here all right Madam clerk are you ready I know we were waiting for a council member to get on Zoom correct good morning Madam mayor welcome back we are ready it looks like we have all participants in Zoom all right thank you so much okay we'll well we have a um we have a lot of special guests in the house I wish every council meeting looked like this this is but what a great way to start right um so we have a special Proclamation but before we do that um I'm gonna actually we've got to do a couple of um housekeeping notes and you you're ready we're ready we are ready to go okay all right so first we're going to start out with uh the Pledge of Allegiance I would love for president Sandoval who's in the house the lead is in the pledge [Music] one nation Universal liberty and justice for all right good job all right Madam clerk at this time I'm going to ask for a roll call thank you madam mayor council member breckis I'm here doer here Martinez here Ebert here Taylor Reese Madame mayor he is on Zoom it looks like we're having some sound difficulties but he is here and mayor chibi all right um yeah you do have a quorum of the Reno City Council and we're gonna move into public comment and I know we're going to go ahead and start with the proclamation okay okay thank you so much okay so this is a very special day we have a proclamation um because I always say that great cities need great College University towns and I couldn't be more proud of the work that you guys accomplish and the camaraderie that you bring into our city now more than ever it's important to come together as a community and be one and I want to thank president Sandoval for your work and loving this city like no nobody else so we want to give you guys a special recognition we really want our city to know how much we value all the work that you do but all the like I said the community effort that you bring in and um we want you to stay here for a long time we want to avoid the brain drain and we're making this city um really shaping it for you and your interests with arts and culture and technology and Innovation so um we we need your your brains to stay right here in Reno so we're really excited to do this I'm going to hand it over to councilwoman Taylor it is in her Ward so I think it's only appropriate that you give them this special recognition is there any like cheer or like backflip that you guys can do before we start well we got Alfie in the back there you go that's a good start there see see all right I'm gonna hand it over to you councilwoman Taylor oh can I you want me to go out there yes I do I want you to step right up so president Sandoval it's Stephanie nice to see you thank you so much for being here coming up so we can um give you this special confirmation good morning everyone thank you for being here look at all this great UNR wolf packs [Music] okay let's get the party started whereas the University of Nevada established in 1874 proudly stands as Nevada's First State University and whereas the city of Reno's downtown is literally and figuratively connected to the University of Nevada campus making Reno Nevada's college town all right that's right and every Friday should be college town day right or am I skipping ahead whereas the University of Nevada provides a diverse student body and academic programs that contribute to a vibrant cultural scene with art Music Theater and sporting events that benefit and unite the community and whereas the University of Nevada boasts a strong network of alumni who continue to contribute their expertise resources and philanthropy to the city and state and whereas every city every Friday every Friday in the City of Reno residents should join together to share their support and love the University of Nevada Reno you want to say this part okay therefore I Kathleen Taylor on behalf of Mayor Hilary sheeby mayor of the City of Reno Nevada do here bar hereby Proclaim every Friday in the City of Reno to be wolf pack Friday in Nevada's college town [Applause] [Applause] uh Madame mayor and members of the city council thank you for having us here we are honored I'm Stephanie ramp I'm the athletic director so as you mentioned we have all felt that it is time to make um this community um a college town and everybody's been talking about that a tremendous support from you you've been a huge champion of this and we appreciate that so we have a ton of our head coaches here which we would love for them to stand all of our head coaches if you guys can stand [Applause] some some in the back too and then a lot of members of our staff so part of this initiative in addition to making this Nevada's college town we also want to celebrate wolf pack Fridays and we have flags that we are trying to get every business in this community to purchase a flag to wave wolf pack Friday flags on Fridays it creates a sense of community and then it makes people know there's a game on Saturday talk about the game we want people to plan their birthday parties around home football games right I want I want that kind of community so we're really excited about this thank you for your support um and go pack [Applause] good morning Madame mayor members of the city council Brian Sandoval president of the University of Nevada Reno I just want to thank you and we're really proud of the relationship that we have with the City of Reno we've were founded in 1874 we're going to be celebrating our sesquicentennial this year and we really want this region and particularly the city to be a part of that but we really cherish our relationship with all of you we look forward to working with you we're very proud of our coaches our staff and particularly our student athletes if you guys would all wave as well [Applause] but it really is a new day and we're gonna we're gonna work together and we're going to be your partner and as the mayor and the the proclamation have said there are tens and tens of thousands of alumni that are in this community and I really believe that the city and the University's Futures are inextricably intertwined so we look forward to working together and go pack thank you [Applause] foreign [Music] [Music] my God I'll hike over here All Eyes here okay do you agree it's perfect okay ready one two three days okay all right thank you all right Madame mayor while Landon gets that stanchion fixed up for us our next special guest today I believe is Bonnie Brown and Mike keaney yes come on up I'm super excited to tell everyone about what you've been doing who you are because there's probably a lot of people in this community that don't know what you're doing so I'm excited to have you here to give us a little bit of an update but uh Bonnie is from options Veterinary Clinic and it is the only one I think there's only what two or three in the in the country so it's very very rare to have this kind of non-profit in the community and what they do is they provide no cost a low-cost veterinary care and everyone knows how expensive Veterinary Care is and let me tell you something Bonnie Brown you are doing God's work because I have to tell you how many animals that she has saved from out of pain and euthanasia I cannot thank you enough so the conference of Mayors also recognized through Mars pet care and you received a grant which is super cool because you cannot do this work without obviously um a lot of support and contributions so we really would like the community to recognize what you guys are doing and also tell a little bit about it because I I think how long has it been now two years it was two years in December so we're working on year three okay see okay year three but still that's so you know it's one of those things where it takes a lot of time and a lot of money to kind of get the word out there so I wanted to make sure that we also thank you so much for your service and what you do for all of our pets in our community so Bonnie take it away Bonnie is no stranger actually to I what do you call Animal Care she has been um how long have you been doing this Bonnie 30 years so it's at least yes 30 years she is amazing and um she's worked from from NHS to um what's what's the other one well I worked at best friends for many years and um have been in Animal Welfare since 1990 so so we are so lucky to have you and to have options and we have a special guest here today but we did recognize before um and I just saw he just jumped right up in your lap yeah in there so go ahead Bonnie take it away please tell everyone about what you're doing and congratulations on on the grant we're really thank you yes uh we are too I'm Bonnie Brown the president of options veterinary care we're a reno-based non-profit Clinic is Dr Chief um as mayor shivi said and um first of all I just really want to thank all of you for all that you do every day for our community behind the scenes and um and for all the non-profits that you helped to support so I just to follow on with what mayor shivi said there is a nationwide shortage of veterinarians and the cost of Veterinary Care is increasing in fact it's become Out Of Reach for many people financially so options Veterinary Care is really a unique solution to this problem we're located over on Longley Lane and we would be delighted to give anyone a tour who is interested in learning more about the work of the clinic what we do as mayor shivi said is provide Veterinary Care to pets who would otherwise Suffer Without It um nearly all pet owners view their pets as part of the family but the companionship of pets it's especially important for senior citizens and children and research has shown that it improves life and both physical and mental health for uh well all people but especially for senior citizens and children about 70 percent of our clients are senior citizens in fact and the rest of them are low-income families or individuals from our community including people who have disabilities or are living with homelessness and I will tell you honestly it's unusual for us to talk to people who are trying to make a very difficult decision between buying food or perhaps their own medication or even paying rent and providing veterinary care for an animal friend that for them is really their best friend and closest companion so um while um while this work is important just for the help it gives to the pets and the people it's also good Public Health policy because Healthy Pets help keep a healthy community and also by providing Veterinary Care to pets in need we're preventing surrenders to animal shelters that are really already overwhelmed in our community so we are incredibly grateful for that and one other thing to note is we really view ourselves as partners and support to our community's Veterinary uh clinics the reason for that is because sadly if a client can't afford to pay a veterinarian and the client may be facing a very difficult decision of euthanasia even for a treatable condition so what we are able to do is fill that Gap by providing the care that a for-profit clinic simply cannot afford to provide on a charity basis so we fill that Gap in the community and we're really happy to do so and we appreciate all the Veterinary Clinic Partners in the community um options depends on donations and grants it's a non-profit and that's the only way we're able to survive and as mayor shivi mentioned there are two grants in particular that I wanted to highlight and these are grants that were specifically so that options can provide Veterinary Care to Reno residents so it's restricted geographically to help people in our community um the the other wonderful thing about these is that it really helps to highlight the clinic and the community Nationwide because all of these grants were open Nationwide oh I'm so sorry I'll go quick one of them is Mars pet cares better cities for pets Grant we were one of five organizations Nationwide that were chosen to receive this twenty thousand dollar Grant and we were only eligible to apply for it because the City of Reno is already a better cities for pet designee by Mars pet care so thank you for that and also we received a ten thousand dollar wise Grant from the U.S Conference of Mayors and this grant is one that they give to acknowledge non-profits that are creating an Innovative cost-effective solution to a problem so we are really honored to receive these two national grants and our thanks to Mayor shivi and to all of you because if it wasn't for your support as well this certainly wouldn't have happened and with that I will go and sit down now thank you all again for all the work you do every day and and this is important clients okay [Applause] oh look how good he is good morning everybody good morning mayor Chevy City Council um first of all little bit's been asking about you he wants to know where his friend is a little bit little bits right here oh there I didn't see her yep I tried to hold her last time she did not want anything to do with being a mayor yeah for a day well Pete's is wondering why you're sitting in this chair anyways I just wanted to come down here and thank you guys for what you do um Bonnie mentioned some things about what options or who options serves as clients and she had on senior citizen low income disabled I got all three and uh and without her I'm afraid that that my pets would be in pretty Dire Straits and uh without options and uh and that comes from Grants like what we get from the city council here and uh um and I just want you to know that we appreciate it so much it does go to really good use um you guys know these two mongrels but I think it's a shining example of how important it is to keep people with their pets and because of their work you're able to have healthy pets and so I thank you for being um such an advocate and a champion from all the options does so you can see firsthand who it's helping and how it's helping and it's a testament to the services they provide Barney hit on a on a major thing that we've all had to face when when we are low-income people without a lot of options and uh that is we treat our pet or euthanasia and and my God I couldn't I couldn't live without keys helps me so much with my disabilities uh you know and a little bit we're trying to figure out what he does we still don't know but we know he's cute a little bit of a pain in the took us but but you thought you saw anyways I want to thank you all very much for what you do please keep it up when it when it comes up and and remember that options does really great work so well thank you and there's a lot of you in the audience that also donate to options I want to say thank you from the bottom of my heart for supporting them I want to just Naomi and I um obviously we're Avid dog lovers and animal lovers but I just want to tell you Naomi and I jumped in on a situation and this is we see it a lot and it happens often but especially seniors on such fixed incomes one vet bill actually can throw them into homelessness and I'm not kidding you we've seen it firsthand and so councilwoman doer and I have been working on initiatives to make sure that seniors don't have to face that that's why I just beg and plead with everyone if you can support their initiative it would be greatly appreciated when we'll continue to support you so one vet bill thank you one bet Bill I'm not kidding one that bill because they're in yeah incredibly more expensive than someone else yeah and that shouldn't have to be that we're making those types of decisions what's your choices that that we have to make and and I love them so much you know I have to put them first and because they look to me but uh but yeah one just a teeth cleaning yeah is far more than what I give on disability every month and uh um so so thank you so much for being here congratulations Bonnie on your Grant and keep up the amazing work come on I would just like to say it's been a privilege to Support options even on a personal basis um separate and apart from city council for the work that you do which is very unique very rare and really broadens um care to uh our less economically available advantaged uh residents and um so many people to mayor of Chevy's point will go without to support their animals and still it isn't enough often to pay the bills I myself had a five thousand dollar vet bill this year and I didn't have any kind of pet insurance either and that's just one of my dogs so I I get it you know what it and and how much we care and are committed to our animals and what we do for our animals really reflects on how we feel about our people um and they both positive and negative uh people that mistreat animals often also mistreat people and similarly people that care about animals often care do about people so they kind of go together so thank you for both for being here today and for all the work that you and my sister your entire supporting people she does I swear she likes pets More Than People yeah I don't know so thank you all right well thank you so much for being here we appreciate you thank you all right Madam clerk I'm going to send it back to you thank you madam mayor just to read our disclosure for today um it should be noted for those in the audience that comments are to be addressed to the mayor and Council as a whole comments heard under this item will be limited to three minutes per person and may pertain to matters both on and off the council's agenda please note that the council may not take action upon any matter not agendized on today's agenda when you're called on for public comment please state your name for the record and begin speaking the timer will begin when you say your name and you will be afforded three minutes if you're an attendee in the zoo meeting and would like to make public comment please raise your hand at this time and lastly while in this room please be respectful warnings will be issued by the presiding officer if there's disruptive behavior and you will be asked to leave Chambers if the behavior continues our first public commenter today is Mark Markell followed by Tila mcculer followed by Tyler Hilton good morning Madison [Music] manager how are you my name is [Music] I was in a motor vehicle crash back in 89 I was 24. we rolled eight times I was rejected and it landed on my head putting me in a coma for a month I was a passenger I just I I want I want other people to realize I can't walk now I used to use a walker but since 89 I still paid for the that that Marie clock crash it anyways uh I just don't want people to get in the car with a drunk driver and don't drink and drive hey I I can't bring brain stupid toys no uh all right you're so stupid I I think where I'm gonna say without it forget where I'm gonna say I just don't want people to ride with drunk drivers it it it's their it was you could die for this I I I was dead for for eign I was dead in a doctor brought me back to life God willed me alive but I'm very grateful for their doctors I yeah as long as Linda University Medical Center in Southern California and I I want to thank as I for giving me the chance to come up here and talk to people about this and and Care chess gave me this I would release it to me I wouldn't be able to get around without a car I can't walk anymore anyways don't ride with drunk drivers it it don't really throwing clothes you can see what it does to you it ruins my ruined my life and it can ruin yours and anyways I I just don't try to I I said this before right sorry I'm very stupid I've I'm praying helicopter but anyways thank you and don't try to junk cars thank you Mark [Applause] thank you to care chest because you can see what the work they do how important what they give back to the community thank you Mark and also very important messaging so I hope everyone was listening intently followed by Tyler Colton good morning how are you guys I'm Tila mcculler I am chair of the city of Reno's Financial Advisory Board um and you have an item before you I think it's on the consent agenda B13 it's our annual work plan for the upcoming year and then just a list of all the items that we reviewed and looked at um for the prior year so I couldn't stay till the actual item but just wanted to make myself available if you guys have anything that you'd ever want us to look at just a reminder we're here for you um and can look at anything in a financial capacity and this is my 10th and final year on the committee and as chair so you'll get to see someone else's face next year but just thank you for the opportunity to serve and if you guys have any questions on the agenda item please just let Vicki or myself know you so much thank you so much I appreciate it before you leave um I just I had an opportunity you know to serve for a while as the leaves onto the finance advisory you've done a remarkable job and I think it goes without saying there are very many dedicated people to our city on the boards and commissions and they just don't get the recognition it takes a lot of time and effort to dig into all the materials and bring your A-game to advising us some others that stand out I was going to talk to our manager later we have two people going off the Planning Commission that have served eight years two meetings a year often six hours a meeting lots of site visits we we have to continue to recognize people like you that are giving back to our community in such a very significant way so as one of the former Liaisons thank you appreciate it thank you I I also just want to point out that I think a lot of people think that you know we'll make decisions up here just on the fly but we're really fortunate to have people like you and most of you are like experts in finance so um that also helps us tremendously and all the service that you've given to the city it means a lot I think it means a lot we have some great members on our board and I think we've done a pretty good job taking your advice am I right yes yes so we do we do listen but that's why it's so imperative that people get involved you guys shape our community it's the community that should be shaping uh how we do business here in the city and and those initiatives but I just want to say thank you you guys are rock stars thank you some impressive people on there we do we're really really lucky yeah so well we're gonna miss you thank you appreciate it celebration thank you thank you so much Tyler Colton followed by Bonifacio pinchi followed by Terry Brooks all right hi everybody my name is Tyler Colton and thank you I'm back again like a broken record um so first uh what you just mentioned I do realize that the council does not uh as a body create everything or just have decisions and everything and it isn't the mayor alone who makes decisions um that is the entire body um so I'm here to ask again to talk about the median in Midtown uh for many of us who live in Midtown there was a new kind of study that came out from RTC that was uh done and it kind of was halfway done uh it showed the accidents and things that occurred in a large area all the way from Liberty Street to Plumas or to Plum uh citing mostly accidents in those kind of regions but it didn't specifically focus in the area the little section that has the median in it within that section it did show that there were extreme number of illegal u-turns occurring it did also show that most of the crosswalks in the area received an F failing it also showed that the likelihood of a head-on collision at the roundabout at Ameri could occur um so we are asking when I sat in a room and I started this conversation with Devin Reese RTC part holes and a number of other businesses we sat down with RTC uh they at the time they had said to us that once the median was in that we would take a look and revisit that so I'm here in front of you today to ask could we make that happen could we have a city manager could we have em remsa could we have fire police property managers and business owners come together to discuss the lack of access to business uh the Extreme Measures we have witnessed remza and fire take to get around vehicles in front of my business I have watched the vehicles pile up on our sidewalks to allow emerging emergency vehicles to pass we have been told that one of remsa's vehicles has been damaged going over the median not making the clearance that was created for fire but not for remsa so we'd like to look at that and so we're asking that an exploratory group be put together so that we could all come to the table and what was promised that we could revisit the median which has been going an ongoing discussion from what I understand since 2014 so I'm before you asking if we could get that done and how that might look and if somebody could actually respond to me that would be very nice thank you thank you so much Tyler and I would just say um to our city manager um can we get this on our next agenda of it agendized and quite honestly um you know at the time I I really felt and I was very very vocal about it RTC literally ran over the businesses to get that project done and um it's incredibly problematic so we will get that on there um and Devin Reese also wanted to make sure that he was at a council meeting when we heard this item so thank you so much Bonifacio pinche followed by Terry Brooks followed by rasitza todorova madamir I'm just going to reinforce Tyler's position and besides that I'd like to I'm a Italian-American is living here invested in the city and I feel very welcome and it was a pleasure meeting you and feeling very welcome from the whole community of Reno so thank you that's all good we like those welcomings thank you thank you and welcome Terry Brooks followed by rasitza todorova followed by Christine speed Terry before you start look what I got for you you know what this is yeah the title looks familiar's published look at this oh wow there you go thank you so those those are those are gifts I want to thank Jennica where are you Jennica I love you to pieces Jennica helped get this done and um these are very very special to us I don't know if you want to give them gifts I hope that you you know take on some entrepreneurial initiative and sell them so that you can continue to create your Artistry I just want you to know how much we appreciate you and all that you do this is fantastic and so when you started this project I said these needed to be published Jennica we love you to pieces thank you thank you thank you Ashley I know she had a big hand in it matter of fact the whole staff was super excited so this is their surprise their Merry Christmas to you today thank you so much welcome so much so you'll have to create a poem just on giving right so yeah anyway thank you my friend I love love uh what you do for our city thank you and now for uh the chapter of my next book good morning it's me Terry Brooks again and today I'd like to render on the act of discrimination when it comes to employment and gender when I was young I worked at a restaurant where males like me washed the dishes while all the females were waitresses who served the customers of their dishes after that I worked three other jobs where they hired only males none of the positions in those places were considered appropriate for females then I got a job at a textbook company that hired both females and males any positions there were considered appropriate for females and males then I worked at another place with separations of jobs males were assigned to some jobs and females to other jobs then I worked where I'd gone to school at a library of a university males or females worked in any position so again I enjoyed that diversity men used to be more easily employed whether they were married or not and they would usually work longer at the job they got young single women however were less likely to get a job because if they got married later they then they might leave their job once they got married they might have children and they'd have to quit their job to stay home and raise their children men usually got paid more women usually got paid less some employers said if they paid women more then they'd have to pay the men less in some places women were more likely to be hired because of their looks or in some cases more likely not to be hired because of their looks there's been way more abuse of women where they worked than there has ever been of men where they worked some women have been abused with threats of being fired and some could not defend themselves with a fear of being fired I would like to thank you all for listening to me today and again for putting up with more of such uncomfortable things that I say thank you thank you so much thank you even more well and just so everyone knows again I want to thank Tyler I think you had a hand in it Jana all of you guys because they had to type it up because Terry wrote them all in hand yeah well maybe we got to get you that one next let's do that thank you Terry by the way please give him a round of applause [Applause] [Music] and by the way this was chapter 11 so I got 35 more chapters okay we'll we'll keep track of them by Christine speed followed by Glenn Gray [Music] good morning uh Madam married city council uh thank you for letting me speak to you today my name is Rosita todorova I am a local artist a professor at Trucking Meadows Community College and your city artist so I held this position for the 2022-23 year and as part of the position I've curated this honorary position which is really exciting um I curated an exhibit that was up until June the featured 13 local artists looking at the Great Basin the name of the exhibit was between Earth and Sky and right now I have an exhibition right outside of City Hall of my work all work created this year so I wanted to tell you a little bit about the exhibit I also want to thank the ones of you that came to the reception which happened two weeks ago thank you Jenny breakfast and Megan ebbert for being there and I hope that you guys get a chance to go outside and look at the exhibit the exhibit is called learning to be lost and it comes from um things that have happened in the last couple years I think all of us since covet have experienced things that we never thought we would or so our lives not go the way we thought they were going to and so that's really the inspiration of the exhibit that things are not really going the way that they're supposed to specifically in in my own life and I created that as a metaphor of being lost in the desert so thinking about how that experience makes you feel like you don't really have a a grounding and while thinking about this metaphor I realized that I have a lot of experience on how to be lost in the desert growing up here in Reno Nevada part of our training starting in fifth grade was survival training so we learn how to uh condensate water navigate by the Stars how to make a fire and so the artwork is leaning on the imagery of the about a desert but also thinking about these survival strategies trying to figure out what's a mirage and what isn't in order to create the work I just want to tell you about one piece in the show that's called uh two foot Towers Winnemucca Lake and Winnemucca lake is a dry lake right past Pyramid Lake and it actually has the oldest petroglyphs in North America they are dated to be ten thousand to fourteen thousand years old and being out there really gave me a little bit of perspective similar to looking at the stars or being at the ocean of um how our Humanity can be put in perspective in terms of nature but what was really interesting about being out there is there's these tufa towers that are created by the Great Basin that this whole area was underwater so geologically a really long time ago and all of them have petroglyphs on them that are so old and we think about our desert as being empty most of the time it's so so good at racing its history but it really grounded me in thinking no this area here in Nevada just out in our backyard is actually so old and has been occupied by people for so long that wanted to make a creative Mark they want to create public art that these markings are so similar to what we do as artists and how we want to continue to make a mark so that we can interact with others and be remembered yeah yeah look at you right that's an art in itself thank you so much I want to say thank you so much and also is your work going to be featured I think it was last year that's where I became familiar with your work wasn't at the Reno Tahoe International Arts Festival yes and that's gonna happen again yes if you have not been and you love art you have got to go I am telling you I was so impressed with the level and caliber of artists but I saw your work there and then I remember coming down the elevator and literally she's you were hanging up all your own stuff and then um with the help of the city well I mean you were doing it yourself and that's what artists typically have to do is they just are doing all of everything encompassing whether it's marketing or trying to host shows and then creating on top of it so it's a lot of work but your work is impressive so um can you tell everyone how you um how they can see your your work sure sure yeah probably the easiest way would be my website which is rosita.art um and and again the Reno Taco International art show is coming up in September which will feature many artists um I don't know how many but over a hundred yeah um so that's probably the next thing and then we'll have a faculty Exhibition at Truckee Meadows Community College in October um and and more and if you sign up for my email list you can get more information and then are you on Instagram absolutely and it's Rosita my first name I tend to like Instagram and they're a little nicer over there all right thank you guys so much and everyone please support her art please support our artists um fantastic job I'm a fan of your work love it [Applause] [Music] Christine speed followed by Glenn Gray followed by Nathaniel Benjamin good morning mayor shivi and all the council members the second very interesting fascinating meeting so far my first meeting here yes it is yes well no one's yelled at us yet sir yeah no by the end I'm sure it's been terrific and um I this is another my subject has to do with another animal love story and I agree with my ward 2 council member um Naomi Durer that uh what we do for Animals reflects upon us so my name is Christine speed and I oppose the eviction of the horses and the demolition of the ranchera equestrian center I'm one of these people from out of state who was attracted to ranchera Due mainly to all the horse-filled advertising but also due to having read your beautiful or ranchera planned unit development handbook IT enshrined project description and development standards that reassured me and must have reassured my neighbors that our investments would be safe project description reads the development of ranchera builds upon the equestrian history behind the ranch and reflects the changing urbanization of the surrounding areas we buyers translated this as the developers are going to build a lot of houses but retain the special and attractive equestrian feeling of the development as they have shown us in their marketing literature and under objectives there was maintain the rural quality of the ranch including Treeline streets open pastures and Architectural styles consistent with existing building throughout the ranch so okay this was totally reassuring planned Community language under development objectives it read converting to the equestrian facility to include commercial stables and a writing Club and at this point I thought oh like where do I sign and under chapter 2 development standards it's specified as maximum uh for new buildings two stories for all the buildings around the special events center which is the mansion The Equestrian Center and the ranch headquarters which is the Pavilion and so to me this meant low and Rural character enforced great and under architecture if stated the architectural style for ranchera is reminiscent of the former Ranch and ranch homes that populate Del Monte area and all future developments shall conform to Ranch architectural style no visible flat roofs shall be allowed and and it even used the equestrian center and the uh as an example of the kind of architecture to emulate which was in the handbook on both sides the barn the sides of the barn and um and then finally yet within a year of moving here uh with whoops I'm sorry I I guess my time is over I just hope that you can still preserve this beautifully and thoughtfully crafted PUD and preserve its original administrative intent on our behalf because we're losing it thank you [Music] followed by Nathaniel Benjamin followed by Winnie Dowling uh Madam mayor City Council Members my name is Glenn Gray I live at 730 Canter way in ranchera um I sent you some comments each to you personally those comments are not exactly the comments I'm going to read to you today you have those and you know what I've expressed in them these comments are more emotional comments not as technical as the ones that I sent to you it started in January when the developers submitted a form to change the zoning in the ranchera Pud they submitted the planning they submitted to the planning committee to change the zoning on the equestrian center property from one house per acre to Suburban mixed use with this new zoning the property could be sold off to another developer at a much higher price and that developer could build almost whatever they wanted see the arrogance staff at the planning committee intercepted the request for Change and said this does not seem right they sent a letter back to the developer saying they could not support this change you must have a specific project in mind to request a change like this the developer said okay we'll come back with a specific project now they went work to work figuring out a project that could maximize their profit and one that they figured they could walk back into the planning committee and get rubber stamped no thought or consideration was given to the residents or Community it may affect just maximizing those profits see the arrogance their new plan is for 24 small homes to be crammed in between nine large lots to the South and 44 Custom Homes to the north no consideration was given to the effect on the neighborhood property values of the current residence or the effect on the general community see the arrogance I invite you met a mayor and city council members to come and walk with me to see for yourselves how this plan does not fit into our community we already have a huge traffic issue but adding more cars at this point 462 more cars are scheduled to come into ranchera if nothing changes it just does not matter to them they don't live here we do see the arrogance they told me firsthand they intend to get this plan approved at the planning committee level without involving the residents or the city council they have little regard for this wonderful body they have little regard for all of you and they have little regard especially for me see the arrogance lastly I bought my lot and built my home knowing the equestrian center may be demolished I've been told for four years that if it gets demolished six Lots would be the next next to my home one house per acre I would not have purchased my lot or built my home if I knew 24 small homes would be crammed into next to my house this is another example of a bait and switch tactic that this developer knows all too well see the arrogance it must stop it really must stop please temper their arrogance just say no thank you very much great comments thank you Mr manager can you inform me for my knowledge because my inbox is filling and I anticipate I'm going to be sitting through a lot of comments here where is this PUD amendment in its path there is no no nothing has come into the door um what's been submitted as a master plan Amendment it was submitted last January to go from pgos to SMU and there's been no PUD Amendment that's what our staff had said you need to submit them together and I learned just for the benefit of you and everyone just yesterday that the master plan amendment was withdrawn um from the city they can only be submitted every quarter the next time for some middles October and I guess that it had been put on a balance since January when it was submitted came to the Nab in February and then the next time would have been April and July and so it's been pending and so my information from our planning staff yesterday was that it was withdrawn plan plan master plan master plan plan unit development amendments go to the council correct and there is not anything in is a demolition permit pending Mr Manor apparently no either okay so I just we got to get back on track it's going to meet with me that you know we are fast moving and if 20 of you are asking for us to meet with me if there's not anything in the door you know that I can't see is gonna you know ask a decision of me in the next six months I won't be coming on out I guess to clarify that so people understand because we're talking City speak people don't understand what all of that means um go ahead um city manager Doug Thornley and where we're at uh with respect to any sort of submittal um it's in everybody's inbox and it will be published to the website the way we do all Council memos what was that when was that drafted I don't know I believe it was drafted yesterday you received it this morning okay but so just so we can clarify so everyone understands at this time nothing has come into the city and it was nothing nothing is pending so right now everyone needs to know and then also let's clarify do they need a demo a demo permit [Music] all right so at this time nothing is in the city so we just want everyone to know that demolition permits who approves those uh the the building department does that's an administrative approval and again I think that's one where it should come back to the council demo on on buildings I do because we've had many that have not come here and all of a sudden we get blamed for it you turn around and you're like what just happened so that's something that should change okay we got to get back on track I know Carl's gonna give me the Smackdown it's the stink eye I said Smackdown um okay go ahead Madam Madam clerk thank you and for the audience please hold your applause Nathaniel Benjamin followed by Winnie Dowling followed by Sandra rentus hi everybody uh my name is Nathaniel Benjamin I am here representing my fiancee Francesca Martinez uh she owns bad opal vintage in Midtown uh 1001 South Virginia Street and it's right on the roundabout there I'm kind of here bolstering the argument of Tyler um Francesca's been well I'll just I'm gonna read from a petition that she put together online that required 757 signatures um when left about a year ago a car crashed into her building broke a window and the car crashed into her store yeah um making its way through Boulders that uh the landlords had placed in a little um I don't know what you call it landscaping area there so it plowed through all of that and to my knowledge it was the the landlord of the building has been in communication with the city and we're waiting on a elevated garden box to be constructed that'll act as a barrier because this is um I think the third or fourth car that's crashed into the building yeah which is crazy to me but um so I'm just gonna read from what she uh put together as far as info and facts regarding that area there have been 10 vehicle-related incidents in the past 15 months and this was a year ago um involving our building at 1001 South Virginia Street five of which have resulted in direct collisions into the businesses that operate here despite the frequency of accidents the city has failed to take any action regarding uh or towards setting up additional safety measures for not only our building but for the pedestrians frequenting the bustling Midtown District who could easily be at the wrong place at the wrong time since the Midtown Road renovation our lands hoods have communicated with the city their concerns for the businesses here and their susceptibility to accidents and have repeatedly requested some sort of card um and and it keeps going but um basically the like I visit her shop pretty frequently and while I'm there even just for short periods of time people turn down Mary Street all the time going the wrong direction obviously that area is not intuitive and the um barricade all along the road is a hazard for all the reasons the entirely listed and it is I've never seen a road like this it doesn't make sense to me I think it should be reconsidered and uh Tyler is advocating for having some kind of panel constructed so that we can get some official evaluation on it and I would like to also advocate for that on Francesca's behalf um thank you okay thank you so much really appreciate it Winnie Dowling followed by Sandra rentus followed by nicandro Saldana good morning uh Madam mayor and city council I would like to seek your support for item number B22 which is part of the agenda it's a thousand dollars for the Nevada Small Business Development Center I wanted to let you know a little bit about our services we provide free and confidential assistance to Nevada's business owners and people interested in starting businesses we have 12 offices around the state and our office where the lead office is at the University of Nevada Reno in the College of Business and just to give you an idea of what we're doing for the City of Reno we um we assisted about a thousand clients and 22 so that's providing in-depth assistance to all types of businesses and we document all of our economic impacts so we had 32 businesses that started we helped our businesses with 4.7 million dollars in capital and we also they supported 2 300 jobs we also helped them raise their sales in of in the amount of about 31 million dollars in June we provided a class on how to start a business in Nevada and that was a result of talking with councilman Martinez we really appreciate his his vision and he came to the class we had 80 in attendance and it was in Spanish and we wanted to make sure people understand how to start a business they don't know they have questions about funding questions about location all kinds of questions that you don't even know what kinds of questions you're going to have but um it was a very successful class we have another class on August 1st this time it will be at McKinley Park School and it will be in marketing or about marketing and again it is in Spanish so um in summary I would just like for you to encourage your constituents to realize that we are here and we are available to help our City of Reno business owners thank you it's so super super important and I remember and I don't did you guys stop sort of offering this during the pandemic oh no the pandemic was our busiest year was it we had hundreds I think 150 million dollars of economic impact ppps Idols um shuttered venue grants it was a very busy and Sandra and our client nickendro will also talk so okay great councilman Martinez thank you so much for doing this do you want to say a few words before she speaks um go ahead good morning and thank you for the opportunity to be here my name is Sandra rentas I'm one of the Spanish speakers the only Spanish speakers in the university in Northern Nevada for the Nevada Small Business Development Center so I just want to thank Miguel Martinez you know council member for really supporting this initiative as you know there are many foreigners you know people from other countries moving to our beautiful Reno area they want to start a business many are here from Mexico they're also coming from Venezuela and you know they're people from different walks of life so you know starting a business can be complicated for some people and that's what we offer you know so I I teach the class in Spanish you know how to set up your legal structure what kind of business licensing I every time that I just want to mention you know every time that I call their business licenses in Reno everyone is so helpful thank you to Lucy I know you have some Spanish speakers and Miguel you know who's really interested in really helping this community so thank you for your support you know because we have people you know from the prep you know that we have a school you know she's Mexican-American her husband is from South Africa we have people from asbestos removal we have a Mexican lady who started cleaning houses and now she has a multi-million dollar company we have people from Spain you know like you know they do this kind of Journey you know with pearls we have nickandra here my client who is going to start you know um Auto Repair business we have many many people from the construction you know construction you know they have to take a test so I help him with all of them you know I'm not an expert in every field but I try to help and you know answering all the questions so they don't get fined they don't get in trouble and you know especially people from other countries they want to bring their Cuisines here so I really appreciate your support you know and everything in the future it will be really appreciate I appreciate it so and that's what we're here for so thank you all right thank you so much councilman Martinez go ahead yeah I just want to say that it's super important the work that the Small Business Development Center at the University is doing and I'm happy to you know promote and help support their mission especially when they're able to provide those services in people's language that they're comfortable speaking in it just enhances those services and it allows the opportunity for members to participate and take advantage of the resources that we already have so I just want to give kudos to Winnie and Sandra for your support and your efforts to encourage Small Business Development in our region and I appreciate you all council member you know just a quick note also and the director of the small business administration flew from Vegas to meet the class and he was there for three hours and also I got referrals from the different Senators as well so thank you okay nicandros Saldana hi good morning everybody my name is nicando salana um I'm coming from Mexico my Spanish is my first language and I work for a company uh Chevrolet for 16 years and I feel that I'm ready for the next step and I want to open my own business um having these classes with them they've been helping me a lot one thing because it's in my own language and I feel more comfortable and I feel more confident about taking my next step and I just want to say thank you so much for all the help they've been give it to me that is fantastic we used to work really closely with your office who was the gentleman that was there before drawing a blank Roger Roger yes yes so we were retired yes now he's retired so I think maybe there was like a drop off just in sort of the programs and the communication we'd love for you to keep coming to council and letting the public know what you offer um because I've had a couple people say I don't think they offer that anymore so let's make sure that we get the word out there because what you do is so critical it's hard it's even if you're from this country it's hard to open a business it's not easy so um fantastic but councilman Martinez thank you thank you thank you that's awesome even Raphael the priorities that you commissioned to do Bowling Center here you know he start his own business obviously yeah great thank you appreciate it okay bye thank you Eric LaRue followed by Stephanie rundon followed by Michael gani good morning Madame mayor and City Council Members my name is Eric LaRue I'm a downtown resident I live in the Montage I'm actually also a Reno native going back I I was born here and I've been hanging out and spending a lot of time in downtown Reno since the 1970s thank you for planning to deal with some downtown issues at your meeting today I talked to many different residents those downtown and the Montage those in other buildings downtown other residents in other parts of Reno and we are excited about the good things that are going on in downtown Reno and we want to thank you for your efforts and all the efforts of City of Reno staff for making improvements we want to thank you and the police chief the new chief chief Nance we know that there has been increase in RPD being employed deployed to downtown we know the RPD horses are on on horses on Mondays that's nice bike patrols are up we hope to see foot patrol happening soon and even um we'd like to see the bar car back because safety is a high priority and all those efforts are going a long way towards making downtown Reno more safe there's also a lot of efforts being made to make downtown Reno cleaner we see that down Torino is getting cleaner I want to say thank you to the public works staff and a lot of volunteers also who are working to make downtown cleaner um the Reno City Center project is a big concern of a lot of people who I talked to who live downtown and who just like to come downtown as you know it's a huge chunk of downtown Reno and as a key Frontage on Virginia Street being closed and boarded up in the current condition is obviously not a good look so we ask that you do what you reasonably can to help that project proceed and succeed as quickly as possible um I don't know that you read Alicia Barber's brief but I hope you have read her latest brief about downtown issues let me just say I think Alicia does a great job a great service for our community she acts as a historian for Reno there's not many people who have the knowledge she has about Downtown Arena she also kind of acts as an editorial board we don't have a downtown our Reno newspaper it doesn't do that anymore and she she plays that role she may not always um State positions that we all agree with but I think she she really States a lot about points that are very thought provoking and I hope you take into consideration as you are going about making decisions um please proceed with effective steps to keep making downtown Reno better um for the many residents who are living downtown now and who are working downtown and for the many more who are about to be moving downtown and coming downtown um this is a critical time and things are getting better and we just want to keep things moving in the right direction so thank you very much for your service to our community and for uh for dealing with the downtown issues [Music] residents and you've done a lot of work so thank you thank you thank you Stephanie rundon followed by Michael gagne followed by Willie poocher via Zoom good morning uh good morning mayor uh good morning council member door and other council members um I'm picking up the theme the uh of the ranchera equestrian center um like like Glenn my comments are a little bit more emotional rather than uh than dealing with with numbers and the various specifics so um again my name is Stephanie rundon I live at 725 mayor Wood Trail uh which is in within the ranch air development uh so recently Ranchero Holdings LLC issued an eviction notice to the tenants of the ranchera equestrian center for July 31st they were given a month notice um they're about 50 horses that are that are located there it's the intent of Ranchero Holdings to take down the equestrian center and replace it with at least initially it was six one acre parcels and now I understand that uh that it may actually be more dense um and it's with respect that I asked the city council to consider the various proposals that are currently on the table to ensure that the Reno Equestrian Center has the opportunity to continue to serve our community prior to moving to Reno in 2021 my husband and I put considerable thought into where we wanted to live in our retirement we knew that we did not want um to move to another subdivision in another city what we were and what we were specifically drawn to ranchera for the open space the beautiful views of the mountains which are by the way now gone due to three-story Condominiums um and the history of the development and the Beautiful Equestrian Center although I'm not currently a horse owner I've owned and otherwise engaged horses most of my life my sales brochures all featured horses prominently and again all the streets are named horse themes um you know I was sold I I was so happy to find such a lovely um uh community that reflected uh my you know what I was looking for in retirement I've spent many evenings walking around the barn getting to know the equine tenants and Imagining the day I would stable a horse from my grandchildren to enjoy uh the Halloween horse costume contest occasional offers for carriage rides particularly when it's snowing um and tenants walking their horses down the street are all part of what makes our community unique um I was fortunate to grow up in a community with pony rides trail rides two barns and wonder where do children develop their love for and learn to care for horses the mids urban sprawl so sadly there was a Shetland pony is now gone um my beautiful friend Sophie she's now gone I wonder where some of the other tenants are going to move their horses and I'm not sure what purpose is served by replacing this beautiful building with uh luxury housing so um with that thank you for listening and thank you for your consideration thank you Miss rundon I appreciate it Madam Clerk thank you city council and Madam mayor who I don't know where she disappeared to just stepped out momentarily but anyways my name is Michael gagne I'm a business person who's relocated here to Reno about 10 years ago largely for the quality of life and I commend the city council and the absent mayor on the uh uh work you're doing here today phenomenally uh interesting this is my first city council meeting the the uh the issues you're dealing with are really material uh pedestrian accidents are really problematic um I know firsthand having excuse me my father was killed in a pedestrian accident so anyways you guys are doing some really important stuff I'm here to talk a little bit about ranchera as well I'm a resident there soon to be finishing a completing a home there but uh the issue that really strikes me is the uh the Lake Ridge removal kind of in the middle of the night it seemed like and we really don't want to have something like that occur here in this situation um my daughter was a swimmer didn't she used to do a little bit of training there at Lake Ridge it disappeared at a friend of ours whose son was a tennis player disappeared so we really don't want to have that sort of a recurrence in this case this is a beautiful Community we care a lot about one another let's not really destroy some of the opportunities that might be here for some of our younger members um and a horse equestrian facility that was advertised the way that this was it's it's really a bait and switch so appreciate the time keep up the great work and uh help us keep ranchera a ranch place okay thank you Mr ghani [Applause] uh my sympathies to your fault for you on your father um and I also just want to say um and there may be more people speaking on Rancher I don't know but I just wanted to put it on the record that I've been very engaged in this issue for a number of years um I've had a chance to meet with many of the residents I understand the issues I've also met with the developers and uh you know speak to them at least weekly just last night in fact and that I've also been reaching out to the county to see if we could build a partnership there and also I just wanted to mention there since this was back in the newspaper several buyers have emerged so I just just does some current you know up to the minute issues I I don't know what will happen I know that the horses have to be gone by I think it is next Monday and uh I I personally believe that's a tragedy for our community but I just wanted to let you know as a council member representing you I'm working very diligently to look at all the Alternatives and understand the issues that you're going through so um appreciate the moment for a little editorial but back to you madam mayor foreign [Applause] followed by Audrey Keller via Zoom followed by Gordon Gossage good morning council members can you hear me we can thank you okay um I would for your support of this past Saturday's Northern Nevada pride festival and Community parade and for making it one of the largest annual events in Northern Nevada there was a time that I remember that such an event was not welcome here and some feared for their safety when I was in high school in the late 1980s I remember how one of my friends who was the first openly gay kid at McQueen was harassed and bullied daily I never would have imagined all these years later that my hometown would be so welcoming to the lgbtq community I recall having a conversation with a gay activist in San Francisco who marched alongside the late San Francisco supervisor Harvey Milk and asking him if the kids of today appreciate the struggles that he and his contemporaries went through for equality he responded we went through those struggles so our kids wouldn't have to do it themselves I remember that line um as I saw all the young faces marching on Saturday and while there are still hateful and intolerant Voices That Remain their voices have grown quieter as the years go by the culture of a city is set by its leaders and I commend all of you um for the example that you set by your principles of Tolerance inequality This truly makes Reno the biggest little city in the world sausage good morning it's Audrey Keller can you hear me we can thank you thank you very much I want to thank city council and our mayor for listening to the residents of ranchera speak to the eviction of over 50 head of horses beautiful living beings and creatures from their homes they are now going into unknown spaces with um a much lower quality of life and a much higher rent talk about rent control I understand that the rents that the horses are going to be moved to has been raised because of the shortage of barn space that's really important in planning a master plan for a city and a city as great as Reno I know we have the wonderful Rodeo but there is a great diversity of horses not just Rodeo horses but horses for adaptive riding horses for the police force horses for companionship forces for competition and the ranchera equestrian center is unique it is an icon because of course it's on the Hera estate it should be kept as an icon and frankly I I know it's no one's faulted counsel that these developers are moving in the way they're moving however Council can lead in the direction and with the vision of hey let's make this a really great equestrian center and let's work with washout County let's open that door have the conversation and let's attach the equestrian center to Bartley Ranch Park just like there's a great partnership with the Hawkins Amphitheater it's a perfect use of a public facility public private partnership and I just want to encourage you even though it the action is not before you it will be before you and I want to thank you again and I want you to consider all the equestrian uses including our friends at UNR and the equestrian teams we can make this a really great equestrian center and thank you again for the consideration and for your time our final public commenters Gordon Gossage please good morning for the records Gordon Gossage I wasn't planning on talking today but there are two things uh that forced me to do it one is that yesterday we learned that real estate has now gone over six hundred thousand dollars for a house in Reno that means using a five times uh uh metric that you need to make a household needs to make a hundred and twenty five thousand dollars a year in order to afford the median house in Reno the second thing is that I need my neighbors to be honest and that is if we continue to throttle development within the McCarran ring we are voting for higher prices and rents within the McCarran ring we are voting to expel the Latino community in the Wells Avenue area once the rents go up in Midtown because of the supply being constrained both the Latino working class and the white working class will be expelled from the center of the city we are going to have no matter what 150 000 new people moving into the 10 County Western Nevada area here's your choice my neighbors let's say we have 150 000 people they either live within the McCarran ring and we decide to have a walkable high-density City or we force them to move into a sprawl that you've never experienced unless you lived in the East Bay or where I'm from in Boston I want to tell you the route 50 scenario is you take Route 50 from Carson to Fallon that's 60 miles okay that's the length of East Bay between San Jose and Valencia along Route 880. so you have to decide one of two things within the McCarran ring or sprawl okay and if you like East Bay welcome and the problem is the people who want to throttle development within McCarran ring have so much more power than the working class so I beg you to be honest with yourselves and we need to be honest with each other about what each side and it has become two sides advocate I strongly Advocate as well I'm running out of time um I get emotional about this because I don't think it's fair for the elite and for the leadership class to continue to screw the people who make less than sixty thousand a year I can't sit here and listen to the dishonesty of advocating throttling the housing Supply and forcing people out to Yerington and Dayton and firmly we got to be honest if that's what you want that's what we'll get thank you so much I always appreciate your comments because any time that we approve a project I'm going to say this in my out loud voice then we're in the pockets of developers and it's exactly what you said that we are giving more people less opportunity to live in our city and it's the people that have the means are the ones that are shaping it and that isn't right so I want to say thank you so much but yeah if any of you you know hear that um you know I I read whenever we approve projects how we're in the pockets of developers and um it couldn't be further from the truth so I want to say thank you so very much because that is the one thing um is about the sprawl because that's what's happening when we don't approve those projects those in-filled projects so everyone complains about the traffic but then when we don't so support that infill development and housing of all types so don't get me going on that but it's economics 101 supply and demand because guess what if you don't have enough Supply the people that have the means they will monopolize the the supply that's in the market and there's your supply and demand and then it's very hard for people to afford housing because the people that have the means can afford to dominate the housing so thank you so much I appreciate that thank you all right Madame mayor for the record um there were several individuals in the audience that did not wish to speak um but did submit public comment forms there was one in favor 10 in opposition and two of concern Wolfie Jr wolf Jeff Chapman Aaron Devlin Patty Cowles Miriam Ruland I'm sorry yep Leonard little Virginia Matthews Jennifer Santos Pat Brown Andrea Sullivan Penny Whitaker Linda Russ and Christine Bonnet additionally we did receive 13 comments which were General in nature not directly associated with an agenda item prior to 4 pm yesterday July 26th these comments were written correspondence received via reno.gov online public comment form or by email to our office copies of these have been distributed to the Reno city council and are available to the public on reno.gov one letter in favor seven in opposition five levels letters of concern and two voicemails were received transcribed and provided to the Reno city council and with that we have no additional public comment we're moving into item A4 approval of the agenda okay thank you so much Madam clerk I appreciate it there was one name on there I think I heard Alfie the wolf okay I just wanted to make sure he signed up for public comment okay all right thank you so much okay at this time um I would like to ask approval of the agenda can I get a motion sorry hold on before we do that um our city manager has some items yes for note on the agenda thank you madam mayor um item D2 the annual update from the rscva uh the rscba executive team has an unforeseen event uh that they need to attend to today so we will have to reschedule that okay um so we'll take off item D2 yep and then I'd like to recommend that we take D1 out of order Delta one out of order and we do that at the top of the agenda so that we can get the the medium okay so here's what we will do we're gonna we'll um go to item D1 I'd like to do consent and then the items that were pulled off of consent we will do after I item D1 all right okay so moved do we attorney client today you schedule one okay okay I wasn't sure all right so at this time I would like um to start with well approval motion motion from councilwoman second from councilwoman Taylor all those in favor say aye aye motion carries hi councilman Reese vice mayor nice to hear you I forgot you were up there in the sky in the sky gotcha okay good we can hear you now um okay so we're going to start with Item B consent I'm gonna start with um councilwoman duer do you have any items you want full of consent um B9 uh just it's over a million and I think people should know what we're doing and I'm interested in b14 not all the items but just I know we've revamped our process and I think it's worth some comments from staff be nice yeah okay thanks so much B9 and b14 okay b14 okay councilwoman [Music] equal B4 B5 B6 and B7 please six and B7 four five six and seven yes councilwoman Taylor uh B8 please councilman um Martinez uh 20 and 21. uh vice mayor Reese oh man okay councilman breakfast B10 please okay all right so may I get a motion to approve all other items on the consent agenda so moved all right I have a motion I have a second from councilman Martinez all those in favor say aye aye all those opposed promotion carries okay we're gonna head on over to item D1 and I'm gonna send it back to you madam clerk do you have any public comment we don't have any public comment registered but we did receive written correspondence as one letter of concern and that has been distributed to the Reno city council if you are an attendee in the zoo meeting would like to make public comment please raise your hand at this time and did Mr Reese pull any items I just no okay all right Madame mayor we're going to go ahead and close out public comment on item D1 okay thank you good morning hi good morning good morning mayor and city council I do like my presentation to come up and there we go all right are you ready ready good morning Marion city council Amy Pennington special projects and Outreach coordinator for public works I am super excited to be here today because um as I have talked to many of you throughout the last year about the place making project I've been hearing that you guys are excited to get some things done so I am here with a an agreement to move us forward and getting some things done um so with Place making we are in the phase one part right now and I just want to do a quick reminder on March 8th of 2023 Council approved money from the arpa allocation for Place making one million dollars going to the facade and tenant Improvement program and two million dollars going to other play speaking activities and on April 12th um the council accepted Gail's study which included a phased implementation plan and so today we are talking about um these four elements the facade and tenant Improvement program the streetscape Furnishing Zone Locomotion Plaza 2.0 and the Roe Plaza and I'm going to be asking Council for the authorization to give the city manager authorization to approve a consultant agreement for Urban Design Services for the streetscape Furnishing Zone Locomotion Plaza and the Roe Plaza I'm going to quickly give a brief description of these four elements so everyone knows what's going on one is the the Reno facade and tenant Improvement program this gives the um Bruno city council is or City of Reno is giving applicants money to batching funds to improve the outward facade of their program up to 50 000 and the interior for a tenant Improvement up to fifty thousand dollars um one recipient can receive up to a hundred thousand dollars and there are stipulations that are tied to this money as far as being actively renting out your space and things like that to make sure that money is going um toward activation of our downtown and other parts of Reno and the streetscape Furnishing Zone this is an effort to evaluate the sidewalk space that is from Liberty all the way up to the freeways and making sure that we're taking advantage of opportunities for lighting seating shade and being able to activate our sidewalk and our edges Locomotion Plaza the just a reminder that this um the goal for this space is to have it be easy to activate so we need more lighting shade power available furniture and Stage elements so that we can have events here that the public can use it and this can be a space that is um enjoyable to spend time on and the road Plaza this area is just adjacent to the event center on 4th Street and Virginia and um in this space we're looking to improve power shade seating wayfinding and we have had conversations with the row where they've agreed to maintenance of the elements that are placed on this space as well as storing them and moving them for special events so the consultant agreement that we're looking for is for Urban Design and we this is the timeline for how this would be play playing out we would be looking for approval today of the consultant agreement um the design for The streetscape Locomotion Plaza and the road Plaza would be happening through August and September and then we would come back to city council in late October to talk to give you an opportunity to approve the final designs those designs would go forward to 100 design in through February of next year and then we would be coming back for um construction bids and constructing those during 2024. so this is the proposed motion and I'm available for any questions I don't know how to record a question I want to go back it said like tenant it was like you know had the four this one yeah yep so um so there's kind of a lot going on here and I I I'm going to assume that the council probably has a lot of ideas and thoughts um because this is so important um and it's way overdue since I've been here we have never invested in downtown um councilman I'm going to let you ask the question and then I'm gonna um come back to some of these points go ahead oh sure well um some are questions and some are comments so I had a chance to speak to you uh prior to today and one of the things that I brought up which I think is important for the community to understand and also the council is that when you speak about phase one phase two phase three that's how they were laid out in the gel report but my understanding is that we are actually working on all three phases as we speak so for example I think phase two had to do with the bike infrastructure but to my knowledge we're working on that right now in fact I think there's a public Outreach process either beginning now or continuing now so that's already started prior to even today when we're talking phase one but it sounds like we've already started phase two and it sounds like talking to you we may already be engaged in phase three so I think it may be the word phase may be a misnomer and be misleading yeah uh and getting people all wrapped around the axle when they don't need to be it sounds like All Phases I I guess I would think of them as projects or Focus areas but it sounds like they're all proceeding ahead and is that correct um yes it is so in phase two a lot of that has to do with the micro Mobility network and microability on Virginia Street as well as improving the safety of intersections and circulation and right when the implementation plan was approved we started working with RTC and Ulta right away on um Outreach for that for the downtown micro Mobility Network which includes Virginia Street and we completed a survey in June and those results are being evaluated right now and we are doing active Outreach to all the properties that are along that are adjacent to the proposed course so I just want to make sure that in our conversation or even our public conversation that we don't don't get too wrapped around the axle about this timing issue about what comes first what comes second what comes third and it's been written about even that we're maybe starting with the wrong phase but I believe we're starting with All Phases and this is just the conversation about what's included in the package for phase one yes right and they're partly grouped by um like these all require a similar approach yes and the next ones also so my next comments are questions about the active renting and the leasing it sounds like in order to do either facade exterior facade or interior Improvement and you showed a picture and I don't know if that's a real picture you're taking boarded up Windows and turning them into real glass windows I'm not even sure you can put glass on all those windows for fifty thousand dollars frankly the type of windows that are probably needed for this type of historic looking building but um I want to make sure that there's a concomitant requirement that active leasing so what happens how do you enforce this so you want people to actually activate their space and lease it out but how do we make sure that happens and since I'm running out of time I want to get out my last two points on the streetscape Furnishing section I just wanted to say I've been publishing a number of memes on my Facebook and other places that talk about the huge degree difference when you have shade and you don't so just the shade Eric temperature under a tree typically 10 degrees cooler the sidewalk temperature on the ground under the under a tree 25 to 45 degrees cooler than the ground itself so we we need to continue whether it's trees or other types of awnings or whatever to keep focusing on that and last I'll save these comments but I do want to speak to the Rope Plaza when my time comes back around so if you could just address the streetscape Furnishing shade component and activation renting component I'll address the streetscape one first and then I'll invite Brian McArdle up to talk about the facade Improvement program um we are in the Urban Design consultant agreement there is a plan to do a a base map of the entire street from Liberty up to the base of the freeways and to evaluate the opportunities to add shade and lighting um and benches or things like that along that entire stretch and so it wouldn't be that 100 you know we'll probably be able to implement based on our funding a certain amount of that but um the idea would be to put shade in the places where it is going to have the biggest benefit and put seating in places where the biggest benefit and improve lighting where it's necessary for safety and all those sorts of things um it's ironic to me that at one time this city took out seating not very long ago on my time and tenure and now we're putting it back in I'm so glad to see it yeah invite Brian to answer the second question good morning Brian McArdle for the record um the facade 10 Improvement program so we're very excited about it um the facade specifically is we know through the place making study about 72 percent of downtown Virginia Street is dead or inactive facades and in order to use this program we know that we need to stimulate investment activity for people to improve those storefronts even from a beautification perspective but actually get them ready for future tenants and so for an example um let's say you have an existing site that maybe has a vinyl or a banner that they made that is using for their signage they could use this program to actually get real signage get a new design logo made get the signage up play some awnings in place uh improve some lighting uh get that back to a nice beautification purely by beautification it'll improve the the Aesthetics of the area um the facade Improvement program is a little bit different where we want to reactivate those storefronts and we want them to really be leased out and so part of the program is it'd be preferable if a tenant came in and actually requested the funds so either a business owner or a property owner can utilize these programs but in that sense a tenant would come in and say we want to do this project we're about to sign a lease and it may need bathrooms may need a grease trap may need ADA compliance it may be a historic building that they want to improve back to the historic thing and that's what these funds are used for a building like this is the paint building in Cincinnati perfect example of a great facade and 10 Improvement that was done by their Redevelopment agency and this project was probably you know hundreds of thousands of dollars not a million dollars um and certainly the fifty thousand dollars doesn't cover all of it but it's a step and so it's an incentive to get them to reinvest in their properties to bring them online with the hope that we reactivate these storefronts get great tenants well just a quick follow-up reactivate so is there a requirement that there be a lease or something that goes along with the Improvement we're gonna have a ranking but the intent is we want to get tenants in those places and so if some of these places have asbestos don't have it needs to be built out to spec and they really have an intent of the tenant in mind and some interest then we may be we made a project like that yeah okay um at the end uh once they receive these funds it does have to be actively marketed up to five years and they do have to maintain the improvements for up to five years after the improvements are done and the last thing I'll mention is that these do need to be complete projects they can't be done to do repairs or something this has to be a complete renovation or a complete interior renovation it's not partial has to be complete and they won't be receiving the funds until all of it is done okay all right thank you so much Brian so first of all I want to say um I think you are doing a tremendous job I worked with you on Midtown so I know that you know what you're doing and and you we were there together and felt the pain and here we are 15 years later and look at Midtown so I'm super grateful that you're on the team and I love um all your thoughts and ideas so thank you so much we're super lucky to have you so um I know that we will be successful however um and I know that you've heard me but I cannot stress enough to everyone let me just tell you something we have to be very careful and I hate using this analogy but if you put lipstick on a pig right like is that what's happening here so we got to be very careful about that and what and I want everyone to know I own a retail store we need to get the the retailers in the room and say why aren't you coming downtown and find out why they're not let me tell you why they're not I know because I would love to be downtown am I going to be downtown absolutely not you want to know why because the rents are through the roof for what you're going to get and then there's a lot of places that say you know I'm not going to do um I'm not gonna I'm gonna need parking and all these things and here's the sad part you have a lot of people that own property downtown that um can afford to sit on it and hoard it and that is what's happening and then when you go and you look at the condition of those buildings and you're saying really you want three to four dollars a square foot let's get real those are gonna sit there until we figure out something in that mechanism and the only way that I can think about it because they have all the property rights is that we're if we really really want businesses to come down there which is the only way that's going to revitalize downtown which you know and Brian I'm not speaking um at you I want you to know that because Brian knows what he's doing so thank god um but this is just for everyone that doesn't know because we have a Midtown model that worked and it really worked because the um the business owners were invested they were invested but we also couldn't take the risk because I remember very well so what we did because there was a lot of vacancy here's here's the model and here's how it worked because there was so much vacancy we went to the owners we knew that they had not been getting um any revenue from those from those buildings and it was very blighted if you guys remember what Midtown looked like it was very seedy right um we said to them we want to partner with you we know your building has been vacant for a very long time what if we put artists in there entrepreneurs in there can we share in the profits they were excited they were ready to go and look at Midtown today because we had both people on board what we don't have is the landlords on board and willing to help make that investment for small businesses to come downtown and have it sort of localized what we saw in Midtown until we figure that out and until we have those Property Owners at the table saying I care enough to revitalize downtown instead of waiting for a massive investment investor to come in because what's happening is then their properties are going up three four or five million that are not even um what is it uh they're not even um appreciated yeah I don't know well yes so they're they're above market rate by far because they're waiting for the big guys to come in and buy out their buildings meanwhile they haven't invested anything in their buildings I want you to take a good look at the buyington building which should be a beautiful coveted Building looks horrific and I want to say I'm going to start having a hit list because honestly the way that they look downtown how do you think you would get if these are people if if they're serious about getting tenants really because if you were you would maybe care a little bit and clean it up and put some paint on that is not what's happening everyone needs to like open their eyes it's a lot of um problems that we have with people that are hoarding properties downtown that don't care about the small businesses coming in there to open the doors they have enough money to sit on those properties for a very long time I'm totally supportive of this I absolutely love it but until that happens and I keep saying if we can come in the only thing that I think is possibly possible is you get the landlords to the table and we say listen hey business X Y and Z we will help you we will subsidize that rent so they can make they can um make the risk because their risk is too great to open a business in downtown Reno I I couldn't even do it I know it would be way too risky for me to go down there pay three to four dollars a square foot so how is anyone going to be able to to do that unless the city comes in works with the landlord and subsidizes the rent then the doors will get open but I kind of feel like we have to be careful about doing this on the back end look at Midtown today we did the place making on the back end we had we had the small businesses that came in that opened their doors that was the model that's what worked um and so I just think we have to be very careful so tie in everything to a carrot as you know Brian knows it's like the back of his hand so I have total confidence but I just want everyone to truly know what's really going on in downtown Reno that is the truth and um there there you go part of the application process is we are asking them what the cost per square foot will be post Renovations post improvements as well as who will be marketing and brokering the property and so we do want to make sure and ensure that once this investment is made uh that it is actively marketed at a reasonable price um and really I would say actively marketed it's just not a sign on the window really actively marketed it should be noted that a lot of the spaces that they notice downtown aren't even for sale or for lease currently we don't know the conditions of those properties and so even if a small business owner did want to move downtown with an incentive there may not be units for them to move into and so this will bring more capacity online and then if uh as the small business owners want to come in we'll find different ways to support them the only thing I would also say people are going to hate this when I when I say this is that if you don't want to clean up your your business and we can't figure out the mechanism to make that happen then we should be putting up big walls and we can put up big murals because that would be better to look at than what we're looking at today and I remember the buyington owner of that building stood in here and said that little mini market will be like a mini Whole Foods go look at that it is horrific it is pathetic so I hope those business owners are hearing this I hope they're watching I'm sure they're not because they don't care about their properties quite honestly um if they did they would figure out how to work with those business owners the business owners can't take the risk it's too much I know it's way too much and guess what you do you put a business in there and then you say hey I'll work with you then it goes up incrementally if they're having success if you're both failing it's not going to do any good but I think you got to tie everything to this with X Y and Z period get a tenant first show me you can get a tenant first if you really care about your business and your building you give you bring a tenant first how are you marketing it they're not marketing it now they're not going to Market it then I just I know this like the back of my hand and this is why your downtown looks the way it does it's looked like this for how many years 20 years and it's going to continue I want to know what they want to bring to the table they're the ones that own the properties not us all right go ahead anyone I'm sorry I'm so passionate about this because I know it so well sorry go ahead councilwoman Taylor metamere I don't know if you saw but I we're not doing the punch list do you see my request to speak on your screen there no oh I'm sorry okay okay no worries I'll go to Kathleen Taylor and then but that's that's fine I just I I pressed it while Amy was still making a presentation so I didn't know if you if you oh I didn't screen there no it's not up here but I'll get to you next okay I'll put this over here then okay sorry about that I'll be brief thank you madam mirror so Amy I just want to talk a little bit about the timeline yes I want to make sure I understand that this action plan the resources that we committed the construction from March to March is one year that's fantastic right I mean that's that's amazing we allocated the resources in March we're planning on being in construction in March that's fine fantastic great job look at government move for my part which I'm going to steal from David or Devin Mr race Celts member Reese I want to get out of the way we have allocated the resources you have what you need we have the funding we're going to have somebody develop the plan so I want to get out of the way and make sure that you guys and the experts and Brian and your team can do what needs to be done to make this happen because I am joined and so excited that in one year we're going to be able to see some actual tangible results downtown and today is just about approving that plan to get that done everything's working together as councilman duer said but this is super exciting right I would have to say it is yes I think everybody needs to get on board with this whether you're downtown in Colin ranch or North Valleys and say we're going to invest in our downtown and we need to be excited about it this is a huge investment and we have a fantastic team with our Redevelopment efforts our new assistant city manager we have special events we have the people the skills the resources the money to do what needs to be done so I just want to say thank you and you know here for as a resource but great job thank you can I just say though the city needs to understand what the role is okay because this is important you can do all this but like I said the businesses are not going to come down here and open their doors because of this they are going to open their doors because they can afford the rent that is super important now we need to make sure we're getting businesses that we want down there too that are going to be able to be sustainable and that can learn without getting sustainable it's three to four dollars a square foot so my point is we can do all this you guys but you're not this is not going to attract a business I know I I own I own retail stores so let me just tell you if the city understands that by doing this this should be focused on Locomotion Plaza if we want to like to councilwoman Dora's point with putting shade up making that super activated I'm all for it but if if this Council thinks that this is what's going to attract the doors that get open downtown it's not and you should bring in a group of of retail owners so they can tell you how what it takes to open up a business it is so expensive so the fact that three to four dollars a square foot you're out of your mind and like I said they're going to sit on those so I just want everyone to know don't think that this is going to open up your storefronts but if you like this and we think that this is what it's going to take to get local motion Plaza um you know activated so let's ask ourselves who is going to activate it is that the city that's going to put that in or is that the row what who's who's going to do that and who's going to manage it and what what is happening on there what what events are happening we should have a calendar of events so then we know we've activated it all right councilman breakfast thank you madam mayor yeah I mean I have a little bit of experience with this too I started early in my career in a downtown revitalization office in Albuquerque and not dissimilar downtown although Reno's is pretty unique because the gaming impact and um I do have a little bit of concern I think and they Echo a little bit of what the mayor's saying is the facade Improvement money needs to go in my view and I want to see deal points and eligibility to have confidence that it's gonna do what we want it to do for existing tenants who are there to maybe um you know make some changes that they want that mentioned was you know a better signage versus vinyl I can get on board with that small business people public money into them fine now the facade improvements that I heard which were could be Beyond a facade a grease trap or something I get a little nervous with that I think the comment was it's going to cost a lot more than 50 000 to bring one of these you know buildings that's been shuttered for several decades in some instances forward the example from Cincinnati you know that probably had a lot of stacked public resources coming in and then on the back end a lot of obligations that's how it works I'm not confident there and the last thing I want to do is support deadbeat absentee landlords who are really just using some of these downtown properties as cash in the bank and I think part of the reason they're cashing the bank and I'm going to get into this in a little bit is the framework in downtown Reno that a property is a jackpot because it has the biggest payoff economically to a property owner it keeps it vacant and that is gaming and we still have that landscape in our zoning codes and regulations and I don't think and I don't think it's being used correctly um because there's certain parameters that come with that but I saw series open up I'm seeing um the Horseshoe being kept alive I'm saying we're going to get into what's going on over at Harrah's but every one of those Property Owners is waiting for their payday to bring gaming in and that is constipating downtown revitalization to me that is important an important consideration another one of downtown property ownership I think is um you know so I I want to leave that there the mayor knows retail but I know Downtown City Planning and I've worked on it and I I wonder why you didn't pursue and I like I know what gel does but I don't think they probed adequately enough the retail environment and the property ownership environment that's more of an economist study and I really want to understand that in depth so in my world thinking some of that money should be pivoted a little bit more towards this study and I'll tell you you know everyone knows my husband worked for 26 years over the city Sparks very methodical on understanding the retail environment I don't think we understand that in this moment in time and it's relationship to existing structures Sparks was dealing with Victorian square which involved a lot of ground up the marina a lot of ground up but we're in a historic downtown I think I would prefer seeing a little bit more of a study I'll and my comments here because I want to talk a little bit about the believe Plaza and the subsidy of public improvements on property owned by the world's largest Gaming Community that may be problematic for me also thank you oh but Mr manager can I ask I see that you have a position advertised for a marketing professional what is that I don't recall that in budget what what is that position is that tied to this effort that was in budget and it's tied to the Redevelopment District okay making certain that um you know the tools that we have available to make sure that okay you know we're moving directions okay those Define spaces okay it was in the budget was it called something else through budget because I thought it was more like a management analyst or a program just like where we always have some confusion here it's a working title so I'm certain management yeah in my world when I close a budget we don't use working titles we have classifications but that's another compliment I'd like another round Madame mayor too thank you okay councilman Martinez thank you so much yeah I just had a couple quick questions [Music] for us I do agree um that I tend to um value Europe obviously and share in the appreciation of your expertise as you all work through these processes um but I would like some oversight maybe on some of the rubrics and what you all are looking at when you decide what facade Improvement plans um to activate and end up funding um in this process in terms of like the public seating and some of the floor activation that y'all are thinking about I know we had talked before about space and how much space there are on the sidewalk so I'm just curious to see what your thoughts are in implementing all of these things and activating the space and still making it safe for people to either Drive walk or bike through downtown Reno and what consideration has been given to that um so the consideration will be in so part of what the consultant agreement has is a base map of the entire sidewalk space or that um Furnishing zone is another word we're calling it and different parts of it are wider than others different parts of it already have different like whether trees or you know there's things on the sidewalk so as we do that analysis we're going to have the urban designer look at all of the different opportunities specific to each area the dis the width of the sidewalk from The property's Edge to the street right of way and provide us with the best strategy for elevating elevating that space where where we cannot shade where we can add lighting where we can add benches where there's the potential that a retailer might open up and they might want Cafe seating outside there's all kinds of opportunities and so that's where that Urban Design is going to come in and we are going to be making sure that ADA access is part of any addition that we put on the sidewalk does that answer your question yeah thank you so much great thank you all right councilman Taylor I think Miss Ebert I've had me we're going down this way so that I can stay in line go ahead I just wanted to clarify again what we're looking at today I mean I know we maybe have some reservations about some things going forward but this is the first step in getting to where we need to be right so what are we actually approving today is it all of these things in phase one two or three what what is what are we looking at um thank you for that um so the facade antenna Improvement program is already been approved by Council um in previous actions today what we're asking to be approved is the design the urban design consultant agreement for the streetscape Furnishing zones Locomotion Plaza and the road Plaza and within that design plan we're going to have another opportunity to see what is is included in that and the research so this is just again I can't say enough just this is the first step to get us where we need to go we have a lot more discussion on what's going to be happening downtown yes we would we will come back in October with the 30 design options um so the for example on Locomotion Plaza they are going to present more than one option for shade and so you would be able to choose which option for shade you would prefer or you know so we get to see it at 30 we get to see it again and there's lots of opportunities for input so thank you so Madame mayor if I could if I could help just a little bit of clarity here um what we're talking about today with respect to this particular aspect of phase one of the Gill study is physical environment it's probably appropriate to think of this as almost like a public works project where what we are asking for is approval to spend money on a design consultant to build us a plan set that you will get to see and you will get to approve and tweak to your liking but then we can take that plan set and put it out to bid so that we can put these ideas into action and so this is the step just before actually building these things out in the in the downtown environment okay and then if we're going to hire this person does that come to council so that's what we're doing right now is we're asking for the approval to assignment are we gonna is it going to come to council who we're looking at to do this we would we would hire a consultant from our soq list we are already looking at an urban designer that is on that list tract isn't attached there isn't a contract yet so it's for pre-approval for the city manager to sign a contract I think it should come back to find out because but they're really not so I just I think that that's something that we should kind of look at who's doing that and then are you saying then we'll get to because I want to see the retail component because I think that that has to happen so are you saying if we approve this we will have a consultant that will then put those other things in place is that what you're saying what other things the retail component that would not be the urban design consultant so this is for like um geotechnical investigation lighting power shade structures where on Virginia Street all over Virginia Street so this the streetscape is the sidewalk Zone all up and down Virginia Street from Liberty to the freeway on both sides of the street and The Locomotion Plaza is uh where where local motion Plaza is and the road Plaza is on fourth of Virginia okay wait a minute so um that's a very big area yes and so the let me just get this straight this is strictly just to hire a consultant this is so we had the guild study and the guild study has made a number of recommendations that were accepted by the body this is to hire an actual designer to identify the spaces and the design of the furniture and where things go and where lighting goes and where there are areas that are ripe for retail and design it in a way that we can then take that plan set and hand um contractors to implement that plan set on the council's approval of the actual physical plan to have someone actually say we're going to put a bench that looks like this in this we're going to put lights that look like this in that space we're going to put shade structure that looks like this on Locomotion Plaza here's how we'll route the utilities to Locomotion Plaza and then we'll have someone bid that like a regular Capital project and then we'll put it into action okay we need someone to draw the blueprint I know I guess I have such a hard time with this just because this isn't organic it's not the way that I've seen it be successful usually this is on the back end once you have the businesses that are in downtown and investing so I mean I really really want to be supportive um but I but I do think here's one one thing I do know we have to have lighting we have to have infrastructure if we want to activate and do events and make them um and so that is that is very true so I get I get that and then I would just say this with the facade Improvement program um that has got to be attached to a tenant do not I do not want facades touched if it does not go to a tenant I think that um to councilman breakfast to the point she made a very very strong argument for that and like I said if they really cared about getting tenants in there those buildings wouldn't look the way that they look today let's just be honest so that so I just want to make sure that that's not happening um but anyway this is tough for me because I think this feels like once you have look at do you know how long it took for us to get the city at the table in Midtown years I came here this is how I started in politics I actually came here and I spoke to the council and felt like no one heard anything that we had to say it was all the Midtown business owners there was probably like seriously six of us at the time when we tried to get everyone involved and I came here and basically we were laughed at and it wasn't until 12 years later that everyone said oh now we need a street plan now we need we just got it in 15 years later but it was no one believed in investing in in Midtown and I don't think they would have had we have done it this way either so I just want to just remind the council that we did a year of public Outreach to businesses in the downtown Corinth throughout Reno and one of the things we've repeatedly heard about Locomotion Plaza was they would love to it's a great size for smaller events that smaller businesses and non-profits can activate that size of a space but it is not equipped with what they need to activate totally it needs to be equipped with shade with power with a stage with Furniture I was talking about that then I get it but we're not we're talking about that whole area well there's um cost saving in combining a design Urban Design plan with the work that has to be done on Locomotion Plaza for all the geotechnical excavation excavation management um but all the survey to know what's there continuing that down the street with the same team there's cost saving and being able to combine these contracts into one because they're essentially doing the same sorts of activities to evaluate the street so that was the rationale behind it and one actually maybe wants to put a beer garden on there or something to that aspect um this makes that possible I know but wouldn't we go out first go that way and look for someone to see what they need because I think too often we do projects and then later on then we're like oh we should have done this we should have done that so we know at this juncture from the feedback from the surrounding spaces we know at this juncture from some of the struggles we've had with activating those spaces [Music] um what at a at at least a base level we need in terms of infrastructure to use that space more effectively okay all right uh councilman Reese I'm going this way thank you madam mayor um I'll try to be brief a couple of things one is just a starting point assumption for me I have evaluated the staff report for this item but more in the broader context of the decision making that we made to hire gal originally and then the concept of all of the Outreach that's been overdone over the last year so with that in mind I'm also sort of reminded Madame mayor by something which you often say which is we have to be prepared and willing to fail in our experiment and so I I guess for my part I'm not sure I'm that much into the Weeds on every item that's been mentioned meaning I don't want to have an opinion today about where I think a chair should rest or or whether facades have to be tied to a tenant I do think they probably should but I also think that as decision makers I'm trying to have a broader perspective about Economic Development and we've you know gone down this road together in this Economic Development space we've hired Mr Edelstein Mr McArdle and now some additional folks as we prepare to evaluate the way in which the Redevelopment agencies May begin to throw off um Revenue with the intention that all of the things that we're doing are going to be directed at Redevelopment of the downtown environment and so again I'm trying just to try to stay for me high level thinking about that ask in front of us which As I understood it was this consultant agreement and the idea of having you know a bit more urban planning now given that that is my issue I'll also say I'm balancing a competing concern which is we just are like studying an analysis by paralysis meaning at some point in time I would like us to go do some things even if some of those things fail I don't think that any of the things that are particularly specific about one-offs that we've talked about today are such that a we'd spend a ton of money doing it and find it would fail or B that it wouldn't be worth the effort to begin with and I'll give you an example Mr Ricardo and I talked about a building in a particular City in the midwest where it had needed some facade improvements and the buildings that vacant for 20 years Assad improvements went up and then all of a sudden the building became much more attractive tenants rented it it gained 100 occupancy and I guess again my point in raising the discussion point or the example is just to say we got to be able to experiment a bit and be willing to risk the failing part so that we can get moving in part because otherwise all we're going to do is continue to study um and and so I just want to balance those competing concerns but I'm appreciative of all my colleagues comments and think that many of them are spot on on very specific items had a mayor you know your knowledge about retail for example I cannot replicate that I also am worried about trying to subsidize you know tenant rents or anything like that because I don't know if that presents a viable business option so ultimately where I land is just saying yes I support and concept the decision to grab a consultant agreement for the Urban Design phase of this and then as we move further down the road I think we'll have the opportunity to answer some of the more specific questions raised today all right councilman dork yeah um a few things um I too like you and um have an antenna across Mr McArdle on this issue I think it's really important because if we spend our dollars on buildings that are not going to have tenants we're not going to achieve our goal so you said Mr McArdle that we are going to prioritize look to those um I'm also concerned about subsidizing rent frankly because what that means is they can charge anything and then we're subsidizing it and they're still getting their three or four dollars now the price went up to five dollars and we're subsidizing one of five and they're still getting three to four I just think it's too much um I had a chance to talk to staff about who's on the list of contractors and there are some Urban Design firms on there actual not not civil engineers who we often ask to do everything design roads sewers and also be artistic in Urban Design so I was reassured Madame mayor that there's actually some real Urban Design firms on there that are good and in talking to our staff I think they're headed in the right direction on that but I understand and you didn't have that opportunity but I did and I I felt at least a little reassured that there's some good people on there um I am concerned I I said I wanted to come back and talk about the the Roe Plaza so here's what's been happening this summer we have West Street Plaza and we've been investing a lot of money and time to activate that space and it's been you know it sounds like fairly effective City events other kind of events but here's the thing we also want to activate Locomotion Plaza which is quite near the road Plaza we we also want to activate City Plaza right here in front of City Hall and um we also have the city it used to be called City Center Buzz across from the bowling stadium with the trees that needs to be activated so I'm a little apprehensive about creating another public space when we've been challenged to activate the public spaces we have so I I would tend to de-prioritize the right um the Row Plaza because it's just something else that has to be activated with somebody spending money to bring things in so I'd like to see what the plan is there um on City Plaza is not on your list and so it is on Virginia Street it is from Liberty to I think you said the freeway or somewhere so I wondered is is is I would rather see us invest money on our city plaza in terms of a shade then build out a whole Road Plaza frankly I mean we own it we want people down there we've spent money on the um skateboard and so on but I'd like to see us take it to the next level so that would be a priority of mine and is it possible to have you all within this list you've provided prioritize to the mayor's point and other people's point the things that we are more confident that will work that will bring that out of value then the things we're less confident of in other words could we hire Urban Designer work on Locomotion Plaza and even City art Plaza I believe Plaza whatever we're calling it and have them work with us to develop that space and then finally I know this we have a limited time to spend this arpa money right so we've gotta work on it get the guidance get the plans and spend the money we have to be under contract by 2024. finished by 2026 so let us not lose sight of that you know to council member Taylor's point is like in a year we might have a something um so I personally would deprioritize these facade improvements for the moment until we work out this whole where are we on Leasing and activation of the interior of that space and I would work on the Urban Design The Locomotion Plaza even believe Plaza which again is not on your list I'm not sure why but I think it's critically important to this whole Activation so that's are my words for right now yeah I just want to check to see if the hands up thing is working too because I've had my hand up the whole time and several people have had okay okay because there's been you know two rounds of questions right and I'm waiting for my first so here's what I working on mine if you would just um Council on breakfast that has it down put your yeah okay here's the sanitizer okay thank you I don't even have my screen up it's not even working okay um so I have just a few brief questions um and maybe this is for Brian how what was the percentage again of vacant storefronts downtown Brian McCarter revitalization manager um 72 okay so 72 percent of vacant storefronts all right so also um what would be the city's cap on um this facade Improvement program I know that um can be combined for up to a hundred thousand dollars in reimbursement but What's the total amount that the city has set aside for this program a million dollars a million dollars okay um and what happens if we don't use all that money I know it's arpa funds and we have a limited time to use that up so let's say only 500 000 of that gets used what happens to the remaining balance if we don't allocate it by the end of 2024 uh we'll have to reallocate those funds okay do we have like um like a backup thing that we know we're going to allocate it to or will we have to scramble at the last minute and say okay now we need a really quick decide what we need to allocate this to it would probably be a scramble I think all of all the projects that were improved under those arpa funds they're under a timeline to get those funds allocated by the end of 2024. okay um and if they are not then we would have to come back and reallocate those funds would it be possible to come up with a now let's say for trees or something like that Council council member Ebert if I might I think that this is an appropriate conversation for how um the facade and tenant Improvement is going to work and what contingency plans might be but it is what we're deciding today okay and I think okay if we could and I don't mean to interrupt but I just want to put on here that's why I was like talking about the retail and all that the this presentation is kind of very Broad and so it's kind of making us at or me it made me believe that we're having all these different discussions I think we gotta like dial it down okay so that it's a public works would you say Carrie and so I'm going off over here and really you're trying to keep me over here let me but this is I can summarize I think things I think the facade Improvement funding was approved under the arpa funds and so we've gone ahead and created a program around facade and tenant Improvement and we plan to um start doing those fairly soon okay um it was included as part of the Gill study is you have ideas for facade Improvement that would be great to launch in Phase One what we're deciding on today is to do a contract for those Place making elements on those three categories where we're not approving the facade program today okay um it's just included in the phase one of the deals yeah Naomi's like we're not yeah no we're not phase one phase one has been the guild study has been brought to council and the implementation plan was review and approved and part of phase one is to do these things and so we got facade funding approved through the arpa process and today we're here today to ask for to get a contract with a design consultant to kick start the uh the The streetscape Locomotion Plaza and the road Plaza okay I think it might be confusing side and tenant Improvement program included in the presence I think it was part of the summary of the phase one so we could have redesigned this slide to put a green check or something next to facade and tenant Improvement okay just for the confusion well that was actually the only question so thank you the the other thing and I've said this as well listen most people think of downtown we had to do it like in phases within Midtown you know Brian like um we really like stayed focused on Virginia and then just the side streets where you had your business so we like just kind of like kept it very narrow that's the one thing that I I do worry about when you're looking at such a big area just everyone right now Virginia Street Virginia Street Virginia Street and then we can tackle that's just my my thought it's like how to eat an elephant right one bite at a time all of the improvements we're looking at are on Virginia Street they are every single one okay because you said Fourth Street um it's the intersection of fourth and Virginia okay like that's the spot on Virginia thank you thank you for clarifying that councilman breakfast go ahead I mean you know almost to the person up here were confused about this item and that's that's not a good way to have a a meeting go and I think through that confusion the council has interest in these tenant Improvement facade programs and want to see particulars before we start seeing advertisements for the lease program and I also have concerns about you know an economic study in the retail climate to make sure that we're designing something the right way for the right time so I hope this resonates with Mr manager and how he populates these items now the other thing is you know you say we're doing a contract doing a contract I look for contracts on the agenda I look for a Professional Services agreement in draft form and that's where my review you know is the longest person up here with the mayor has been here and I didn't see that and you have say you have an soq list that's great you could have a sample contract for us to look with the scope to understand what we're signing up to Mr manager and that I think would have made this item go a lot better so you know I just I just want to say that you probably have an idea someone probably has a draft scope somewhere you know even if you don't know who you're going to come in on the soq and we delegate that to you attach attach a sample to us please now I want to ask along some of the other questions why isn't the believe stats believe um Plaza also known as City Plaza front and center and I'll let you know all know I was going to bring it down here I forgot to get it up in my office you know I have several documents of what the city was going to do with that space when they claimed it from tearing down the Mapes about 25 years ago 20 years ago and so why um is believe Plaza not number one a priority because I did say it in the Gale study it's a priority yes it is and they have it prioritized for design and pilot activation um after this phase and phase two a large part of the reason is just that it is a larger it's something that needs more Capital yeah and so it's a to be able to spend this money quickly we need projects that are complete okay and that's going to be a bigger project that requires more capital and more planning okay in our time but you know it's been on the to-do list of the city for a lot longer than the Row Plaza okay and look and Locomotion Plaza there's also you know was thought about that now Locomotion Plaza is that from Virginia essentially that one block is that what we're talking about yes okay does anyone doesn't want anyone a current lessee to that right now um the DRP helps us manage that space do they have a do we have a contractual relationship with them to manage that space yes we do okay that would be good background to understand maybe I think you did reference that in your staff report now the Row Plaza you keep talking about that being on the center of fourth and Virginia correct I believe that's correct yes acrosia El Dorado okay or right next to the event center so that's not the Event Center that's the ballroom oh I'm sorry okay that's where my confession my apologies people who owns that property the Rope owns that property okay I am not comfortable doing Urban Design Improvement to the world's largest gaming property owned by the world's largest gaming company gaming companies do their own Urban Design they're one of the biggest you know employers of place making really so they have that expertise we know that they also are long time lessees of the ballroom so this is an enhanced in effect enhancing there so that's a no-go for me okay it's a no-go for me um I can understand the locomotive Plaza versus the believe um I'd rather go in even if it's a design to the belief yeah you know but the other component of this before you want to go into design and capital is all programming and I want to know and this is kind of the organic thing what is our program programming capacity and Visions internally and so that's where I'm starting to fall apart on this you know more spaces along the lines of what Miss um doer said so I I don't know doing improving private property not having a scope and um not having a programming plan that's where I'm having a hard time with this item right now I don't think it's right I think it's I don't think it's right for prime time for my vote thank you one thing I just want to um clarify is activation versus programming um Locomotion Plaza is a great place for programming the Rowe Plaza we're actually looking to improve that for Activation which is like people on their way to an event at the ballroom or they're crossing the street having having things there where it's a seating area where it's naturally being activated by the activity on the street the road does a lot of their own programming of that space of special events like right now there's a tent out there we're not looking for more programming on the road Plaza as much as we want it to be a space that the community can use on the day-to-day we have activation in large events but during when there's not a large event the row isn't uh programming it and so we just want it to be a space that can be naturally activated well that's a tricky tricky landscape you know the public wants one El Dorado are they going to be able to utilize our improvements as their you know deployment spot on the rose private property it's it brings in some tension that I'm having a hard time with and so you know is row security going to be policing people who are doing things on you know improvements owned and funded by the city you know and we we tore down we we brought in City money years ago to tore down some rather interesting mid-century motels and then we program those and nothing came of that I am not going to go there on the road Plaza let the road do their thing they have a great deal on that Ballroom it's essentially their own private Vengeance space let them do that um thank you councilman Ruckus I really appreciate your comments and I agree with with many of them um I kind of want to get us moving forward because we cannot hash this out all day I will say this um I think you have to come back with including the council in this facade Improvement program I want to see um much more extensive retail I want to see like a retail working group and some study within retail um and let me just tell you something there are some beautiful buildings that are and I know because I I look all the time that are for rent and like let's say just the chamber building they just rehabbed you saw in California Avenue they rehabbed Montage was a beautiful building they're all beautiful and there's a lot of people that want to go into them but they want outrageous amounts for um for rent outrageous amounts so my point is what I'm trying to convey there is you can have it beautiful but if it's not something that a business can sustain what's the point you're both gonna fail but they have again when you see that you see rates that are out of the market and those all those are by the way when you see them out of the market they will sit there because they can and so you can continue to make them look as beautiful as you want but that's not going to change anything and look at how funky cool there's one building that's available um and I've heard and I don't I'm not quite sure but uh it's Midtown East Building killer funky awesome location no one's going in there because the rent is too outrageous so you've got to remember you know when we talk about that I'm getting off track here but here's what I think I think we needed to dial down this presentation because really what this comes down to is a public works um sort of implementation to the place making so I think we all kind of have different ideas so I would like to come back Mr manager looking at the details of the tenant Improvement program I think every single one of those should be tied to a tenant coming in that space I would not give one of those landlords I'd or a owners a dime unless they had one in there if that's what they think it's going to take I can't imagine but and if not then I said let's have the conversation of putting up a big board and doing a beautiful mural instead of looking at paint that's dilapidating um I mean windows that are falling apart it's filthy I mean I they don't even keep their side of the sidewalk clean so that but I want to have a conversation on the retail aspect of it I think we should have a conversation on the facade improvements we need to break it down because what I'm hearing from everyone here is everyone has a lot of passion or what we're going to our vision is for downtown now here's what I would say you cannot do a lot I think activation of spaces right unless you have this infrastructure in place with the lighting with the um with the power because we didn't have it in Midtown just so everyone knows we didn't have it there and we struggled and it's just now that after the street has been done that we can do that but we couldn't do anything we couldn't even do holiday lights so I I totally support this but I would like to come back have these conversations on these other pieces because I think that they're they're important what do you think so I want to make a motion to support but are you okay with that I think that concerns expressed or the preferences expressed um with respect to the facade and tenant Improvement programs um are heard loud and clear I know um I I think we understand how the elected body feels about that and I think we very much appreciate your support on the capital investment in this well the other reason that I would feel compelled to support it and I understand councilwoman breakfast I don't fault you at all I think you've made some great comments today but I also one of the other reasons is we've also heard that it's difficult from other um parades and events that come downtown and that will also help them so and we also need to invest in those because they bring in quite a bit of Tourism and money and really like downtown is awesome when we have an event and it's activated look at Pride this weekend it was it was awesome it was off the hook um but we're missing all those other pieces but there are things we can do if we get this infrastructure in place that I do know because we always tell them oh sorry we don't have we don't have lighting over there or we don't have the ability to have power to do any of that so that's why um I am very supportive so anyway uh go ahead councilman yeah just real quick um I think that the million dollars could easily be taken up by the public works project to get the power of the trees uh the shade uh the furniture I truly do and I I'm gonna say again I I agree with councilmember breakfast about potentially working on the design for believe Plaza maybe it's wrong I mean we're doing it with the fire station we're we're designing now even though we don't have the money right we're using some our bond proceeds to design the fire headquarters even though we don't have the money to build it and so I know we've been we've seen this movie before the the Plaza's been designed you know with a giant canopy that we can afford um is there a different way to approach this issue on belief Plaza I just really feel like we should invest in our city-owned public spaces uh prior to our private owned public spaces not that we would never do that with them partner with them but that's what I I would like to see if it's row I would like to see a partnership where they're investing as well because this is and and to have it open for public use that you don't have to get a permit to be in that space it's considered a public space if we're going to invest in right uh the Roe Plaza um the other thing just self-reflection at Pride I happen to look at what was happening at City Hall and at City Hall we still had our tables and chairs all chained up people were like leaning over them to take pictures or stand on our uh thing and I wondered why do we know why do we have our chairs and tables out there if we can't if nobody can use them ever even when we're having a parade so while we're looking at this activation I think we should be looking right at City Hall even if it's an operational change who's in charge of our seats and tables are we a welcoming place and if we don't if we're nervous about it then we should take them away we shouldn't just have them chained up there I mean sends a wrong message to me so um I would love I want to be careful again on how we balance the road Plaza versus believe I really think we should be focusing on that first that's just my personal opinion others could have a different opinion so I hope whatever motion we come out with speaks to that that we're looking if we are working on row it should be some kind of cost share and the space should be open to the public because we'll be spending public dollars Taylor um I'm prepared to make a motion go ahead um I move to approve the next steps for phase one of the Virginia Street Place making study implementation plan and authorization for the city manager to approve a consultant agreement for Urban Design Services in the amount of 365 thousand dollars all right thank you I have a motion you have a second Madame mayor yes discussion go ahead Council Rebecca I'm a no because Civic Plaza bully Plaza is not the priority and I think that's a promise that was made to this community when the Mapes was torn down and it's it is our living room and it needs to get fixed I'm a no because it involves the investment of public funds in property owned by the world's largest gaming company they can um design and pay for the design of their own property I'm also no because it involves a contract that's over three hundred thousand dollars delegating signature responsibility to the mayor to the manager for a contract I haven't read and I think that not having that in front of us makes us really in an unclear position of knowing what services are going to be provided so I vote now thank you thank you can I get some clarity I thought this was just for a contract of service and not um are we purchasing furniture for this is the only a contract to have a professional design firm design the spaces so that we have we have a comment that we can then go out to have big the parts and install the parts and make the vision come to life so before we buy anything you will come back to the that's all correct so we'll come back when when there's some design options for you to actually determine which ones you want to go I do think Caesar's entertainment should invest in that that I do think so I think councilman breakfast is is right there we shouldn't be buying that kind of thing listen we all bought our own stuff in Midtown look at what Jessica Schneider did right like she put out like funky you know seating and I mean and then everyone else kind of did their own thing we all put out banners like we all had to do that ourselves and I would say this we cannot want to clean up downtown more than those business owners do that's what why it hasn't happened and that's what very careful government this isn't a space for us like we've got to be super super careful that's why Midtown because it was the businesses that shaped that look at they just did dancing in the streets right like to Naomi's point you know we didn't even have our tables and chairs out that's not what we do right you want to have that whole um energy and organic um growth from all the businesses right like and that's where it happens that's why I'm saying without that retail we're in trouble or any of those doors opening we're in trouble how do you think Midtown the lights went on and it got cleaner and safer and people came down there like we have a model like let's follow that so I'm just saying for the future I'm going to support this because I do think it's important to have the Public Works aspect of it because I do know that the challenge we didn't have any of that stuff and we could have done some cool cool um infrastructure in Midtown with like I said with Sound and Lighting we couldn't even do sound for parades and and all those things so I will be supporting that but as we move forward I'm going to be very very uh I think um what's the word critical or uh careful cautious yeah I'm going to be incredibly critical and cautious um just so you know because I'm watching this be a little um it's got to start with the businesses that are down there so and then Doug just reassure me that you will bring back these items to council yes okay all right on the tenants on a retail aspect right we'll have a meeting on this and everyone can weigh in okay all right so we're just on a contract okay because councilwoman breakfast made it seem like we were giving public funds to um casinos and we're not so that's clear all right go ahead I might comment on the motion similarly is I'm not in favor of purchasing Furnishings on the road Plaza so given that they may want to consider is it possible to begin the planning for believe Closet in this contract that's my question on an emotion I mean it doesn't say those words up there so I'm not unclear I I guess I'm not clear legally if we can do that right now well that's where I get in trouble like we've said stuff here at the council because then if we can't do it I want to know that Kerry Koski your city engineer um at on the motion the way it is um we would not we would not include believe Plaza at this point but we hear you loud and clear that believe Plaza is a priority so I would suggest we bring back to this body a contract for belief Plaza okay and give us a chance to think about that okay how we could do that and make that happen Doug has a plan actually for that he's had a plan for a long time can you just you want to talk about that really quick I love when you reveal my secret plan I'm sorry I'm sorry but we I so that's why I'm not like I think the observation of our our professional [Music] the the plaza across the street needs to be examined sort of independent of of what we're talking about here today um as as a component part of both Virginia Street plays making the river path plan it's probably appropriate for redevelopment investment as increment begins to be thrown off in this District in 25 and that solves some of the capital problems and ties it in with the network of parks and plazas and Pathways along the river that we're trying to that forward thank you for clarifying thank for clarifying that because this is this is a heartache for me nine years and we have done since I've been on Council longer since other people have been on Council since we've addressed it so and here we are we have money we have time we have a design professional you know okay all right so um any other discussion no okay which again I'm so sorry just to make sure I'm understanding this is just specifically for the contract not necessarily for where things are going to go not the details the specifics those are coming for Council later it is for the contract to come back to design a couple of options two options okay those options will come back to the council the council will get to choose and tweak we will come up with a plan from there you will then see the final design go prove it and at that point we will then put it out for bid okay we will get numbers back from contractors you will select a or you know we'll go through that process we'll recommend a contractor in a bid and we'll be Off to the Races great thank you all right so I had a motion I had a second I think uh wasn't it making out two seconds I'm a second all the second in favor say aye I think Devin all those in favor say aye aye all this opposed no motion carries all right I would ask that we take a 45 minute uh recess for lunch I need everyone to get up and uh go to the bathroom and walk around and do what they need to do so thanks everyone we'll see you in uh actually let's come back at 1 45. foreign foreign foreign okay foreign all right Madame mayor if you are ready to reconvene thank you so much okay okay and I think the reason we're starting late just so everyone knows technical difficulty so now I just want to let Council know you will put the clock up on this screen correct yes so we'll put it on the display screens and I'll just manually type council members names in as they're speaking so that we can see who's speaking in the time okay just know that our timer did go out we're trying to figure it out but there's going to be no audible indication that your time is up so just pay attention to the time on the screen if you would as that's running but we're going to reconvene at 206 and and we're going to go back to consent items am I right okay we are going back to consent agenda items and just for the record we're gonna go ahead and start with item B4 hold by council member Ebert okay before we do that I see people in the room people sitting here in the room I want to make sure if you're here for a certain item um I would prefer to hear those items so that we can get you out of here I know everyone's got a busy day and they probably don't want to sit here and sit through this whole agenda so will you please tell the clerk what you're here for and then we'll prioritize them um for anyone that's in the gallery unless of course you'd like to stay with us all day but you probably don't right okay I think are you having fun metamere it sounds like we can pretty much go in order we've got four and five in the room these three or four C items and then we've got B 10 eight in the room so okay so when you just keep me on track then we'll just go then from our consent the ones that I have in order perfect okay okay so item B4 and B5 okay thank you so much any public comment on this item Madam clerk um it's the consent agenda so we've closed out um comments on these items okay perfect I'm gonna send it now councilwoman Ebert item B4 yeah do you have a presentation I do have a brief presentation um the clerks can load that up uh good afternoon Madam mayor council members Lance throttle for the record nice to see you Lance good to see you too it's been a while it has been I always like it because uh the podium good good so uh items B4 and B5 today we're uh we're here to talk about two applications that have been filed for uh excuse me yes ma'am because of our time rigidity which are rules that I never supported I think we're just on B4 right now because I don't want to lose time okay that I have I'm gonna go back to put these into two items thank you Council on breakfast as far as the presentation is concerned it does include B4 and B5 but it centers around B5 yeah so if you worry about it just go through okay so uh we're here today to discuss two applications to conduct privileged activity at 219 University way also known as Reno City Center we have an application to serve on-premise alcohol and operate 197 slot machines under an unrestricted gaming license so just a little history on the item uh Harris Casino closed in late 2020 at ceased operating so in early 2021 sartini gaming game sartini gaming came in and applied for a non-restricted license it was temporary in nature in that in the fact that it they were they knew they were not going to be the licensee permanently and secondly it's a gaming industry term used to identify licensees that are basically uh getting non-restricted licenses to preserve rights I'm sorry did you say non-restricted or restricted 16 and under is restricted correct it's actually 15 and under this restricted oh so it went to 16. correct so these are important things obviously with the property it was originally licensed for an owner safety gaming in 1947. uh well before any NRS or RMC standards were applicable to to this kind of endeavor it's also important to note that the gaming use has never been abandoned at the state or local level so it's important in preserving this at the state level what that does is it's grandfathering them from the requirements of NRS that would would obligate them to put in 301 rooms or more um and at the city it's also non-conforming use and pro RMC since that has never been abandoned it has continued to go on so just to start talk a little bit about the physical location here uh there was some confusion on the staff report map because it was used to identify the address and so to clarify everything here a generated a new map so the the activities will be play taking place generally within the Shaded area there um to just kind of give you a run around what it that property looks like now just to the West in that white top building that's where the Starbucks is at down in the southern portion uh will be a restaurant that a tenant is still trying to negotiate then on the other side you have around the perimeter it's more common space and and possibility for other business activity to go in as well Additionally you have the um the Pavilion just to the north of that and there are entrants and exits all around the building there their hotel on this part right here there's not hotel to my knowledge on on this side I believe it's um I believe all the hotel stuff is across the street and I believe that the living space uh the the more long-term residential units are on this side above so um the proposed operation is essentially that shaded area is about 25 000 square feet represents two restaurants in a bar and uh the slot machines will take up approximately 25 percent of that area and uh so like I said a consist of dining alcohol and gaming and that sums it up uh staff recommends Council approved these two items and uh for on-premise alcohol and non-tradicted gaming I'm happy to answer any questions so much I really appreciate the clarity I know that everyone was like this address doesn't make sense I you know I do think that that's important to dial it down on um asbestos specificity I'm gonna go um but anyway so I appreciate you acknowledging that good job okay councilman Brooke is going to start with you I think Miss Ebert pulled it I'm gonna go this way okay okay so I I have been associated with uh gaming Licensing in the City of Reno since 1998. I I work with people who permitted the Silver Legacy ground up you know the history and work with people who you know the the Atlantis from a travel lodge and and uh the move over of the flamingo licenses and everything and I'm having tremendous difficulty I know you're not the city planner your business licenses and maybe you're parallel at the state is the gaming commission but with zoning compliance and I watched the entire Gaming Control Board hearings and I think that staff is off on this and I want to explain what the difference is and I'll start and this is pure application of the code it is in policy but you'll hear the applicant if they're here State how the great this is for downtown and Reno's revitalization they showed the video of the Cai Center Center City said it's a thing that's happening maybe that was misrepresentation of the gaming Commission because I've been reading that the properties in foreclosure so I I don't know you know but representations were made but the gaming commission operates differently they talk a lot about character I know the guy's wife had a baby his partner was a UNL quarterback the quarterback as Ann is a judge I mean they talk about a lot of family stuff and maybe it's character but in zoning I think you're wrong and um I I asked some questions and I think you even supported my argument now look here this is the downtown action plan that we did um I I think only the mayor and I were on board when this got adopted oh maybe Miss Stewart too but it was look we need to Pivot away from a gaming you know downtown environment and part of that you know has been implemented University way you know college town that sort of thing what does this do to one of the most significant downtown properties with gaming Legacy it opens up a slot piler on steroids okay that's what it does we had a lot of conversation earlier about you know why is downtown unable to thrive and I've never been able to have someone do the evidence but a big supposition for me is everyone's waiting for their game day payoff well what does this property just got get they got a game day payoff of 197 slot slot machines with no requirement that they are going to have anything else it can be a Dotties on steroids there's no requirement that they operate the restaurants that they operate anything else and that is wrong and is not consistent with the code the code says that if you're going to re-establish a gaming use and I haven't seen Harris there in a whole lot of years you are going to come into some requirements through a conditional use permit for the by the city council and the city council needs to reclaim the ability to look at this property in totality and the things we've heard we heard Capital an office user was going to come over we heard an office user was going to come over and we've heard an office user isn't going to come over okay I think your notice said that the Suites are not rented or occupying the premises last week I was able to go towards booking a suite so there's some lodging thing going on there there's a Starbucks there maybe and is the University gonna have graduate housing there Council I'm asking you is the University going to lease up two floors and probably be the only tenants there with a a slot parlor are we going to be the only downtown in the United States history to have college housing and gaming in the same development no they have laps and lost their conforming use this permit is not on the right process we need to require conditional use permit to re-establish gaming on this property I've got all the background here I make the case for it and I know these gaming regulations as well as if not better than anyone on staff right now and I think staff is misleading us into something and using and convoluting gaming regulations with zoning regulations thank you all right thanks so much um councilman Martinez go ahead if you I mean nothing nothing yeah okay go ahead councilman Taylor anything Lance I just wanted to confirm that the gaming license never went away right it never was it was never um lacking it was always continuous that's correct okay thank you [Music] um still on no okay and then we're gonna I'll go down this way I'm trying to go this way so everyone gets a chance because I wasn't aware when this was working um I actually think councilman Ruckus is right one of the things that I very hard to understand what is happening and listen we all want that project to succeed like it's got to succeed so I think the city also has to be sort of a partner in what that looks like because I've heard so many different stories and I would say like we kind of need them I think Doug to maybe come in and give us an idea of where they're going what is happening and I do think to councilman Breakfast Point when it's like okay are we focusing on housing that was one of the reasons why there was so much excitement that less gaming like we kind of want to be very cognizant of of the gaming aspect of it right so I I kind of feel like if we approve this then we're doing this the opposite way we should actually have like a plan of what's happening in place and then the gaming comes in later because otherwise guess what if that whole project let's say that's the only it's like a Tavern right what if that's the only thing that opens up in there and it is a Dotties because everything else in there they couldn't activate that's a problem so I do think councilwoman breckis um makes a pretty good point when it comes to that that's my fear all right count uh councilwoman to her well I had some similar thoughts my question was going to be about your point in your presentation you talked about non-conforming and I wanted to understand what was non-conforming sure so uh Lance Prado for the record essentially this this property was built prior to any of the of the regulations around conformance for unrestricted gaming so they're not having 300 hotel rooms makes them non-conforming so that's that's the gist of it that's that's how they are non-conforming they don't have to have the 300 well at one time Paris had a lot of hotel rooms correct do you know how many I don't well they had a lot it could have been 300 for all I know um my my questions were I'd heard there was a hotel so Mr Beaver pulled out because he had a non-compete with the Cai they were bringing in a hotel there had been this professional office use planned they pulled out uh then I did hurt here in the media that they were planning residents student residential there and yet I'm a little concerned because most students let's say the 18 19 20 year olds can game sure right 21 could do gaming and I know we did it in emergency at Circus Circus when they're when they're um unit burned down um at Dental Hall I believe it was and they put them up temporarily but they created like a not just a Chinese wall but like a physical a barrier to keep the residents away the student residents away from the Circus Circus gaming so I've been hearing the same stuff and I don't really know and I know you weren't here but we had a ginormous policy discussion about uh businesses like Dotties I'm not trying to cast aspersions on Dotties it is what it is but the point that it doesn't it sort of takes the cream of the crop in a gaming sense and they don't have to give back they don't have to have rooms they don't have to have other amenities they don't have to speak to the downtown needs for example in this case we've been talking about the whole downtown needs uh they don't have to have a store yes there's a Starbucks there but we all we know most Starbucks are pretty profitable right wherever they go so I don't I want them to be profitable but I also am concerned I mean I think councilmember Rebecca's used a good term Dotty's on steroids so Dotties as I recall have like 30 or 40 slot machines something like that and people just come in play the slots and leave and that's what it was a slot parlor so I'm not sure given Hera's Legacy you know full gaming table games poker rooms you know the whole showrooms the whole thing to just have this one type of gaming in such a central spot is a concern and I don't know that they had we had a category of licenses that were movable because is there a fire oh okay okay I just didn't know if we need to run all right well just to continue um I've kind of lost my thought I'm sorry um I think we were talking about 197 slot machines in a legacy location and I was talking about that we allowed not we but our predecessors allowed gaming licenses to relocate anywhere without rooms that were displaced by the downtown trench activity right so we had several that moved and even then one of those was proposed in my ward on South Virginia across from the convention center and there was great concern about that we did approve it but I did not vote for it because it was right across from the convention center and the only way you're going to it was taking up a big block of space across from the convention center and you need rooms with a Convention Center you know and so we had a huge policy debate here about that and so I do think I don't know if it's possible to take a step back and I'm not saying I'm opposed I mean I made the motion apparently which was part of the consent to prove the 16 and keep the license active so I'm clearly not against the concept but I want to know what more as a business they're bringing and is that in our purview to ask is is there a missing planning document that that is needed to be obtained that's a big question I think outstanding well just to just to touch on that um obviously this is a large development but this is only one applicant right um I believe we do have the applicant on Zoom do we not or do we or do we not we may you may be able to ask questions um Lance can you tell us their name again uh Jonathan fine yes we'll go ahead and move them over so just so you know um the applicant is here and he can maybe discuss he might be a little bit more in tune with the project itself as a whole um because obviously he's got this this tenant space and then the rest of the development around it we're all shut down yeah why are we shut down the microphones were turning off on their own council member so go ahead yeah yeah I'm I'm on okay I'd like to say something though you know I think your argument and you're not the planner you know kind of Falls in a couple ways but even if you acknowledge the 16 you know which you said was temporary it's hard to say it continuously when you show us a temporary ordinance operation and that only went one day four times a year you know that's not a continuous that's like you know under the provisions of reg nine and NGC it is okay but we're talking about zoning and Zoning means continuous but zoning says you need a conditional use permit where this body applies discretion in the resumption or expansion of a non-conforming gaming use I'm telling you from my world view 16 slots to 197 that's an expansion of a gaming use okay you can't argue otherwise and when that conditional use permit is required other requirements that we have for gaming operations come to play like real requiring this operator to open up his restaurants and have other public space and maybe even rooms so we're giving up a whole lot of other public objectives in the way that they've processed this application it's highly problematic I think this gentleman is going to come on and we're going to hear about his places in Vegas we're going to hear about how he got into the business where you know how he's excited to be up here all great because I heard it all but time and time again people come in and their feet are not held to Performance and I and there is no way to hold his feet to Performance if he walks and says you know I just can't get enough servers up in Reno or whatever I'm sorry my colleague's trying to cut me off so I'll short this up then there's no way to hold his feet to the fire and who's going to come in and hold on to that gaming license someone who owns the property because it runs with the property I don't know where the property is if some Bank owns it and they're trying to auction it off and guess what they've got a non-restricted gaming license that's add value but it doesn't Advance Reno's priorities for downtown so I'm making my case to my colleagues because I think staff has taken the wrong look at it I'm sorry and I don't hold you responsible for this because I don't know why the the licensing guy on business licenses is here on really what is a zoning issue you know I'm relying to Title 18 but the council needs to not approve this and hold the discretion to help downtown move in the direction that we need to in the partnership because if you give up discretion you know you're just you're just enabling a slot parlor on University way thank you okay hold on a second did you want to say something I have Council oh yeah that's right we were in line um councilwoman Uber go ahead yeah I I had questions just kind of in line with what everyone else was saying you know the front of the building has a sign that says live work play opening 2022 and there's chain like fences around the building so it doesn't look like there's a whole lot going on from the outside of the building and we're trying to do things to activate our downtown and you know on on the surface it looks good you know we want to add um a Tavern and uh slot machines but is this really gonna happen like it it doesn't look like we're doing anything currently so I just wanted to know kind of what Naomi was asking you know what what kind of plan do we really have are we just kind of renewing this license like daisy chaining it on until somebody actually does something because it doesn't look like anything's actually happening here sure and and again if you're open to listening to the applicant um tell you about the property and the progress and and the what the future looks like I think I would yeah okay so I guess feel free to ask him questions he's on yeah I think that'd be good thank you all right before we do that [Music] oh this isn't working yeah carpets okay do you have it so I wanted to make sure to make a disclosure because evidently someone that's um related to this project has McDonald's Carano as a client I have a McDonald's Toronto attorney totally separate departments unrelated practices of Law and not the different attorneys I want to make that very very clear so I am putting that on the record I also wouldn't know how would I know who is represented by every single person that comes to this dice I possibly couldn't know that I would have to be a mind reader um and I'm and to be honest too I'm not I don't know for a fact that they are I just heard that they might be represented by McDonald's Toronto so I don't know but out of precaution I just want to let the city attorneys know that I am disclosing that I have um an attorney that is also within the McDonald Carano Law Firm Yes Man America yeah and this just came to our attention kind of out of the blue and so I'm in the process of providing a more well I would say it doesn't prohibit my ability to um I don't believe so but if you could just give me a moment I'm still I mean this is kind of happening in real time so I'm just trying to make sure that we're not taking it but then I would say all of us should be disclosing if that's the case every time someone comes up oh who's your marketing agency who is your who is your attorney who is your mortgage holder oh we both have the same mortgage a company I mean do you see how ludicrous this is like I wouldn't know so I but I do want to make sure that's on the record um or I will recuse myself and I won't vote so happy to do either or and and I apologize you're not you're honor just because this is happening so fast if we could almost take this item and give me five minutes to get this thing resolved right um so if we can move on to another item that would be ideal and we can come back to this and I apologize to the body for the for this happening all right thank you so sorry but um like I said I'm we don't even know for sure who who it is or if they really are so um councilmember George do you mind turning your mic on I don't know there it is uh if it helps I did get an email from a person who said they were with McDonald Toronto introducing themselves saying they were representing the parkway oh Tavern effort so I think that you can count on that because I got an email just yesterday saying it okay so well that's good to know I didn't get anything I know so um and it didn't occur to me to call my colleagues and say oh by the way or maybe that was the last thing I was doing [Music] if they're represented or not okay I'm getting this just right now so Madame mayor if you'd like we can move on to item B8 we do have individuals in the room for that item and we can come back to B4 and B5 yeah and again this is in this is just a way to be obstructive let's be really honest and call it is what it is and then um so that's why because I have an attorney out of that same firm they're going to try to you know do anything they can um to make you try to make you look unethical this is the state of politics that we live in today or track you track your whereabouts disgusting okay um item B8 was pulled by council member Taylor okay go ahead uh councilman Taylor I'm gonna think about information and I'm not sure who okay when I was reading the staff report I was wondering um this is super important to all of us up here but it says preference will be given for those with mental health needs so I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about this project and how that's going to work and I'm I'm very positive super excited and I'm glad we're moving forward with this and thank you VOA for being in the audience for so long sorry to keep you good afternoon Monica Cochran director of housing neighborhood development for the record um so this project will be converting the highway 40 Motel into more transitional permanent Supportive Housing it will be done in coordination with nams and there it will be still affordable units but there'll be a preference for those with mental illness and those will be coming with mental health issues those will be referred through nams with complete wraparound Services through nams and then there will be VOA staff members on site 24 hours a day and there's there'll be 22 units once all the units are converted and everyone transitions over very positive and very much in our community and not American prepared to make a motion if if you're unless there's somebody else that wants to say something first of all thank you so much for pulling this I'm really really elated and I don't think people realize how big this is this would not have happened if it wasn't for the hard work of staff and what you guys believe in honestly like this is huge we don't have anything else like this right no nothing and this is what is so desperately needed not just in our city all throughout the country I mean like it is not even a question um and I'm going to say this in my out loud voice this is also something that really we hope that the Health and Human Services side of the county these are the types of projects that we should be doing together the county can come in and they'll fulfill this aspect we can come in help the housing aspect but this is a testament of what you can get done when you work together and and bottom line this will help those that are really struggling to maintain housing to live but otherwise guess what if we don't build this we allow them to die on our streets and that is so inhumane and it is so wrong and so this is just a small part but Monica I want to say thank you to you and your team for doing a tremendous job Doug Jackie I don't know where Jackie is Jackie Kudos this is amazing um this is what we're talking about if we really want to wrap our heads around mental health and getting people off our streets because right now we just allow them to live um on our streets wherever they want to and then eventually they end up dying because we're not doing our job whenever it comes to putting in this transitional type of housing so hey it's a really good effort I mean coordination also with the state of Nevada they'll be providing the dollars for the rehabilitation of the units okay yeah but I hope you're proud are you proud I'm super proud yeah you should be I have VOA here if there's any specifics you want to hear about the program this is it anything this is where the Press should be on this this is huge I would say this is one of our most significant projects that we will ever do because we don't have this in the market so thank you so much and hopefully it's a model for other projects coming forward it's gonna be it's gonna be great awesome I love it okay so I have a um I have a motion from councilwoman Taylor second I have a second from endure any discussion all those in favor say aye aye all those opposed motion carries unanimously which you know is super rare so congratulations thank you Yay good afternoon yay I'm so happy great job everyone great job mwah okay um are we ready all right so we'll get it ready then we'll go ahead and go back to item B6 hold by council member Ebert hello good afternoon hello hi Okay so I just want to know a little bit more about this I think this sounds great but I'm just curious about um what areas we're going to plant these trees how you're going to identify these areas I read through the staff report that says you know you're going to identify like food desert areas and I just um I have some questions about that process and is this something that we're going to do try and get these grants in the future is this kind of a one and done or um just how's it how is this going to look sure Suzanne grunemin for the record so to answer your first question we've tentatively identified one spot um the initial idea of the grant was to spread these out a little bit for but just for kind of controlling the output from the trees we selected just one location at Miguel ribeira Park um and for some maintenance and management we're working on a couple Partnerships one um the Reno Sparks chamber is going to look at this as one of their civic um projects for their members so they're looking at hosting the tree planting and assisting with planting those trees and then we're working with Reno gleaning on some education and making sure that none of that fruit goes to waste um so it is just the one site um right now that we've tentatively identified and for future um this is a one one-time deal um but we are always looking for additional grants and additional ways to leverage funds like this through Community Partnerships to make sure it's successful okay who's identified as an area that um based on the the details of the grant the fact that it needed to be in or near a USDA designated food area and in a disadvantaged community that's how we selected this park okay okay and do we need to do any like additional infrastructure to support this like uh trip systems anything like that will that be covered by the this fund as well or this grant as well um we are going to um use a little bit of the funds potentially for some fencing but that's that's it the the four thousand specifically is to purchase the trees okay okay and then um who who would maintain these going forward it just Parks and Rec or uh it would be our Parks and Rec staff in um connection with these other community organizations that said they'll step up to assist as well okay thank you question or comment yeah I just um want to congratulate you this is a complete turnaround from where the city used to be the city actually uh does still forbid to my knowledgement maybe could speak to this fruit trees Along on city right away correct and that may still be the case but maybe in Parks which this is a park we're open to the idea and the issues have always been brought up well the fruit will fall it's a big cleanup it's a mess you know I heard all the negatives in the early part of my Council career about why we couldn't have fruit trees so I just wondered if you could speak to those kind of policy type issues sure um as you know we of Matt Basil Urban Forester for the record um as you know we've we've made significant changes to the acceptable tree species list that we use and that includes allowing fruit trees where they are appropriate oftentimes in downtown situations where the fruit could you know create mess and encourage rodents and things you know we try to avoid that but but there's a lot of situations where fruit trees are appropriate in the landscape and I think this is a good um example of of a project that where we think they'll work well and I think part of the the reason we think it's going to be so successful is our partnership with the Reno gleaning project um so we're selecting species based on uh on their recommendations Pamela who who I know you're very familiar with um so we're you know using the fruit trees that that will directly benefit that organization and also be available and um beneficial to the community okay so in other words and I do just for disclosure work with the Reno gleaning project it's a non-profit they've been at my house picking fruit over the last 14 years they became a non-profit I believe just a few years ago so they were just a program a project for like nine years before they became a non-profit but they are going gangbusters right now because there is so much fruit in our community given the heavy winter that we had all the moisture including my own fruit trees I have 35 and they are doing phenomenal but what you're saying is that I assume if they they would maybe co-sponsor with the community to come out and pick for use at their own homes versus picking to give to another nonprofit so typically what they do is they pick fruit and they'll give it to the food bank or they'll give it to a church group or or a Social Services Group that can distribute food but in this case what I think I hear you saying is they would work with neighbors or people that live around there that could potentially use it themselves is that right that's right and it's also um you know I think one of the things that their program maybe lacks is trees that where they can do educational programming like teaching people how to prune their fruit trees and how to care for fruit trees so I think this this provides kind of an outdoor classroom that's that's public and accessible for everyone that we can have classes and um you know have people from the community come out and learn about how to care for free trees and their own properties amazing and then do you know how many trees for the four thousand I mean I assume we have to cover irrigation and other aspects so I'm planning for 18 right now okay um thank you subject to some uh some changes with the varieties to be recommended by Reno gleaning that's correct okay and then a special tree planting it sounds like yes we're planning a volunteer planting project okay for it would it be as soon as this fall ideally this September yep okay fantastic thank you I'm sorry if I didn't remember this is this going to be something that we apply for annually or is this no this this particular Grant is some one-time funds um but we will um it has sort of triggered um looking for additional opportunities like this and starting those conversations with non-profits and other organizations for example These funds were actually supposed to be used in southern Nevada and um UNLV and Nevada plants reached out and said they were really interested in expanding Northern Nevada so we're starting those conversations so we can look for funds like this in the future yeah can we apply for this annually because this is in South Reno I know that we have a lot of areas spread out in the North Valleys that don't have a lot of access to grocery stores and things like that so this is something I'd like to see throughout Reno honestly [Music] um I just pulled up the park on my map it's it's in a very nice area but we don't really have things like this in the North Valleys at all um and and probably other Wards in the City of Reno would likely also like to participate in this if this is something that we could apply for annually I think that would be great yes thank you we'll inquire with the funders and I think it's actually near the Atlantis just so we're clear not what people think of South Reno they think of you know maybe south of Meadowood mall or something but this is actually what I would think of central Reno and it's actually in a fairly economically underprivileged area which is what you're saying why is it a food desert there's not shopping or access to this kind of produce readily available is that the idea right it's it's There's an actual map of those USDA designated areas which these specific funds had to go toward not to say there aren't other opportunities for other funds Suzanne grunwood for the record sorry about that okay okay Justice 40. okay yeah okay who would like to give me a motion well I will if you don't want no I you do have more questions because I'm looking at this map and it's like I see a Grocery Outlet right here next to the park so I would like a little bit more information about how we chose this location and how the USDA designates these food desert areas um because just visually on a map this is not significantly far away from areas I see La Chiquita Mexican market looks like it's just a couple blocks away we have Grocery Outlet just on the other side of the highway here um this doesn't look like it's very far away from several areas to purchase groceries and another food items so I'm very interested in how we picked this area and how the U.S USDA designates food desert areas because I I would imagine there's other areas within the City of Reno that have far greater distances between grocery store options so Suzanne grown with the record so this is um also in a justice 40 community and we're kind of trying to build the case a lot of the federal funding now has a justice 40 element which means 40 of federal funds have to go towards disadvantaged communities so we're trying to align our strategies with that also but I don't know how the USDA designates those food deserts it could be a density it could be a radius to those Services I that I don't know I just know that these funds funds specifically they were very particular on where where they were spent not to say we can't do it again in other areas yeah I'm just curious as to again why specifically this spot um I mean I would imagine there's multiple USDA food desert locations in the City of Reno and as I stated there's like within blocks I can see two grocery stores Matt Basil for the record I'm not I'm also not clear on how the food desert itself is designated but this specific Park um I I chose um after working with with Pamela from the Reno gleaning project over the course of the last several years this was kind of our goal was to do it in this park it's also it's a centrally located Park there's room in the park for us to to plant these trees a lot of our parks are are pretty are pretty full um and then specifically the the justice 40 uh designation uh was was made one of the main reasons that we selected that Park um we're we're trying to push equity and inclusion with a lot of our urban forestry projects and and a lot of that includes um trying to initiate planting projects in areas that are socioeconomically challenged and also have a lower tree canopy than other areas of of the city yeah yeah I understand that but I I would argue that we have maybe a lower tree canopy in the North Valleys and you know greater area between grocery stores I could think of several areas that don't have grocery stores within you know a block or two so your statement that you had wanted to pick this park I'm curious again why this park I mean if if we truly want to provide walkable access in food desert areas there's already walkable food access in these areas I have areas where we don't we truly do not have walkable food access and we also don't have bus routes so why this park specifically those are the reasons that I selected the park I did look in the North Valleys for this project I know that it that specifically the parks that we have the North Valleys are not within a justice 40 designation how and I don't know exactly how they designate that but it's based on in common socioeconomic data um the the North Valleys does have areas that are economically challenged but not they don't hold that designation from the federal government um but I do agree that we should be doing more tree plantings in the North Valleys we've done several tree plantings at the parks over the past few years uh in the North Valleys such as Silver Lake Park um and but there's also opportunity for fruit trees I think maybe at mayor's Park um Silver Lake Park and some of the other areas up there and I'd love to work with you on selecting some sites to do additional plantings up there yeah okay is updated because we've had a significant amount of development happen in the North Valleys is this something that's updated annually quarterly how often do they review these stats um Suzanne grown up to the record I don't know that answer but I can find that out and get that to you later okay that would be helpful thank you there are none may I have a motion please yeah I'll make a motion uh to um accept the where is it sorry B6 uh acceptance of the sub Grant from Nevada plants Community forestry this uh to the City of Reno to plant fruit trees in or near USDA designated food deserts in the amount of four thousand dollars okay second I have a motion I have a second yeah mayor all support I would like to know more about this justice 40 in the map I see it's a White House initiative related to the budget reduction act and so I think it's a material that our federal programs people let us know about that ASAP and how the arpa funds are going toward that I mean I think you know a big Federal initiative you know that has to do with the map map where we allocate resources you know I just maybe I forgot but I haven't heard of it so I would really like this body to be able to know rob you know what we're playing with with those Arbor funds if there's Geographic you know distribution standards I'll address this to the mayor uh or the manager and you know let us know because maybe it's maybe we forgot about it I don't think I've ever heard of it before have any of you heard about it before um no so Suzanne grownman just for some a little bit of um to back up a little bit this this particular Grant does not have that justice 40 element we we added that in we looked at um areas that lied within that but what that is is um it is a federal funds initiative certain funds that have come out have said yeah I've got it up it's a White House initiative related to the budget reduction act never heard of it just like to know about it from our federal folks thanks and I'll support okay thank you so much I appreciate it all right so I have a motion and a second all those in favor say aye aye all those opposed motion carries you nicely Congratulations by the way I don't get to tell you enough Matt you are kicking butt and doing a great job I I you have no idea so you know the mayor's office hears everything usually it's bad it's all bad usually um I have had wonderful wonderful feedback about you and the job that you're doing so I want you to know that and it's really nice to see you because it's been too long um maybe that's a good thing so you don't have to come to council so you're out there busy planting trees um but I just wanted to let you know thank you for all you do and there are a lot of people out there that are recognizing it and not to mention councilman duer also recognized that she gushed about you for 20 minutes a couple weeks ago so thank you so much thank you thank you all right thank you okay good job um okay before we move on Madam clerk I'm actually I've got a disclosure here I'm going to read this disclosure okay um thank you so much Jonathan you're so sweet thank you appreciate you all right Madam clerk um this is for the record um fellow City Council Members Madam clerk item B4 involves the approval of a privileged business license for Jonathan fine uh in my private life I have um I have retained Adam Hosmer Henner a partner at McDonald's Carano and I am res I'm represented by Adam Hosmer Henner in my private life pertaining to an unknown person putting a GPS tracker on my car uh I just recognized this potential conflict of interest and sought guidance from the city attorney's office in an abundance of caution I will be abstaining from this item so Madam clerk please accept this disclosure for the record um and put it on the record for uh pertaining to this agenda item and uh subsequent um Council meetings so I'm going to step out of the room and for the record Mr Shipman is that items B4 and B5 yeah that's items B4 and B5 and again just tying it up is we understand that McDonald Carano represents Mr fine so that's what's and also I should put on there I don't know Mr fine never met him I have nothing there's no connection to this individual and myself in any capacity but uh like I said I'm gonna step out so abstain not a recuse not um I'm gonna recuse myself out of caution oh [Music] just asking so I understand because I have several law firms in town for my business and what I've been informed even at other agencies like tamwa and so on is that I just need to disclose the fact that it's the same firm it's never the same attorney or in the same section of the law firm but is that kind of a thought you're having going so so I mean the thought here is this this kind of came up kind of without warning so and and and so we that's our recommendation at this point in time if you want to discuss specific instances that you might have we'd be happy to do that and okay have that conversation but um on this one we just I just didn't know if it was a general rule or something no I think this is very specifically these okay facts thank you thanks and I don't have McDonald for any law firm by the way no but I think you raise a good point when someone comes up here it's very it could very well be that you are represented by the same firm in some capacity but have no interest in anyone that's coming up here right but this is just again just you know since it's been very public this is just um sort of another aspect of the people that are stalking me continuing to do those things so do you see how we're getting down to this level now how they want to just continue to stalk and harass me so that's where we're at but I think to your point it makes a good question well and I'm just going to say I might as well just say the rest of the sentence so over at tamwa we were interviewing new attorneys one of the firms that applied to be the new attorney hello and again was Parson Bailey I have them in a private capacity under I didn't have them this day but working on a case but I have hired them a number of times but the determination at that setting was that I needed to disclose but not recuse myself from that vote so and they were a firm that was being considered to be hired so that's where I was just getting some confusion and I didn't know if I had to like recalibrate or what I had to do so yeah yeah safe not sorry and also um so there is no yeah um okay so you want me to do this because you're yes okay gotcha yeah okay we'll just wait till the mayor leaves and then we'll open before mb5 back to you Lance Lance ferrado for the record um I just spoken with the applicant and he really just like to uh to to speak to you all and and answer any questions as well so it'd be great yeah I'd like to hear from thank you is that part of our technology all right Mr fine if you'd like to unmute introduce yourself and begin speaking do we have like um can we see his picture I mean just because yeah okay got it and can everybody hear me we can't thank you um do you have the video yes we're we're getting we'll print it up right now good afternoon at this point uh thank you for taking the time to hear me and uh and hear out my application and uh and and some of the uh comments that I have I want to address a couple of the things that I've heard I've taken notes throughout the day um and uh first um thank you to all the members for hearing me um I don't know if the if the mayor can hear me but thank you well she's not participating just to be clear she's recused herself she's not even in the room absolutely okay um but I do to some of your points I remember remember I'm sorry if I my pronunciation is is wrong but I want to agree with you I think everything you've said is dead on I think everything that you guys and every point you've made today is absolutely correct when you're redeveloping a project like you have you have downtown in front of you you've got a crime problem you've got a drug problem you've got boarded up doors you've got landlords that don't want to move um you have to be careful we are not opening a slot um we are taking an existing license that was using 80 000 square feet of um their floor space for machines I believe they had 15 to 1700 machines on the property uh we're taking that down to four thousand square feet of casino floor space and 197 machines it's also locked in between my two restaurants that we're opening in our phase one um the mayor is not here but to her point I want to get tenants down there I want to get retail down there what if a beer Garden wants to open up in downtown Parkway Tavern if you look on our website isn't is a it's a it's a beer garden there's 400 beers it's the most beers of any um uh Beer Garden in the country it's 200 the original one is 200 Taps um it's you know a 150 foot long cooler with kegs it opens up to outdoor space where we have live bands we have DJs we have karaoke we have trivia nights it is a place that has been looked at and regarded by by landlords in Las Vegas as the acceptable Tavern when people don't want to put a Tavern in a space because they don't want Dotties I don't want to mention any of my competitors they don't want the typical slot parlor they don't want a smoky mouse trap um they call us we open up we have families we have um you know parents picking their kids up from school that are playing with the connect fours and the dart boards uh bowling alleys um it is that is the experience that you're going to get at the Parkway Tavern it's on steroids at this location because the landlord is also building out that Plaza which is almost an acre uh we do these patio parties in Las Vegas and we will fence off the parking lot we'll fence off a good portion of the parking lot and we will allow liquor and beer sponsors to come in and we'll design these amazing activations what nfr's in town we cover the entire parking lot and hey we have mechanical bulls everyone all of the staff is dressed up as Cowboys and we you know there's there's beer tents that people are going to use and it activates that whole area it was it used to be a roadrunner on Flamingo Road and now it's the original Parkway Tavern in August which because of Water waste we probably won't be doing it this year but uh we took 40 tons of ice we shaved it down we covered half of the parking lot in snow and we had a winter wonderland It was 95 degrees at night and people were walking around having snowball fights they were going on water blow up water slides when it was a various amazing activation which we plan to be doing a lot of this in that area um last night was the soft opening for my other concept which is called the Boulevard Grill um this is a um an opportunity that I saw on Water Street which I feel Water Street is is very much in line with um downtown Reno it is an area that's been you know trying to recreate and reinvigorate itself there's a homeless problem there is a um a prison that lets people out at two o'clock in the morning and it causes some some crime um I bought a building there we made it look amazing from the outside we have trees and plants all around it it's a beautiful design inside we spent you know millions of dollars buying and rehabbing this building and it is um hopefully opening a Thursday afternoon to the public but that's the other product that's going in there it's it is stakes and is reasonably priced um we are not going to try and bring the highest of the high end but we're trying to create something for Community okay and those are the two concepts that we have now you cannot enter the area that has these machines without going through one of those two locations or the third one is a bar called the mint bar which is a throwback to the 80s 70s 60s casino that was downtown Las Vegas the mint um but we we bought that property um we rehabbed it and it is um we have a burlesque night we have Jazz night we have all these fantastic acts that are that happen in there now this is happening on the web sorry yeah Mr fine um thank you so much um at this point I'm a little bit confused about which part that you're speaking about relates to this application versus what you're already doing in Las Vegas so I got the point right so this this application is for this this the this this thought sorry I didn't realize I was being timed I didn't see that um I'll I'll close up um this application is not for a slot parlor this application is for two separate restaurants bars and a third bar um it's 197 machines with less than 5 000 square feet of casino floor versus the 1500 machines that were in Harris and 80 000 square feet uh to address the question of the student housing if that goes through it is not for freshmen that are coming in it's for MBA and higher education students that are coming in for their housing which we feel like we'll be getting a lot of those for the people that are going to work there and then to go to the the presentation before me um it's a we're in a chicken and an egg area um you're trying to get retail you're trying to get people downtown and I've heard things thrown out do we give fifty thousand dollars to every business that is going to go downtown do we give them rent relief do we give them money to paint the fronts do we put walls up and paint murals or do you take the person that's in front of you who has a real investment I put 12 million dollars of mine and my investors money into creating these experiential entertainment areas that are in downtown using that whole Plaza as as a draw to bring people outside um so you know those are those are my arguments right I I can't agree more um with what you guys have said on the dangers of not having that um you know it may be a conditional um a condition of the license that you're that you're giving that we open up the bars and restaurants and have those operating downtown Reno I did a condition I wanted to have live music so there's multiple days of the week that we're doing live music and that's the condition of my license so I'm happy to entertain anything and I want you to know that I have the best interest of Reno uh you know the the university um and downtown in in uh in our in our hearts and Minds is that someone that's been born and raised and grew up in Nevada okay thank you so much for your passionate advocacy for your businesses um what I would like to do and I'm a different person than the mayor and all but I I would like to take these separately because we've already had several issues that have been raised so B4 is about the privileged business license and new alcohol and to your Point Parkway Tavern you've just described and I'm unclear whether both restaurants are called Parkway Tavern you mentioned a mint bar and so I got a little confused in there so that's one thing and then we will discuss um the uh privileged business license for non-restricted gaming so that's yes yes Miss breakfast well the the problem in my view yes is if it bifurcates the two votes then one counsels out the other and well you know I argue that the council needs to do a conditional use permit for this right you know and and I want to say something too is have you all been getting the notices of every little Mom Pop Michael's Deli is going through a conditional use permit to put tables out on their sidewalk something they've been doing for years and a big massive development like this is not going to get the conditional use permit and I think we have a good operator I think he is um proven record but you know I look at Lake Ridge uh tennis course or tennis tennis Swim Center I look at and I'm reminded by Ward one residents about the Jacobs parking lot where he which was sold to the the public parking lot that the Catholic church people parked in for a hundred years that was city property that was sold to Jacobs because he was going to build apartments and what is Jacob's doing he's building a private parking lot on it so you know we need to have performance and the performance in my view is this is an expansion of a gaming use you can argue whether or not it's non-conforming but it definitely is an expansion because you can characterize heras and you have to go off the general business license not the gaming license for zoning when you characterize this is a very far characterization from Harris so in my view both of these come through as a you know a sub-tenant spot of what was Hera's and it is characterized through a conditional use with the same you know has to has to um perform and go and it's an unusual conditional use because it goes to the council but let me ask you this question I thought you were arguing that the gaming portion was what tripped the cup requirement not the alcohol so could you clarify let's be clear about this okay you can't game without gaming is a special license category right okay you have a general business license and with a general business license you have other auxiliary licenses like gaming Like Liquor the conditional use permit because it ties to the premises outlines the operational characteristics of the general use the general use is going to be this bar Casino thing Tavern is not in our in our zoning code right and that's just her name is gaming um as a as a primary use so you know is this you're correct on these classifications of uses Mr verado yeah every every a gaming use has to have a main business license with it correct that's correct yes an annual license and that's my problem here is where you're saying they're non-conforming on the gaming well where's the main where's the main license on that is it the expired hair is one no ma'am the the annual the the current gaming license has an annual license to operate games and what's that what's the main use the usage gaming non-restricted gaming is it a casino sure not restricted gaming casino okay so the conditional use needs to be for a casino and then the the other operational characteristics and this just isn't ripe to be in front of us right Michael's Deli can come through for a specialist permit put tables out on their sidewalks this Mega development can come through performance responsibility I think that last observation from council member Breck is probably right it sounds like we've got a little bit more legwork that needs to be done before we can have um an informed conversation about these two licenses yeah my recommendation would be that we continue it not set a date certain we bring it back once that leg work is done and then by not setting a date certain do we have to re-notice what is that how does that look I don't believe that these require special notices okay I think that it's Joseph okay so an indefinite continuance until you have you're recommending an indefinite continuance until you are ready to bring back to us an analysis of whether or not a cup at a minimum or some other permit review is required uh I think I would phrase it in terms of um these particular licenses where they fit in the holistic world view of the city center project there were a number of questions asked here today got it that I'm not certain we're prepared to answer when we are prepared to answer the questions at rest today and we have a better feeling about moving this forward and the likelihood of success all right we'll bring it back so yeah I'm gonna say uh Mr fine just one second what I'm hearing is that we're I'm going to be looking for most motion to continue item B4 and B5 until staff come back to us and then Mr fine you had a question about that I do I've got a significant amount of capital invested in this based on what the gaming control board has has agreed to with the state I'm going to pause construction which may cause a delay on the entire project until you guys can figure out if I'm allowed to open up these bars in restaurants um I just you know it it frustrates me that um you know I sat for four hours listening to how you guys can't figure out how to get downtown moving and you have an operator that's willing to put in 12 million of his own dollars um and and and you're the continuance is going to go on indefinitely um but I have to pause this this if I'm not I'm not going to get these licenses well first of all I want to thank you for your investment in our downtown this 12 million dollars that you're referencing um what I have learned in my almost nine years on city council is it is very wise to when we run into these kind of questions whether it's a noticing issue or a permit required issue it's very important to get them resolved right at The Upfront so that there aren't lingering overshadowing concerns that would potentially affect your business so I'm gonna if we if this does pass I'm going to ask if I do get a motion to that effect and it does pass I'm going to ask our staff to do it very quickly make a determination about what may or may not be required in addition to these two business licenses so I can make that pledge to you so just being clear I understand your position um so yeah at this time I I am looking for emotion and it could be any motion um one that I would support would be to continue uh this item and let our staff do some further research had some questions still you still have questions well I I just wanted to know I mean this is a renewal for the gaming license or is this a new new license okay just for the gaming and uh okay so it's a new license but it's grandfathered in because they never stopped operating before exactly okay so there are other licensesn't gonna lapse or anything by continuing this indefinitely there is a current operator in there right now that will maintain this um okay and and so that the grandfather uh status of the license will not go away okay so long as sartini's uh gaming stays there okay thank you any other questions from the council are there permits pending I'm sorry are there tenant Improvement permit permits pending I can't speak to building I'm not positive that's good information um but you know and I apologize if he's had been in dialogue and down to the tenant Improvement building space that's a problem um you know it is a problem but we have got to administer the code correctly to advance our policies and I believe that you know that answer to miss Ebert right now you know we've got a license that license is for 16 to operate once a quarter we're going up to 197 you know eight Title 18 says expansion of an a resumption of a non-conforming gaming use goes to a conditional use permit I cannot read around that yeah well yeah so I'll support that motion if there's a I don't I haven't heard a motion yet I'm looking for okay I'll make a motion to indefinitely continue these okay is there a second okay for purposes discussion I will second it uh is there discussion on the motion um I understand the wish of the body I'm not going to be supportive um I believe in Mr fine I believe in revitalizing downtown and I believe that by getting businesses in there we're doing what we want to do I um look forward to working with um the team and the applicant to to see what this looks like further down the road but um based on what I know of the application and the applicants Endeavors I would be okay supporting these okay but I understand the motion thank you all right thank you any other members of the body like to speak on the motion yeah I mean I support the Mauro Shin you know and I support everyone's view on this it's hard when the mayor you know when we are one down but you know someone who hasn't been on quite a year has not seen us let approvals I'm just so glad you found the um place that we're talking about councilwoman door thank you so I think I think that when you have a history of of letting licenses go when preconditioned things don't come in and you had that seen that before it's it's tough that's why I support can you please stop narrating I support the motion but I really am going to not look for these license to come back until I see that a conditional use permit has come forward well uh I will just say Pine I'm looking for a determination by our staff about what's required and that may occur very quickly if they do determine that a additional permitting of any type is required that may apply to one or both either or or both and I would look for them to process that as appropriate but I would look for an update back to us on where it stands and I hope that that it's not often that hard to make a permit required determination is one required or not so I think that can be done very quickly so anyway is there any other discussion on the motion that's what I heard right um that was what the manager suggested because he doesn't know what day he will know this answer whether it's in two weeks one week three weeks he didn't know so he didn't want to set a time for this to come back until he has the information okay yeah being that it seems to be a rather quick issue I'd rather put a day on it but I understand the motion to continue yeah at a later date and I'm saying what my expectation is is within a two weeks they should know this is not that hard to make a determination whether a permit is required or not so okay well um hearing any further discussion no um all in favor of the motion to continue please say aye aye um any opposed a post okay it looks like that passes four to one um so motion is approved um and I'm making a commitment to Mr fine and the representatives that this determination will made us be as made as quickly as possible thank you so much for your time okay thank you all right um we still have a quorum it looks like Miss breakfast has left the table and we're waiting for Madame mayor to come back um we've done B6 and B8 and I think the next item that was pulled um Madam clerk if you could help me on that I'm looking for on item B7 pulled by council member Ebert okay B7 is about arpa funds 300 000 Reno Food Systems thank you yeah I just wanted a brief presentation Martinez for the record I do not have a presentation so happy to answer any questions you all may have okay um just just wanted to share about this this is for the um seniors uh part of our allocation of arpa funds um for Reno Food Systems to help provide food for seniors it might be food insecure so just wanted to call that out um something I'm happy that we're going to be able to do so just wanted to call it out okay any other people have comments any council members all right seeing none Miss um Ebert would you like to make a motion on this sure making a motion to uh approve the uh sub-recipient agreement with Reno food systems for the award of the American Rescue plan act state and local fiscal recovery funds to support the senior food and Security in the amount of 300 000 of arpa funds second all right we've got a motion by councilmember Ebert second by council member Martinez is there any discussion on the motion seeing none all in favor please say aye aye any opposed please say no motion passes unanimously thank you so much thank you all right we're gonna move on on my list I have B20 but I believe it's actually B9 B9 pulled by me um I simply pulled this and I thank Mr Martinez for pulling the one that is much much more eight million dollars I missed that one um this is uh on RPD Crime Lab Services um just want to know what we're spending our money on so the public can be properly appreciative of what you're doing absolutely uh Catherine ants uh chief of police for the record um so this is an agreement that we have with the Washoe County Crime Lab to process evidence for us that we do not have the capabilities yet to process um last year they did over 800 items of evidence wow um that includes uh biological evidence Controlled Substances crime scenes that they're processing if for officer-involved shootings and some other incidents if we're not able to do it but we're doing majority of them um all firearms and Ibis and nibin processing and latent print comparison and processing so over 800 pieces of evidence okay do they do the um DNA or is that sent further out no they'll do DNA also that's the biological evidence do you know just generally what the turnaround on that is these days so they uh that is the longest turnaround that we have um is the DNA but that's more extended and extensive processing they average uh per their report less than 120 days turnaround time some things they do expedite for us when needed and it's processed based on the type of case that it is so some things could have a higher priority than others DNA they're a little bit longer than on that turn around but everything else is pretty much within that timeline okay so if you wanted a DNA turned around in a week could you get that um it's possible we do have other options too for things that we can send to outside Labs if needed if it was something that was an absolute exigency and they could not accommodate it so we have other options available okay great work I'm glad to see the partnership does anyone have any comment or question on this item councilmember breakfast yeah I do um Chief so what is your understanding of the history of us getting having our own crime lab you know why we're in this position because I've been on 11 years and this is only the second year we paid a million and a half to Washoe County there's a change in how we did things so at one point in time there was an exchange of services where we they did our processing of evidence for exchange of dispatch services that changed when they established their own dispatching so we that's where some of that change started and then since then we have also become in the Pro we also began the process of establishing our own crime lab so it's in its baby stages right now we are getting equipment we have some federal funding that will come through in October and we'll be able to establish more crime lab um opportunities for ourselves and remove the service from them that's our goal but it takes several years to stand up I appreciate your understanding um I was here when that happened and I think my understanding was was kind of a handshake deal which some Chiefs and Sheriff made years ago and I never really understood that this dispatch change up happened in it you know maybe that's the story or maybe I just didn't have the information possibly but my concern at this point is um is we're going to go year after year of funding toward them you know and and I appreciate the long-term baby steps and building it but I want the plan out there so if we're going to park a million and a half out of what's your budget 44 44. yeah I couldn't tell you exactly 44 in my head 94 million a 94. oh God a shum off just a little bit yeah I think it was 40 you know in the 30s when I came on so if you're at 94 million and at one and a half you know but the crime lab is going to be a much bigger deal I want to know the plan each year and how the progress is when this comes up and I also want that transparency out to Washoe County and so on because I think Washoe County should be providing this as a regional service to us like they always did and there are a whole bunch of other agreements like they get we pass over a grant to them for an extradition uh assistant extra how do you say that word yeah you can't say it wrong and then how do you say it right I always mess it up then there's not that many extraditions so that secretary's doing Sheriff work yeah you know or just say so you know I've asked for an unbundling of all the agreements but I'm going to continue I'm gonna be a no on this and I'm going to be on no on this just like I was know for many years on the interlocal for the homeless Services because the county finally came in and took over that responsibility like they should and I'm going to be a no on this even though I didn't pull it um to you know start the conversation that I don't think the council should be going year after year paying them without knowing where our progress is on this or unbundling all of these handshake deals because I think we're getting the weaker side of it we need to get the regional services from washa County and the lab was always a regional service in my view so I'm a no okay and thank you uh you know hopefully next year you've got a seven year plan and cost out of how to get Reno their crime lab or an agreement with the county that they're going to take over regional service they should be providing okay so two things one um I think you make a good point related to equity uh Financial Equity this has been a big conversation community-wise is um we may not be getting the full value of the dollars that we provide to the greater good and so there's a conversation to be had there about the physical Equity the second point point I'm going to make is that if if Miss breakfast is a no I can already see that even if the other members are yes that we will not pass this motion so what I'm going to do is I'm going to continue Miss Ebert had to use the facilities I that's what I was going to say I'm going to Trail this to the end of the consent that's all I'm saying right now that was I said I was going to say two things one's about Equity one's about timing okay so I'm gonna close conversation on this item if you'll stay in the room I will be bringing it back in a few items I think I'm up for the next one too so that's fine I'll just um let's take the next item is I have on my list B10 from Miss Brookes you know this is about an ongoing service that we've had with a group a local uh Community consultant called blue cover LLC for 120 000 correct yes what is your understanding of the services they provide to us they provide assistance that's an I.T service that they provide there are two full-time ipt professionals that do software development and maintenance and keep control of our ongoing needs to provide technological support to our officers on the street are there particular programs that you can mention that they use there's several that they do they do over 30 the ones that are most likely talked about are the um the ones that are listed in the staff report which is the hot sheets for stolen vehicles that are updated almost instantaneously um we can get NRS statutes the officers can find different statutes that they need when they're on the street very quickly and easily through a system that allows for search mechanisms so we understand what we're looking for moves things along much quicker we do online briefing logs and then they do in missing persons reports and they can put out images I have a list of probably 40 different things that they do but they keep a lot of our data so that we can consolidate it provide that information back to council provide that information back to officers and then to ensure that we're operating in the most intelligent-led way that we can now why is aren't these in-house tasks which we've already previously mentioned your Department's budget has grown so much and I remember when we did the remember we were really going to increase your capabilities and I think we have through data techs and so on so why haven't these functions come in house from them um a lot of things that we do we contract with outside entities to provide that service for us and it's it's a software building so we're not I.T professionals we don't build that software we we manage to have people on staff that know how to work it that know how to provide the information but these are I.T professionals that actually build that software so we use them so just like we would use axon we don't have the capability of building body camera systems even though we have a lot of professionals in-house they build the systems that we then utilize so it saves my staff from having to do this this is one of those types of entities okay because this 120 000 this year but you know it's probably been a million since I've been on and um you know it's not like an axon which is a you know a vendor you know a very big thing one thing how much of their work is spent on the my RPD app um there's a lot of different things but I don't think a lot of it has to there's some of the in the apps I can't answer that specifically I always understood that they were the developer and I think it says in your snap report that of my RPD app and um I'm wondering you know it says we have 5 000 downloads of that is are we still supporting that and using that the my RPD app I can't answer that question do you have an answer for the myrpedia yeah yeah because I've got the my RPD app up here and it shows our former Chief on here it shows a deputy chief deputy chief Benson miss him a lot you know he's been gone for five years all right so Rebecca's thank you let's get the answer that done let's get the answer no Gallup for the record RPD so my RPD app was developed some time ago um funding for that was kind of curtailed we we're absolutely capable of refreshing that up the current approach we want to take that I was making it more web-based kind of a companion app to our website so um back then we were funded Project Specific through Council now our new structures were able to work on kind of what command and the city dictates so if that were made a priority we could absolutely work on that well I guess my question has always been the uh is it Obsolete and we're paying a hundred and twenty thousand dollars to this vendor who's because of this obsolete you know program we've moved in a different direction but I'm hearing no that we've got these people doing a lot other critical information that helps your interface with the community yes absolutely we are non-stop with developing um different things to add in to make that the product that they give us more usable for our officers and allows them to provide better service and not only that it LEDs into the intelligence-led side of this where we understand where crimes are happening where they're occurring how to deploy resources and then provide a lot of information out so there's a lot of interdepartmental information that we utilize on a daily basis from this yes there's a my RPD app but really for us that's part of there's a website the city website and links back to the police department website they eventually could interface but my priority right now is deployment and how we get people out on the street not necessarily a website with pictures okay so if we could hold that Miss Ruckus if you need a second round is there any more conversation questions I did have something just I was here during the development of my RPD app I thought it was amazing I have it on my phone as well we really sold it to the public as a way to easily interface with our police department and get crime stats what I am concerned hearing this conversation is the data that's backed up by my RPD app is that current or is that three or four or five years old I don't know that answer ma'am there may be cosmetic dat issues like a chief picture for example however the underlying crime data is current those jobs those jobs run daily multiple times that's what I thought um so I think it'd be a simple thing to update my RPD up I mean we really tried to get the community using that as an easy way to interface with the police department if I if I might just say we just are waiting on some assets pictures for example oh really sure let's make that happen you could make that happen all right um let me ask a mayor or council member Ebert do you have questions on this item this is B10 this is about the blue cover six Madame did you have a question about this I'm just going to call for the vote next oh no please do okay I'm I'm very supportive um this uh hold on is this also in with forensics we we held that we're gonna go back to that because we didn't have enough people in the room to vote to get a motion pass so we're on B10 right at the moment yeah no I'm always supportive okay yeah as we move forward okay my kids to have one more round I'll give you the benefit of the doubt Chief because I think you are on top of things and trying to figure out all the pieces but I had heard and I don't like to you know base it on you know what I heard through I thought I really thought it was in this document or an audit that the my cover did come under some questionable scrutiny through an auditor somewhere in terms of you know who the contract was with it was a former RPD person who then maybe monetized it um I I don't know I just you know I think we have integrity in our Contracting um this one's coming up every year I I I looked up the people I mean I do think that the my RPD app here mentions the the um this you know uh inventor of the app is also the the contractor more or less um and I I don't know you know the status of that person as a overall vendor but um I I think that you know bringing you up here and asking these questions on this to make sure that it is a a very um you know well thought out continued contract that we have I I hope so I think it's worth daylighting just because of what I've understood in the past and that the deliverables are coming forward and it's adding value to your organization so I can support it all right this year thank you very much just to answer that just for all the things that we're bringing forward now I you're right I don't know them these are new to me I had to learn all about them so I do the most extensive research I can before I bring these things forward as a new contract we're not just rolling contracts over because somebody did them in the past that's the way it is so I'm evaluating these before they're coming forward I have extensive things so to just uh what happened in the past I I'm not going to answer to because that's not my place however moving forward please understand that when we when I'm bringing these things forward I'm doing the research on them to say are they useful do we need them how can we better this and is this the right method in my opinion yeah and that's that really my reason for pulling it and also you've probably figured out that Reno so decentralized purchase leaves the department sometimes hanging on their own but it's there's pros to it also I will make the motion sounded like Miss Ebert did you have a comment okay um so I'm calling for a motion Miss breakfast I'll make it okay motion by councilmember breakfast is there a second all right a second by Madame mayor um are there any further comments on the motion all in favor please say aye aye aye any opposed okay motion passes unanimously and rare what's that which is rare I'm excited well and we're gonna go back to item B9 while you're here and while we have a full compliment uh we've already had all the conversation the time has run and I'm at the point of calling for a motion on item B9 and this was originally pulled by myself so I am happy to make the motion to approve item B9 is there a second um yep and then comments on the motion amount of Mayor yes um I'm definitely in support I just want to know a couple of things sure because this was super important to me um explain can it's is some of this funding gonna go towards cold cases so it can it depends on how we're doing things there's other some better options for cold cases that I think we've talked about a little bit um in the past but a lot of the DNA evidence that has been processed has to be processed in a different manner because it's a cold case it's a very different process so a lot of that we would use private Laboratories for that specialize in genealogical DNA so that's a different type of thing so I'm not saying that none of this could ever be a cold case or none of this money could ever be used for a cold case but I think what you're asking and what you're talking about is the genealogical side of DNA which is done in a different lab with different types of things so that's that would be a different funding mechanism that we would look for it if we had an applicable Cold Case that we wanted to move forward on okay and maybe when you do because I know sometimes they might not be a priority because obviously like I get it right and sometimes there are years but you have some incredibly dedicated people absolutely that want to make sure that you seek Justice and so I want to be able to support that in any way possible that's super important to me so that um you know those families and those victims get um because it's changed so much now with DNA that there's so much more they can do right you didn't have so long ago so um I'm glad we're doing this but I did want to put um the Cold Case piece in there in some capacity so that you can have those resources I think that's super important so I think the best way to do that is we're continually looking at the cold cases evaluating them see what we can move forward on there are some cold cases that I know we are already are getting ready maybe to move forward into that genealogical stuff that that can happen and um other avenues that we can follow up on so they're there it's just part of that is is Staffing but I don't really know that that plays into it as much because we're continually working on them it's what is that proper timing to move forward on okay and so watching that so the funding side I'm really less worried about because even though it does sound very expensive when you bring It Forward I think for the what you get out of it once we're at that point and we're ready to it's very positive okay um just let us know how we can support you absolutely thank you awesome all right anything further no okay um so we've had a motion in a second I'm looking for any final comments on the motion I apologize councilmember door I'm not clear who the motion or the second or were so I was the motioner and I believe councilmember Taylor was the second thank you yes um so I'm gonna call for the question all in favor please say aye aye aye any opposed post okay motion passes thank you all right thanks for being here great work all right and with that Madam mayor I'm handling it back to you for we're next up is B20 and B21 pulled by council member Martinez all right sending it to you Mr Martinez thank you so much in line with uh my colleague councilman typically does I just wanted to see if we can get a presentation about uh B20 and B21 which is just North of 8.5 million dollars thank you yeah all right so good afternoon Adam Mayer council members Jonathan Smith Senior civil engineer at the public works department here to give a brief presentation on that 2023 acronym Vanessa Street Rehabilitation project the 2023 acronyms Street Rehabilitation project is located in Ward 5. the ackard neighborhood is located to the east of McCarran Boulevard off of West 7th Street and the Vanessa area is located south of McCarran Boulevard just off of Keystone the map on this slide shows all the streets that are included in the accurate area Rehabilitation project we'll be making improvements on Frontier Street Acker drive and Haley Street the scope includes a replacement of approximately half mile of roadway at one mile of sidewalks and driveways we'll improve The Pedestrian connectivity including an American with Disabilities Act or an ADA accessible route and finished with some new signs and striping the top right picture shows an area where we will be installing an ADA ramp where one previously did not exist and the bottom picture to the right shows a ramp that was recently constructed on a on a neighborhood project the map on this slide shows all the streets that are included in the Vanessa area Rehabilitation project we'll be making improvements on O'Farrell Street Polk Street Geary Street Sutter Circle and Vanessa Avenue the scope includes a replacement of one and a half miles of or sorry 1.25 miles of roadway as well as two and a half miles of sidewalks and driveways we'll improve The Pedestrian connectivity with an 80 accessible route and again finish with some new signage and striping the top right picture shows when an existing driveway looks like they're all in really really bad shape they are not ADA Compliant and they have really sweet cross slopes the bottom right picture shows an example of a recently constructured project with an ADA driveway a city project notifications out in October of 2022 we advertise this project on June 1st during the advertisement period we did hold a public meeting on June 8th where the project was well received and every in the neighborhoods we're very excited to get this going we opened bids on June 29th and if approved today the accurate area would go to construction this summer with the completion date of late fall and then the Vanessa area would go to Construction in the spring of 2024. I recommend to award the contract to Sierra Nevada Construction as well as the consultant agreement with Eastern Sierra Engineers for construction services for the 2023 awkward and Vanessa Street Rehabilitation project thank you okay any traffic calming devices on those streets or are there any requests by citizens for traffic calming on those streets yes we did we did have requests on the Vanessa neighborhood on Vanessa Avenue we did have a petition we talked about the petition process and and how to move forward with that and that is something that that we're looking into but I did work with the city traffic engineer on this and they did a study I don't have it in front of me it was a while back on this area yeah I have City Engineers are going in and doing a project you know it shouldn't be you know part of the project team are these neighbors it should be taken into account in my view and so I just to some of my other colleagues because I've had some of these go on in my neighborhoods where they've been calming or people have been asking for years for calming and they don't make it into the plans and the project practically gets built and people are like wait we've had dialogues with you for years about doing the calming so I not my ward but I know how much we all hear about traffic calming and I just don't think we can go to bid without doing this ourselves to solve this problem so I'll be disappointed if traffic coming doesn't go in into the bed maybe it can be an add-on I do believe that we did a traffic study in this area and it did not warrant for traffic calming devices so that would lead into the the petition yeah but the traffic study that you guys use you know is it level of service or is it 80th percentile 85th percentile a little broken yeah yeah okay thank you all right councilman Martinez oh I just um wanted to say it looks from the staff report that you did have a community meeting so you did invite neighbors to come out and talk and yep we delivered over 250 notices to the neighborhoods and delivered them answered question our staff answered questions on site and then invited them to come out and and voice their opinion about the project and address any good search they might have great thank you very much all right anyone else nothing no nothing okay come uh councilman Martinez give me a motion awesome yeah I'm I'm uh to award the contract this year in American Construction for the 2023 accurate inventness Street Rehabilitation project in the amount of 8 million two hundred thirty six thousand with seven dollars and authorize the mayor to sign okay all second I have a motion favor say aye aye all those opposed motion carries unanimously B21 I know that was both b19 and B 20 right or was that 20 and 21 so we're on item B21 as pulled by council member Martinez yeah and I think the presentation covered both correct uh this is the the consultant agreement with Eastern Sierra Nevada engineering for construction Administration services for this project there are no other question on bridge of motion but if there's questions I'll leave the floor for that did you make a motion I don't know if anybody that doesn't look like anybody has any questions okay uh yeah a motion to approve item B20 on staff recommendation or B21 actually B21 second all right I have a motion in a second all those in favor say aye aye all those opposed motion carries unanimously all right and for some reason council member door skipped item b14 so we're going to move on to item b14 consent agenda yep I sure did um well with your indulgent Madame mayor um the reason I pulled this item was we had quite a bit of discussion about the process that we were going to use to approve special events and I don't have any specific questions on the events that you have proposed but I would just like you to tell us what the process was good afternoon Council um Madame mayor Lance ferrado for the record uh I'm here on behalf of assistant city manager Eric Edelstein and happy to answer those questions I've been a part of the process since we've done the revamping it's still a work in progress uh if you'll remember correctly this allocation of money is retroactive right so um in this case basically everyone that applied ended up getting funds um so the process going forward is an evolving process based on feedback that we receive and any recommendations that we get from Council um but it the committee is working and to to come with policies and procedures and they're going to be meeting on a quarterly basis and doing the forward-looking allocations after this um let me ask you this so the total amount and these are all events that happen in 2022 right I don't think any any or the second first half of 2023 right the fiscal year yeah the fiscal year um I am hesitant to open up this I just want to know who is on the committee and you said we're still working on policies and procedures so who's on the committee yes ma'am well the the council liaison is uh council member Taylor yeah um and then the uh that I don't have the two names in front of me right here there's some staff I'm sorry when yeah so we have Wendy Brown Richard J and Lily Baron okay so what I would like to request is um I I'm in full support of this it's already happened we're gonna vote for it but um there have been issues that have come up regarding pops on the river which is a special event I don't know that they get any money but they may have gotten in kind from us you know whether it was street closure uh security whatever it was and I know that that was a pretty big issue this year about how we're applying events that have alcohol involved in them in certain locations like some of these are crawls so they're crawling there they have open container in a large area okay um I want to understand going forward pops also had open container in a large area but the area was uh cordon off essentially I mean you have to pass a gate to get through you have to have a ticket all that um and I was a little bit confused about how the rules were applied in terms of if you could bring your own alcohol or you had to buy it from a vendor uh if there could be children present and all of those kind of issues and I know that they moved the venue from apart from a city venue to a private venue but I think there's still from what I hear of still hard feelings that that event had been held in Wingfield for something over 20 years maybe as long as 40 years I don't know the exact day but I know it was a very long time um and I want to make sure I understand or perhaps if we're changing policies on use of alcohol and again many of these do involve alcohol if you could bring that back to council so we could better understand that because we're get we are the recipient of the complaints maybe you are too but we are and we don't have all the information about how the decisions made how the policies crafted and so on and and it would be very helpful for us to know and I would like to have it in a public session versus a memo because I don't know that I think Council needs to know we have to weigh in so happy to do that hold on yeah so the mayor has requested um a meeting on special events and this is one of the issues that's flagged for that a special meaning I mean with the committee or with us with the with the elected body oh um I do want to jump in though and be your um I don't think you necessarily meant it this way but you said some of these events are crawls none of these are crawls Oh I thought um I saw a cross one of the challenges with the crawls is that they are not licensed up or permitted as special events well right here uh on the Fifth Line it says crawl Reno I can clarify for you that's that's the name of the organizer Ed Atkins crawl Reno that's the name of his organization the events that he puts on that he does ask for reimbursement on are the specific photos under the arch and for that it takes a special event closure but the crawl outside of that photo and that hour or two that the roads closed that is all unpermitted and and not oh they're unpermitted they're not they're on they can't be permitted uh under our current code they're just crawls okay well we'd love to know what those are whenever this conversation comes back sure so that I was that's why I was tying it to this item because I thought I saw a cross so I misunderstood no problem okay all right well Madam mayor I'm prepared to make a motion looks like there's other people want to open okay thank you so much I appreciate it I'm going to send it to council yeah so a lot of these events are along the river Corridor um kind of based around Wingfield Barbara Bennett Park I represent both sides of that and my phone has been off the hook this summer from you know up around California Avenue all the way down to fourth street I'll play one from just this weekend for everyone to hear I don't think she'll mind one bit um having her message played because she certainly um was you know has been of someone of tremendous concern about what's going on so let's just listen to what happened this Friday [Music] we have more regularly with fur which is these um Park events that are happening access to Island our Waste Management pickup happened today the road was closed and nobody let them we're going to be swimming in garbage okay so we get the chance so we all get the I we all get the idea on that and then does Jacob's I know a lot of those are on private property but did they get any special event permits for crossing the streets and closing off other streets that the only events that are that are that qualify for this kind of uh sponsorship are events special events which take place okay okay so yeah if it's just on glow Plaza with no closures but you do closures of Wingfield traffic [Music] control email text messages and you're the business license manager where's the special events manager is that position exists well we don't have a special Advance manager but we do have an activation coordinator that will be coming on soon and they're going to be kind of tasked with a little bit of this and that but special events will be under their eyes as well what you know I remember when we redid this we need a special events manager too many things are following falling through the cracks it's been two years even though we had covid we've ramped up and it is deteriorated tremendously so I'm not I know these are retroactive but I'm a vote of no because I am very dissatisfied with the management of the function it is not working for our residents and you know I mean how would you feel if you live in a retirement community and you've got to have your garbage hanging out in your yard to five days no I mean don't either answers for this to me I get it but you're okay okay so I just I don't understand I get your side of the argument but there's also another side that you have to be supportive of the events that come in here because that's what draws tourism as a great quality of life I totally agree with you I we've got to figure out a better I don't have a better way yeah I don't know people have answered about the quality of life of someone from Sacramento coming in for the weekend when our own residents cannot enjoy their neighborhoods these are all local we are not managing these properly I get all across that that Urban Southwest Old Southwest Reno so I'm not support in support of them if you can't manage them you don't have a job don't do it then okay thank you thank you so much moving along everyone one else um prepared for just to make sure everyone knows putting on the record um I have heard a lot of feedback from um the events that we do have and so we aren't going to have a special meeting because I want everyone to weigh in and hopefully Lance that kind of helps you in some capacity sure so you know um sort of the areas that you need to look at or of concern for sure um before we you know start to point fingers and you know because I was thinking about it earlier as if I was like let's say you guys this is your first council meeting I was thinking gosh we sound like gloom and doom over here and then I thought to myself there's always like this idea that oh my gosh there's a gotcha in government and the conspiracy theory you know that's happening oh my gosh see they didn't they didn't tell us they didn't tell us that this was going on and Doug knew all behind the scenes you know this like this whole crazy thought process and we were just having this conversation um and just quite honestly that we want to do a really good job we want to be here for our citizens it's not intentional at all we're human we're going to make mistakes um so I want to do whatever we possibly can to help you navigate that and get through it so uh we will have a special meeting and I would just encourage everyone that has a special event uh I hope that they come out and even the residents to Jenny's point so we know what exactly to look at because that's got to be horrible if they um Waste Management didn't come where was Waste Management contacted after that were they able to get I don't know to be honest is the first time hearing of this complaint so I if it hasn't gone through service now I hope it would so and that's another thing that I learned because I was trying to do it all council members I would just stress to you I can't stress to you enough how and at some things could get taken care of so much faster if I would have just put those complaints into Reno direct absolutely instead of just like trying to navigate them on my side like I I I learned that as a bad idea so I would just say any time you got complaints cover both sides because it will help you guys so sure anyway I just wanted to um throw that out there and you know I want to be positive I want to support these events but I also want everyone to participate and communicate the best possible way so we can make them successful and kind of you know what I also noticed since covid some people have been a little reluctant to get back in the game I mean there's you know a lot of things have changed so I think now it's a time for a reset and just to help everyone sort of be successful in our events so I appreciate because I know Lance is super important to you yeah and absolutely everything you've been working on it's that Department's never easy there's a lot going on a lot going on but you're doing a good job so thank you so much um so we had a motion in a second all this I don't know that I heard a second I I made a motion yeah good all those in favor say aye aye motion carries okay thanks Lance thanks done with consent we are done with consent wow okay that was a that was a long consent all right moving on to item C1 which is Carson Lane abandonment from Brooke Oswald hi nice to see you it's been a while Brooke yes uh good afternoon Madam mayor city council my name is Brooke Oswald I'm an associate planner with development services a case before you today is an abandonment got a quick presentation just to run through that and go through some of the specifics okay we're looking at case ABN 230002 Carson Lane abandonment a general location on this to the right we are in Ward four we're down on that southern end of Ward four there as we look at the large map you can see North Virginia down in the uh left bottom corner and you can see par Boulevard there so we're up just above that area I think one of the things in this largest we have it out is to uh make reference to the railroad right away which you can see snakes through uh up above the parcel we have several residential neighborhoods one across the right away there's a tremendous amount of topography and other sort of limitations to that neighborhood we have a neighborhood directly uh to the west of the project site we also have a residential neighborhood up and to the right down below that what we see is a mix of industrial uses we're seeing a lot of outdoor storage smaller manufacturing and uses directly to the site and then down below by par we're seeing those large format warehouse and distribution buildings to come in a little bit closer on the site once again that railroad right away directly to the north of the site this is at the intersection of uh Carson and orcrest uh it was a extension of um Carson or anticipated extension of Carson at one time we have seen that development come in residential development uh to the West there we have two properties that are directly adjacent to that and then we have a vacant parcel to the east of that that is subject to this abandonment quickly look at the site itself as we look at this this is looking from the top looking down as was noted there is no development we have no utilities this has not been used as a roadway is looking down and then looking up um in the same way you can see the upper Development Across The Railroad and the topography there that is across us uh once again this request is for an abandonment of the undeveloped right-of-way of the northern Terminus course in Lane it's approximately 63 feet wide 228 feet long that's about 14 000 square feet or uh if we're working with Acres it's about a third of an acre this area was annexed by the city Reno in 1999. um the roadways in those areas were established at that time they were put on an APN so it was partialized now that may have been that they were going to be maintained private under the county or it may be that they were were set for dedication and never were dedicated to the county uh what happened with that uh that adjacent neighborhood came in around 2005 so that was a came in under the city's jurisdiction those roadways were found to be delinquent so that parcel was delinquent on the tax roll in 2012 and the city assumed that delinquent tax roll in that case that comes in as fee so we have the two things we have a dedication where that property gave that abandonment area in the past we also have in fee we own this in fee and so then the public is entitled to monetary value back through that uh that became that right away and now what we're looking is to abandon that top portion of that to quickly go over our master plan because this is important as we look at this we have that single family uh neighborhood directly to the west and we have our mixed employment uh to the right uh there are several reimagined parcel or uh policies that this is support of this is growth here we are in an area that has infrastructure roadways established we have an underutilized property we're seeing that on uh to the east of this and this property itself and then that lock consolidation bringing um this all together so as we looked as as we do uh if this abandonment does go forward how that Master Plan goes half of that roadway will become sf8 and half will become me to look at our zoning our zoning directly to the West is single family eight units per acre that's the two adjacent part residential parcels and we have an industrial uh to the right now you can see that when we were at our master plan we had uh mixed employment over most of that area what we have is the remnants of of the county the city has moved forward to think uh and and uh move forward that mixed employment is appropriate master plan and appropriate for that area but we have some large lot residential those are non-conforming and what we're seeing in that area is is I believe you'll see one before you in the near future is uh uh the uh residents as or the owners of those properties asking to bring those into the MZ conforming the eye is non-conforming under me unless it was established before which it was established before I think one of the interesting things we're going to see is that with this once again looking how that will be zoned with this industrial up against that residential that that is our James Jason c will take a discretionary View and uh reviewing this and looking this I think part of that discretionary view if conditions are applied if a non-commercial or a non-residential development comes in on that ice I parcel we will be looking at buffering screening what's appropriate on that additionally what I think we will see is conditions that are more in line or bring that very uh industrial being one of our highest industrial uses allows a variety of uses we will really use our conditions to contain that down into something that would be more appropriate in that me zoning so this does give us an opportunity to actually condition and modify that that heavier eye zoning up against that residential and finally we have the alignment with the Strategic plan we are looking at that economic and Community Development with the ability to develop and move those Parcels in the future uh now once again just looking at the map this is really a lot of abandonments go back to NRS or Nevada revised statutes so what you're um making a decision on today is this area you'll be abandoning the whole portion of this is what's being requested but there's a sub part of this is that per Nevada revised statue and this and the city owning that in fee we have to go out to each adjacent property owner and offer them the ability to purchase that property prior uh to this moving forward or others being able to push it one caveat is that is that those residential do have to have or those Parcels all Parcels have to have access we have staff has analyzed this all all uh all the parcels have access and so that does uh does not be impacted so what is happening is these small residential the residential that's up against orcrest has uh has moved forward to purchase their portion approximately 70 feet by 30 feet of that that will become that that will be extended into their yard and that is that portion there and we'll go to that parcel and then additionally as we look at this parcel um the part the residential parcel to the north decided not to enact their right to purchase that property and that allows the ability to the neighboring parsity parcel to buy that which they have chosen to do and that's this parcel here so there are several financial implications as the city owning that vacant parcel we do have a responsibility and a liability for that parcel to maintain it make sure it's safe we are going to see a payment in fee for as part of when the conditions of approval it's approximately eighteen thousand dollars I worked with our property management uh staff to determine an appropriate value on that uh once that is abandoned it goes back into a property tax and we collect property tax on that and then as I stated before it promotes that development and underutilized properties Seth did review this and could make all the findings and I will leave you uh with the motion recommended motion and available for questions that's necessary thank you all right thank so much any public .com thank you Madame mayor we do not have on this item no um Damien just uh all you have to do is yeah go ahead and go up and then you can fill another one of these out for me later Damien Cole I wasn't expecting to comment on this but I just looked at the worms map system from Washoe County that doesn't seem to be an APN for this lot so just wanted to mention it thank you thanks Damian okay councilman breakfast okay um yeah just sure if this is there you go um just a quick question so the eighteen thousand dollars that you referenced is that what we paid at the tax is that the taxes we paid off as we came in and no that is not the taxes that we came what we did is uh there is a property in that location that was recently uh the real estate list they took that price and then as we look at public right-of-ways in those areas there's a deduction back off of that so I worked with our deduction uh basically it's a 10 because it is that right away of the of a current market value well in there you said there there is no right I thought you said there's no um nothing within the right away like no we have no utilities basements access or anything like that no right so we've just done like sort of a mini appraisal is that what you're saying yes we did a mini appraisal which is it's uh it was more done for the cost effectiveness of putting this forward gotcha because appraisal might have cost even correct six nine thousand dollars correct okay and then just because I'm confused about this I I support that but I I mean the concept but I just wanted to be clear I thought I was told in the past that if we did not pay we could not receive could you just clarify yeah and and uh and this is the way I understand it from our proper uh property managers because uh basically that land uh we we did receive it wasn't just uh given to the county so across agency right it actually was part of that delinquent tax right and so within that the city has first rights and we chose that right which gave us uh the ownership of that in fee right and that's that's interesting in fees in versus dedication okay and so once we have once we have that within fee then we are uh we can set a price to set a price for that gotcha that makes a lot of sense and then to Mr Cole's point I mean does it matter that this doesn't have an APN so you're not going to explain that and maybe it was a little confusing the presentation so there was an APN to this and and when we received and the taxes hadn't been paid on it when we assumed uh when the city assumed uh ownership of that it became right away God so the APN disappeared and it became right away at that point explains it all right thank you I think Miss Ebert councilwoman Ebert okay so with these changes um with the the resident purchasing this lot and the um business purchasing the other portion correct um with these changes to the zoning does that bring them up in conformance with a master plan uh no what we would see is is as I showed that zoning would come into that industrial so that I because it was established prior to our master plan it actually is a non-conforming zoning but is legal so they are they are able to maintain that um eye any news so those large lot residential or anything will be only be able to go up to our mixed employment and I think what's important here because we have that adjacency that residential adjacency that allows for discretionary review and what is I would anticipate as staff is what we do is basically condition the eye zoning down to an me zoning and then continue to look at screening buffering and other things that are appropriate against that residential property yeah mixed employment yes which is a lower industrial use our we have our industrial our industrial commercial and our me so hours of operation a number of those things are considered could be set correct and they take over the main maintenance too and then they would take over the maintenance it comes becomes on the tax roll there's several uh benefits that the city would see good okay motion uh to approve the uh curse Inland abandonment of the right-of-way totaling fourteen thousand uh twenty uh fourteen thousand and twenty five square feet generally located at the northern Terminus of Carson Lane um abandonment areas bordered by single-family residential eight dwelling units per acre sf8 to the west and Industrial zoning to the East and has corresponding master plan land use designation of single-family neighborhood uh SF and mixed employment Emmy uh motion to approve all right thank you second I have a motion and a second all those in favor say aye aye all those opposed motion carries unanimously okay wow and you sat here all day long for that it was probably very uneventful except for now you probably want to run for office huh I don't know well good luck thank you so much for actually all your patience I don't know how you how you did it okay go ahead Madam Clerk thank you madam mayor item D2 was withdrawn in agenda approval so we're looking at item G1 appointment to the arena City Planning Commission all right I guess the the rules go to Mr city manager so I would like to nominate for the council's consideration uh three names for the city's Planning Commission Manny Becerra Carrie rorer and Alex melto okay and I want to just clear uh Mr belto is a reappointment correct is that right that correct that would that would okay all right so I have a motion and then does that mean you have to make a motion I think I'm gonna make a motion um Mr belto is the reappointment of Mayor shivi no I don't think so now am I right we don't have no we do they they're tied to our Council terms and so on I'm confused but so so my understanding is that I have to put the nomination forward says that you confer with the associated council members and then you make the referrals so that they can offer okay then having conferred with um the ward 3 member Mr Martinez Manny visera uh is the nominee for that seat having conferred with councilmember duer the ward 2 member is uh Carrie rohrmeyer and Alex feltoe is a reimportant for whatever label goes on that seat I just was told that these these two any words is that true no no what's your understanding yeah and I was the sponsor of the resolution at the time okay and they were tied to a seat okay and I think even the staff report recommends yours is Alex valto I want to say that I cannot support if they're all rolled up together I get it but I cannot support Alex beltos continued um appointment there because of his conflict of interest in being the labor attorney for the one of our bargaining groups I've seen him have to pull out of too many serious votes um related to that conflict those are sitting as the infrastructure subcommittee um when we were talking about you know law because the Planning Commission stands as a capital Improvement plan um subcommittee and he's had to recuse on that and I just I just can't let that conflict go and so I can't support the motion with Alex belto continuing to serve okay thank you all right thank you I have um making the motion and I just want to be clear my understanding is these are termed seats and um they go with you know we each I interviewed as many as I could and reviewed all the applications and made my recommendation to the manager and I think council member Martinez did the same thing so that you know that's mine you know he can decide whether he wants I guess to move forward with our proposal or recommendation maybe the way to phrase it is that there is not um a residency requirements that is correct okay and my recommendation does not reside in word two there is a City of Reno residency yes but not within the ward correct so for example my recommendation I feel like we should change that at some point okay but wait a minute so it's okay it's not okay if you're a city council person that's running but it's okay if you're on the Planning Commission no you have to be a senior resident to be on the plane right but I'm just saying like basically we're appointing these people at large shouldn't they if your argument from I don't think we are from right I don't think we are no no no no one's arguing that no but my point is it should be been by the ward they should represent the ward why not well because I I interviewed all the people and chose the person I thought had qualifications um I'll give you an example my appointee um when I first came on Council was Mark Johnson he was in ward two to your point but we redistricted and Mr Johnson was no longer in ward two I reappointed him and so he's now award one so I mean you know we all have to be representative except for me but you guys have to represent your words why wouldn't your Planning Commission have to be the same I mean preferentially collapse let's just call I'm I'm saying again you know what I mean yeah but most of the people I interviewed did not live only I think one person out of all of these people lived in Ward too but then how would they know what's best for their words I'm putting them on the Planning Commission which not only represents my ward but they have to vote on every topic like your point you've made over the years plus one of them goes to the regional Planning Commission they could live in any Ward there too yeah um so yeah I just see that we're doing it both ways well one time the history is one time we had I think six of seven planning Commissioners living in the same ward and that was problematic so we went to this process and there has been some movement of some people pointing you know there's obviously the two at large and there's been some people pointing people out of other you know areas but with two redistrictings coming on such close times exactly it's it's these appointments if you're looking for geographic distribution are very problematic right now we have to see the Planning Commission like they have business to do but I just think it should change if it's that you guys have to be represented by your words so should your plans you know I think that's a fine discussion particularly once we redistrict I really do I don't object to what she's saying but we need to see the Planning Commission I've expressed my um objections for other reasons to that person and um and I had thought about waiting until we redistricted so I could I know and I'll let it go now but yeah I just think it's interesting how you know don't get me going on on this whole that large thing and it's only getting worse and it's really too bad then your whole city should be represented just like you both are making the great argument today yeah right which wasn't um at all considered whenever they're not sort of like they're all screaming about it no no it doesn't matter they we put them in there because supposedly the idea is they know their neighborhoods better and can be a reflection and represent them better right so then when you're out there supporting that we should be supporting it on the planning side too and I would have if we waited for the redistricting so then I would know where my new Ward is and maybe this person is in my new Ward I don't know okay um all right so I think I had a motion in a second all those in favor say aye aye all those opposed a post a motion carries all right where are we at what a day what a day where are we at sorry manamere we're moving on to item H1 city council comments okay starting with you councilman breakfast you know just my concerns about how special events are being managed out in the neighborhoods and for the record okay uh thank you uh in lieu of having a special events coordinator to text when neighbors are texting me um or things I see I have been in communication with my liaison an assistant city manager Edelstein and doing Reno direct but it is really problematic to have this many special events and not have a staff member who is doing it exclusively the the the progress that we had when Miss Hill was doing this job when Mr Fitch was doing this job all those plans it's like they've disappeared into some filing cabinet and it's not being done and it's causing problems I agree thanks so much okay Martinez Mr Martinez nothing from me thank you so much councilman Taylor nothing today councilman Ebert um all right nothing Madam clerk so put that on the record thank you madam mayor we're moving on to item J1 which is closing public comment Damien Cole Damian give us some positive news can I have some positive news something inspirational give us some ideas and inspiration okay informative news how about that okay okay um so uh the reason why I'm here um is because there was a recent article that was put out by this is Reno uh in which uh Mr Thornley you were uh interviews regarding the bidding and consultation process for the the Truckee River path um one comment was made not related to you specifically but um by City staff I don't know if this could be shown here on the screen I went ahead and printed it out uh it mentioned that City officials said however religion has complicated the matter when the property and we're talking about the auto museum uh off of Lake when the property was conveyed from the Redevelopment agency to Harris and easement for the path was reserved the city officials said that easement was created in the same time frame as the fence construction they're referring to the fence that makes a very narrow dangerous bottleneck on that path the fence did not come in after the fact until after the fact and encroach on the path in other words they're saying that uh it this makes no sense at all and I needed to correct the record on this I've written emails about it but I really felt it was important because I'm not sure who the city official is it wasn't specific but they're absolutely wrong this easement was created in the 1970s as part of the the Greenbelt project uh in fact there was a Reno uh Nevada State Journal article that I discovered that mentioned the landowner at the time had promised to dedicate it to the path um so the tracked map on Washoe County which was made in 2015 shows the demarcated path already set into the uh the property here in that dark gray now from that I went ahead and took an overlay from uh Google Maps and the yellow area here that you see the highlighted area is the part which has been lost to the fence it gets in to about 10 feet into the public easement which is 20 feet wide the erosion is supplemental to that enrollment the erosion is barely starting to take out the path um it's gotten bad enough to where there should have been you know riverbed beyond the path it shouldn't be there on the very edge and there have been wooden barriers to try to retain the path and make sure it doesn't fall into the river but as you can see uh we lost about 50 percent of that uh pathway due to encroachment from from the and this was made I'm trying not to take too much time but this was made the the fence was made after the 2016 deed which was signed between Harris and the auto museum and signed by the Reno Redevelopment agency it clearly demarcates specifically in Item B or exhibit B the uh the path uh legal description it goes into extraneous detail about where the path actually exists and it was signed um and surveyed so I'm not sure who in the city thinks that the path was created in 2017 or 16 Arena whatever but at any day if it doesn't really matter the coincidental time of when the path was created the fact is is that they agreed to that 20-foot easement and they built a fence in the middle of it before after during doesn't really matter they did it so that's what's creating the the bottleneck and and by the way the deed says that not the city but Harris is responsible for maintaining and paying for the the upkeep of that path and any debts or dismemberments or any incidents that happen are there responsibilities so they're taking this upon their own legal Peril thank you very much all right thanks Damian Madam clerk all right Madam mayor for the record we did receive 11 additional comments which were General in nature not directly associated with an item or after 4 pm yesterday those have been distributed to the Reno city council there were two items in favor six in opposition and three letters of concern and with that we have no additional public comment and we are looking for a motion to adjourn I'm motion to adjourn all right so I have a motion so the second all those in favor say aye aye all is opposed motion carries unanimously it's the only emotion that I've never seen anyone oppose I'd like to see that at some point all right thanks everyone