of prominence it wasn't long before early land speculators in phoenix saw a potential in palm trees and used them to add an upscale flare to their developments mid-1890s dwight hurd came to town and started developing a lot of properties around phoenix he developed the los olivo and and it was known one of the tag lines for los olivos was it has four miles of palm trees because the roads were four miles when you add them all up and they were all lined with palm trees and he felt like that was another way to show it was a prominent subdivision he wanted people with money to buy a home there and palm trees was the one way of doing that price of palm trees was only about 50 to 75 cents at that point so he could buy tons of them and plant them and serve his purpose of drawing rich people to those subdivisions and it really didn't cost him that much money soon palm trees were everywhere as well as other non-native plants that did well in our desert climate these plants not just the palm tree but everything you see oleanders roses those are all imported those are not native to phoenix either but the only things that are native are the various species of cactus mesquite grease wood those kinds of sonora desert plants everything else you look at that's ornamental and beautiful has been brought in from somewhere else now clara evans never profited from her palm tree choosing instead to become a force in training future phoenix teachers she's most well known for her time being on the board of education and she also started a teacher training academy she called it that was part of her property there on second avenue and monroe as well and so she prepared students to attend universities and teacher training colleges like asu later on she became very prominent in the education field within phoenix maricopa county and arizona and alexander lemmon built on his success with several developments in downtown phoenix he actually built one of the first hotels in downtown phoenix was it third street and washington it was called the lemon hotel and it became the gold hotel later on and lasted quite a long time and it catered primarily to cavalry officers from fort mcdowell when they would come into phoenix and so forth he was not only a prominent attorney became a prominent judge and he also became a prominent land and hotel owner later on in life but little did lemon or evans know that that little seed brought back from the sandwich islands would make such a big difference in phoenix well as much as that first palm tree and probably the first several were oddities and a must-see and something very unique to phoenix back in the late 1800s as time went on and they were planted in various subdivisions and the seeds would grow and the palm tree that was unique in the late 1880s became very commonplace in the early 1900s and people were planting them everywhere and they were growing on their own everywhere but i remember as a young boy coming to phoenix for the first time when i was 10 years old with my parents from south dakota driving down central avenue and just being a gog at seeing the first palm tree i imagine the people in the late 1870s when they saw the palm tree in clara evans yard they probably reacted pretty much the same way [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] so [Music] so [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] so [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] so [Music] do [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] do [Music] so [Applause] [Music] [Applause] so [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Laughter] [Music] it's time for everyone's favorite game show that's right what in the development is that the planning and development show where you guess and learn the meaning of terms that will help you with your home project now here's our host welcome to the show i'm your host skip swagger and here are our guests trish truth be told and josh jokerton welcome i'm so excited to be here yeah sure okay and now it's time for our first question players get ready this determines how land in a city can be used often broken up as residential commercial or industrial is it a zooin b zebra c zooming or d zoning yes josh zoos are cool zooing that would be zoning skip that's correct zoning helps guide development and ensure balanced growth within a city okay next question this is a request to deviate from current zoning is it a a variance b a venue c variety or d a very cool idea cool is cool baby very cool idea no that would be a variance right again trish a variance doesn't change the zoning in an area but allows a property owner to use the land outside of the zoning restrictions yes come on okay third question the minimum distance a building must be from a curb property line or structure is it a step by step b set and match c a setback or d settle down um it's a setback skip that's right a setback the setback is important for safety and aesthetic reasons providing safe distances around the property trish you are way in the lead with three questions correct we have two more to go the next question land that utilities have the rights to access to provide services and do repairs is it a easy street b easement c easy rider or d edge easy street it's an easement of course wow correct again you cannot build on an easement last question ready this is the legal boundaries of a property a porpoise b pacemaker c property lines or d get off my lawn true cheats property lines that's right sometimes you may need a surveyor to determine the location of your property lines well it looks like trish swept the board congratulations fish you're the winner what did i win skip win oh yeah i have to get back to you on that one join us again in the near future for another episode of when the development is due to learn more about development go to phoenix.gov pdd that's all the time we have today for this episode of what in the development is that see you next time [Music] [Music] so [Applause] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] the so do [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] uh [Music] [Music] [Applause] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] this [Music] [Applause] so [Applause] [Music] phoenix was a small town on the rise in the 1940s we had the tallest building in the state and great hotels it was a walkable town and people lined up around the block to see the movies one of the grandest theaters in phoenix was the orpheum to see a show you bought your ticket at this booth in front on february 20th 1943 17 year old north high school senior esther robart was working the ticket booth the orpheum was screening star-spangled rhythm with bing crosby and bob hope well that night a fella by the name of franklin daly walked up to esther's booth to buy a ticket esther sold it to him it only took a minute but for franklin and esther it was love at first sight but franklin needed a plan so he went to a pay phone in the basement put in a dime and called the ticket booth where esther was selling tickets they were cheap back then 40 cents in the daytime and 55 at night now before we tell you what happened let's meet esther she's now 96. she's sharp and remembers the details about that phone call from franklin so when he called and he said do you remember this guy in a gray uniform and i said sir i do not remember anyone that comes in that door and then i thought uh-oh i remember him and i said wait wait wait a minute and so he grinned and i grinned and that was it esther and franklin hit it off he called her babe and she nicknamed him twink they soon got married franklin became a phoenix firefighter and the couple raised four kids and they spent a great life together in phoenix now since that fateful night when they met at the orpheum almost 80 years have come and gone this is of course all changed franklin passed away in 2000 but as you can see esther just like the renovated orpheum theater is still going strong recently esther's children asked the friends of the orpheum theatre if she could come back and see the beautiful spot where their parents first met and a private tour arranged about an hour and esther told the was stories about what it was like living in phoenix and working at the orpheum before any of her guides were ever even born and the orpheum historians learned a little more from her about the iconic building they love and work diligently to preserve but from here on it looks kind of the same as they left esther and her kids walked the sidewalk in front of the orpheum where franklin waited to buy his ticket back in 1943 a little sad that he couldn't be with them but happy too knowing the building that is such an important part of their past is still standing today my mother always said that before a girl can win you must be sure that he's the that he's the one to make her dreams come true [Music] so when all is [Music] my mother always said that before a boy can wed you must be sure that she's the girl for you you must be sure that he's the man for you i'll say but he's the one to make her dreams come under true umbrella it's plain to see that we are stuck like so when all i stopped is search when i met you when all is [Music] [Music] ready player one [Music] become a defender against disposing household hazardous materials in your trash or recycling containers [Music] [Applause] [Music] level up when you schedule a pickup the city of phoenix now offers household hazardous waste pickups for residential trash and recycling customers you don't need a cheat code for this bonus because it's easy as one two three [Music] one take a break from battling the final boss and go to phoenix.gov public works [Music] hhw and check the list of acceptable household hazardous waste that can be picked up two already have your game on good afternoon welcome to the city of phoenix the city council will meet today but first we will begin with the assisted housing governing board which will convene prior to the start of today's formal city council meeting i will call that meeting to order and ask the city clerk to call the role board member i'm sorry here board member decision board member garcia here board member guardado here board member maggard board member o'brien here board member stark here board member waring vice chair pastor here chairwoman gallego here item three is the review and approval of the january 5th 2022 assisted housing governing board meeting minutes vice chairwoman do we have a motion i move item number three the approval is january 5th 202. assisted housing governing both minutes second we have a martian and a second all those in favor please say aye aye aye any opposed nay passes unanimously we next move to item number four vice mayor or vice chairwoman do we have a motion uh imove uh resolution uh number 213 adoption of the phoenix public housing authorities proposed as asset management budget for fiscal year 2022 and 2023 through 2023 second we have a motion and a second from board member stark any comments roll call i'm sorry yes decisio garcia yes yes maggard o'brien yes stark yes waring yes pastor yes gallego yes that says 8-0 we next move to item number five vice chairwoman yes i move resolution number 214 authorizing the city manager to enter into contracts with cplc gorman and company native american connection reserve at thunderbird garfield veterans housing 2 and um housing 3 to allocate up to 100 u.s department of housing and urban development project-based housing choice vouchers and further authorizing the city manager to take all action and execute all documents to the agreements second we have a motion and a second wonderful to be moving forward on much needed housing questions or comments roll call i'm sorry yes to cecio garcia yes guardado yes maggard o'brien yes stark yes waring yes a store yes gallego yes passes eight zero thank you that concludes the business of the assisted housing governing board we will adjourn next we will move towards our formal city council meeting but before we call that meeting to order we will welcome our fire chaplain nick petrucci for an invocation can we pray please father god we thank you for this day you have blessed us with father i come to you with a heavy and concerned heart for the shooting of another one of our police officers please be with her and her family lay your healing hands upon her lord please be with all our brave officers as they go into the city to protect us and serve us please be with all our first responders as they respond in our behalf please put a hedge of protection around them god thank you for the opportunity to assemble here today with the mayor and the council father i'd like to thank you for your free your words where you tell us of our great nation our state and our city lord please bless us please help us to remember your words blessed is the nation as god as the lord father i would like to thank you for the leadership of our city and every person that works for the city to keep it running father please guide our counsel today as they go through the agenda before them give them wisdom discernment courage and clarity help us to have listening ears and as well as listening hearts as we look at different solutions for the issues we are facing may we take heed to remember the words that are written on our currency as well as the words that we recite in the pledge of allegiance one nation under god and in god we trust father god please bless this meeting today and those in attendance amen thank you please remain standing councilwoman stark will you lead us in the pledge of allegiance thank you please be seated i will now call to order the formal meeting of the phoenix city council will the clerk call the rule councilwoman i'm sorry here councilman dececio here council member garcia here councilwoman guardado here councilwoman o'brien here councilwoman stark here councilman waring here vice mayor pastor here mayor gallego here thank you for joining us today we are joined by mario barajas and elsie duarte who will provide interpretation services mario would you please introduce yourself yes thank you mayor hello my name is mario barajas and together with my colleague elsie duarte we will be serving as spanish interpreters for today's meeting i'll now take a moment to introduce ourselves to our spanish-speaking audience and review some brief instructions my name is thank you mayor thank you mario in part to provide a break for our interpreters as well as our staff it is possible we may take a break during today's council meeting as we have a very impressive agenda with a lot of public comment we welcome all of the public who is participating and we also have special guests today we are joined by the mandela washington fellows young leaders from africa if you could raise your hand so that we can [Applause] we are a global city and it's such an honor to welcome you to join us congratulations on your participation in such a prestigious fellowship i'll now turn to our city clerk to read the 24-hour paragraph the titles of the following ordinance and resolution numbers on the agenda were available to the public at least 24 hours prior to this council meeting and therefore may be read by title or agenda item only ordinances number g6995s48672-48700-48713-48749-48751-48759-48761-48824 and resolutions 22032-22036 thank you i'll next turn to our city attorney thank you mayor members of the public may speak for up to two minutes to comment on agenda items to be discussed comments must be related to the agenda item and the action being considered by the council general comments that go beyond the scope of the agenda item must be made in the citizen comment session at the end of the agenda the city council and staff cannot discuss or comment on matters related to pending investigations claims or litigation the city code requires speakers to present their comments in a respectful and courteous manner profane language threats or personal attacks on members of the public council members or staff are not allowed a person who violates these rules will lose their opportunity to continue to speak thank you item number one is the meeting minutes from july 1st 2020 councilwoman guardado have you had a chance to review them yes we have and we'd like to make a motion to approve the minutes second we have a motion and a second any comments all those in favor please say i i any opposed nay minutes pass unanimously yay starting off on a good note and we continue on a good note uh the council unanimously appointed excellent members of our municipal court system to judges and today i have the pleasure of swearing in judge solomon and judge lowry so if our judges could meet me mayor did we miss boards in commission thank you vice mayor will swear in the judges and then the board members okay thank you congratulations please repeat after me and raise your hand i state your name do solemnly swear that i will support the constitution of the united states and the constitution and laws of the state of arizona that i will bear true faith and allegiance to the same and defend them against all enemies foreign and domestic and that i will faithfully and impartially discharge thee the duties of the office of municipal court judge according to the best of my ability so help me god congratulations we are so appreciative of your service thank you [Applause] so for the record i just want to say swearing in i know the mayor said this but i'm doing it for the record swearing in of judge tina solomon and judge laura lowry [Music] and then i would like to move to boards and commissions i like to make a motion to approve mayor to approve mayor and city council boards and commissions nominations second we have a motion and a second any comments or questions all those in favor please say aye aye aye any opposed nay passes unanimously thank you so much to our citizens who are serving our city the city council provides an advisory position for liquor license to the state of arizona so we will turn to that portion of our agenda in our city clerk could you update us on items that have been removed from the consent agenda from the liquor license portion yes mayor we do have one speaker on item 13 and so i just wanted to mention that before the motion that is here in person wonderful thank you vice mayor do we have a motion motion to approve items 4 through 21 except item 21 and 13. we have a motion and a second all those in favor please say aye aye aye any opposed passes unanimously we next go to item 13 which is an item in council district four so i will turn to the vice mayor for a motion i'm sorry i uh motion to approve second we have a motion and a second on mobile we will turn to leonard clark for comments hello uh thank you mayor and council members for letting me speak my name is leonard clark born right down the street at good samaritan hospital anyways i don't know the applicants for the license i strongly support their application but i'd also like to think that you know in these days it is a mobile gas station in these days of the high gas prices maybe something to help comfort us you know as we go to buy the gas now that it's going to go way way up maybe something would be nice to comfort us not driving but when we get home so thank you very much i do support this liquor license thank you i don't support the price gouging though thank you thank you any comments all those in favor please say aye aye aye any opposed nay passes unanimously we next go to item 21 a corner market also in council district 4 vice mayor motion to disapprove based on city clerk department recommendation for disapproval and neighborhood protest the applicant has not demonstrated that the public convenience and the best interest of the community will substantially serve by the issuance of this liquor license we have a motion and a second we have residents participating both virtually and in person on this one we'll begin with speakers in the council chambers if you could come forward to the podium we will first have a toll grover followed by peter shell street good afternoon madam mayor council members my name is atul grover and i represent the store requesting a series 9 license for this location this will be our second location we had no liquor violation on our first one we are small business and we'll always be present at this location now i know we have several protests on this but i want to emphasize on the difference between the previous operator and us we are not a chain restaurant where the management is sitting somewhere in canada we'll be at this location every day all year round we the difference between us also is the previous operator had a series 10 license which is a license to sell hard liquors we are not selling hard liquor we only interested in beer and wine and even in beer and wine our emphasis will be on craft and high-end wine bottles not the single cans or wall liquor that would promote the transients to come in and abuse our hours would be limited we won't be 24 hours will be 7 a.m to 11 p.m so it's not a 24-hour operation we don't cater those items that would promote the views like uh anything that you know they use the oil burners and stuff we we don't do that uh at our location we we're family members you know we we don't want to have those kind of people coming into our store even in our neighborhood um we won't promote any loitering we'll be signing uh with the city with the police department uh the uh the which is called then you know that they can all we we can tell people not to trespass if they are causing issues we won't let them lower around and lastly uh just want to say please don't judge us on the with the same paintbrush as you did circle k we're completely different and that's what i asked for thank you peter will be next uh in support followed by kyle baker and john kitchell in opposition uh yes my name is pete chelsea i'm the attorney for the applicant when we fill out the card it was only if necessary so i'm here available to answer any questions um i will say though in the next couple weeks we plan on having a doughnut and free free donut and free coffee for the neighborhood to come out see the new location and meet the owners and um if there's not any questions so thank you and i apologize you did mark only if necessary any questions all right thank you kyle baker will be next followed by john good afternoon my name is kyle baker and i am here to oppose the issuance of the liquor license at aa's corner mart at 4601 north 12th street i have lived around the corner just a few houses in for almost 10 years and since the closure of the previous tenant we have experienced a dramatic reduction of trash in the street and in our yards the bulk of which were [Music] were alcohol related bottles fewer break-ins vandalisms and other disturbing crimes we no longer experience intoxicated individuals screaming late at night in front of our houses stumbling in front of cars or even passed out in the street which was not uncommon and overall the neighborhood has transitioned to a much more peaceful place where we feel more at ease i know that in the 10 years that i have lived there the closure of that previous store it's been the the best thing to happen to our neighborhood and so i ask you to consider the best interest of our community by not issuing the liquor license thank you john is next followed by lea trees last mayor and council members i'm john kitchell have lived in the neighborhood since uh 98 and we've been building that neighborhood for years we've driven out four drug houses over those years one three times we've remodeled six different houses in the neighborhood just finished a four unit complex on 14th street in highland and we are community builders the most important thing we've done for the neighborhood that's taken us 20 years to do is by the trailer park on 14th place south of highland put in in the 50s and the blight of the neighborhood we've been working with all the trailer owners moved them out successfully have a few left to do uh this week and next and uh fortunately some of them got great help from the from the city in either relocating or in moving their trailers so we have into city of phoenix now our site plan for duplexes and fourplexes on that property much like the units we built on 14th street in the highland we've also been building in the rest of the city central core we did windsor on central north of camelback we put changing hands bookstore in the old beefeater restaurant remodeled that lucy's on 12th street north of glendale and the most recent project we did was two older office buildings on third or fourth avenue and camelback called the rise hotel now so the community building that we're doing is serious and expansion expansive enough to improve the neighborhood tremendously and i don't see this as an asset to the neighborhood at all thank you very much thank you leatrice is next followed by view mcdonald's hello mayor city council members um my name is litris kitchell i live in the neighborhood i've lived in canal north neighborhood for over 28 years i'm also the president of canal north neighborhood association we are just a block watch neighborhood association and for the last 26 years our neighborhood has suffered with what a convenience store in the middle of our neighborhood brings we've seen transient drug deals prostitution our children are afraid to go outside at night and even in the mornings this new store coming into our neighborhood is not necessary we have an upscale wine and beer store just a few blocks away as well as another convenience smart in a gas station one block away on behalf of canal north neighborhood we plead with the city of phoenix licensed services and city council to not award a liquor license for the applications submitted by aa's corner mart our neighborhood cannot endure the activity this store will bring to our neighborhoods of crime and fear for our livelihood thank you thank you mr mcdonald is next followed by jeff peterson hello my name is beau mack dannell and i live on meadowbrook just down the street from the proposed liquor license site a couple of notes is on the agenda some of the crime statistics that were running here i'm not sure what the time frame was but a more accurate depiction of what happens in our neighborhood would have been run previous to the store's closure in january of 2019. it was daily the police were called down there the reason why circle k closed that location was because the number of armed robberies and violent incidents that happened at that location it wasn't just because they weren't making money with all due respect to the applicants representative earlier i don't think that the people that are robbing that store or doing beer runs care what kind of liquor or alcohol they're carrying they're going to do it anyway we're tired of finding the drug paraphernalia empty bottles and cans all over the neighborhood it's not safe we've had an influx of children move into our neighborhood in the last two years since that store's closure and it's not an asset to the neighborhood and we don't need them going out into the streets finding things because they're out with their families and trying to enjoy the neighborhood unfortunately for the applicant there's things that they cannot control for this neighborhood some of those things are the halfway homes and transitional homes that border our neighborhood which are the supplying the homeless and transient people that are the ones coming through our neighborhood to visit the store and they're the ones doing the beer runs and doing whatever they want i also visited their other location that they say that they managed personally every day he was not president there was a non-management person there running the store and there were visible people on the front of the store doing drugs loitering homeless people on the side of the building on two different occasions so i don't believe that they're going to be there managing the situation and whether they're close at night or not is not going to stop the problem from coming during the daytime we've had violent incidences where drunken people come from that store ran a knife down my neighbor's truck right in the middle of the daytime that we had to follow down the street and was subsequently arrested on multiple felony charges down the street from our house we really urge you to deny the liquor license and help keep our our community that we worked so hard to improve safe thank you thank you jeff is next followed by brianna who is participating virtually good afternoon thank you for having me here today my office is directly across the street from the property we have been in that office building for 40 years we've owned it we've ran our company there for 40 years now kind of beat some of these guys while we're trying our best previously the convenience store there was a major part problem you've already heard a bunch of these things before we had blight noise drunkenness passed out people in my on my doorstep on a regular basis if you look at the crime reports you can see their massive problems through the years after 19 when they stopped being there the crime went away absolutely went away where before it was there we were picking up trash every day from either blowing over or being dumped in our property we had to escort our clients and staff in and out of the building because we're concerned about the people that were hanging out we had vehicles broken into damaged our building was vandalized these are real problems we faced traffic was a very large issue people coming and going the number of activities the accidents around that corner of 12th and meadow brook was serious since that business has closed it is night and day we have had very very few problems and these other folks live in the neighborhood will agree with me it has been night and day and wonderful we fear and and to these gentlemen we have to say we fear that if this is there again we're going to have all these same issues and all the work we've been putting in for years and years and years will have a will be lost and will have too big of a negative impact so we please suggest and hope that you will not support the issuance of this license thank you thank you we will next go to brianna participating virtually followed by april thank you mayor and city council members my name is brianna choi i own and work out of an office building that's about a three minute walk away from 4601 north 12th street in addition from 2016 to 2021 i leased office space from 4600 north 12th street which is directly across the street from the 4601 property when it was circle k that sold liquor when circle k was open we had our offices broken into in the middle of the night by someone who the police concluded just looking for money to buy drugs and alcohol um there were constantly people loitering outside that circle k it was not uncommon to see police and police tape around that store due to what we were told were robberies it it we we did not feel safe leaving after dark i had to instruct my staff to not leave after dark because we feared for our safety eventually we noticed the circle k even hired a live security guard when the circle came closed it was a huge release the area felt much safer so so much different so much safer my partner and i actually purchased um the building that were in in june of 2021 unfortunately we do still have some problems with vagrants loitering trash several times a week i have to pick up liquor bottles beer bottles cans drug paraphernalia use needles food wrappers and other trash people come and ask use our toilet they use our water spigot for showers they stash their belongings including their drugs around our building i've literally filled our dumpster with items that were stashed around our building one time we've invested well over ten thousand dollars in the security system to have 24 hour monitoring it's an ongoing problem but i am hopeful it can get better and having a liquor store or a place that sells liquor return to 4601 north 12th street it's not going to help it get any better i see young children walking all by themselves at the corner of 12th and campbell and i'm a mother and it scares me i see residents in the area walking their dogs and jogging and i fear for their safety and i don't think having a store that fills liquor is in the best interest of the community and i it was not good before and it will not be a good thing if it comes back thank you thank you april is next uh yes hello your honor and council members my name is april thatch i own the property that sits at the corner of 14th street and meadowbrook and um to echo a lot of the residents and business owners sentiments i too had a lot of trash uh my property the long end of my property goes uh the east-west side of meadowbrook and same thing drug paraphernalia needles busted glass i've lived in this home since i purchased it in january of 2018. um i've had people come on my property use my spigots steal my fruit in the trees that i've planted i there's a gate that i had fabricated steel that is eight feet high and 12 feet long because they were coming onto my property in the back um casita about my guest house um i've had bougainvilleas installed along the property fence line in the front um almost eight feet tall plenty suckle hedges my car has been broken into and vandalized guests domestic squabbles people sitting on the corners i have two flood irrigation cement boxes that sit on either corner of my property line uh people passed out fighting um in in my property just and when it stopped happening it was because i was having a conversation with the neighbor and they said yeah that that circle k closed and i said wow okay because i was beginning to feel unsafe um and thinking about leaving the area renting out my home or selling my home um so again as they are saying this is not in the best interest just simply because of the turnaround which is definitely contributed to our increased property values um a lot of the changes that the kitchens have been making i've seen for myself are why i bought this home pacific community i ask that you deny this application thank you for your time today thank you we are also joined today in the council chambers by akash sethi who is in support of this and available to speak if necessary and alison king who is participating virtually and she is in opposition so akash in support alison in opposition allison is also available to speak if necessary and we are joined by our deputy city clerk leah swanton as well do any council members have questions or comments roll call i'm sorry yes decision yes o'brien yes stark yes waring yes pasteur yes gallego yes passes 9-0 thank you that concludes the liquor license portion of our agenda again we provide an advisory role to the state of arizona we next go to the order of the meeting vice mayor do you have a motion motion to suspend the rules and change the order of business to take 71 and 72 out of order and after item 199. second we have a motion in a second all those in favor please say aye aye councilmember garcia make a comment please um yeah okay should we try to think if we should just finish denise our city clerk we've consulted and we will let's finish the nays so all those opposed please say nay no councilmember garcia thank you just to explain my vote i don't understand why we're doing this i know a lot of folks signed up on online and are here in person to speak and took their time to be here if we are going to do this maybe we think about it before we put the agenda out knowing that people are going to come and have comments and so we are during working hours people have taken time off of work have looked for child care have figured out ways to be available to make comments and i don't think it's fair that we're shifting this last minute for them thank you city clerk are we ready for ordinances resolution new business and planning and zoning yes mayor vice mayor are you ready for a motion motion are we ready here we go uh motion to approve items 22 through 199 except the following items 26 27 29 31 62 through 69 70 71 through 72 75 100 103 115 118 127 133 142 153 199 noting that item 93 is as advised item 63 is as advised item 198 is withdrawn and excluding these items for virtual public comment items 64 69 71 72 89 115 140 188 189 and 199 and can the clerk confirmed if there are any other items that should be excluded for in-person public comments yes excluding thank you vice mayor mayor members of the council also excluding items 35 97 142 143 148 151 and 170 and i will repeat items 35 97 142 143 148 151 and 170. second the motion great motion second yes thank you vice mayor that was perhaps the most complicated uh motion we've had in in quite a while and since we had static just so everyone can hear item 93 is as revised item 163 is as revised any other comments or corrections roll call i'm sorry yes to cco yes garcia yes guardado yes o'brien yes stark yes waring yes pastor yes diego yes passes 9-0 items 26 27 29 and 31 are memberships related to the water department uh vice mayor do you have a motion on 26 27 29 and 31. i have uh the motion is for 20 i have i'm a little confused all right then let's move item 26 26 27 29 and 31 are individual votes okay so should i lump them or should i just um councilman waring prefers to vote on 26 individually so are we comfortable counseling wearing 27 through 20 29 27 29 and 31 together all right so vice mayor just a motion on 26. okay i uh moved item 26 second we have a motion and a second comments roll call i'm sorry yes decision no garcia yes guardado yes o'brien yes stark yes waring yes pastor yes gallego yes that says 8-1 thank you given the news on the colorado river and the importance of of water in our desert i'm certainly excited to support these memberships and getting great information as well as tools to manage our water vice mayor do we have a motion on 27 29 and 31 i move those 27 through uh can i go 27 29 and 31 seconds motion and a second comments roll call i'm sorry yes to cecile no garcia yes guardado yes o'brien yes stark yes waring no pastor yes yes passes 7-2 we next move to item 35 which is a payment ordinance to apple vice mayor do we have a motion i move item 35 second you have a motion in a second leonard clark is here for comment mayor and council for letting me speak my name is leonard clark uh i believe i put neutral um i'm concerned and uh you know i'm not known as a fiscal conservative but i am concerned since we are purchasing from the largest i'm not sure is of the last data data however you want to see it that the apple corporation being the largest corporation had an out of court settlement for you know batterygate as it was unofficially known through 2014 to 2016 because they were slowing down allegedly slowing down actually it wasn't alleged they said that people's iphones and other i apple devices they said it was to keep the uh the devices from becoming obsolete others said they were doing it which you know would cause people to think they needed new devices i want to make sure that our tax money in the city of phoenix we have to make sure that the apple corporation has learned its lesson i'm not sure if it applied to the macbooks but this is quite a large sum of money um yes they had a lot out of court settlement i guess and so they weren't guilty officially of anything but i want to make sure that our apple macbooks that our officers are using aren't going to become obsolete because they use some alleged scheme to slow down their batteries which cause millions of us to have to go out and buy apple iphones city of phoenix should not be suckered into this so i would like to make sure that cautions are made assurance assurances are given from apple corporation that they will not be slowing down their devices unless we know about it and we approve of it i don't want us to have to go buy these devices again because they're up to their shenanigans they being the largest corporation in the world apple incorporated the forbidden fruit as it were so anyways thank you i appreciate you letting me speak in this beautiful city and i know i wouldn't be allowed to do this in communist china so i appreciate it and i hope you'll take those cautions when you vote yes for this because i don't want the city of phoenix getting ripped off for these apple macbooks thank you thank you any questions or comments from council members roll call i'm sorry yes decision yes garcia yes yes o'brien yes stark yes waring yes pastor yes yes passes 9-0 thank you we next begin special proceedings related to the city of phoenix budget item 62 is a public hearing on the proposed property tax levy truth in taxation and adoption of the final 2022-23 annual budget i now declare the hearing open we will turn to councilman o'brien for a comment mayor i actually have questions please thank you and we will welcome our budget and research director amber williamson awesome amber amber i just want to ensure that i'm correct in understanding that we're actually lowering the primary property tax rate in phoenix yes councilwoman o'brien mayor members the council that's correct the primary property tax rate is decreasing from roughly by less than a cent and it's doing that only because of the two percent constitutional levy limit is why it's decreasing so and the secondary property tax rate is not raising either not the woman o'brien mayor members of the council that's correct it's at 81.41 and that has not changed for next fiscal year okay and then you mentioned the two percent increase and or the increase in the property tax can you explain that additionally councilwoman o'brien mayor members of the council the property tax revenue is anticipated to increase next year by roughly 4 percent but the primary property tax rate is declining the revenue is anticipated to increase because of increases in limited property values which is what calculates our net assessed value and determines our actual revenue collections okay so this lower tax rate is also rolled into our budget councilwoman o'brien may remember the council yes that's correct and so when we vote on the budget today we will be voting to lower the property tax rates for city citizens in phoenix councilwoman o'brien mayor members of the council yes and we'll be coming back on july 1st for the actual property tax levy adoption okay i just wanted to be clear that when we vote on our budget we will not be in voting on to increase taxes this notice is purely as a result of the increased valuation assessment of the housing market announce women obama members of council that's correct the property tax rate is not increasing thank you so much thank you mayor thank you important clarifications uh we have been and i'll go to councilman to cco in a moment well i'll go councilman decision go ahead oh thank you mayor so the reason myself and others helped write the truth and taxation legislation was for this very debate so that individuals couldn't say they were lowering the tax rate because there are two variables that are involved and i think staff did a good job of explaining it your cost your home and that's cost but the value of your home and the tax rate itself determines how much you pay is that we use the stable number which is the amount of money that you pay so by voting for the budget you are actually voting to raise taxes you are raising taxes because your revenue is higher it's not that complicated so you know it's something that's meant to keep everybody and there's a reason why this standard was developed many many years ago was to use one number to be able to make it easy for people to understand whether or not their taxes were going to go up and a vote for this would raise taxes period it's not just about the rate or about someone's property value it's the combination of the two is how this was meant to be created so that you can look at it and it's an easy and transparent way to make that determination thank you mayor thank you i think in your opening comment you said we could not say we are lowering the property tax rate and that is in fact what we are doing and we have lowered the property tax rate in recent years as well so i just i think councilman o'brien clarified that well i i do i didn't mean to say it that way if that's what came across me i apologize but it's meant to be and to say that a vote for this is raising taxes not necessarily about the rate itself because that's just one variable thank you mayor thank you additional comments the public hearing is closed item 63 is the convening of a special meeting of the city council to consider adoption of the final 2022-23 budget vice mayor mayor in accordance with the state statute i move that the regular meeting of the city council be recessed and the city council convened a special meeting to consider adoption of the final 2022-2023 budget second we have a motion and a second is there any discussion all those in favor please say aye aye aye aye aye item 64 is the adoption of the final 2022-23 operating funds budget vice mayor mayor i moved that item 64 being or being ordinance s-48719 the final 2022-2023 operating funds budget be adopted second we have a motion and a second we do have members of the public here to comment we'll begin with leonard clark in support of the budget in council chambers followed by anna hernandez thank you mayor and council members my name is leonard clark yes i've been one of the most vocal people when it comes to funding of our police officers but never did i want it to be known that police officers should be hated just as the people that they serve this hate thing has got out of control therefore i know this is going to be also decided in another section this whole defund the police this whole hate the police and then same thing if there are officers if there are bad apples that are not serving the public and hate the people then let them been taken be taken care of individually that's all we're asking for but you know i'm tired of when i drive in phoenix of people coming up to me tailgating me these enraged people taking out their rage whatever it is you know it's getting so dangerous to drive on the streets of phoenix not now there's not enough officers because people know what they can just do what they want with impunity people driving 80 miles an hour and 40 mile per hour zones so i'm saying stop with this hate on both sides it's gone too far it's tearing our country apart it's tearing our city apart we just had an officer ambushed because of somebody probably hating the officer this hate has got to stop if there's an officer who's out being cool to people then let them be held accountable we need to do that but this business about hating every officer out there and saying oh we can't raise our raise any more officers because of that has just gone too far we need for our citizens to have at least some enforcement of the law so i'm sorry uh i just think that we we do have to have more officers now i think we need to attract them because most officers who want to work here in phoenix know that they're going to be hated they know that they're probably going to be ambushed and that's got to stop too that's why i've always supported the civilian commission okay i don't know how far that's gotten it's got to stop on both sides we ask for accountability i'm not a police officer but i also know we need more officers and by the way officers have sacrificed their lives they're not all evil are there evil officers yes are there evil people who claim to be fighting for justice yes you can't paint with a broad bush broad brush all of our officers or all of the black lives matter people i don't come from them their background and what they've gone through so please raise the raise the amount of money we need for more officers and please stop you know this road rage out on the streets of people in phoenix you know just coming up on us speeding uh it's it's gotten out of hand so yes i it's not easy for me to you know know that i know people who know me will say hey why are you saying this because i'm not going to hate that's why thank you thank you next is anna hernandez and then we will go to virtual participation to [Music] miss flores good afternoon council mayor gallego so here we are once again talking about the same thing we've been talking about every year and y'all use the justification to increase police budget by 63 million dollars this year as the reasoning public safety but we have the data that shows that officers do not keep us safe we do we officers aren't addressing our needs in public education officers aren't preventing providing shelter for our unsheltered folks that are dying on the streets from heat officers aren't helping families ensure they have access to food officers aren't helping anybody that's dealing with the mental health issue officers do not help anybody that deals with a substance use issue what we do know is that if we invest into people that would make our community safer if we invest into our education if we invest into our housing our sheltered folks that creates public safety and contrary to what some people think we don't hate cops we hate the system the system is corrupt the system is built on white supremacy and racist movements we are only advocating for the sanctity of human life and we will continue to show up while we know that you will still approve this budget with the with the 63 million dollar increase to phoenix pd we will continue to show up just to make you aware that we are listening and we are paying attention to how you all vote because eventually some of us will come to take over some of these seats as i've told you previously start looking at people start looking at human life come knock on doors with me to talk to the residents of maryvale to see what they really need because it is not police i invite y'all to come join me they want resources they need resources that's what we're here for and that's what we're going to continue to discuss year after year until y'all read the room and understand what we are deserving of thank you that we had a speaker drop on this one so uh we will go to council member commons roll call i'm sorry yes to cco no garcia no guardado yes o'brien yes stark yes waring yes passes 6-3 item 65 is the adoption of the final 2022-23 capital funds budget vice mayor mayor i move that item 65 being ordinance s 48 764 the final 2022 2023 capital funds budget be adopted second we have a motion and a second comments on capital funds roll call i'm sorry yes to cco yes garcia yes yes o'brien yes stark yes waring pastor yes gallego yes passes 8-1 item 66 is the adoption of the final 2022-23 reappropriated funds budget vice mayor uh mayor i move that item 66 being ordinance s 48 720 the final 2022 reappropriated funds budget be adopted second we have a motion and a second comments roll call i'm sorry yes decisio yes garcia yes yes o'brien yes stark yes waring yes pastor yes yes passes 9-0 vice mayor mayor i move the city council adjourn the special meeting second i have a motion in a second is there any discussion all those in favor please say aye aye motion carries the special meeting is adjourned i hereby declare that the special meeting is concluded and i hereby reconvene the regular city council meeting items 67 68 and 69 are legally required amendments to the current 2021-22 budget allowing the city to close out the current fiscal year's budgetary accounts and proceed with the annual independent audit item 67 amends the 2021 22 annual budget for operating funds to authorize real kiting appropriations vice mayor i move that item 67 being ordinance s 48 717 the required reallocation of the 21 22 annual budget for operating funds be adopted second the clerk will call the roll i'm sorry yes to cco no garcia yes yes o'brien yes stark yes waring pastor yes gallego yes passes 7-2 item 68 amends the 21-22 capital funds budget to authorize reallocating appropriations vice mayor mayor i move that item 68 being ordinance s-48 763 the required reallocation of the 2021-2022 capital funds budget be adopted second comments the clerk will call the roll i'm sorry yes to cecio yeah garcia yes yes o'brien yes stark yes waring yes pastor yes gallego yes passes 9-0 item 69 amends the 21-22 final reappropriation budget to authorize reallocating appropriations vice mayor mayor i move that item 69 being ordinance s 48 718 the required reallocation of the 2021 2022 final reappropriation budget be adopted second comments roll call i'm sorry yes decisio yes garcia yes guardado yes o'brien yes stark yes waring yes pastor yes yes passes 9-0 thank you so much thank you to our budget team we next move to item 70 the proposed update to the pension plan's funding policy we will have two votes on this policy and um this is an exercise to talk about how we will fund our city pension and just wanted to again put on the record that some of us including myself are not supportive of pension obligation bonds vice mayor i make a motion to approve staff's recommendation to adopt the annual copper's pension funding policy and acknowledge the assets and liabilities of of the copper's plan second we have a motion and a second comments mayor i need to declare a potential conflict on this vote thank you roll call noting councilman stark will not be participating i'm sorry yes decisio yes garcia yes guardado yes o'brien yes waring yes a store yes gallego yes passes 8-0 vice mayor do you have a second motion i make a motion to approve staff's recommendation to adopt the annual psprs pension funding policy and acknowledge the assets and liabilities of the psprs plan second we have a motion and a second comments roll call i'm sorry yes does cco yes garcia yes yes o'brien yes stark yes waring yes pastor yes gallego yes passes 9-0 we move to item 75 which is our public health fellowship intergovernmental agreement and i'll turn to councilwoman ansari thank you mayor i am very glad to see that phoenix is using arpa funds to fund and invest in a public health fellow who will be working on addressing barriers for treatment communication with providers and identifying unmet needs we know that the opioid epidemic has had continued continued damage to our city and it was incredible to see some form of justice arrive in the recent settlement cases with pharmaceutical companies who have been responsible from may 2020 to april 2021 100 300 people nationwide have reportedly died from a drug overdose and arizona saw a 28.5 increase during that period which is extremely alarming we did an interview in my office on this very subject yesterday specifically how it impacts our unhoused population with ash us who is the executive director of from the ground up and who's been working with us on the new shelter at 28th street as well as nathan smith from the phoenix rescue mission and given that conversation i think it would be incredibly valuable and i hope that this fellow will dedicate at least some of their time toward working with this specific community and with that i move to approve item 75. second okay motion and a second comments roll call i'm sorry yes to cco yes garcia yes yes o'brien yes stark yes waring yes pastor yes gallego yes passes 9-0 item 89 is prostitution solicitation diversion program do we have a motion i like to move item 89 second we do have lynn from the city of phoenix available to speak if necessary does anyone have questions i have a question mayor council uh vice mayor um i just wanted to know uh if we're how we're collecting i guess data knowing how effective this diversion program is or there's metrics around this wonderful and for our city staff should we go to lynn all right um lynn is available um [Applause] and um maybe vice mayor so did were you able to hear the questions all right we'll turn mayor mayor vice mayor uh council member i do have some information uh regarding the program my name is mark warzik i'm an assistant bureau chief with the prosecutor's office and the success rate for the program in fiscal year 2021 2020 was a 94 uh success rate uh meaning people that enrolled in the program successfully completed it for fiscal year uh 2020 to 2019 it was an 84 success rate in 2019 2018 it was 95 thank you thank you um i just wanted to highlight that i wanted to thank catholic charities for the work that they were doing uh with the diversion program so thank you mayor thank you question councilman o'brien thank you mayor um can you tell us if we are tracking the recidivism rate no that doesn't necessarily translate to a recidivism rate unfortunately we have not done an official study on the recidivism rate associated with this particular program but we would be happy the prosecutor's office would be happy to look into doing a study on that okay i would appreciate that i applaud the work that's being done in the successful completion rate but i think the more important data would be the long-term data and how many folks end up maybe potentially going back and being arrested again down the road thank you thank you mayor if i may i have a this is lori i may add a bit of information to that councilwoman the intent is for us to commission asu to conduct a study which would include the recidivism rates of the prosecution diversion program as well as some of the other diversion programs that we have in place so we will be bringing that to public safety and justice subcommittee in the fall excellent thank you so much roll call of council member garcia great roll call i'm sorry yes to cco yes garcia mayor my experimental vote thank you um there's been historical concerns from members and organizations of the lgbtq community when it comes to these types of programs especially how they treat the trans community i wasn't briefed or we haven't been briefed on this issue so i don't feel comfortable supporting it i think i've said this before i think diversion programs should fundamentally um not be faith-based um especially when we're trying to protect all communities and especially during pride month do not feel comfortable moving forward with his vote so no yes o'brien yes stark yes waring yes a store i am a yes but i would like to ask staff a question or can i can we complete the roll call sure gallego yes passes eight one and councilwoman since you did ask questions before do would it be possible for you to be briefed separately i just want to put it on the record okay uh kelly head so i just wanted after hearing uh councilman garcia's concern uh i would like to know uh in particular with the trans and lgbt community uh to look at that uh concern and see uh if anything what we can do so i just want to put that on the record thank you and our city leadership has has responded in the affirmative we next move to item 100 request to enter into a contract with arizona career pathways for arpa workforce we next moved to 97. yeah they i'm like okay did i miss up mayor i'd like to move uh item 97 second we have a motion and a second on item 97 and do we do we have a leonard clark thank you uh mayor and council i'm a proud tree hugger the more trees we have in phoenix the better but the reason i'm saying that is uh i see that you're asking to approve some type of solar agreement which i think it's great to have more solar power but i would like you i would urge you to support i believe there's an appeal going on right now that doesn't just allow aps srp and the rest to allegedly monopolize rooftop solar driving out some people i actually know small business people who were making i mean everybody was getting solar panels and suddenly only aps srp these types of monopoly power utilities were allowed to basically put up the rooftop solar because they made it such that it wasn't worth it to the smaller people so a lot of people can't get rooftop solar now we have to go to them we're in the sixth extinction and nobody's i mean really at the top i know that you can't really panic the people but we are in an extreme dangerous uh situation right now and uh you know where today what another uh heat advisory is declared so i would ask that in addition to voting on on this in the future support the uh appeal so that rooftop solar can truly come back to arizona and the uh you know we need solar everywhere like in south korea bridges across their their rivers they have for the the bicycle paths uh the shading is is solar we should have that everywhere this is crazy that we don't and i'm sorry to my conservative friends if you don't believe in man-made global climate change i'm sorry then you don't believe 99 of the scientists except for maybe the one percent paid by exxon so please i'm not against approving this i hope you do but please understand that we are being citizens are being denied being able to put up rooftop solar this is an emergency we are in a sixth extinction okay so we better do something we need more rooftop solar we need solar everywhere thank you thank you and item 97 is the solar communities program which provides a 15 monthly credit to our city housing residents on their electric bills and is a partnership with aps to install solar at city housing facilities which also gives the city a credit comments roll call i'm sorry yes decisio yes garcia yes yes o'brien yes stark yes waring yes pasteur yes gallego yes we now move to item 100 noting that councilwoman pastor will not be participating in this item do we have a motion i move to approve one uh item 100 second we have a motion in a second comments roll call i'm sorry yes to cco yeah garcia yes guardado yes o'brien yes stark yes waring yes gallego yes passes 8-0 and a huge thank you to kweilyn and the whole team who made this one possible we next go to item 103 early childhood education expansion do we have a motion i move item 103 second i'll turn to councilwoman guardado for question comments just wanted to say um that this is um very exciting um that we've been able to do this we worked hard to ensure that we used to address gaps in early childhood education i am excited to see that both the alhambra and washington elementary school districts in district five will be benefiting from the investment of the six million over the over the next two years as everyone knows um our students have been greatly hit through this pandemic so very excited to see um these funds going to the school districts thank you mayor thank you in addition to that great district 5 news we also want to congratulate deer valley fowler and the greater phoenix urban league our key partners on investing in our young people the future of phoenix any additional comments roll call i'm sorry yes to cecio yeah garcia yes yes o'brien yes stark yes waring yes pastor yes gallego yes that says 9-0 the good news continues with item 115 the transportation electrification plan councilman arsari has been our leader on this and i will turn to her thank you mayor um first of all i actually wanted to thank mayor gallego for establishing this ad hoc committee and entrusting us with staff for and for drafting this action plan um over the past year we have held over 30 committee meetings over a dozen community meetings and collected over 300 survey responses from the public to help shape this action plan our ad hoc committee consisted of 15 members representing a diverse area array of expertise including auto manufacturers like general motors and nicola advocacy groups like chispas sweep and mom's clean air force utilities like aps and srp and many more i truly believe that this action plan puts us on the right path to prepare for the near future when the majority of vehicles sold will be electric as electric vehicles become more affordable and more numerous with many manufacturers making commitments to completely phasing out gas-powered cars and with more and more used electric vehicles being sold this action plan will help guide phoenix as we work to make sure our residents have access to the infrastructure needed to power their cars one of the goals in this plan that i'm particularly excited about is to install 500 public charging stations by 2030. another really strong piece of this plan is its focus on equity we realize that there are currently many barriers to ev adoption especially in low income and underserved communities this plan specifically outlines goals that prioritize investment in these communities and utilizes community input to address their specific needs we've also included recommendations around home workplace and employee charging infrastructure that includes streamlining permitting processes and proposes ev ready building codes phoenix has some of the worst air pollution in the united states which results in increased asthma rates in our children higher cancer rates and more high pollution days transportation and in particular gas-powered cars are the leading source of greenhouse gas emissions and pollution in our city so this transition is crucial to cleaning up our air and improving public health i also want to point out that this action plan does not exist in a vacuum it's only one part of a broader range of actions the city is taking to improve our transportation sector and make it more sustainable we also have our climate action plan the transportation 2050 plan and the road safety action plan all of these goals need to work together to not only electrify the vehicles on our on our roads but also reduce the number of vehicles on our roads phoenix needs to be encouraging and expanding access to public transportation and in my opinion free public transportation prioritizing pedestrians and cyclists and eliminating traffic fatalities in phoenix transportation electrification will work hand in hand with these goals not against them i would also want to use this opportunity to invite the public city staff and my colleagues on the diocese to an event that we're hosting tomorrow evening from 5 to 8 p.m in downtown phoenix in celebration of phoenix's work on transportation electrification we will have a panel with several of our ad hoc committee members present an eevee showcase featuring ev models and electric micro mobility and great food and drinks so i'm so proud to finally vote to approve this action plan and look forward to working with staff to move towards implementation and with that i move to approve item 115. second thank you we have a motion and a second we have members both virtually and in person to provide testimony we will begin virtual with murphy bannerman followed by doug bland hello um my name is murphy banderman and i am speaking on behalf of western resource advocates for 33 years wra has advocated on behalf of the west land air and water and is in support of idol 115 we want to thank councilwoman ansari for fostering this policy in conjunction with the public and advocacy groups as mentioned before phoenix has some of the worst air quality in the country with many residents seeing the smog hanging over our city nearly every day and so this is a great step in addressing the ongoing air issues in our city and in our state the transportation electrification plan can help support the transition to cleaner air improve the health of phoenix residents and reduce the number of harmful co2 emissions which are contributing to the ongoing effects of climate change in phoenix the science is clear we must reduce co2 emissions by 51 by 2030 in order to keep global heating within two degrees celsius and avoid the worst effects of climate change the clock is ticking for the city to act and therefore it is critical that this plan is finished on time and does not fall behind additionally as the federal government works to develop a national ev infrastructure and standardization plan nevi we urge the council to work with the federal government local employers developers and other groups to make sure this plan is completed as quickly as possible once again i want to thank councilwoman ansari and the city staff for their work on this agenda item and we urge the council to approve and adopt this plan additionally i wanted to mention we are in support of item 117 as well thank you thank you so much doug is next followed by diane brown council members my name is reverend doug bland i'm executive director for arizona interfaith power and light a spiritual response to the climate crisis i would like to thank councilwoman ansari for her leadership on this plan i'm calling to urge approval with one important caveat yesterday we sent out an action alert to faith leaders inviting them to support this plan i received one response that i want to feature a colleague writes in terms of the outreach to low-income and working people will this include a subsidy to buy an electric vehicle to me this is a waste of city money when we have more than a thousand people homeless on the streets perhaps we don't need a network of electric charging station that a few will use when millions need to be spent on affordable housing i wrote back thank you i agree that addressing the needs of unsheltered people on phoenix streets must take precedence especially when killer heat is threatening their lives last year more than 300 people half of them homeless died in maricopa county because of the heat which gets worse and worse every year because of climate change which is one of the reasons we need to kick our addiction to fossil fuels which is one of the reasons we need evs and ev charging station poverty homelessness and climate change are all wicked problems that we must attack from multiple directions there's no perfect solution and we can't let the perfect be the enemy of the good as faith leaders in phoenix we call on the city council to center both the needs of disadvantaged communities and our poison planet home pope francis and other faith leaders insist that we must hear both the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor phoenix faith leaders support this plan to make sure that we do both thank you very much thank you reverend we next have diane followed by ingrid martinez good afternoon mayor gallego members of the city council thank you for the opportunity to speak today my name is diane brown i'm the executive director of the arizona public interest research group arizona perg a statewide public interest advocacy organization in our report transform transportation we provide a road map to steer arizona towards transportation options to save consumers money and protect public health a roadmap that includes public transit active transportation and electric vehicles to increase transportation options for phoenix residents in visitors we appreciate the leadership of mayor gallego and members of the city council who have worked hard to increase public transit and today we especially want to recognize and appreciate the leadership and hard work of councilwoman ansari and staff for the transportation electrification plan which we encourage you to approve by adopting the transportation electrification plan phoenix can continue on the road to saving taxpayers money while also improving air quality and public health reasons supported by residents that provided input on the plan through numerous public presentations online survey responses and social media engagement the components of the transportation electrification plan provide a path towards ensuring necessary infrastructure and staffing exists to realize the plan's economic and health benefits in particular we strongly support the city transitioning its vehicle fleet to electric as soon as possible to realize fuel and maintenance cost savings and we support and encourage the city to apply for federal competitive grants available for ev charging infrastructure and to continue to work with utilities to help address the city's needs and educate the public in closing we encourage the council to approve the plan and we also encourage staff to engage with other municipalities within mag and with adot as they develop their plan for federal infrastructure funding please support thank you uh ingrid is next followed by david portugal hello and good afternoon my name is inger martinez i am 16 years old and i'm part of the organization called chispa the city council must hold themselves accountable for the pollution in our city the lack of action towards the shift of electric vehicle transit has had a significant effect in our air quality this has strongly impacted our lower income communities we are still experiencing the effects of a growing economy by being exposed to constant amounts of smoke darshan corwett an aerospace engineer published research providing evidence that provides support air quality is mostly seen in west and south phoenix with that comes health issues asthma rates in children and western cell areas are drastic drastically higher compared to the high income better air quality white gentleman communities children innocent children who just want to be outside and enjoy some fun my generation is constantly fighting for racial equality though it seems that we are moving forward the recent events has told us otherwise this is not only about climate justice but also about the acknowledgement of inequality as leaders and representatives of our city you need to show that there is no line of indifference we all deserve to breathe clean air no matter our skin color or social status investing in our community will benefit us by lifting the line of indifference the city of phoenix must show their ambition and passion to make the change with electric vehicle transit roadmap thank you thank you david is next followed by wana good afternoon my name is david portugal i'm a federal climate organizer with chispa arizona and although i am in support of the eevee road map i appreciate the efforts that were made to include chief or other community organizations any process i feel a lot more could have been done um to to include the voices of the public uh how the city went about the plan i understand that there are other plans to follow uh that will support the city and planning for climate resiliency um all the great things that that are coming with the eevee road map uh i i think uh take a back seat when we look at the climate crisis and how it impacts everyone but specifically black indigenous and people of color disproportionately um as a ingrid shared you know our our black and brown and indigenous folks suffer more from uh air pollution and the impacts of climate change and so i i feel our voices should be heard a little louder and i i think prioritizing 100 free public transportation and electrifying public transportation should have taken precedence over the eevee road map which focuses mostly on private vehicles uh i appreciate the council's uh uh attempts to be proactive in in in this effort but again it'd be nice if they were also proactive at hearing uh our communities of color uh first thank you thank you proxy montwana and then joanna wanna hello do you hear me yes c hi my name is juana silva um hello my name is juana silva i'm a member of chispa and a resident of phoenix and we are in favor of the plan to have more electric vehicles especially transportation especially public transportation for those that are lower income we believe that taking into account the com the comments of the public rodrigo could have been more intentional during a long period of time to be able to capture all the suggestions of the of the community organizations and as one of the representatives of this organization and we got the message too late and we didn't have enough time to be able to get gather enough people to inform them and this takes time to implement and more intention we need more time to be able to advocate for those that are more vulnerable in areas such as south phoenix thank you for your time and the opportunity to raise my voice gracias next we go to joanna followed by julian joanna the floor is yours good morning can you hear me we can oh not good morning afternoon so apologize good afternoon mayor gallego and council members my name is joanna strother and i am the senior advocacy director for the american lung association i'm calling to urge approval of the proposed transportation electrification plan for the city of phoenix i want to thank councilwoman ansari for her leadership of the plan you've heard from a few speakers today that phoenix is a polluted city and i'll put a number to that we're actually the fifth most ozone polluted city according to our report the state of the air report um and largely due to unhealthy emissions from the transportation sector poor air quality threatens the health and well-being of arizonans by exacerbating asthma attacks and other lung diseases our zeroing in on healthy air report released in march revealed a shift to zero emission transportation powered by renewable energy would result in 15.1 billion in public health savings and that's just right here in arizona not only will we clean cleaner and healthier air across the state but we can also save hundreds of lives and avoid thousands of other negative health outcomes we also released a poll in december of 2021 which found strong support for clean energy and transportation policies moving away from fossil fuels among arizona voters two-thirds support transitioning public fleets to all electric vehicles 66 percent support investments in publicly available ev charging infrastructure and 76 percent of voters across the political spectrum believe transitioning away from fossil fuels will have a positive impact on air quality by adopting more evs and other zero-emission transportation options we can clean up our largest polluting sector while also addressing the public health disparity caused by unhealthy air i ask you to support this plan and appreciate the time thank you thank you julian is next followed by blanca thank you mayor gallego and council members for the opportunity to speak i am julian cepeda i'm calling as a community organizer which is arizona speak speak speaking on the behalf of the community members we are in support of the eb world map though we we know creating infrastructure for personal evs is important in stepped in our transportation of vehicles as a region we need equitable investments in in electrification of vehicles and also on public transportation i personally use public transportation to commute to work and get around i don't drive and i would highly benefit from the electrification of public transportation as well the city should be encouraging more use of public transit instead of relying more on personal vehicles people need to um also have more opportunities to be able to to give feedback and speak their minds when it comes to the use of the money and infrastructure going into the road map of the public transportation and personal vehicles uh next time i would urge the city council to take more time to rebound well take more time to revise the road map and i also want to thank you for the leadership on on this issue and thank you for allowing me to speak today thank you blanca is next she is our final virtual comment um unless staff tells me otherwise and then we will go to council chambers for sausan good afternoon can you hear me thank you for allowing me to make a comment my name is blanca abarca estoya fabor de la propuesta del peso i am in favor of item 115. [Music] that we should invest in an electric vehicles for individuals i think that it's time that we all get an opportunity to have an electric vehicle necessary in vehicles we also need a plan that focuses on investing on electric vehicles for public transportation and infrastructure assets and also a plan that will significantly um be able to manage the barriers that people that need access to an electric vehicle um and i would like and i need an electric vehicle but the costs are just too high especially i hope that you can approach this plan in a more equal manner thank you for the opportunity of being able to speak have a good afternoon gracias next we go to council chambers to sasson oh can you hear me now hello my name is sosan abdulrahman i am the clean and green campaign manager for chispe arizona and a city of phoenix resident we are in support of the ev road map as a necessary step towards improving our region's worsening air quality and applaud the city of phoenix for this necessary step we do believe the plan could be improved and have recommendations for future road maps and plans with launching chispa's clean and green campaign this year we hope to work alongside the city of phoenix to ensure that those most impacted by the climate crisis and gaps in our transit system are part of deciding its solutions including how our region invests in ev technology we hope to work with you all to invest in complete streets for our region which includes ev public transportation and its infrastructure you heard today from archiba arizona staff members and community who delivered public comment virtually regarding their thoughts on this road map and their feedback for the council that needs to be heard the city of phoenix has the potential to be an exceptional leader in the fight against the climate crisis and we hope to be part of making that a reality for our city the shift to eevee is something to be celebrated but only when done intentionally and equitably with and for the community and so i echo the feedback from our members that the time for public feedback could have been longer and more intentional we appreciate that you all spoke with us but you could have spoke with us sooner and over a longer period of time to really capture the feedback of our community one recommendation i have for the council before i close is to provide residents with free and electric public transit many residents who rely on public transit and have engaged with our campaign name this as their top priority we're calling on the city of phoenix to create a budget to fund a hundred percent free and electric public transportation for the city of phoenix this is an important step to ensuring mobility equity and i know that this was already done during kovid which means it can be done and so we're asking you to continue providing this vital service for our residents some of today's signed up speakers have ideas on where you can find that free transit budget but i believe that we're going to be getting into that agenda item later today thank you council salaam and peace thank you that concludes public testimony on this item i'll turn to council members for comments councilwoman guardado thank you mayor first i am excited to be able to support this item today as a huge step forward for our city's future i wanted to personally thank councilwoman ansari and her entire team for their work on this plan when i think about a more electrified future for phoenix i am excited to think about quality jobs we will be creating these are highway jobs that will build the electric infrastructure we will need for our public transit and resident residents and private vehicles these will be jobs with training and continued education where our workers will be able to take care of their families with health insurance and a pension apprenticeship programs will ensure that young people see the incredible future of being a certified electrician in phoenix i recently joined council member garcia on a tour of the phoenix electrical gatc training facility and i was blown away by everything they are bringing to our residents as a city we are blessed to have such forward-thinking training opportunities and this plan will help strengthen this workforce i'm excited to support this item but also i'm very interested in figuring out how do we make sure that this is equitable and that we listen um to the what the community has to say thank you mayor thank you councilmember garcia followed by councilman waring thank you thank you mayor and i want to echo congratulations and thank you to councilwoman ansari for leaving this work i have it was an impressive amount of subcommittees apart from the committee itself i think i haven't seen that since i've been here i do think the fact that this conversation was started around equity and what it means to continue to work post this i'm excited to be a support to you and your office to make that happen i do think when it comes to equity it is a muscle that we as a city need to continue to work on and it's obviously something that's going to be even more expensive and so i'm excited to take this first step and i know councilwoman ansari is going to continue to work with all of us to make sure that whether it's free transit or whatever else we need to make happen we will do so thank you again for your work councilman waring mayor i just had a couple questions not sure if it's for is it for laurie or for karen yeah there she is the first comes from a constituent karen um i think i already know the answer but but he asked so i think he was under the impression that this is the city going out and building the charging stations and that may happen sometime in the future but that's a separate vote some other time correct well he's watching but he might be interested in the answer mayor councilman wearing yes uh this approval of this plan does not approve any particular construction contract that will come as we finish our study as to where that all needs to get constructed then individual contracts will come forward later so i think his concern mayor was that you know we're singling out one mode of transportation that may happen sometime down the road but that's not what's happening here today this is just sort of looking at what the future might look like if i had to summarize it that fair mayor councilman waring yes and then the uh the first couple items the the hiring the staffer and so forth i mean really wasn't that already done in the budget vote an hour or so ago in indeed uh mayor councilman wearing the uh the position the permanent position for an electric vehicle program manager was a part of the budget that was just approved so thank you thank you mayor i appreciate thanks karen thank you any additional comments so this uh item is officially called the transportation electrification plan but we often refer to it as the ev roadmap because that is exactly what it does it charts a plan for us to get to 280 000 electric vehicles on phoenix streets by 2030 in an accessible and equitable manner it's an exciting moment in history phoenix is getting attention locally but really internationally as well a british publication this month talked about phoenix as one of our country's biggest motor cities we also have great partnerships with the federal government who is making significant investments in electric vehicle infrastructure and this plan will help make sure that we meet the moment and get our fair share of federal dollars the planning process was crucial to ensure that our ev deployment and infrastructure expansion was done intentionally not just driven by the market but with equity and accessibility as the foundations of this work when i created the ad hoc committee on evs one year ago i asked the group to identify ways to inform and accelerate the transition to evs in phoenix the committee has done an immense amount of work to get to the point where we are today i want to thank councilwoman ansari for her leadership and the members of the ad hoc for the work and expertise they have contributed to this process i also want to thank city of phoenix staff for their work and support of the committee karen peters who is with us here at the dyess mark hartman karen apple and many many others involved electric vehicles matter because they are the road to our future we combine them with investments in our light rail system plans for bus rapid transit active transportation and making sure we have more complete streets in a walkable city evs are a crucial piece of the transportation pothole we know that to overcome climate change we have to make these key investments we will work with our partners who generate electricity to make sure the electricity behind these vehicles transitions towards cleaner and cleaner fuels it truly is an exciting day we are creating great jobs in the city of phoenix and positioning us for an even stronger future so i look forward to supporting the item councilman waring my apologies mayor i forgot a question that i wanted to ask if it's all right um so there are a couple items about our fleets and our fleets of heavy-duty vehicles and so forth we've had those discussions before this so uh this isn't i don't think i read this we're not buying vehicles or mandating that we buy vehicles we're going to explore buying these vehicles going forward and if they're exorbitantly expensive or something then or impractical you know the buses don't drive far enough or something to be usable by us then again just please tell me i'm wrong about this then my interpretation is we're not going to do it however if there are grants and so forth to make it either fiscally responsible of us or down the road they refine the technology where it could be a cost savings for taxpayers that's when we'd be doing this i know that's a lot but is that is my interpretation correct so certainly uh mayor councilman waring we are pursuing grant funding and we are initiating a study to indicate how and best to transition our fleet going forward we as we have discussed in many other forums we would only procure vehicles that make business sense and that operate in our environment given the given the routes that we need to serve for example with with bus transit and the solid waste vehicles that we need to to operate and do those services so this will be very deliberate and informed by the study and the data that we uncovered you mentioned buses specifically mayor i think you and i i think offline have had discussions about this specifically i think the issue was the buses didn't travel far enough on a charge and you know you need them to go on routes and so forth you can't just have them sitting in the dock charging up so i think that was one of the specific issues just as an example of why it's maybe not possible to do what maybe some would like to do right this second mayor has been wearing we're looking forward to piloting and and seeing how the technology evolves but i believe you're correct that that is a current issue that we're still exploring thank you thank you and and i think we should look to some of our partners in education districts phoenix has some very long north-south bus routes but then there are shorter routes like to school where evs may be the right success phoenix union and cartwright have had investments in this area that seem to be getting strong support and having a lot of positive impacts so we'll have to use the technology as strategically as possible i would say the private sector is is very much leading the way the article i mentioned earlier reported that in greater phoenix there was a 99 percent year-on-year increase in ev registrations the city has helped a little bit with that karen and her team worked with us to market electric vehicles we participated in a national effort along with some of our local dealers to get more competitive pricing for our residents and there's at least one person here who participated in that successfully so the dealers sold more vehicles more sales tax in phoenix more electric vehicles and that's just one of the ways we've helped our residents in this area and to close us out i'll turn back to councilman ansari thank you mayor i just wanted to thank all of the members of the public who spoke today both in person and virtually absolutely want to reiterate my commitment to equity throughout this process i think you know with the ad hoc committee sun setting in june there was you know we had i think about a month of public input process we were especially grateful to have g spy arizona as part of our committee over the course of the year and i think looking forward to the next steps we didn't go into the specifics of the recommendations today but there are specific goals around pilot programs and underserved communities and i'm excited that we have actually secured a fellow who will be working with our sustainability team specifically focused on outreach especially bilingual bilingual outreach so it will absolutely be a priority moving forward in the implementation process so just want to say that i i hear you and we're ready to work alongside the community to to get this done thank you we do have one final comment from our vice mayor i just wanted to thank chispa because chispa was who brought it to the forefront at phoenix union and as a board member there i was able to vote uh to elect to fire buses and as the mayor mentioned cartwright has also and we have uh been studying it and working with our fleet on expansion and adding additional uh stations the other piece that i want to say is we uh we because we represent where the largest city that is represented on valley metro also hired a new ceo who has experience in this arena especially with buses and so uh i asked that staff meet with the new ceo in order to uh understand the best practices that were used in the area that she was able to implement i know those areas have a different weather condition but we can also we can just learn from successes and and areas that we need to improve so that's all i needed to say thank you thank you vice mayor mayor councilman dececio i'll be really quick i'm very supportive of this but as technology goes and grows it will soon be another you know type of energy source that we're going to be using and just something just to keep track of and this is more for staff than anybody else but many of the service stations are and the ones that i talk to are already re-adapting their dispensers to be able to take in hydrogen they believe that that's going to be the next wave and the next type of fuel source for individuals so it's something to think about as we're doing this that there might be another wave coming in for another type of energy use thanks mayor thank you roll call i'm sorry yes decision yeah garcia yes yes o'brien yes stark yes waring yes pastor yes gallego yes passes nine zero city of phoenix has unanimously approved our ev road map item 118 is the golf range netting and repairs contract request for award vice mayor move item 118 second comments roll call i'm sorry yes this is you yes garcia yes yes o'brien yes start yes wearing no pastor yes yes passes eight one we next move to item 127 continuing our emphasis on education enter into an agreement with valley of the sun united way for read on phoenix literacy activities and related igas with cartwright and murphy elementary school districts do we have a motion i move item 127 back in councilwoman guardado thank you mayor i am very honored to be supporting this item today bringing one million to expand literacy activates these funds will greatly improve the amazing work of the cartwright elementary school district in west phoenix i want to thank our youth and education office for bringing this item forward thank you mayor thank you roll call i'm sorry yes decision yes garcia yes yes o'brien yes stark yes waring yes pastor woohoo yes diego yes that says nine zero next up item 133 approval of neighborhood block watch oversight committee's recommendations for the 22 grant program awards do we have a motion mayor oh sorry i have a conflict with one of them so um this is pastor conflicting out thank you councilwoman mayor and i'm sorry we did i think have a motion from councilwoman stark from councilman o'brien and we had a second approve item 133. and i'm sorry second do we have a second i would i'd like to second it but i'd like to talk about two particular organizations that were not funded also mayor i have we have chief kurtenbach and the committee chair of the bach backlash grant committee that i'd like to hear from wonderful we will welcome city of phoenix assistant police chief michael kurtenbach and carmen arias okay and we have acknowledged ann o'brien councilman o'brien with the floor thank you so much mayor thank you assistant chief curtin bach and committee chair carmen for joining us today i think that um it's important for the the council and the public to learn more about the block watch grant process and so i hope that the two of you can give us some information about this process and what our block watch grant committee does thank you mayor gallego councilman o'brien i appreciate this opportunity thank you as you heard and who i have with me today is carmen aries the chair of the oversight committee who has given countless hours of her time to this effort so i'd love to afford her the opportunity to uh speak to that thank you thank you very much mayor gallego and council council members the block watch committee first of all was appointed by all of you each of you each council district has two appointees and the mayor's office has an appointee the police department has an appointee and also the block watch advisory board has an appointee releasing opportunity to appoint we are currently short staffed on the committee we're having some issues in councils getting everybody bill fulfilled we are scheduled for 20 we have 13 members of the committee those 13 members receive approximately average of about 170 175 grants every year on those grants they're coming from their communities we are all community members we are all active in our communities and our effort is to try to assist the communities as much as possible with our major goal which is crime prevention and improving quality of life the grant actually take we've received them in late december early january and we have approximately six weeks to review them and grade them we grade them on four different criteria we grade them on crime prevention and quality of life feasibility of their project community involvement how many people are actually involved and budgets you know what do you want the money for and how are you going to spend it how are you going to spend taxpayer funds each grant probably takes us personally i can only speak for myself okay i take between one and two hours for each grant to review them looking at the website looking at the documentation uh looking at what they offer for example when they want lighting where do they want to place it is it feasible do they have an hoa is are they asking the city of phoenix taxpayers to pay more than what the hoa should be paying okay all of those things we take into consideration it one of the things that we do every year i think we do it every two years is review the guide the guide is what we use to send to our our constituents i mean our constituents our block watch members to show them how to apply for a grant and what's acceptable and what's not rules are made there are certain things that are allowing certain things that are not allowed for various and sundry reasons i can't go into all of them there's too many the guide itself has been given to each of you over the years many many times and it it's very clear on what we need to have uh we need to be able to have uh proof of meetings that people are actually getting together last year for 2021 we did not require beatings because covet was a major issue as we all know that was only for that one year after that we've had many meetings that are being held on webex or zoom and they give us summaries of those meetings not actual minutes but at least a summary of what was discussed uh so so we need some documentation that helps us understand that they are in fact having block watches and doing possible things we actually received a block watch one year uh that uh requested twelve thousand dollars for one house and we didn't approve that one so you know we really need to see the documentation of what they have and that's why we asked for that our staff which is awesome uh has uh a wide open door as far as assisting people with grants we do an average of pre-covered we were doing an average of six grant writing workshops throughout the city because of covid we have switched over to in-person or webex meetings and i think they did 36 different webex meetings the staff i'm talking about now to assist the grant writers with how to write a grant and what's good and what is it in addition once the grant deadline has been reached staff reviews every grant and determines that there may be an issue with something that the committee may have an issue with therefore they go back to the grant writers and say you're missing this document or you've asked for this item but you're going over the allotted amount and they're given i think five i think they're given five days to correct that issue even though the grant submission time has been passed so that we can when it comes to us for our grading then we have as much as possible the correct information and that's basically what we do and we do it once a year and for those of you that don't have all your staff in please see if we can talk more more members into coming to the committee thank you so much madam chair and i think good homework for all of us to make sure we have appointees current it is a huge amount of service to our city so thank you for the time that you devote thank you and i did bring material with me in case there were any specific questions wonderful and i think we do uh councilman o'brien has both comments and questions um thank you mayor i i do want to um share a couple of comments a year ago the block watch grants came before this council and not all grants were met the minimum qualifications as recommended by the committee and i do want to say that i do understand our committees are recommended recommending bodies however i also do want to say that as a citizen and a community member who has served on committees in the past and when hours and and all that time is spent and then the recommendation is not taken i think that there needs to be a strong reason and justification in some of those committees i would have said that unless there was a law preventing the recommendation from being taken or a financial consideration i.e the budget that prevented them that the recom the body receiving the recommendation should be taken and a year ago we received a recommendation and we were asked to make exceptions to that recommendation several of the several of them but largely because we had been in covid it was extraordinary times once in a lifetime pandemic and this council did approve to i believe approved all or almost yes all carmen is nodding yes at me all of the grant applications that were put in and then this year we received the grant recommendation and i understand that there are some council members who have some exceptions that they would like to be granted but i felt that it was important for us to hear from this committee if we do not agree with the rules or the rubric or how it is being done i think it behooves this body for us to take the time and sit down and determine how we should change this if if we're not going to take recommendations from this recommending body and i do know that after last year's approval of all the recommendations and correct me if i'm wrong but i believe assistant chief kurtenbach went to each of the council members to seek additional input on if we wanted changes so i come before this body saying my understanding is there might be some changes being requested i respectfully would request we honor the recommending body's recommendation and that if we are not going to do that that this council sit down and decide how we want to move forward with block watch grants and um and we would be happy to sit with thank you and with the committee thank you so much thank you councilwoman stark followed by vice mayor thank you um i think last year i did say that we might need to look at some of um quite teary we have um and i do respect the hard work you do boy those applications are are large and you know you pour over them um but i do have um actually former members that talk about looking at some things like being able to do a line detail things like that so i am very open up to a discussion again again that does not take away from what you guys do i do feel though that one group angels on patrol should be reevaluated only because they're a unique bach watch they're not your typical block watch they actually go out and help victims of crimes um they step up and really do yeoman's work when it comes to that and um they're just a unique group and i respect all the other decisions i just would like to reevaluate angels on patrol thank you thank you we'll go to the vice mayor and then councilman gordado so i want to ask staff because this happens to um i would say all our committees is that we have committees and ad hocs and a number of people that do a lot of work for us uh at the council level so that we can make uh wise decisions and listen to recommendations um but these committees are making recommendations am i correct mayor gallego vice mayor pastor that is correct this is a recommending body to the full council and so if the council uh wants to or understand some nuances about um for this example a block watch then the council has the authority or ability maybe more ability to uh make a recommendation back to have a block watch reevaluated or we can make a motion for it to be added and i don't know if that's for you curtin buck or the city attorney so mayor gallego vice mayor pastor you are correct once again this is a recommending body and is within the full authority of the council to either take any or all of those recommendations or make changes as you deem appropriate okay and i was just bringing it to the forefront because that's what happens with a lot of our committees a lot of our committees put in a lot of hours do a lot of work make recommendations and then when we get the recommendations we at times change or modify those recommendations so i just want to be able to put that on the record to understand this is not any this is not a different process from any other uh committee thank you thank you vice mayor councilwoman guardado thank you mayor yes i as well when i say thank you for all of the hard work that goes into reviewing this application these applications um this year i had more than one um that were rejected and i can i can understand that but i do have one i have 19 north i mean this is the first time that they applied for the for the grant for the block watch money and it's my understanding that there was some paperwork that was missing from their application and they you know they told us they did receive the email but they never that they did get the email but didn't receive it on time to be able to submit um the last paperwork um that they needed to submit and as everyone knows 19 north is very very active they recently worked to create a community safety plan as a lot of folks here are aware of that 19 north has included business all the businesses in that area non-profits residents and city departments they have fundraised over 30 000 to get this safety plan off the ground and their work has made a substantial difference along the 19th avenue corridor 1919 north received from what i understand a 5.25 score to receive funding and and like i said unfortunately um they missed the deadline to resubmit submit some of the paperwork that they were missing so i would like to recommend um that we fully fund them i'm given that they have done so much work in the community this is an organization that has been doing a lot um for this community has helped to clean up a lot of a lot of the area they've been very innovative in terms of how do they get the community involved to really um not have to depend so much on the city um to do a lot of this work and they've done a lot of that work so i i would ask that we give them the full funding if i'm a mayor go ahead thank you i'm a little bit confused because i don't have a 19 north i have kennel north and i have grand avenue block watch uh which one is 19 north i believe um the block watch is called 19 north and i believe that all of the paperwork um should have been submit submitted by shannon mcbride okay that'll tell us who so it's 22 151. mayor gallego councilman guardado i'll speak to what i know in just a moment as carmen looks for the information so i just want to be clear the police department as we administer these grants i want to see every applicant be fully funded we want the money to go back into the community for crime prevention which is what it was primarily intended for this year last year as councilman o'brien noted was truly an anomaly this year of the 150 applicants there were four that did not reach the 5.25 minimum threshold there were three that were disqualified of the 143 that were funded which are referring to 19 north was partially funded the reason for that partial funding is they asked for an amount above the thousand dollars that required four uh either meeting minutes uh notices of attendance at the meetings and we didn't receive those to your point i understand staff reached out to try and get the two back if there's an opportunity and by all means we'll take the recommendation of the council but we wanted to get that information to the oversight committee so that it would support the funding up to the eleven thousand i believe in seventy seven dollars they were asking for yeah no and my my staff is working diligently at right now with with shannon and with the um and with the block watch to make sure that we get all that paperwork in um that they need to get in i think i believe that that they do qualify they have all the paperwork but again this is their first time applying for the for the grant so if we could work with them and help them get the funding i would really appreciate it given that they are an organization that have proven themselves throughout throughout the years and given that they did meet the score i would greatly appreciate if we can work on that to make sure they get that from me it is the recommendation of the council that we will do whatever the council ask us to do thank you councilwoman and sorry followed by councilwoman stark sure thank you um well first of all i just wanted to thank carmen as the chair of the committee not only does she dedicate so much to the to the city of phoenix but also just a wonderful human being and all of the committee members i think the only comment i have and i have no requested changes this year is wondering you know based on what you said chief kurtenbach about you know the wish to be able to fund anyone who's interested or wants to give back to the community perhaps i'm hoping we can look at simplifying the process i know obviously you know as councilman guardado said there's a lot of paperwork it can be challenging i know in my district last year we had the sisa puede neighborhood association they're new you know most of them speak english as a second language if at all it can just be very difficult for them to do the same type of work that maybe some other block watches are able to do so i'm just hoping that we can look at perhaps a more simplified process so that those who are interested in in serving and giving back are able to do so thank you as a matter of fact we are reviewing our guide now uh we will have a subcommittee that will be forming for the committee to review the guide see what we can do to make it easier but i do want to mention we also have a member of staff that is hispanic and bilingual and we have an average of three or four grants a year that are non-english speaking or limited english speaking that anna works with on a personal basis to make sure that that they can also submit grants we don't want to leave anybody out go to councilman stark and then councilman o'brien thank you so um councilwoman o'brien would you be willing to take an amended um motion to add 22151 which is 19 north and 22067 which is angels on patrol weston park block watch i am committed to working with the advisory board to look at some of the processes i know you guys do a lot of hard work but i do feel maybe we should include these two additional is your amendment to fully fund 22151 yeah um yes i will accept that amendment thank you thank you we'll recognize councilman o'brien um i i just wanted to say that based on the fact that um chairwoman arias is said that they'll be reviewing the process that i would hope we could do that in a way that would include council members to make sure that we do address councilwoman ansari's concerns and also look at as assistant chief curtin bach said how do we ensure that the dollars go out to help our neighborhoods in the most expeditious way possible without it being too cumbersome but getting it out there for the safety of our community and i also am committed to working with you and the committee thank you as well as you assistant chief kirtenbach thank you i now appreciate the service of the overs of chairman rs and your team or your committee thank you all for your work roll call on the motion as amended i'm sorry yes to cco yes garcia yes yes o'brien yes stark yes waring yes gallego yes that says eight zero thank you we move to item 140 which is the authorization to accept grants for high intensity drug trafficking air to apply for accept and enter into agreements for high trafficking high intensity drug trafficking area grant funds do we have a motion i move i move item 140 sorry second thank you we have a motion in a second this item was originally removed from consent for citizen comment and the citizen is no longer with us any comments yes o'brien yes stark yes wearing yes yes i apologize councilman was a yes yes sorry i couldn't hear councilman waring pastor yes yes thank you 9-0 item 142 is airport concession relief do we have a motion i move item 142 second we have a motion in a second councilwoman guardado thank you mayor i just have some questions for aviation department we will welcome up mario paniagua deputy city manager thank you mario um so some of some of these questions have to do with the enforcement of our contracts with food and beverage and retail concessionaires at the airport my first question is which concessionaires at this moment are currently in violation of their contract mayor members of the council i'm i actually we do have chad mikowski our aviation services director on the call as well as jay dewitt as on the on the meeting as well so i'm going to turn it over to chad to answer that question for you thank you mario merrier and uh council member grado we implemented the re-implemented the terms of the contracts the concession contracts effective june 1st and we have been actively working with the concessionaires uh my observation is um the store opening in in abiding by contract terms has significantly improved since uh june 1st of this year however we're not seeing 100 compliance across all hours of the day with many of the contractors as a result of continued workforce uh staffing issues and and whatnot so jay dewitt has been assistant director jadawid has been working with the concessionaires uh he has a sense as to we've been doing this now for about 14 days and he has a sense as to kind of what their current status is i'm going to ask jay to give you a little bit more color jay thanks chad mayor or squad of the way we've got since june 1st i've seen a dramatic improvement and we've got to about uh between the the hours of uh 10 o'clock and 1 o'clock around four to five uh stores that have not been opened but uh for the vast majority of the concourses are staffed uh throughout those hours those odd hours and then nearly all of the uh the concourses and uh the terminal processor staff during the peak hours of the day great thank you and then my other question is um chad are concessionaires who are in violation of their contract are they still going to receive the relief funding so mayor councilwoman gardato it's a great question yes they would be entitled to until they are no longer in compliance with the contract or in default of the contract so the way that we address contract compliance issues currently is through the issuance of liquidated damages the contractors who are not able to remain open uh for all contract hours would be issued liquidated damages but they would still be in good standing with the city until such time as they're put in notice of default thank you and what is the total amount of financial relief that the city of phoenix either using federal dollars or relief from contractual obligations has granted concessionaires at the airport and mayor and councilwoman guardado it's on the magnitude of about 20 million dollars since the pandemic started of which the airport has been reimbursed through the carissa grant a certain amount and again i'm going to ask jadawitt to give us the exact numbers i know he has those with them right the chris grant uh offered four million dollars the arpa grant would be just around 19 million dollars thank you um that that's a little um disheartening to hear um over the weekend i learned that there was a worker um that worked at chelsea's kitchen that she was found at the cass campus without you know without any housing she is now at the 28th street respite center that we have over on on washington and 28th street we still have a lot of these workers that apparently have not been called back are now homeless um you know they are back you know and we are doing everything that we can as a city to help our folks that are experiencing homelessness and to seeing that we still have workers from our own airport that are homeless that don't have a place to stay it's very hard for me to be able to so to support this item and just because i continue to see day in and day out workers that are continue to not be able to get called back to work and continuing to learn these stories it's a little horrifying so today i will not be supporting this item thank you mayor thank you councilwoman antari thank you um so i will be voting yes simply because if we don't utilize the funds another city will get them and we've tried to stipulate i do just want to emphasize the story that um councilwoman guardado just told is very alarming so my team and i were out this saturday doing heat relief work around the campus and i actually met this woman cara handing out water bottles and asked her life story how she got to where she is she used to be a flight attendant for southwest for 10 years and then she worked as a cook at chelsea's kitchen and which is a ssp run company and was furloughed all that to say i know this money is specifically supposed to go for rent but i think with this vote there has to be an expectation for ssp for hms hosts for all of our concessionaires that they will go above and beyond and extend all means to hire back anyone who was let go during the pandemic and i think that needs to be the number one priority and just hearing about you know we're constantly hearing that it's impossible to hire people but then we're seeing the same workers who worked for those companies literally on the streets of phoenix so also i think a better effort on the city's part to bring those folks who are looking for employees and looking for workers and are offering slightly better wages now two facilities that we have like 28th street and any other shelters and help on the employment side of things and help on the workforce side so um just wanted to to add a little bit of light a little bit of color to that story thank you thank you mayor councilman decisio thank you mayor so i still cannot believe that the city of phoenix is going to be offering this corporate welfare to these multinational billion dollar companies when the small business owner who works hard their entire lives puts their life on the line puts their econ their their savings on the line and they get nothing so from my end there's no way i would ever support this i've been opposed to from day one all they have to do is pay a little more they'll get the workers back but this whole thing here these corporate giveaways is just insane whether it's this or the tax giveaways that the city has been consistently doing now i've never seen it this bad before bear i'm sorry this is just a huge chunk of money taxpayer money doesn't matter what pot it comes from or whether someone else uses it we don't have to use it so i'll be voting against it again mayor thank you thank you the city of phoenix serves as the landlord and we did close some of the concourses so that these businesses were not accessible so to me that is important in this the way the funds is structured is that they will get to our small business partners we have a great acdb program and it really has helped so many of our entrepreneurs succeed and really added great local flavor to our airport when people arrive to visit our city their first taste of our amazing food and retail is at sky harbor and to me that is a huge credit to our airport one of the reasons we are recognized as a top airport so to me this is another step in helping our acdbes and our entire concession programs recovered on solid footing any additional comments roll call i'm sorry yes to cco no garcia yes mayor can i explain my vote please do um first of all just wanted to say um forgot to mention this earlier just want to say thank you to chad and to his team for all of the great work that you guys are are doing at the airport really appreciate all the work that you guys are doing i'm getting the airport back into business and holding these companies accountable as well thank you so much for that for all of that work and i'll be voting now o'brien yes stark yes waring yes pastor i apologize pastor yes yes yes thank you yes passes 7-2 thank you we next go to item 143 which is related to the rental car center food beverage and retail do we have a motion i move item 143 second we have a motion in a second kurt mangum available for questions if needed any comments questions roll call i'm sorry yes decisio no garcia yes guardado o'brien yes stark yes waring yes pastor yes gallego yes passes eight one we next move to item 43 which is related to bus inspections vice mayor do we have a motion should i say 148 148 thank you yep you're very right yep all right i move item 148. second we have a motion in a second leonard clark and council members my name is leonard clark um i support what you're doing here i still find it apropos that i do have to bring up to the fact that a lot of people do want our buses to be safe but i think a lot of people are afraid to ride on them i'm wondering if the camera system can be improved if more undercover people can be placed on there i at this time wouldn't have any of my family right on the buses i mean we had a woman strangled to death god rest her soul and the bus driver apparently did not hear the woman screaming making any noise and thanks to the hard work of the law enforcement they were able to find out allegedly they've allegedly found out who the person is that murdered this poor woman on the bus but i mean my god is there any way we can come up with a better method i mean people are being somebody strangled on the back of a phoenix bus a lot of people don't feel safe you see the crack pipes falling out of people's pockets i think that we need to address not only the safety on the buses but the safety of other factors that are coming into play so i think we have a meth meth epidemic crack epidemic how are we going to use the bus system in this time of global climate change when people are afraid to get on the bus i don't mind myself getting on there but i would not ever have a child or a loved one get on there and i know they ride i've seen it too many times please inspect the buses could you come up with something better i'm also deeply concerned that the bus driver apparently didn't hear a woman being strangled to death what is going on with this please improve the bus safety system we need to do something if people are going to ride the buses and not take uber you know no offense against uber i have friends at drive uber but please do do something about it because i believe in mass transit but people being strangled on buses and we can't even hear them could the cameras be improved what is going on thank you thank you roll call i'm sorry yes decisio yes garcia yes o'brien yes stark yes waring yes astor yes gallego yes passes 9-0 item 151 is related to partnership with maricopa county animal control services vice mayor i move item 151 second motion and a second leonard clark okay i'm here because i am a dog uh lover cat lover pet lover uh and i think that what you're doing is very very good because all too many times you know people lose their animals i've had this happen and you know you can go on the website i wish i had it memorized to tell people hey where to go we've got some excellent places and uh they're very good people hard-working people at the maricopa county uh animal shelter there in different places we should not be killing dogs and cats anymore they're out on the streets they are sentient beings there's there is something changing in the world in our country we recognize that these animals that some people just throw out on the street are cruel to give more relief because they're unconditionally loving people sometimes people living by themselves people dying and i think if if anything more i think we could we could do something else i would ask you to do is just to improve more work between the maricopa county animal shelter because we worry about the human beings out there today but a lot of our homeless brothers and sisters have dogs out there with them in this heat what can we do about the inevitable dogs that are going to die cats are going to die the people that take care of them on the streets we need to do something about that thank you thank you any comments roll call i'm sorry yes to cco yes garcia yes yes o'brien yes stark yes waring yes pastor yes gallego yes that says 9-0 thank you next up we have 153 ellen macarthur foundation do we have a motion vice mayor yes i move item 153 second we have a motion and a second an exciting circular economy partnership any comments roll call i'm sorry yes to cco no garcia yes yes o'brien yes stark yes waring pastor yes there you go yes tessa 7-1 um it looks like we next go to item 170 is that for our staff uh was that pulled for public comment i believe so vice mayor do we or i guess it's an item in council district one so water line district if councilman o'brien would like to make the motion i move to approve item 170. second second we have a motion in a second any comments and sam hill okay he's good roll call i'm sorry yes to cco yeah garcia yes yes o'brien yes stark yes waring pastor yes gallego yes passes eight zero uh next up are two items in district seven uh final plat at 75th avenue and baseline and a final plot at the northeast corner of baseline and 75th avenue um is everyone comfortable if we take them together councilwoman sorry do you have a motion i move to approve item 188 and 189 second we have a motion and a second we'll turn to mark rodriguez for comment again hello mayor kate gallego madame mayor kg and member of the mississippi phoenix city council it's good to hear from you all the guys again even though i'm just virtually at home it's because i live on 75th avenue and baseline because i wanted to know about this area that i live and because i live in the convene middle is because that's my neighborhood even though i live where my mom and i from the back we moved here back in 2015 and mayor gallego i always like you and i want to come to the city chambers but i can't but i want to spawn on those black leather chairs one of these days and mayor and ansari and vice mayor passport you guys are rock sal de ceo boo for you not a fan of you but if you could comment on the final flap i do on the final flat because i live on this area because i live on 75th avenue baseline this is my home and mayor geiger i'm sorry no thank you we just would love it if you have general comments to reserve them for the cco um for the public comment which we'll be getting to at the end of our meeting any um thank you for your comments mark roll call i'm sorry yes to cco yes garcia yes o'brien yes stark yes waring yes pastor yes vallejo yes passes nine 9-0 thank you we next go to item 199 and i think after we conclude this item we will take a 15-minute break this is an item in council district 4 we will begin with a staff report and welcome alan stephenson deputy city manager thank you mayor members of council this item as you noted is a historic preservation certificate of appropriateness appeal with me i have helena ruder the acting historic preservation officer for the city and she's going to walk us through the powerpoint and the request and then we are happy to answer any questions from there thank you thank you mayor members of council um as alan said this is an appeal the certificate of appropriateness application um two one zero zero five seven two at eighty nine west lewis avenue in the willow historic district the application seeks approval of the demolition of a 16 square foot front porch and construction of a 146 square foot front porch after the fact in december of 2021 there was a report of a front porch being constructed at the property without a permit the dwelling historically had a 16 square foot shed roof overhang over the front door that's pictured there in the aerial and the historic front photo uh the unpermitted porch is approximately 146 square feet and does extend out about four feet beyond the front gable portion of the front facade just a couple of images of showing the unpermitted constructed porch and the porch also included a new porch post with and ceiling wired for lights staff findings and recommendations whether the city of phoenix general design guidelines for historic properties discourage additions and changes to primary facades as well as making changes to character defining features while it's recognized that neighboring properties have similar style purchase to the one the owner constructed at 89 west louis these were part of the original design construction of those homes the subject property was designed with a small oh sure it was designed with a small covered entry that's a character defining feature of early and transitional ranch style homes staff recommendation was that the unpermitted porch be demolished and the original 16 square foot porch be reconstructed the hearing officer uh the hearing was held on march 29th with the following decision by the hearing officer that the uh the application be denied is submitted but approved the removal of the 146 square foot porch and reconstruction reconstruction of the original 16 square foot porch the decision was peeled by the homeowner and was heard at the april 18 meeting of the historic preservation commission which voted six to one with one recusal to uphold the hearing officer's decision without mayor and council staff does recommend that the city council uphold the historic preservation commission's decision to deny their certificate of appropriateness and require removal of the port structure and with that we're happy to answer any questions thank you does anyone have questions or comments before we begin the public hearing all right we will open the public hearing the applicant will have five minutes and then we have six minutes for three speakers in opposition we'll begin uh with the applicant who will have five minutes followed by ann who then brad then opal so um nathaniel herrera the floor is yours good afternoon mayor and council women and men um well you saw the you saw what miss ruder presented in the slides i wish he also presented the letter of support i have from 24 neighbors on my street i wish she showed you the house adjacent to me on the west 93 west louis with a very similar porch i wish she had showed you the house at 85 west lewis avenue with a very similar porch in the house at 81 west louis with a very very similar porch i wish chad showed you 88 west lewis avenue with the house constructed right in front of the house i wish he had showed you um 92 west lewis avenue with a very large front porch i wish he had showed you two other houses with very large porches similar to mine and i have pictures of about 20 houses in the neighborhood that carry the same or very similar porch i know i made a mistake and by not applying for a permit i thought that anything under 200 square feet um excluded a permit i found out later that i was wrong and i approached miss roder with several options to remedy and the only option i received was oh you need to destroy to demolish and reconstruct the 16 feet i can detach it from the house to a 146 square feet while not attached to the house and for that i would not need a permit and it would still pretty much look the same and i suggested to put the whole porch on wheels that was denied and i just find it extremely extremely odd that a 16 square foot and cover over my front door is a determinate categoristic of the era things move forward people want to change and it adds a great deal of shade and relief from this from the sun it actually lowers my electric bill and that's pretty much about it whatever you decide i'll go but i can just detach it by cutting four inch of the front porch and i think it would look actually uglier but it will meet city code it will meet all the requirements so going through all this hassle of reconstructing the 16 square foot over the door that doesn't add anything seems a little cumbersome to me talking about sustainability and everything getting rid of all this wood and material and seems really unnecessary so now it's up to you i thank you for your time and efforts and i'm waiting to hear from to hear your decision thank you so much for your testimony we will go next to anne followed by brad and council members um i would like to first mention that um in the staff report it was noted that those nearby homes uh that have front porches those were the original features of those homes not an addition or a change um that's per the staff report um anyway i ask that you deny the appeal um on this and support the hp staff report which i think was very well written and the hp commission vote um i was pleased to see that ms ruder you know pointed out that this is not in line with the city of phoenix general design guidelines for historic properties in some cases in the past i've seen that those guidelines may not be strictly followed i think they should be they're there for a reason a great deal of time money resources are spent developing these kinds of guidelines uh city resources a lot of neighbors you know spending time developing these things and and the same with the willow conservation plan we we just put a lot into it i i really just think they need to be followed um so i just ask that you support uh the uh hp commission and and deny this appeal thank you thank you brad is next followed by opal good afternoon mayor city council members i'd like to thank historic preservation staff and the commission for holding up the simple requirements of modifications to our historic homes as i've shared with my clients who are over 20 years of selling homes in in historic neighborhoods exterior modifications must be approved by historic preservation basically stating that if the original builder architect were to pass by today he would still recognize their work we've seen this type of change denied previously in particular 102 west cyprus a poor tradition denied as the property wasn't built with one therefore um i do hope the council will support the staff opinion and thank you for your time and letting me speak thank you our final comment on this item will go to opal um good afternoon mayor gallego vice mayor pastor and council members um i serve on the willow neighborhood association board and the zoning committee and i oppose the appeal in this case and support the hp commission's ruling i feel sorry for the homeowner that he didn't know he needed a permit to constru build this construction and a certificate of appropriateness but if non-permitted construction is allowed to remain in place it sets a bad precedent in our neighborhood we had a case a couple of years ago where a homeowner built a carport structure without a permit and it was in the wrong location not allowed and they had to demolish it and rebuild it and they they complied with that even though it's kind of painful i too have a very small front porch overhang and i solve my state issues by planting some trees in my backyard um one of the historic preservation commissioners at the hearing on this originally said quote if we let people build whatever they want onto the front of their homes the entire system is going to break down and i i sincerely believe he's right about that so i hope you deny this appeal and uphold the recommendations of the commission the hearing officer and the staff to demolish this non-persistent non-permitted port structure and um deny the appeal and reconstruct it to the original dimensions thank you thank you so much we will close the public hearing we will turn to the vice mayor for a motion alan i can ask some questions first or should i make the motion uh whatever your pleasure okay um the applicant mentioned 88 west louis and 85 west louis which i looked up at this moment and it looks like that those homes are the original the porches are part of the original homes vice mayor pastor yes that is that is correct well at least i know for certain that the homes on either side 85 and 83 were built with the broader porches as part of the original design and and this particular home was was built with this much more modest front porch covering okay for the applicant uh this is very concerning as a councilwoman that represents a majority of the historic homes and area and also live in a historic home and in a neighborhood of 40 years of understanding the importance of preserving our historic homes so i'm motion my motion is to uphold the hpc's decision denying the certificate of appropriateness second we have a motion a second any comments roll call i'm sorry yes to cco yes garcia yes yes o'brien yes dark yes waring yes pastor yes diego yes passes 9-0 thank you the council will it is now 5 20 and the council will take a 15-minute recess thank you welcome back to the phoenix city council meeting we will reconvene and begin with amendments to pay ordinance item 71 we have a large number of comments on item 71 and a small number on a related item 72 so we will hear them together we will begin with public comment with those in the chambers and then go to our virtual participants let's see and our first comment in the chamber will be ann ender followed by in in support followed by sosan in opposition good afternoon sorry it took so long can you hear me okay there we go um mayor gallego vice mayor pastor and council members i'm ann ender i'm the president and founder of operation blue ribbon i'm happy to be here today and um i would like to start by thanking lori bayes and her uh staff for um establishing this um and and doing the research and really putting the efforts into putting this amendment together because i really think this is going to be important to the city to ensure that the revised job classifications will lead us to be the um in sync with the local market and giving us the ability hopefully to attract and retain high quality employees to provide swarm police services so i would say to those opposing the amendment who claimed to care about the welfare of their communities yet ignore the increase in violent crime in their districts the number of homicides in the city have increased nearly 25 percent year-to-date so and also a poll conducted earlier this year revealed that 76 of the phoenix voters are in favor of increasing police funding so public safety as you've heard me say many times must be the priority for the council and approving this amendment will will demonstrate that so thank you very much son will be next followed by kisha hodge washington hello my name is sosan abdulrahman i'm a city of phoenix resident i live in district 7 one of the most polluted industrial parts of our city and i suffer from worsening asthma as a result i would like to ask the council how will spending an additional 20 million dollars on police salaries keep our communities safe from poor air quality and worsening respiratory illnesses like my own how will police keep our community safe from dangerous rising temperatures and heat related deaths will they keep us safe in a housing crisis and economic recession how will the police improve our mobility equity as a city how will police assist those who are struggling with their mental health none of these crises in our region i just listed that are in dire need of additional funding are solved by more policing there's no data to support any of that why aren't you recognizing what people actually need to be safe and why aren't you listening and remembering that you serve at the pleasure of us the people who elected you and can and will unelect you if you ignore our will low income and communities of color have built their power up in this state and continue to do so and we will replace politicians who put profits and police above the people in our safety you cannot win your races without us anymore gone are the days where our voices don't matter and you should be very wise to remember that no funding is enough funding for housing while there are still people living on our streets no funding is enough funding for our environment when our air quality is still unsafe for people like me to breathe on a regular basis or when our temperatures continue to climb and kill our unhoused community we recognize the city has put some funds towards these crises but again it's simply not enough because these issues are still present i want to know who you are in that seat for and if you think it's for the people then please listen to us you can and you must do better there are many uses for 20 million dollars that will actually keep us safe like investing in complete streets for our region and for our community please do better our lives are on your hands thank you thank you our next speech speaker is kisha hodge washington followed by sophia carrillo dal good afternoon mayor and members of the council i am kisha hodge washington and thank you for allowing me to speak increasing officers wages to a more competitive level serves as a needed incentive for recruitment and retention purposes particularly when you are considering the current need for more personnel being understaffed by nearly 400 officers has it has been consequential resulting in an increased standard response time and unreasonably burdensome caseload as the city grows there should be adequate officers to protect and serve the communities and in that vein providing for compensation that attracts and maintains reputable and quality talent is necessary however this is distinct from meaningful oversight and accountability the city can and should provide both competitive wages and demand accountability from law enforcement protecting the lives of all phoenicians including the black brown indigenous and disenfranchised should also remain a priority of the city funding appropriate resources to community-based initiatives and services that provide that address the underlying problems that generally deplete interaction should also remain a priority ensuring public safety requires a multi-faceted approach including appropriate wages at the end of the day without proper resources it is a crime victims and the most vulnerable that ultimately suffer a victim should not have to wait an inordinate length of time for response when calling in an emergency or months for a police report or have their cases linger indefinitely because of a lack of resources we must act in a manner that is covers all of the bases thank you for the opportunity to speak on this issue thank you next is sophia followed by daryl is sophia with us all right daryl is next followed by chalet flores good evening mayor and council my name is daryl criplin and i serve as the president of the phoenix law enforcement association and represent approximately 2 200 dedicated men and women women of the phoenix police department i am here to express my support for the restructuring of the pay steps for hard-working and dedicated police officers and detectives of this city these are men and women who every day selflessly and without reservation put their personal safety aside to serve the 1.7 million residents of the civ city as evidenced yet again by the incident yesterday to date nine phoenix police officers have been shot in the line of duty this year the violence against police is nothing like i have ever experienced in my close to 28 years of being a phoenix police officer as a community we need to demand better these are men and women with a heart for service who did not take this job with the goal of becoming wealthy some will criticize the increase in compensation for police officers i would submit to them that as the city becomes the market leader in the state the best and brightest individuals will once again be drawn to the city of phoenix first where we will then as an organization be able to hire only the most well-rounded and qualified candidates at a greater rate to serve our community thus enhancing the quality of service to our residents the current response times to all calls for service are unacceptable i commend human resources director david matthews deputy human resources director greg carmichael and his budget and research team along with city manager jeff barton for taking the initiative to prioritize the public safety class in comp study this was no small undertaking i believe the changes proposed here today will not only make us a market leader across the state but once again will allow us to hire and retain arguably the finest police officers and detectives in this country i encourage each and every one of you to support this thank you thank you chalet is next followed by eric nielsen thanks for pronouncing my name correctly i almost didn't speak today because i know that you're already you've already made up your mind but i'm here on behalf of my incarcerated mother my homeless brother and the millions of people in your city who feel abandoned and powerless because we need more from the people we elected to look out for us this vote isn't about the pay raises this vote is about who gets to live and who is left to die literally die from police violence from overdoses from the heat and from lack of shelter all things that are preventable when cities put the well-being of people first rather than increase the resources going to housing and mental health care council is choosing pay raises for a police department that would be obsolete if you actually invested in our severely underfunded social services investing in affordable housing will reduce crime investing in mental health counselors which there is an abysmal shortage of pardon shortage of in your city will reduce crime we have a council member because of this stifling system i can't even say your name who described the housing crisis plainly to abc 15 and said that we need to ensure our officers can afford to live the cognitive dissonance is defeatingly infuriating and i ask why aren't you ensuring that all of us can afford to live clearly you are aware of the crisis but your priorities aren't to protect the people you've sworn to serve and 200 bed shelters do nothing to address the systemic issue of class inequality that is causing the housing crisis why not instead stop developers gentrifiers and landlords from taking advantage of us 1 850 pardon 1814 unsheltered folks died in the last two years in your streets that's recorded only recorded your police kept these folks from shaded public areas your police and by extension you let these people die keeping the city safe is the council's top priority police do not keep us safe police do nothing but escalate conflict and criminalize us we can't build on top of a system that was built to protect wealth we can only dismantle it and rebuild it thank you eric is next followed by ben lewis allow me to introduce myself for those of you who are ignorant my name is eric m nielsen i've been a consultant for the last two presidential administrations as well as the current one i think of the things that got me in that position i think of the things that got me there and the important moments in my life and the number one thing on that list is nothing my softball coach my little league coach for my parents did the number one thing on that list is when i was 19 years old and the city of venice beach police department officer cracked my skull against the brick wall now with that said if there's anybody who's qualified to speak on this issue it's b um as soon as i got back to phoenix i made it a point to talk to as many phoenix police officers i can i've been in cuffs hundreds of times and i'm here to tell you the phoenix police does not operate the way that lapd does if you want to see that happen then what you're going to need to do is you're going to take the money away the the worst thing you could do is defund the police because what's going to happen if you do that what's going to happen if you do that is you think the desert horizon precinct is going to be any less safe i don't think so they're still going to patrol that neighborhood it's the west side and the south side that are going to get left behind if we defund the police the main problem with this thing is that we're slapping the current officers in the face because if it's my opinion that if uh if we do a study and we find out we're underpaying them we didn't start underpaying them when we started the study we needed another study to give them the back page check to make them whole that's neither here nor there basically what i want to finish up with saying is that um you know i think i already said it thank you ben is next followed by amelia um yeah my name's ben i stand here with directly impacted black and indigenous people who are overwhelmingly harmed by this system i completely understand this guy's perspective as a white guy that it's going to be bad if we don't have as much phoenix in south phoenix or as much police in south phoenix and the west side but like they are creating criminalization by being there the only thing a police officer can do is take somebody away from their network where they cannot grow and heal from whatever it is we didn't want them to be doing so here we are i've been in this room for three years pleading with you to stop paying the phoenix pd to try to solve all of our problems and i've even had chief kurtenbach over here say that you know crime is kind of going down we're doing a pretty okay job but we just need to get more officers in here so we can deal with it um if we can't pay people to be police officers at this point we have to recognize it's not about the money it's because the work that the city is asking police to do making police do is violent and it harms their communities the reason we have more officers resigning than we can hire is because any good cop that gets into the system realize that they still have to do shitty work that hurts people and eventually you're going to take your pension or you're going to walk away from it but like paying us more us them more isn't gonna solve this problem it's just gonna get people who are more comfortable harming their neighbors into this position and compensate them for it everybody knows this is a housing issue everybody knows this is a cost issue everybody knows this is a policing issue we cannot throw a billion dollars a year of taxpayer funding at a militarized armed force and expect that to convince people to just stop being homeless they're not just like it wasn't like the reason they showed up to be homeless today was because we forgot to point a gun at them and tell them to go somewhere the else but you know what we have is we have parks that are locked up with shade that we maintain and we don't even let people sleep in them 20 million dollars for a raise i don't know y'all are wild i can't believe i've been here all day listening to this please watch your language next is amelia followed by rebecca dennis hi my name is hi my name is amelia thank you mayor and city council for hearing me today i know a lot of people will scream defund the police and think that it's the answer but it is not the answer i think that we are facing our moral compass issue and either defunding the police or adding money is not gonna help fix the culture bias that has stemmed from influencers throughout the world be it through the music or anything else we have to recognize that there is people who are human beings that they are inherently affected by the police officer's decision but that the police officers are inherently affected by their day-to-day lives i'm standing up here so nervous to speak and all i want to do is cry because i was born and raised in grand rapids michigan who has been on national tv and i'm standing here speaking for phoenix and all i want to do is cry because we're human beings if we can't come to a common sense decision of how we can meet and discuss our differences then none of us are doing any of our jobs as humans right there has to be conversations and like anna hernandez says maybe you start meeting the people where they're at out of your comfortableness because uncomfortable conversations like the ones that we're having today is where the most girls can come i'm not asking to defund the police i'm asking for conversations to be had and sometimes as an oppressed person as being i was homeless all last year you feel like sometimes who do you call when the help can't help you because it's not easy for me to stand before you today it's not easy some people don't even know that this this place exists to be able to come here and speak all i want to do is give a voice to the voiceless thank you so much thank you rebecca will be our final in chamber speaker and then we'll go to virtual speakers starting with nadine alluria i'm sorry and i guess actually we will go to our staff to call the numbers do we have additional in chambers no mayor okay so then we will go to uh rebecca and then nadine um thank you my name is rebecca denis i live in district 7. the concept of law and order in a culture of punishment does not equate to public safety to be safe means so much more than to be protected from crime as has been historically defined by the privilege in society the city hasn't protected us from their from the police's proven crimes people like me who are speaking in opposition to agenda items 71 and 72 can give you examples of the harm police have caused to us in our communities with no accountability we can present you with creative ideas and solutions that could be possible we know the resources and services we need to be healthy and safe phoenix residents will die because of this council's choice to fund policing rather than increase the resources going to community members for things like housing mental health care child care stipends better public transportation etc by pocket working class communities will die from police violence from overdoses from the heat and from lack of shelter all things that are preventable when cities put the well-being of people first police don't solve or aid in solving systemic issues but policy resources and services can if this council chooses to have any ounce of bravery and radical vision the cognitive dissonance required to propose these pay increases for officers and believing that offering a higher starting pay for new recruits in phoenix pd will result in quality individuals keeping our city safe is beyond illogical if you have to bribe the public with money to fill the vacant positions then they probably do not need to exist people who are motivated by money often have poor character and values and make commitments based on their own self-interest you then want to place those individuals in the hands of the most violent police force in the united states who has led the country in police killings and shootings over and over who is being investigated by the doj who has cost taxpayers millions of dollars in lawsuits and legal fees with all the resources and information available to this council you honestly believe that that's a good idea you're actually worried about maintaining corrupt and violent officers on your force you should let them leave and take all existing vacancies to create city positions and programs that promote health and safety and invest in our communities i wish i had more time but i can't do brett virtually and then i have gotten an update and jessica spencer is in chambers so after brett we will go to jessica but brett the floor is yours and i'm sorry we've not muted unmuted brett yet now brett the floor is yours uh good afternoon mayor and city council members my name is brett aldiri i live in district 3. public safety is a core requirement for a healthy community public safety is required for cities to grow to attract people investments jobs a properly staffed and trained police force is fundamental for a healthy environment more is required than policing as others have stated i think we need to do more to address drug addiction mental illness and homelessness but it's vital that we support our police department please vote yes on agenda item 71-72 and let's make phoenix a leadership position in positive policing thank you thank you now we will go to jessica in chambers and then return to virtual for tanya bettencourt alcazar hello this is a temperature sensor so everybody calm down my name is lefty the council chamber right now the ground is 76 degrees recently in the last day an organization named unsheltered phoenix released some information that the city has manipulated there have been 1814 deaths that have been manipulated in a way to hide them the city has reported i believe 500 or so deaths in the last two years that number is much much higher and these are what's recorded and visible university park is the only park within the phoenix area that opens up at 10 30 a.m in comparison to other parks that open up at 5. it is the closest park next to the largest encampment area known as the zone a bus stop on 15th avenue in fillmore disappeared two months ago i called to ask about it and when i gave my number they said what's your name i gave a fake one i was told i would be updated never was that bus stop is where somebody passed away who was unsheltered some time ago this morning i saw somebody crossing the street and i saw phoenix pd run their sirens at them to get them out of the way that person lost control of their bowels after they left the street the police in my area because i live right next to the encampment stop people for not having bicycle lights for not having brakes on their bicycle and going through a stop sign on a residential street my house received a blight notice because i have a fridge with cold water on it and a tarp hiding my fence because i cannot afford something better the this is what you guys are spending your money on seriously this is a disgrace while you sit here in 76 degrees it was 154 degrees outside you're welcome tanya is next followed by nadine ellurya hi everyone my name is daniel vettenko as a first-time speaker i am extremely disappointed that budget items 71 and 72 were moved to the end of the meeting i thankfully have the privilege to have a job that allows me to work from home and i could jump in and jump out of this long meeting but many do not have that privilege this is what discourages working-class people from attending these meetings especially y'all knowing how important these line numbers were to the people of phoenix i've been a f resident of phoenix for 20 years and i am calling on each member of the phoenix city council to vote no on line 71 and 72. we need to stop funding police and allocate those funds to our schools mental health services and housing and rent relief in the middle of this housing crisis every week when i drive home from downtown to my home i pass by two buildings the phoenix pd headquarters and my former middle school of santa maria the phoenix headquarters has a huge banner that reads ten thousand dollar sign-in bonus whereas santa maria does not have a sign like that that reads ten thousand dollar sign-in bonus for teachers i asked myself on the ride home why can't our city schools have banners like that and you want to know why it's because the city keeps giving more and more and more money to the police every single year i don't even know why we're considering a 65 percent increase to where starting police officers of 68 000 while teachers and social workers are still earning below poverty wages we will we will never see a better future if we keep funding the police and neighborhood block watches let's allocate those funds because i i'm going to quote my friend dj police are at best a reactionary service and we need to invest in proactive services please oppose line 71 and 72. thank you thank you nadine is next followed by aaron evans hello can we okay yes we can great thank you mayor and city council i am a phoenix native and a very active community member here in phoenix my family is in complete support of the police officer pay increase as the fifth largest city in the u.s we're already very behind in police pay and almost all of the businesses all businesses and organizations in the past few years have had to increase pay across the board and anyone who's actually involved in hiring employees knows that very well hiring a police officer is i would say at least 10 times more difficult than hiring civilian you know positions with regular jobs our police officers put their lives on the line every day as witnessed yesterday by the disgusting and horrifying attack on a phoenix police officer who was working to keep our community safe violent crimes continue to increase phoenix just made the list of uh violent crimes uh a city with an increase in violent crimes um all of the community leaders who i've worked with for the last four years are all in full support of this pd pay increase and we ask for our city council to pass this pay increase as it's long overdue i want to thank phoenix pd for protecting our great city and our community every day thank you for hearing me today thank you aaron is next followed by cynthia graber hi my name is aaron evans i'm here to oppose this awful idea of giving the phoenix pd an additional 20 million dollars in raises adding to an already increased budget which takes up the majority of the entire city's budget why are we always told that there's never any money to house our growing unsheltered population or at the very least keep them safe and cool in the summer there's never any money to make mental health and substance abuse assistance programs more easily available yet here we are deciding on what to do with all this extra money that we want to put towards cops all you elected officials would rather use more of the people's money to criminalize homelessness poverty and mental health issues rather than fund programs that will actively prevent them we do not believe this lie that has been forced on us for hundreds of years that the police keep us safe we will all remember what you vote for today well you decide what is important the people at mass liberation said it best if the phoenix police department were any other city employee we know that by now they would face some sort of accountability instead you want to reward them for being the worst employees on your payroll fund the people not the police no raises for cops thank you cynthia is next followed by zyra flores can you hear me yes we can thank you mayor and city council members it has been many years since we have evaluated the pay scale for our police officers we are losing more than we are gaining because of the competitive pay created by our proximity cities now is the time to 100 support our public safety we need to quadruple every available monetary incentive to increase our police staffing this council has one responsibility and that is to protect people property and its employees arizona is hit harder than any other state in the nation with drug gun and people trafficking phoenix is the fifth largest city and now is the time to grow our police force to support its citizens we can't afford to lose more officers we need our officers to know how much we love and support them our officers deserve to be paid for the sacrifices they make every day for risking their lives and protecting the citizens of phoenix arizona thank you thank you senora flores proxima and then stacia hirst flores foxy it's not safe with the police you already know that the supreme court ruled that the police have no legal obligation to protect our people even when they know that people are harassing us discriminating against us or trying to harm us in fact they don't even have to prevent our deaths at the hands of others as a city we should invest our money in our departments and programs that support so zero should be paid to the police the amount they deserve the department is not worth our money because the police is not the solution every dollar that the city spends and wastes on the police is a dollar that can go towards housing and child care vouchers more housing for less fortunate people and people with no homes yes thank you thank you stacia is next followed by cynthia garcia they show the floor is yours hello this is stacia can you hear me yes uh hello uh mayor and city council my name is stacia i'm a local homeowner and resident here in district three and uh i'm on the call today to ask for your support on 71 and 72 i would encourage you to vote yes on this i am listening to the conversations of people and a lot of issues are on the table i don't think this is a police versus every other issue in the city we have many you know this city is multi-faceted we need funding for everything right now on the table is are are these raises this is what's on the table currently right now i also understand schools mental health fair housing homelessness drug abuse drug prevention parks and rec um maintenance of all these things these are all important issues i think some of those issues have been funded correctly and obviously we have more work to do on those but also i think it's important for people to understand that if you're interested in all of these things you need to reach out not at a meeting like this for public comment you need to individually reach out to your council member and talk about what your neighborhood needs that's how things get put on the agenda and that's how things get funded just because we're funding um a police department doesn't mean we're taking away from other things and i think it's important to understand that i would also encourage people um you know attend subcommittee meetings this isn't the only meeting there's always meetings attend subcommittee meetings get involved with agendas ask to be put on a task force if you feel so you know but you know schools and mental health are two big issues and i would encourage people to get involved and ask to be on those task force and work together this isn't um a one-time you know you can't give to one thing and take away from everybody there is a way to get there and i think part of this is this is already on the agenda and i would ask for your support on 71.72 thank you for your time cynthia is garcia is next followed by caroline lobo cynthia the floor is yours cynthia can you hear us okay no audio okay we will next go to caroline followed by katie gibson mclean hello can you hear me yes we can great thank you mayor and members of the council um until i started working at a grassroots level boots on the ground in my community of sunny slope i did not really appreciate the inner workings of our police department with that exposure and experience i speak here today in total support of our police department i am a business owner and a resident at sunnyslope i believe that every human has a role to play in society pd's role is safety and security of citizens there is no single business or organization where you do not find a bad apple in private industry we have bad apples too and we have made it work without shutting businesses or cutting salaries our communities need help and support of our pd to keep us safe so that we as business owners or employees can go about playing our role in society having said that with the current marketplace and i've experienced this because we have employee shortage we have to be competitive so that we do not compromise the safety and security of our citizens the people that we work with and play with this is a dangerous and hard job and the pandemic has only made it worse for rpd with the current climate very few people are even willing to take on this job we need to retain pd we need to support them they deserve the salary increase and i would totally appreciate it if you could support it too thank you thank you katie is next followed by anne marie my name is katie gibson mclean i'm a district 8 resident a mom and a public defender um i agree with the last caller about the fact that this is the climate is not right for folks to want to join the phoenix police department but i believe that's because there's a culture there that people don't want to be a part of you're under investigation by the doj there's neo-nazi challenge coins your own former assistant chiefs are secretly recording other assistant chiefs and putting folks on blast on the news i mean it's laughable to think that throwing money at this issue is going to be what attracts people to come to this department that's hilarious hilarious and actually kind of insulting and offensive to think that the public can't see the difference between that going back to some of the other callers who in support of this i think it's a little presumptuous to say that folks can just ask to be put on an agenda or bring this up and ask your council member to put something on the agenda things don't work that easily people can decide what goes on agendas we've seen that happen in the public safety committee we know what's going on there things don't get put on the agenda for a reason the city of houston has taken on a housing first opportunity where they have been able to cut homelessness by 63 percent since 2011 by doing housing first meaning permanent housing for people with no conditions of participating in religious or 12-step programs allowing them to get on shore and stress their problems without learning how to swim first this is something we could be doing in this city to prevent people from dying now why spend extra money on things that are reactionary i keep beating my head against the wall you know i'm here i'm a barnacle and i'm not going away because i talk to y'all all the time i was on the ad hoc committee which sunseted two years ago and guess what that seems like a big waste of time because there's been no updates we have no idea if there's been any improvements or any of our policy recommendations have been implemented because who cares and who's going to hold people accountable nobody and murray is next followed by amy caper good afternoon and good evening as a long time phoenix resident who is active in the community i am speaking today when i call 9-1-1 i expect an immediate response not a recorded message saying we will we are unable to respond to a staffing shortage which is what i am concerned about and where we're heading we need to give the city of phoenix recruiters appropriate recruiting tools like this salary increase so that we have a fighting chance to recruit officers the city has spent the last year trying to recruit new officers and retain the current ones the last number i heard is that we need 400 officers to be at appropriate staffing levels that will mean a whole lot of unanswered calls if the council does not mean does i vote yes again this is not a recruiter issue this is a lack of recruiting tools your number one job as a city council is to keep us safe please vote yes so there will be an officer responding when residents like me call in to 9-1-1 as a taxpayer i feel that this increase represents a good investment for the people of city people for the people who are residents of the city of phoenix thank you amy is next followed by phil martinez hi there can you hear me yes we can okay um so before i get started on why we should not now nor ever increase police funding i want to say someone's name kayla blair caleb was a black teenager who was murdered just five days ago when the phoenix police department handcuffed him threw him in a car with no ac where he died from heat exposure phoenix police repeatedly show us their hatred not only towards black people but also to those of us who stand up in solidarity with the black community i am one of the black lives matter protesters who was accused of false gang charges in 2020 but the same department that you all now want to give millions more dollars to sergeant mcbride who is still employed by phoenix police said that i was as dangerous as the bloods and crips and the hell's angels it was all a farce because phoenix pd wants to continue their slaughtering of black men like kayla blair and dion johnson without being challenged i know you're all going to approve this increase anyway but i'm trying to wrap my head around how any of you can rationalize giving more money to a department that is literally under investigation by the department of justice for violating not only my civil rights but the rights of many others arrested with me if you vote for this increase you are truly the scum of the earth and i hope you never get a good night's sleep for the rest of your miserable pathetic life defund the police black lives matter thank you bill martinez is next followed by christopher martinez phil the floor is yours mr phil martinez okay we will go next to christopher martinez okay so the line is still open for phil martinez but it is sort of static uh chris martinez the floor is yours hi my name is christopher martinez i'm a live in laura pastors district and i'm um well first i want to say putting this agenda down the line was really rough on a lot of us who have very difficult schedules we want to participate and we expect to be at a time that you just choose to disrespect us and in fact show some callousness or even disdain for the opinions of the public but um i want to say that i oppose these agenda items i'm looking at um a lot of things have already been said that um that um i think points i don't need to reiterate but we have but right now we're in such a crisis of poverty unhoused of limited resources and i'm looking at your priority list and it always comes down to giving the police more money and and i'm listening to people say well crime is rising we need more money crime is rising every year you get more money so the data would show if crime is rising and you're giving them more money maybe that doesn't work possibly that's not going to work and you're talking about giving raises to a police department that is fundamentally corrupt that is under investigation and has shown no changes there are no changes from when they arrested all the protesters and false charges there are no changes have been implemented from when they were the deadliest police force to again being the deadliest police force there are no changes of culture nothing has fundamentally changed with the phoenix police department yet you continuously find ways to throw more money at them which means you do not fundamentally care that they've harmed marginalized people that they've harmed people who are vulnerable so i oppose this agenda i think you need to re get your priorities together find a little backbone some ethics and morality and and and stop giving the police more money thank you thank you magalie martinez followed by sam merton hello good afternoon mayor gallego and council members my name is magali martinez my partner and i run tres leches cafe i'm a first generation mexican-american i've lived in phoenix arizona my entire life um stacia from district three i have held town hall meetings with our councilwoman at my business people are still dying on the street in the past there have been multiple incidents with our unsheltered neighbors where we had to contact penis pd for assistance since there are since there are no alternative resources at this time at best they show up to document and at worst they do absolutely nothing but stand around and harass these people out of their temporary shelters with nowhere else to go our establishment staff and customers remain at risk as well as the individuals that don't have anywhere to legally exist if my staff is telling me the ice machine is broken i'm not going to buy another fancy espresso machine and fix it i'm going to address the root of the problem every single death that is documented as occurring on the streets due to heat and lack of shelter should go down as negligent homicide you are all complicit if you continue to misallocate funds if people can't afford basic shelter or food how do you expect them to afford solar rooftops and teslas phoenix is restless we can't drive by an underpass a tree or bush a sidewalk without wondering if the motionless bodies underneath and near them are deceased or resting if you care about police you will not continue to put them in situations they are not best equipped to handle the police are not responsible for providing food or shelter they are not responsible for providing substance abuse or mental health resources and follow-up on a more personal note my family has been waiting six months for a child abuse case to be investigated last year a prior child abuse case that involved alleged sexual abuse of a five-year-old child was not prosecuted due to lack of evidence due to the inaction of phoenix pdi i'm currently forced to share custody with their abuser last i follow up i was told that the detective assigned to our case was pooled for patrol imagine my surprise when i drive through downtown phoenix every day and see multiple patrol vehicles and officers standing around during routine stops and hear that they are targeting and intimidating mutual aid workers before you give more money to a police department under federal investigation ask them why there is more time and resources for harassing the citizens they should be protecting than there is for keeping our children safe how are they samuel is next followed by karen hi uh before you start my time i just wanted to let you know that cynthia garcia um is still waiting you skipped her um all right so i'm calling to oppose uh item 71-72 the phoenix police department has an annual budget of about 800 million dollars already that's an inconceivable amount of money almost a billion dollars already go to this department and yet the council still thinks more money is the answer the phoenix police department is currently under investigation by the department of justice for abusive power and civil rights violations i don't think an outrageous notion to say that no new money should go to this department while corruption is being investigated i'd like to remind the council that we already heard a solution to low police employment rate during the june 8th public safety and justice meeting the city did research and found that removing officers from mental health calls and non-emergency calls will free up time and resources for officers people are coming in here talking about response time and burnt out officers if you want happy officers if you want to maintain their employment if you want faster response time stop sending police to calls they're not qualified for any new money and salary wages should go to departments and community initiatives that address mental health crisis and on shelter crisis in phoenix people have spoken about public safety that is about public safety that is what will make people feel safe imagine a phoenix with a robust mental health department where calls are answered by professionals and not burnt out cops imagine a phoenix or everyone feels safe calling 9-1-1 that is the where money and razor should go to you've already spent the majority of our budget on the police it's time to think of creative solutions listen to your own data that tells you more money is not the answer listen to the people who have been calling in for years telling you don't feel safe calling 9-1-1 thank you thank you karen is next followed by david hello can you hear me we can hear you hi my name is karen olsen and just really quick i would like to thank every community member that has stayed both in person and virtually here to say and come together no matter what their they were talking about because this is abuse that is coming to us that we had to sit and wait and redo our schedules on the drop of a thought dime i don't know pick your poison of what you want to say um i have been here all day along with my fellow ben and i'm in um solidarity uh with black and directly impacted people that have been harmed by the phoenix police department due to the political prosecutions of 2020 and i know many people have made great arguments and and comments about that and so i'll let that be the point is that one experience is too many uh we are we are here placating white supremacy let's be very very blunt about it the fact that we are talking about what makes people feel safe rather than what keeps them alive should make every single one of us stand up and shout that this is not okay i am a phoenix resident i work at multiple jobs i make half of what the current pay grade of these police officers is i work really hard i want to be part of this community i come to sub-committees grassroots organizers have solutions they want to be part of this not this system but they want to create a system they want to create a structure they want to create spaces that are safe for all and when they aren't they're transparent and accountable for their actions they sit with uncomfortability we are not asking for you to do something that you're not capable of but if you're not capable of sitting in that seat and being uncomfortable stand down step [Music] david is next followed by jacob thank you my name is david portugal um i am coming to speak to you as somebody who worked in the mental behavioral health field for over 10 years i worked alongside crisis lines i've i've gone out there to de-escalate uh potential suicides potential you know potential uh uh self-harm and harm to others and and i've seen firsthand uh what mental behavior health services can do in a crisis moment uh you know we're responding to to human beings who are struggling with with substances you know who are self-medicating because all of the ways in which society has let us down let them down uh from you know not being able to to make a living wage to not getting the mental behavioral health services you need to not be able to afford rent you know people turn to to self medication and other things that are criminalized uh as a result of something and we're not looking for those root causes we're just trying to to pay people to to show up and and and just go through the motions with a broken system it's been said a hundred times already you know our police department's under investigation and we think that uh throwing more money at the problem is gonna motivate more people to show up and and do that job um but having again having worked in the mental behavioral household i can tell you those people put their lives on the line every day too going out to crisis calls sacrificing family time to stay out extra to de-escalate a situation to get a family connected to resources there are tons of ways that we can be spending money the police budget is already bloated we we've tried that route to do the same thing over and over again and expect different results is the definition of insanity thank you jacob is next followed by denise all right can i be heard yes we can all right my name is jacob rayford from lee rising and no cap advocacy group um all right let me just get to it we don't think you understand clearly you see city council you are not the city of phoenix you're merely representatives of your respective districts we the collective community are the city of phoenix it's not a music municipality of sorts it is a myriad neighborhoods homes families lives impacted by your unilateral decisions now we told you all countless times that you need to view mental health as the number one priority we have told you countless times that you need to view the mistreatment and alignment of the unhoused community as a number one priority and that doesn't mean allocating the remains of your budget towards behavioral health resources or photo ops or insincere performative initiatives to reach out to the on house demographic that means treating these subjects like the unaddressed crises that they are but instead y'all not only prioritize but you reward predatory behavior any department under the investigation by the doj for innumerable cases of misconduct and injustice against the community is not virtuous enough to warrant access to the taxpayers money community-centered resources and mental health outlets are in desperate need of financial support you're seeking to fast track your community assistance program or programs specifically centered around behavioral health without thorough research without involving impacted community members in the developmental process without seeking to make it universally accessible via 9-1-1 without ensuring the back-end clinics you're working with don't have a reputation for his treatment of behavioral health needs sending innocent people experiencing very real human moments spiraling through a revolving door of mental health trauma so they can go out there and be harassed by or harmed by a recruit officer who makes two to three times more than a teacher one who represents a police department that ranks number one in fatal shootings amongst the 10 most populous cities in the nation i mean wow you want to attract better officers show that police departments aren't a haven for racism for phobias and other unchecked misconduct by holding them accountable and not encouraging our harm by literally rewarding bad behavior my name is jacob rayford once again disappointed in y'all denise is next followed by may ms denise i want to start off by saying i came no negative energy and to quote y'all right i need this to be on the record to the woman who tried to dumb down the process of our presence and current agenda all of y'all council members should disclose the meetings we have had with y'all literally this entire year and i dare any of y'all to discredit this because i'm a great note taker and i have the receipts in my google calendar uh i'm here to oppose those 20 million dollars for the city of phoenix pd highlighting once more that phoenix pd is under investigation of the department of justice of literally yaw of 50 states in regards to their lies abuse of power and them being again number one murderers in the country for several years in a row now uh we saw that embarrassing video talking about them needing to pay bills well guess what we are here too we need to pay bills too there have been over 300 deaths in under all of y'all's careers not to mention gentrification in our neighborhoods and the rent increase there has been an overdose of 36 percent over in the last year now we are a product of our society and the form of democracy that you are currently practicing is not the same that y'all stole from my ancestors modern policing originated from slave catching and the protection of rich white male slave owners those 20 million dollars literally could fund health committees free transportation shading for our streets higher education i shouldn't have to live less than 10 years from the folks in north phoenix just because i live in the west valley the well-being of the city lays on all of y'all's hands including the blood that has been shed we will replace y'all all cab every day return the land to who y'all stole it from black lives matter y'all ashamed to your ancestors may is next followed by eric brickley all right uh my name is made to a mancla and i am the democracy director for a nhpi for equity where we promote civic engagement within the aaa nhpi community i want i went to a top 10 public school in illinois and came to arizona 13 years ago to pursue my college degree during that time i was dealing with depression after coming out to my family as a lesbian i felt like i lost the love and support that surrounded my entire life just because they weren't supportive for me being gay i turned to alcohol to cope with my sadness and loneliness and wound up in the criminal justice system i ended up not completing college and was incarcerated for two years at perryville prison during my time in perryville i found out that 70 of us were in there for non-violent crimes and many of us of us were dealing with mental health issues poverty or didn't have a quality education many had to stay on a non-working yard because they couldn't pass the mandatory tests which consist of eighth grade level reading and math skills i know this because i tutored the women on the yard during my drug and alcohol treatment classes in perryville our counselor told us that punishment does not treat addiction and actually makes it worse they didn't believe in the system they didn't believe in what the system was doing but felt like nothing could be done my the morale of staff was low because many don't feel like they are making people's lives better that is why arizona prisons are all understaffed and as that's why the phoenix pd is understaffed as well i oppose this budget because i believe our resources need to be allocated towards our communities education education system mental health facilities public housing programs and community development programs instead of furthering criminalization of people who are already getting kicked to the ground because of their circumstances and traumas they have to cope with on their own i know this because i was one of them but i was lucky enough to gain a community that works on bettering lives for everyone you don't need we will go next to eric and then we'll try cynthia garcia one more time so can you hear me yes we can it doesn't seem like you can hear anybody that's been speaking to you today that's why i just want to verify you can hear me right you can hear that we're saying we don't want police in our neighborhoods we don't want you to increase the amount of money they're getting the social services are woefully underfunded people are dying in a obvious state of emergency and we are doing nothing but talking about how we can make changes years down the road people need to be off the streets that money can be redirected to help people deal with mental health illness to help people get some housing the cops do not need this they are the most deadly force in the nation all right for multiple years running uh the doj is currently investigating them as i'm sure you're aware of and the city of phoenix not just the cops the entire city is under investigation they're looking at the ways you fund this deadly gang we also notice the way you fund these deadly gangs and we're going to pay attention come election day thank you and we'll go back to cynthia garcia cynthia can you hear us cynthia you're unmuted all right i am unable to hear cynthia so that concludes public comment and i will turn to our public safety chairwoman thank you mayor i would like to move to approve items 71 and 72. i am thankful to our city staff for bringing forward this item it has been my priority since before i was elected to help restore our phoenix police department to our prior numbers safety in city of phoenix is a priority it is a priority to my constituents it is priority to the constituents of all the city of phoenix and our officers are currently being paid roughly seven percent below average and we are the largest city in the state of arizona this is just one tool to providing [Music] to our recruiters for bringing on additional officers to our force the um in addition to that i hope it will also encourage our current officers to remain with our police department prior city council during the great recession froze hiring for our phoenix police officers for six years and as such we are losing more officers than we are hiring and it takes us a year to train those officers and have them ready and able to go out to provide safety and response to our calls and also build relationships with our community members policing is not just reactive policing is about building community policing is about building relationships there are officers who attend community meetings and have relationships with our community members and our neighborhoods and our kids and our schools not all experiences for everybody is positive because there are people out there breaking laws and that's when like the woman who said when she calls 9-1-1 she expects her call to be answered and for her to receive service it is our duty and responsibility to make sure we are as a council are doing everything we can to ensure that we have police officers on our police department who are able to not only answer those calls but then do the investigations so that we can provide the information to our county attorney's office thank you mayor second we have a second from councilman stark we will go i guess to councilman garcia councilman waring and councilwoman gordado thank you mayor and thank you to all the folks who stayed back and it was tough to to wait for hours to get to speak but thank you all um i think we've heard that the phoenix police department has many issues we heard repeatedly by folks that were being investiga we're embarrassed weekly on on the nightly news we pay out millions in lawsuits through a pandemic we realized how important everybody else is every other staff person and yet we're at the situation again and so i'm not going to go too much into i think a lot of folks spoke to the issues and and and the different realities i think that we have i think to say that the only people that have uh bad interactions with police are those that have committed crimes is completely out of touch and and i hope uh councilwoman o'brien you could see some of those stories of and talk to some of the families that have suffered at the hands of police um i do have some questions though and for laurie uh we've been talking about employee compensation studies for all employees um how is the decision made to prioritize the police department study and get to this point in such an expedited way mayor councilmember garcia members of the council this decision was made to ask the hr department to expedite this study back in november right around november when we were talking about the severe shortage of police officers we've been experiencing and we were talking about the retention incentive and ways that we can incentivize officers to stay with the department longer and those conversations sparked conversations about how our pay structure is out of date and out of touch with the actual market as it relates to law enforcement pay and that's not unique to our police department that is something that many of our city employees are experiencing and that is why we are conducting a city-wide class and club study as all of you are aware however we have had some hot spots within our city and we've already begun to address some of those outside of the police department we've addressed areas within our electrician group we've addressed our 911 operators and others who we have recognized have been woefully out of outside of the labor market and where we need to be to attract and retain those employees and high quality employees and so that's the same motivation that caused us to look at police officers ahead of the remainder of the city and we do have about 900 classifications across the city so we have a lot of different types of city employees in different job classifications but there have been certain areas are police officers being one of them where we found the need to move those studies ahead of the rest of the city where is the money coming from exactly for these raises so the class and comp study increases that are are before you today are coming from the existing police department budget that was just approved by the city council so there's no additional money being requested essentially the money comes from salary savings for those 400 450 plus vacant positions that we have existing in the police department today what happens in the future those positions are filled as we fill positions that will require additional funding in future years for the police department it will not require a future it will not uh require additional funding in 2223. how will this affect the labor negotiations uh the mou conversations next year and is there a possibility that you know what can happen after those negotiations mayor members of the council council member garcia it's hard to say what will happen in labor negotiations as you know we have those conversations with all of our labor groups and we typically land in a place where each labor groups each labor group gets a similar total compensation increase so i would expect that we would have similar conversations beginning this december and january with all of our labor groups and ultimately we'll be bringing contracts forward that are the results of those negotiations but they will not they will be based upon uh wherever we land today with these increases as it relates to the police department so this will be a starting point if you will for negotiations uh that we begin in december so it could potentially even add more or le but it won't go less in a negotiation okay um from some of the messaging that's come out from the city and this week and even some of my colleagues it's been talked about that this is going to give us greater accountability um can you first explain current you know what we currently have around accountability and also how you see this making police more accountable mayor members of the council council member garcia currently and and as you may recall during our last round of labor negotiations um we have implemented multiple things with the police department that increase accountability we have increased our standards as it relates to discipline maintaining records of discipline over the career of a police employee and all employees as a matter of fact we have also worked on multiple policy changes which we'll be discussing in future meetings with the police department that improve accountability we've also worked to become much more transparent with the community as far as releasing information about police interactions with the community in a more timely manner so there's lots of things that that we have done over the past several years under the leadership of chief williams to increase accountability and transparency of our police employees with the community and we've also worked to improve transparency across the board with city employees to make sure that we are accountable for the service we provide to the community and for the taxpayer dollars we spend doing that and we will continue to do those things i look forward to having a more in-depth conversation about some of the things we've done that are police specific at a future meeting but we we have committed to be transparent and accountable and i think that this provides an opportunity for us to make that clear to our sworn employees that that is the expectation that we're raising the bar we are we are setting ourselves apart as the highest paid law enforcement organization in the state of arizona if this passes and that means that we can expect the most and we can expect the highest level of accountability for our community and the highest level of service for our community thank you i i just think it seems a little bit nonsensical to admit that we need more accountability and to expect that give rewarding them giving them bigger raises is then going to turn around and make them more accountable um so i think you mentioned and a lot of callers mentioned you know other departments and to david i don't know if you have these off the top of your head but if you could give a rough estimate of vacancies that we may have in our housing department or planning department or water department i don't know if you have those available but just an idea mayor members of council councilman garcia i don't have the vacancy rates for each department with me okay would you say there are similar numbers do you say because i know exactly for or at least from the housing department we've heard of that in comparison to other cities around us we're the lowest by far and it's the biggest crisis we have right now yet that's not a department that we're urgently moving at the head of the line we're actually moving police roughly those numbers on on housing or mayor members of council council member garcia we do have vacancy high vacancy rates across the city um i i don't know if it compares exact percentage-wise with police but that is why we are doing a classic comp study and we also do other other items when we notice those high vacancy rates one of those would be increasing the minimum entry step so we've done that for several positions across the city in the housing department and in other departments where where we we see our entry rate isn't competitive with the marketplace so a quick fix for that is to increase the minimum entry rate as well as as laurie mentioned some of those other class and comp studies we've done targeted at specific classifications okay so just to be clear we have we're missing a lot of housing staff we have a housing crisis and our development department does not have the staff to keep up with permitting or approving newer homes being built we're facing a level one drought that requires more attention from us but we're not doing the urgent uptick in raises for any of those departments what is the what is it then what is the timeline for the compensation studies to be completed for the rest of those departments mayor council members councilmember garcia the city-wide class and comp study is slated to be finished in spring of 2023 so february march of next year um but we do have a few other uh specific class income studies that were negotiated by labor groups underway right now as well as the ones we've already completed so we are in process of a few others currently hypothetically obviously our year is over we come back in september and we wanted to speed these up laurie or jeff how could we do that with a housing crisis that we have what would be a process for us to be able to urgently get these city employees in the front of the line like we just did for police mayor members of the council council member garcia so similar to what we've done with the six studies before these police sworn positions as well as this one we can identify areas where we are experiencing a higher level of need than the the general city population and we can expedite specific job families or job classifications and look at those ahead of the remaining city-wide classification study so it would just be a matter of identifying which classifications we would want to prioritize next and and expediting that portion of the study okay councilman councilman garcia mayor members of the council um general fund vacancies as of may total general fund vacancies including sworn vacancies is roughly 1300 positions vacant of those positions approximately 50 percent of those are in the police department there's no department that comes close to that housing has no general fund vacant positions because they don't really have a lot of general fund support they have 31 vacancies that are non-general fund right now there's no department that really comes close to police and vacancies in terms of the total number fire would be the next in line they have about 183 total vacancies after them it's parks and recs that have 106 vacancies so we're sitting on right now 1309 general fund vacancies and of those roughly 50 percent are in police a combination of sworn and civilian with most being sworn so is there is there a time when some of these other departments fire and all those folks can expect that same level of respect and urgency to rush the compensation studies councilman garcia mayor members of the council i don't i don't know as of right now that there's another department that is experiencing the level of loss that police is experiencing in terms of its vacancies and the number of positions that are leaving i also don't think that there's another department that is being poached to the extent that police is being poached by other jurisdictions for in my estimation less risky work in another in a smaller community with the presentation that we saw last week in public safety and justice subcommittee that showed us all the different um places in which non-uniformed police officers can be used is that another way i know we civilianize some positions is that something else that we're doing because again you're betting right now that this extra money is gonna all of a sudden have officers you know running down our door knocking down our door to get here let's say that doesn't happen what are we gonna do then what are we gonna do if those officers don't show up even if we raise it another 30 000. well first first let me say this i i don't want anyone to get the false impression that these raises are a panacea that they're going to fix everything that's wrong with hiring officers and retaining officers it's not that's one leg on a three or four leg stool that we're trying to address there are other there are other reasons they're leaving we all know that but again i think it will help based on some of the conversations that we've had as far as the other things that you talked about we've continued to do that we'll continue you know you mentioned the civilian investigators is one thing that we've done we've also invested 15 million dollars in in our cap program which is another way that we're also trying to alleviate first responders police and fire from responding to calls that just quite frankly they're ill-equipped ill-equipped to respond to and putting them in an unfair situation so we'll continue to look for opportunities to do that throughout the course of this but i think at the end of the day my grandmother always told me you get what you pay for so we want the best we've got to pay the best and that that doesn't just mean police and fire that means everybody from every position that we have that serves our community i think what i think i'll close with this i think with with that same saying mr grandma said you get what you pay for the fact that we're prioritizing police and that's what we're paying for that's also worse than the message that we're sending out and we've recognized that police aren't good for everything we've also i think you've also done we've had police sit up here and say it and so i do think we're falling into this trap where we're continuing to prioritize and overfund police who are untrained and then expecting them to do things that they don't know how to do we had that gentleman pass away the 19 year old teenager passed away this week like we don't have cap yet but you know if cap would have shown up i think this the situation might have been different we don't know but i think we continue to prioritize and fund this department and then expect them to do things that they're simply not trained for and the circumstances or the results have unfortunately been loss of life and other things we've talked about i'm going to be voting on this i believe it's unfair to the other workers in the city that one department is prioritized again and again leaving others behind especially as we're being told we are facing economic uncertainty what i'm afraid of is that we leave our other employees behind and if we hit another recession or as you've warned us that times might not be as as you know as as grassy on the other side we will not be able to abide the same commitment of compensation to other departments who've also put their lives on the line who've also gotten us through this pandemic in different ways that we are now recognizing that we hadn't seen before um and i do think and again it might be my personal opinion that it's it's short-sighted that this type of management is short-sighted and not respectful to constituents we keep falling into the same trap of wanting to fix everything with our police department leading again to unprepared and overworked police force that's you know they're leaving themselves and they're hurting the community um you know i really want us to look at those recommendations from asu from that report from last week i really think we can lean on that and and figure out um how to specialize just like we have with the cap again i want to echo i think jacob said it today that we need a community process for that but just like we're developing cap i hope we could find solutions for other places and and being able to support folks with with other resources not just police thank you we'll go next to councilman waring then councilman guardado then councilman dececio then councilwoman i'm sorry thank you mayor i appreciate it i want to thank anne o'brien for her work on this i've enjoyed serving on the public safety committee with her you run a good meeting and i think we've had great discussions about this and made this possible i appreciate it very much for david laurie and jeff your work behind the scenes uh makes this possible and is much appreciated by me uh to sal de ceo who'll probably have his own comments uh thank you for banging the drum on this for decades long before i was on the council or any of us were he was talking about these issues and it matters to the officers who are here in the room you were referred to as burned out cops earlier it's not what i see i see dedicated professionals who are working to keep my family safe and i appreciate it very much so thank you um i'll just say this um we have earned the mess that we're in as a city uh the city apparatus has not treated you probably as well as they should have this is a long time coming and it's unfortunate it's taken this long to get here and we've earned the mess that we're in we knew years ago i remember being told how many of our officers are retirement eligible and when those officers started getting treated the way they've been treated the last few years they decided to retire can't fault them for that i probably would have done the same thing so for those of you who stuck it out that is deeply appreciated by me and i think by a lot of citizens because i do a lot of door knocking i've met people in over 3 000 houses since january of this year if somebody's thinking is that a lot i don't know well it's about 20 hours a week dad passed away so i've missed a couple weekends but bottom line there is one person i've met knocking on doors who said anything like most of what i've heard in this room tonight most of what i've heard is well all of what i've heard doesn't come up in every single house is hey support police so if you're wondering how you're received in district 2 in north phoenix they appreciate your efforts never doubt that when i come out door knocking with me some night we'll go meet some citizens at their front doors and see what they say we'll see how many so that you're burned out cops or we should pay you zero or we shouldn't have a police department or whatever that number is going to rest at zero i can pretty much guarantee it from years of experience of meeting people who value your work so i just want to make sure that there is a different side to the story maybe somewhat different than what you heard tonight you're not perfect people you make mistakes it's sometimes it's not acceptable i understand all that but you certainly earned the raise you're getting tonight and i'm glad it's been expedited up to i think it was august 7th um you know realistically if we get we've made a lot of economic gains mayor you've talked about i've talked about every council members probably talked about some of the great projects that have been brought to the city of phoenix which employs our citizens which pays the city's bills that won't happen if you get us down to 2000 officers you get that response right up to 15 minutes or something people be heading for the hills they'll go to vegas or some other city they won't come here and then we'll be in a real mess and that's the trend that we're on right now so this is a badly needed measure again i appreciate david and his team working this out and jeff you making this possible there's a lot of people to thank it's i wish it would have come earlier but we're here now and i think that's important so uh i'm obviously going to be a yes hopefully we can do more maybe in the coming year with the negotiations so i think i'll just leave it at that i will say to the caller who said we were the scum of the earth i haven't heard that since the 80s so that really took me back and i appreciate the nostalgia between that and all the swearing on the phone the fella was cursing the mayor out earlier i felt like i stumbled onto the set of midnight run it was awesome great to sell the trip for me so thank you for that and uh mayor i'll turn it back over to you councilwoman guardado followed by councilman dececio followed by councilwoman ansari thank you mayor yes um so i get i want to say thank you for all the work that's been done on this but i agree with a lot of what council remember garcia said um he beat me to a lot of the questions but um with with all the responses that were said one of the things that does continue to be upsetting is the fact that we see that there's an issue i appreciate the worker come study but the thing that i don't appreciate is the subcontracting out of the departments right you know on the departments where we cannot hire we are looking into subcontracting out you know we are changing work schedule for workers to be able to get to all the work that needs to be done as a city you know we are as a city in my opinion in the middle of a crisis when it comes to wages if during covet we learn something and and people learn something working-class families learn something learn that life is more precious than a job and i think we have a lot of work to do when it comes when it comes to wages as a city we are not compatible and and i and i appreciate the fact that um jeff laurie david i think you guys understand that that we're not compatible on that side i wish we would have done things a little bit different because i think even though the positions may not be the same volume um it's a lot easier to say we're gonna subcontract this department out or we need to bring out an outside agency and as you guys know in my previous life you know i've always fought for good wages for good health care and for respect on the job and the idea that this is going to take us to next spring to be able to bring those wages to those workers and being able to show folks that we also appreciate other departments um you know i i'm not exactly sure how those workers are gonna feel i know that we lose workers and all the other departments every day as well but i also understand the need you get what you pay for i 100 also agree with that but then we also have to take into consideration the housing crisis that we're in all of the folks that get evicted every single day um especially in my district i know there's a lot of people that are being affected mental illness is also like a big priority in figuring out how do we also prioritize that as we're as we're moving forward i i appreciate the all the other wage increases that we've done um this year and last year um but i i do think that we need to figure out a way if there's a way where we can move this a little bit faster and then i am hopeful um that in the future and during contract negotiations with the other labor groups because of these wage increases we are not shortchanging other departments because we have a huge challenge in front of us and i know i have a lot of trust in you um jeff and laurie um to be able to make this happen but we need to figure out how is it that we can expedite this a little bit more um the idea that we were not able to open up all of our pools this year and that were at the same time shortchanging the community um it's also not right so with that being said i am going to support this item but i am hopeful that we will continue to have these conversations where we are also giving the same type of a priority to all of our other workers thank you thank you mayor thank you mayor if i may um just to a little or a little bit of a response to you councilwoman guardado um first and foremost i want to say that i i believe entirely a lot of what you said you know we support our employees i i stand by the city of phoenix employee i think we're the hardest working people in government i think we do the best job in government i firmly believe that i believe that for 23 years now since i've been a city employee and and i do want to say that this budget that you adopted and approved today for next year you also showed your commitment to the city of phoenix employee because we did for the first time ever ahead of labor negotiations take some of the surplus and set it aside specifically to address the class and comp study so i want that to go on record because i think it's important for our employees to know that that's essentially where we stand with them contracting out is not something that we look to do i think we've done it on occasion when there's a necessity when we've got a health or safety issue or we just don't have workers that are available to do the job those are one-offs we're not looking to contract things out think thank you for that and yes and the reason i mentioned that was because i know that we've been having i feel like those conversations continually continue to happen and i just want to also put that on the record but i do have confidence and i do believe that you do care about the workers that laurie cares that david cares i think it's the first time that we put money aside for contract negotiations um so i do hope that we start i'm looking at all of these issues and then we move forward with that thank you mayor thank you councilman dececio thank you for that mayor and uh and mayor thank you for pushing so hard at making this thing work out like this and jim thank you so much for those kind words but i've got to give you a lot of the credit as well i mean you've been pushing for this as well trying to get it done i know you're because we've had multiple meetings on this thing we've given speeches on it the crisis in front of our city is real it and i believe and and to jeff barton's point here this is only one tool in the toolbox that we have here it doesn't solve everything i believe we've already reached a crisis point this is the number one issue the number one issue facing our city and whoever helped expedite this thank you for doing that because it needed to happen a long time ago but we're doing it now and i appreciate that and i know the police officers appreciate that the amount of abuse our police officers have gone through is just incomprehensible it's just incomprehensible we've heard it here today the name call it the attacks on them but it goes deeper than that the police officers and their spouses have to deal with this those spouses and their children have to deal with this their kids have been abused at school because of the attacks and the anti-police rhetoric and calling them murderers and all this and it's just unacceptable for our city it's unacceptable anywhere you would never allow this to happen in your own home your children should never even be preaching this type of words but we heard it here today we've heard about and these are the smallest of smallest minorities that's it there are very few in our city that don't support our police very few the majority of our police officers are the majority of our citizens are complete supporters of the police they know their dedication their hard work and their love for the city and their love for their fellow human beings people don't realize the amount of work these police officers do and the fact that when they leave the door when they walk out that door every single day they don't know if they're going to come home their stuff doesn't know if they're going to come home their children don't know that and who works like that who has a job like that and then the minute they walk out that door and go to work every experience they have is a negative experience it's a negative experience it just is whether it's a minor situation traveling violation to a murder everything is negative that revolves around these police officers so when we look at why they flew and why i say we're in a crisis point it reminds me of the time i was literally just sitting there thinking about it i did some off-roading just recently and it was on a hill one hill the mountain i only went 10 feet down but the weight of the vehicle made me go down and literally i flew off the side of the mountain luckily everything was okay my past year was okay with my daughter but the bottom line is that you reach a point a tipping point which i believe we've already reached that sooner or later it's got so much mass and so much momentum and so much weight behind it that all of a sudden you're in an even worse crisis we receive reports that we need 3 800 police officers we're under 2 700 today 1100 less than we should have that's the voting number that we made up of 3125 but just a real number what we needed to have on the streets to keep our police our public safe so i hope this works i'm not convinced that's going to do it i'm happy for the police officers they more than deserve this that's for sure um for all the work that they've done to protect us and our family one other thing i'd like to see because i don't hear this okay i think there should be more discretion by the council members in each district to be able to pick and choose the type of policies they want if somebody wants counselors i will trade all my counselors for police officers if someone wants to do that i'd be happy to do that but i don't hear that i don't hear from anybody saying hey i want less police officers in my district but i want more counselors if they want that i'll take all the police officers i need them my district needs to be the safest city the state just that's my goal to be the safest district in the city and it only takes you know that type of support to do that if people want to trade me i'll do it let's get it done but until then we've got to start supporting these people we've got to tell we can't use the word but in qualifying languages we can't say they're great but they can do better no they can't do that they've done the best that they can they're the absolute best in the city they're the absolute best in the state and they're the best in the nation that's how great our police department is i'm very proud of them my family's very proud of them my friends are part of them my district is very proud of them they need to know we love them we appreciate them and we know how hard they work thank you mary thank you councilwoman antari thank you mayor um many of my questions have also been asked but i do want to just thank staff um i very much appreciate the clarification that the 19.8 million will be absorbed in the existing budget that we already voted on and the fact that a citywide classification study is underway and expected to be completed in early 2023 i think i share the concerns of my colleagues in terms of the way this was done and understand the concerns that at least for employee morale why it wouldn't be why it's not the right approach to have chosen one classification over over the rest but i think everyone who called in today the residents who have called in across our city can all agree that cost of living is rising rapidly in phoenix today a salary in the 40s and the 50s simply is unlivable in the city of phoenix and median rent has increased by more than 20 percent and we're well over 1900 dollars a month for that and while i wish that we had the power to increase teacher wages and increase you know social worker wages that is a fight at the state level and the federal level and all we can control is our own employees so i'm eager to raise wages for all of our employees across the board and i hope that we can work to expedite that to the extent possible in the fall as soon as we come back and to the point around um having you know there's many comments today about the issues with pd responding to issues with mental health or with our unhoused community i think you know absolutely agree with that i literally ran into one of our assistant chiefs today in the elevator who said quote we want to get out of the business of responding to these things that's why the city of phoenix has invested 15 million dollars in the crisis assistance program to have mental health professionals respond we're still getting it up and running that was the largest investment in the united states of america for such a program and that means that they will be responding to that as it gets underway we're also civilianizing positions and as was mentioned already the asu study i think is is very promising in terms of the things that we can take away from pd so they are only responding to um violent crime so that's about it and i just want to again thank staff um and again hope that we can expedite increasing salaries across the board thank you thank you we'll go to councilwoman stark and then the vice mayor thank you mayor and i will be i promise to be brief when i was an employee here i remember we were the gold standard in the state of arizona everyone wanted to work for the city of phoenix and then the great recession hit and the sacrifices that our city employees made were tremendous we started seeing furloughs we couldn't hire anybody our unions were willing to take cuts in benefits and i am very excited that we're now going to reward our employees for over 10 years of sacrifices i agree with you jeff we have the finest finest set of employees in the state of arizona and i am happy to support this i think the police have a tough job i certainly wouldn't want their job but they need to get the right pay so we can attract the right people and that's also the same for other departments i do agree that we need to start moving on those i know i get a lot of complaints about times for permitting i know i get concerns about right-of-way maintenance so hopefully we can get on these other comp studies i think it's important but i do support this thank you staff for all the hard work you did on this thank you councilwoman vice mayor thank you mayor um i just want to say that we've been in crisis for quite some time and affordability and homelessness and all the different areas and then the pandemic hit and we really understood what uh crisis looks like and uh discovered many different uh elements within our community what was happening within our community and as a council we invested almost 50 million in proactive services to include mental health unsheltered needs affordable housing with additional funding directed to job development while pay is a starting point the class and compensation study across the city needs to move faster so that pay adjustments can reach all employees as an educator i would love to invest more in education the city created the youth and education office to respond to the needs of the state legislators who were not addressing those needs our responsibility is to balance all needs within the community while funding programs and services with labor force and so i think that's important to to understand because i think all of us sitting as we're sitting all have valid points on what our community needs and so um i think that's important to to to hear and see that most importantly i would like to know from lori bayes uh she said she was we needed a more in-depth conversation i would like to know uh when that will happen uh because i think we are in this in the space and and that we need to understand uh how we are going to feel uh phil and dave those positions especially the safety ones because it's more than just one-offs it's just a repeated pattern that we keep seeing and i think that we as a council have to have a deeper discussion or deeper dive with that sorry my earring got stuck on my mask mayor vice mayor members of the council we are prepared to have that discussion whenever council members would like us to bring some information forward we'd be happy to discuss multiple things as it relates to you know our vacancy rates across the city and where we see the highest levels of need and and we can also discuss the timeline further for our classification and compensation study we have a very large organization and so moving the entire workforce at the same time does take some time and and one of the things that we had to do unfortunately was review all of our job classifications because it had been such a long time since we've done that i believe it was 2011 the last time that we reviewed our our classifications and so many things have changed in the labor market and and in the industries that we have within our workforce over the last decade plus and so we needed to make sure our job descriptions were up to date before we compare them to the labor market as it stands today so we're happy to have those conversations as well as other uh workforce challenge conversations related to you know various aspects of what's impacting our ability to hire and retain employees across the city and as as you know this is not a challenge that is unique to the city of phoenix you know we are facing similar challenges that both public and private sector agencies are having across the country and um unfortunately you know we're also looking toward some potential economic challenges that are going to be things that we're going to have to face together as well so there's lots of different things that we're able to discuss whenever um council would like us to do that thank you um i also want to thank the staff uh for uh all the work that they have been putting in in all the elements of the workmen comp um i guess my question would be i guess the city manager would that be uh to have that discussion would that be on the agenda uh or does that go to policy or is it a study session where where would we have this conversation yeah i mean when we get our mayor members of council when we get closer to having the class in comp study we could do that any way you want i mean we could bring that to a policy we could bring it to a work study if you wanted to have a more robust conversation about it i would we would take our direction from you in terms of where that is best suited on the agenda thank you appreciate it thank you vice mayor today we are taking the next step to make sure that phoenix remains a top employer we are going from a more complex compensation system for our police department to one that is more competitive and has our wages above average we have a very complex city our officers respond to a large number of incredibly difficult calls and to me this investment makes sense all of our city employees face a wide variety of challenges that they overcome on behalf of our residents that is especially true with our first responders yesterday i had the opportunity to talk with an officer who was ambushed while working on behalf of the city of phoenix she was shot multiple times and had an amazing perspective a real public servant's heart she was trying to figure out how she could overcome some very serious injuries to get back out there in the field there's no amount of compensation that motivates that that has to come from your heart and we have to recognize that people do not come to the city of phoenix to get fabulously wealthy they come here to serve our community and because they believe in our mission but we still need to be competitive right now we're at a very difficult labor market and that's why we've taken so many different steps whether it be bonuses and pay raises for lifeguards or the investments we've made with electricians 911 operators and others we are not just making compensation-based investments we're investing in training we have an apprenticeship programs that have earned national praise we are looking from our partnerships with iona to some of the works we're do work we're doing with new electricians we really are trying to say that we care about the people who work here and we're investing in them we just today did another new apprenticeship investment this one around plumbing and pipe fitting i'm so thankful to the many different members of our team who've come together jeff flory and david want to thank you for seeing this problem and addressing it and this isn't the only vote we've taken today that addresses issues related to our employee the budget we passed today helps implement a nine percent increase in compensation that we begin last year we were doing that before many other employers were making that type of investment we did it when it was more difficult to do and i think that reflects well on you jeff so thank you for seeing this issue and and trying to get ahead of it that was an investment that nine percent that impacts all of our employees and i think you've heard it from the council and city leadership but i want to say it again we value all of our employees and understand what you do on behalf of the city there are many more adjustments that we're going to need to make and you have elected leaders who want to do that so we know that people power the city of phoenix our employees are what makes us a great city government and i want to thank them human resources is not endlessly large and so we sometimes do have to do things in the order that we feel makes sense but that doesn't mean that we won't continue to do it and i want to recognize the hr team because this took a long time to develop this system the way we pay police officers in phoenix is quite complicated it takes five minutes to explain it and many of our peer departments have a less complicated system where they don't have things like cep pay that are difficult to explain when you're recruiting so today we're also making our system a little bit more clear that will help us as we are out recruiting it also means more compensation and base rates so employees who work overtime will see that reflected in their hard work and i think that will be a more fair system that will help us maintain employees in the long term as well as attract top recruits we recently brought on several university graduates as well as police officers who had significant career experience many of our most successful officers have those university degrees or relevant experience before they join the police department and it's nice that we can be competitive again people are not coming to the city of phoenix to become fabulously wealthy but we are asking people in our police department to respond to more calls than many of our other peer departments you're not twiddling your thumbs at the city of phoenix you're doing really important work out there and it is fair that our compensation reflect what we are doing so today we express our gratitude to our employees who are out there and we thank them we are seeing a nationwide surge in violence against police officers just as we are seeing a nationwide surge in gun crime neither of these are acceptable and we're going to have to continue to work with our community to reduce those i want to thank our partners who have helped us respond to this in the mental health field community workers social workers clinicians i'm also deeply grateful to the medical personnel who have helped us including those at banner university medical center who stepped up for us again yesterday we cannot do this alone and we have to continue to work together today is one of many steps we're taking and i'm looking forward to supporting this increase in compensation do we have any final comments roll call i'm sorry yes the ccm yes garcia yes o'brien yes stark yes waring yes pastor yes gallego yes passes 8-1 thank you that concludes the agendas portion of our meeting and we next move to public comment want to thank our team we have passed a budget invested in employees and done so much important work for the city passed our ev plan and next we go to hearing from public comment and i'll turn to our city attorney to in explain the final portion of this meeting thank you mayor during citizen comment members of the public may address the city council for up to three minutes on issues of interest or concern to them the citizen comments session is limited to 30 minutes the arizona open meeting law permits the city council to listen to the comments but prohibits council members from discussing or acting on the matters presented thank you we will begin with some of our virtual callers um albert wass followed by alondra ruiz i'm sorry i have okay so i'm sorry i albert is here in person so we'll begin with albert in person yeah i'm here in person thank you i'm here in person for one reason mayor because there's a lot of things that i've heard and seen and everything else on what you do as you've been in that seat in this city you do all you do is talk about doing things how you're going to do it when you're going to do it and all i hear is lies out of you lies okay i've heard it on the news where you lied about a lot of stuff i've heard it on everything the radio where you lied about a lot of stuff okay you tell people one thing then you turn around and tell them you're not going to do it before this little budget deal happened you told the fire department you told the police department and you told emts emts that you were going to give them raises then you turn around and you turn around and tell them they're not getting the razors now all sudden now all of a sudden you want to give out raises to our officers our emts our fire departments our medical versus and everything else now you want to do it now you really want to do it after the way people really see you how you are and heard everything about you really come on everybody who said a lot of bad stuff about you everybody okay on how you plan on running this city all right everybody i don't i can't say who has and who hasn't heard anything one thing bad about you i'm running this city okay because you don't know how to run this city for one yeah you were what a council before then all of a sudden you beat daniel to become mayor and ever since then i haven't seen anything done to this city i have not did see anything done to the city and you're talking about hiring or training more officers you're talking about that when are you going to do it when are you going to do it because right now i'm running against you on a recall yeah i'm your opponent that's running to get you on a recall right now okay i really am because i'm getting tired of seeing everything you do i'm getting tired of everything you do and tell people okay i'm really getting tired of it i'm really really getting tired of it and so is the other people here in the city of phoenix that's heard the same stories okay there's a lot of people out there talking about you and heard the same stories that you've been saying over and over and over that you're gonna do but you don't do it because you turn around and tell people a lie you lie to people you tell them one thing then you lie to them so you know what thank you alondra is next followed by ann ender mayor gallego council members my name is alondra ruiz i am a resident of periwinkle mobile home park located at 27th avenue on coulter north of camelback grand canyon university owns the land where i live i live there as well as 45 other families apparently they bought the land six years ago residents at periwinkle mobile home park were never never at all formally informed that gcu already owns the land my neighbors my neighbors and i are being evicted by gcu we were given a six months eviction notice at the end of april we are facing a national housing crisis currently how in their right mind did gcu think that this was a good timing to evict poor working families my neighbors and i and my family will be facing homelessness and my neighbors and i do not have the ability to move in this housing crisis gcu claims that they are helping us by offering us a relocation fund resource that we actually paid into with our taxes except that our homes are too old to move most of our homes will not qualify to move because of the allowed allowed year that the state requires my neighbors and i have been steadily looking and there is no places that would take our older mobile homes we want compensation from gcu for dislocating us or more time to reside in our homes most of us are now facing homelessness in this housing crisis i don't understand how they can displace people from their from our own homes how is this teaching the students that go to their their christian university about a loving god that is more hypocritical than and it's also reprehensible what gcu is doing to us and they claim to be christian university the god that i know the god that i serve is loving and a caring god as a christian university they shouldn't be displacing us and asking us to move they should be helping us and looking at better solutions that are in the best interests of their neighbors such as what they claim on their mission statements my question to you all today is do you approve or disapprove construction permits and zoning permits why would anyone allowed investors to wipe out residents that are low income is beyond me during this housing crisis we really are facing homelessness and there's nothing else that we can do um and and i'm just so upset about this and i'm so angry um there's so many families that are just not having the right resources um i thank you for your time and i hope that we could find a solution thank you councilman guardado yes mayor i just want to direct my staff to please um come in and look for her and talk to her and talk about the different ideas that we have around this thank you thank you councilwoman and is next followed by gerald uh mayor gallego and council members um i'll make it quick because i know everybody's pretty tired first of all mayor gallego i really appreciate you sharing that story about meeting with that officer yesterday um really heartwarming so thank you very much um you know today has been a tough day i think for all of us and bravo to all of that councilman waring thank you for your comments councilman decisio appreciate everybody support today but i am really quite disheartened by and i say this respectfully councilman garcia's comments i think that what you're doing is continuing a false narrative and it's it's dangerous and and you mentioned being disrespectful to constituents well i'm a constituent and i find it very disrespectful i want public safety and i think public safety is all of our responsibility and um i don't hear these callers i have many that want to participate in bolstering our public safety yesterday i spent the afternoon out on mcdowell road um in front of the hospital putting some ribbons up and some signs and a couple of officers came by and they asked me what i do and i said well i'm president of operation blue ribbon and we're just trying to show support and work with the communities bring everybody together he goes can i hug you and he did i love and then i hug the other one too so i have to tell you that i am so honored to get to work with these men and women and my husband who some of you know is a retired navy seal he served in operation enduring freedom and i understand what what um councilman decision was saying about families being a part and and having to worry about whether their your spouse is going to come home but he imparted an important message to me and i'm not saying this to the council as much as i'm saying it to the people that have been spewing this hate speech you know i said before you start to complain go walk in their shoes thank you thank you next is gerald followed by amelia mayor mayor we're going to be over here thank you sergio thank you my name is gerald suiter and i also live at a periwinkle mobile home park i've lived here for the past 28 years i'm handicapped i have trouble getting around like using electric bikes to get around we i told them that these people have no place to go to no place to move these mobile homes they didn't care yesterday we had a meeting on the campus and i had a lady tell me that she had some spaces open in her trailer park i said good i went down in this morning on my electric bike there's not one space there at all i went back home i called her i didn't tell her who i was i said do you have any open spaces for mobile homes she said no we don't have any i said do you expect any she said no and yet she gave me her her address the phone number to the to the park and right right to my face lie to me and tell me that she had spaces and and i i didn't tell her who i was but i was i'm so upset about this excuse me but they they they send people out there to lie to us and tell us that they have spaces when they don't why will she even say that it's it's woodwood boba home park on 27th avenue just south of indian school i don't know why she lied to me she asked me what size my trailer was the whole information my my phone number everything can i i i'm sorry i'm upset but but i i don't want these people that live in this mobile home park are going to be homeless because there is no place to move them they say we have to move them within a radius of 100 miles can you imagine driving 4 000 miles a month to go to and from work this is ridiculous and this is just because they want to build an apartment a multi-unit apartment complex so the students have a place to stay and live and we don't have a place to stay and live because of the students well i think i have as much right as a student to have my own place to live i bought this house i paid cash for it and now we have to give it to them if we're not if we don't vacate the property on august 30th we have to turn our property over to them sign the title to them and they'll all gave us 1875 for moving expenses so we can move our stuff out of there then to be trailers this is not right i didn't come here to ask for help i came here to beg for help we need help we can we can't be homeless i i bought this place to spend my final days in and now they tell me to get the hell out well i don't think i will they're gonna have to carry me on a body bag i guess but this is not right we we need help from these people they're probably christians why don't they read matthew 7 chapter 12 i mean chapter 7 verse 12 let them read it it's the summer on the mount it's don't say do them before they do us it says do unto others as you would have them do unto us they don't understand that so i say i'm begging for somebody to to get the word out of what they're doing to to poor hard working people i i get 129 a month i cannot afford a thousand dollar apartment i just can't and neither can the people in the mobile home park they can't afford it neither so we just get the word out someone now i had this put in the newspaper and i think there are several folks who including the councilwoman who are working on what resources are available so thank you for that difficult testimony um i think we're going to hear next from amelia and then marty winkler thank you again for the opportunity to speak i wanted to speak about the accountability office and i wanted to know at what stage is that in and are you guys really gonna allow citizens to be a part of it during my experience of homelessness last year i do not necessarily want to put on record but if you guys would allow me the opportunity sometime in the future to speak to you guys in private as i have some alarming and concerning things i could put on record but i will not do that as it could be defamation of character of several agencies throughout that you guys have designated funds too that is the frustration that you hear as this man being displaced how many times do designated funds get designated in a proportionate discovery for example such as um shelters and that's part of the reason why i stayed today because i want to know how a ceo can stand next to a 50 million dollar check but how many of you guys like miss hernandez says do you guys go to these shelters do you know that there's a contractual employee agreement that if these employees speak out against the indifferences happening i can pull up pictures right now of the conditions that me and my five kids were in last year and i'm talking about black mold to pouring things and i've called each and one of you guys last year and here i stand and what a difference a year can make and i'm getting involved in campaigns because it takes grassroot efforts i'm not screaming to fund the police and you don't understand the backlash that that gives me all i'm asking for is an understanding that sometimes just like it's easy for you guys to go home to certain spaces we don't have that ability and that is where the office accountability and transparency and getting citizens involved is hearing my testimony and testimony of people like that that can be behind the reality of these places that are saying that they're a service to people and they're not because i've done several coalition building group projects actually in maryville that further warranted a 30 million dollar donation to the further programming but yet i was homeless begging for help to provide services in this space i offered to bring youth services to these shelters and i also reached out to several people in regards to fentanyl use and i knew who was selling fentanyl to 12 year old miners there and i got no help so you're right it matters differently when you're in a space like that and that is what people want you to understand that i understand that it matters differently i'm not an officer and i thank you guys for putting your life on the line but our lives are on the line a lot differently and we want our voices heard because i think we are all exhausted not only for sitting here for hours today but as a human this is a humanitarian crisis across the board thank you marty is next and then we'll switch to some virtual comments for a while from cindy cynthia graper i didn't get to speak during 7 1 and 72 because i didn't hear my name called and i was listening all afternoon anyway my name is marty winkler i've lived in phoenix for 40 years and i'm keenly aware of police issues and i'm an extreme victim of officer jason gillespie of phoenix police search martha winkler versus city of phoenix justice for marty winkler and phoenix police violence victims i find this extremely offensive and outrageous and unacceptable that the city would give phoenix police 20 to 67 percent raises they absolutely should not be rewarded as having been the most violent and corrupt police in the country particularly with recent extreme corruption and the doj investigation this is a slap in the face to many people struggling due to hyperinflation homelessness addiction and phoenix police victims is obscene almost 73 000 for new officers 21 years old 24 weeks of training and a high school or ge degree with a seven and a half thousand dollar new hire bonus big overtime off duty and excellent benefits average civilian salary in phoenix is now around fifty thousand and season school teachers with a master's degree make between fifty to sixty thousand i'm an extreme victim of officer jason gillespie who almost killed me with his bare hands because he instantly was enraged that he thought i called the police too many times and accused me of trespassing without doing any investigation why i called the police first and repeatedly phoenix police and the city of phoenix have done everything in their power to prep to protect this serial violent predator who also horrifically assaulted another man a few months later and once again covered that all up in the blue rug of silence which was never in gillespie's personnel file along with another man that was an extreme victim of jason gillespie jason gillespie shouldn't be in prison for what he did to me shockingly they put him in the police academy training new recruits and he's currently making 92 000 after almost killing an unarmed innocent compliant middle-aged woman with her hands up in fear on video who called the police for help and is now permanently disabled it's all true and just to the tip of the iceberg of the corruption and cover-up of the city of phoenix and phoenix police and you all know my story you all know my story and you should be ashamed of yourselves you should be absolutely ashamed of yourselves is it disgusting he almost killed me with his bare hands traumatic brain injury brain hemorrhaging acute subdural hematoma four fractures to the front and back of my skull four days in the hospital in icu he covered it all up and wasn't even interviewed by psb and said i fell and i cut my head and i lost my balance thank you miss graber is next followed by karen olsen cindy you're unmuted oh she's remuted now we can hear you all right okay perfect marin city council members um kind of hard to follow that but anyway um any anti-rhetoric against our city of phoenix police officers needs to stop now the ambushing of our police officers is just not acceptable it is up to this city council to act like leaders and lead us out of this abuse it is time for our city council to unite and lead by example for the support of our public safety city of phoenix public safety is the most challenging in the nation no other city is hit with more criminal activity involving drugs guns human trafficking than phoenix recently i was in new york in new york you will never see one one police officer by himself new york public safety work in groups of three to five given our recent ambushing and shootings phoenix needs to quadruple its public safety we need to keep our officers safe and our citizens safe now is the time for every one of you to stand in alliance for our public safety together we need to all create a safer phoenix thank you thank you karen is next followed by leonard clark hello can you hear me yes well it has been a long day and um i just want to think about that word safety it's been brought up time and time again and my question that i posed that i know i won't get an answer because it's not a back and forth but maybe we can all sit with it it's like safety for who because i hear certain council members saying how they don't hear about this happening in their districts and that's very intentional there are things that happen within the united states such as red lining which means that certain neighborhoods are white they are they are meant to be more safe to use that word um and as somebody else said why don't we take a moment to walk in their shoes well if you are saying that about one experience here and discrediting the multiple voices that have come through as you were sitting in the room witnessing it you're not doing what you're saying you're gonna do it is uncomfortable sure but what is worse than uncomfortable people being killed that is what we're sitting here and taking up the space i just hope that grassroots just keeps doing what they're doing because they have solutions this is not a space of solutions this is a space of using a different kind of policing like i said at the subcommittee this morning we get to decide how people talk and we get to decide how they live or don't get to live based on on what i ask because i don't think it's about safety if it is we would actually be willing to think about walking in other shoes we would have empathy we would be seeking to be in relationship and community so honestly it's been an extremely exhausting day and i think it's unacceptable by the way and i i will keep showing up that there are only 30 minutes of public comment for anything to happen at the end of a meeting that that that got changed is unacceptable the idea that we have to keep showing up and not be heard it's unacceptable it's not safe so if this is a room for safety it's failed i hope we all sit with that i have three minutes and i hope that the people that don't get to speak that signed up that i do them justice in some way because how unfair to have sat through all of this and not get to use your voice it is so intimidating to get to use your voice and i hold space for that are you all [Music] thank you mr clark thank you mayor and council members i hear a lot of yelling and i'm not saying that constructive criticism is you know a wrong thing to ask of you but a lot of people need to understand my that's weird okay all right all right a lot of my young brothers and sisters need to understand right down the street 10 minutes away is the arizona state legislature they're always telling you the city council at the state legislature how do i know this i've been there many years going there in their committee meetings oh you folks down at the level of the cities you are subservient you are inferior to the state authority it's right there in the state constitution guess who will not give rent control state legislature specific law prop 207 see what happens is you're being you're getting uh diverted away oh let's let's hate the police oh that no look at the captains of the ship they're down at the state legislature right now they're the ones uh you know hey we have usury laws in the united states of america the banks can't charge any amount of interest but the legislature says it's just fine for the landlords to charge you as much rent as they want the city council does not have the jurisdiction to stop that you all need to be down at the state legislature and they know you're not down there because this is the easy target i can tell you that's the harder target i want to thank the daca our young daca brothers and sisters on this 10th anniversary our former president obama had the the empathy to to uh say hey these children shouldn't be punished but they're down at the state legislature now i'm not saying don't come to the city council meetings but this is what's going on at your state legislature and by the way they only meet two or three months a year four months because they don't want to face these questions if you if i was talking this way right now on a legislative committee i would be shut down mr clark you're you're not speaking to what's germaine what's apropos so i would all ask you before you hate on the police now look are there bad police yes but are there bad uh people in like well i protest protest movements are there some people who believe they have the right to destroy property yes that's not what dr martin luther king talked about or mr chavez or mahatma gandhi so this hate thing you know apologies to my atheist friends i love you all but but i'm a spiritualist and i'm telling you that i believe there is dark energy and that dark energy is when i start hating you and you start hating me i start hating the person who likes trump the trump person starts hating me i start hating the police they hate me we've got a war going on right now unofficially against the police and then the police are human beings you call them these horrible names and what do you expect what i'm saying is this world and this city needs a little bit more love today i've heard a lot of negative things but there's positive things taking place our city police chief is in washington dc finally there's probably going to be a bipartisan effort to do something about this uh violence epidemic with guns so thank you and thank you city council for our city clerk do we have any additional speakers here today no mayor that was our last registered speaker present thank you we are adjourned okay then let's move on to item eight vision zero road safety action plan update and welcome keaney good morning madam chair and members of the subcommittee actually it's keaney and brianna uh so we're happy to hear to be here today to talk to you about our vision zero road safety action plan and provide an update and today we're going to be focusing on an update on our development work on the roadway safety action plan i do first want to highlight the leadership of the mayor council and this subcommittee in responding to the seriousness of addressing our roadway