Madame Clerk, can we go ahead and get this meeting called to order? >> Madame Clerk, thank you so much. Appreciate it. We're going to get this meeting. >> Good morning, Mr. Vice Mayor. >> Thank you. Are you ready to call the meeting to order? >> We are. Thank you so much. >> All right. Are you good to call the meeting to order? Okay. We're calling the meeting to order at 10:01. >> Perfect. Thank you. We're going to start with the pledge of allegiance. And I think I see our sheriff in the audience today. Uh Sheriff Balum, if you could lead us in the pledge, please. Thank you, sir. Madam Cler, we'll move on to roll call. If you could take role. >> Thank you. Calling roll for Wednesday, March 25th, 2026, Reno City Council meeting. C. Council member Taylor, >> here. >> Council member Dor here. >> Vice Mayor Martinez >> here. Council member Eert >> here. >> Council member Reese >> here. >> Council member Anderson >> here. >> Mayor Shivy >> absent at this time. Mr. Vice Mayor, you do have a quorum of the Reno City Council. >> Great. Thank you so much. We'll start with public comment and then do the proclamations after public comment today. >> Okay. >> Mr. Vice Mayor, our first item today is general public comment. It should be noted for those in attendance 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. Council may not take action upon any matter not agendaized on today's agenda. When you are called on for public comment, please state your name for the record and begin speaking. The timer will begin when you state your name and you will be afforded three minutes. For those participating in chambers in account in accordance with council rules 6.3.11 while in this room please be respectful. Disruptive behavior from audience members like clapping, yelling, whistling, etc. which impede the meeting may result in a warning issued by the presiding officer. If this behavior continues, you may be removed from chambers. If you're an attendee in the Zoom meeting would like to make public comment, please raise your hand at this time. Our first public commenter today is Mike Kesmirski, followed by Terry Brooks, followed by Ray Hopper. >> Morning, Vice Mayor, council members. I'm Mike Esmerki, executive director of Strengthen Our Communities. Um, for those of you who don't know, and I think I've talked to most of you about it, strengthen our communities, a nonprofit that's been here for about two and a half years, building coalitions and developing plans to address some of the community's most complex challenges, when address ultimately strengthen our community. Our top three initiatives are reducing chronic absenteeism in our schools, improving child care access while reducing cost, and ensuring every four-year-old in Wo County gets access to universal prek. You can see those are pretty challenging issues. I would like to thank the city manager and staff for your support on these efforts. It takes a team to take on complex issues and and there's been a lot of work behind the scenes on that. And a special thanks to council member Martinez for his work on our chronic absenteeism efforts and universal prek as we made an extra effort to outreach to the uh Hispanic community. Today I'm here to present to you on behalf of SOC a 2025 starfish coin and that is for your help in addressing some of the mental health challenges of our kids. Your funding of care solus through the use of opioid settlement funds is an innovative way to dramatically improve access times for more than 58,000 kids in Wo County. The data shows that the use of this program will improve access from our kids to the providers from the current six months it is now down to 11 days. And that improvement not only is important for our kids, will undoubtedly save lives. What I have here is the starfish coin, and I'll bring it up to you, vice mayor, in a second, but I want to take a It also comes with a um very special card. And the card, for those of you who don't know the symbol of the starfish, um and the story, I'll briefly go through it. One day, a man was strolling on the beach when he spotted a boy tossing starfish back into the ocean. The man asked, "What are you doing?" The boy responded, "If you throw if you don't throw them back in, they'll die." And the man said, 'Well, don't you realize there are thousands of starfish on the beach? You really can't make a difference. The boy stooped down, picked up another starfish, flung it back into the surf, then said, "I made a difference for that one." But our organization goes one step further. And on the back of this card, you'll read, "Imagine those starfish are kids in school, our parents who can't find ch child care, and instead of one boy, the entire community is on the beach, united in an effort to throw the starfish back into the sea. We can all make a difference together as we strengthen our community." So, that is the purpose of our organization and really the coin. Um and can I present to you? Okay. Sneak up past the concrete barrier. Uh the city of Arena will be recognized in the RGJ um this weekend in one of our ads that will will run as one of one of our seven 2025 starfish coin recipients. So again, a special thanks to you for your efforts in helping us strengthen our community. >> So nice to see you. >> Good to see you, Madam Mayor. >> Good morning. Loving the green tie. It's beautiful. It's >> that time of year, isn't it? >> It is. >> Mr. Vice Mayor, if I may, Mr. Mr. Casmir, thank you so much for being here. It's always good to have you in chambers. At some point in time, we thought you were retiring, but no, you've just doubled down on Reno. So, thank you for that. I know that the work that you're doing is very important uh not only in the various areas where you work on, but it still remains important to all of us here in Reno at the Reno City Council. So, thank you for your continued efforts. Always been a pleasure to work alongside you and with you. And uh I hope your retirement is going better than working every day. Uh, but well, I I know how you are, so I'm guessing you're putting in more hours on this than you did before, which is hard to imagine, but thank you so much, Mike. >> Thank you, Vice Mayor. >> And if there's anything else, I will >> This is beautiful, >> Mr. Kesmirki. I know how special these are to you. Not Not these are very rare cuz you have been the champion of the coin. Am I correct? >> You are correct. Only six years. >> How many years? >> Six for this year. Only six coins will be given out for 2025 >> and the Reno City Council and the city of Reno oversees one of them. >> Well, we are honored and thank you for your service, my friend. Known each other for a long time. >> We have. Thank you for your service. I think you've taken more shots than I have. Well, um, and also I just want to say for your work in the economic development space, you really changed the game um, for so many people, so many businesses, so many companies, and especially for much much better wages. That's that's your legacy, my friend. >> Well, we're we're thrilled to be part of an important team and as was the city council and the staff. So, thank you. >> Well, grateful you're here. So, >> thank you. We have a very special um presentation today. I just want to make sure um because I I know many of you are busy so I want to make sure you're first because you are first. Um many Colonel Malone where are you night >> I I have heard incredible things about you. Can I can I brag a little bit and then you can tell me if this is true. Were you the first w woman to serve in the FBI? >> I was. Thank you. >> Can you believe? Please stand up. Give her a round of applause. >> And you're still working, correct? >> Yes, ma'am. >> You are remarkable. Um I I will tell you, you are highly decorated and you are highly loved in this city. Um, so I'm I'm super honored to meet you and all of your friends here. I want to say thank you for your service. We have a special recognition for you this morning. >> Mayor, it's really about all of my fellow veterans and nominee. Thank you. >> See what a leader. I cannot wait to sit down with you and hear all your incredible stories. Amazing. Um, so I would like What is the exact name of your organization? We are chapter 989, the Vietnam Veterans of America. >> Wow. >> Northern Nevada. >> How special. So, everyone from 989, correct? Please stand. We want to recognize you for your service. Today is a monumental day. Wow. So, K Malone, do you want to come to the podium and let everyone know why today is a monumental day in our country? >> Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, council members, and thank you for our Reno citizens. On the 27th of March, which is Sunday, it's the National Vietnam War Veterans Day across the United States. We are celebrating early because of course Sunday is Sunday and it's Palm Sunday and you all are not meeting. And so we recognize all of the Vietnam veterans who have served throughout the United States around the world and honor them. They're your citizens here. So our chapter, we're 300 members strong. And we bring great hope to veterans. We help in many areas. We help with the DAV, the disabled American veterans. We help with the the veterans state veterans home. We have one of our members who is the chairperson for the advisory committee for the state veterans home. Linda Dickinson. >> Linda, where are you? >> Linda Dickinson was the president of our organization for over four years and she's now the vice president and has had many different roles. John Dickinson, they're both Air Force veterans. John Dickinson is our treasurer who serves as well as our our board chairman. So we have great opportunities to serve and we have so many different people in any service. You didn't have to be in country in Vietnam to be part of this organization. We also have a group the associates for our Vietnam veterans that anyone can join. Doesn't have to be a veteran. If you like working with veterans and helping the community, we have many community partners. We have so many wonderful veterans. I' I'd like you all to stand again, please. Jim Hansen was one of our early founding members of this chapter. Our motto is no generation of veterans will leave another generation of veterans behind or forgotten. So we are here as not only veterans but as citizens of Nevada, citizens of Reno. There were 148 Neadans who were killed in Vietnam and we salute them and their families. We salute the Gold Star family members and we support our young veterans. One of the things with community outreach programs, we work with different veterans groups, different civic organizations. We are fortunate. We sponsor scholarships. We give two scholarships to UNR and two to TMCC this year. They're veterans. They can be veterans. They can be reser. They can be uh still on active service. If they're are students, we are honor them with a scholarship. We also this year recognized 10 different uh community related veterans related organizations with grants. Uh some of them included horsemanship for heroes, included the dental vet program. Uh so we try to recognize and work with our community partners and tell our community we were honored to serve. We believe in the United States of America and it's the 250th anniversary. So, we want to work with all of you to remember the 250 years of our country, its strength, its courage, honor, and commitment. Thank you, Mary. >> You Well, here's what the the thing I want to say. Colonel Malone. Colonel Malone for Congress. >> No. >> Yes. >> No. No. No. I'm just here to show. >> Is she remarkable or what? >> And be a friend and a comrade. >> No. No. Congress. Well, one thing that we would love um your support on is a 250th celebration parade. >> I'd be honored to serve. >> Thank you so much. From the bottom, >> my chapter members, I'm going to commit them. >> Yes, we're going to commit you right now. >> Serve in a parade. We have flags. We have many wonderful things and we have I say 300 members, but we would be honored to be a part of the Reno to recognize the United States of America on its 250th birthday. >> Wow. And I bet they'll walk for you in your campaign for Congress. >> No. >> Anyway, we have Council Member Devin Reese here and um he's going to read something very special because today we are honoring you in remembrance of Sunday. >> Colonel, can we have all of your members come up? >> Come on up. >> Yes. I love it. He gather in guys. >> Madame Mayor, thanks for asking me to read this. I'll just say um I had the privilege of going to Vietnam earlier this year and studying about the history of Vietnam and America's involvement there and it was really uh an incredible experience. Um I'm going to read this on your behalf and then we'll turn it back over to you, Madame Mayor. So March 29th is dedicated as National Vietnam War Veterans Day. It pays tribute to the 9 million Americans who served during the Vietnam War era and to the 58,000 names memorialized on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington DC and to those who never properly recognized when they returned home from the war. And whereas March 29th, 1973 is a symbolic date because it was the day that the US Military Assistance Command was disestablished in Vietnam and the last combat troops departed the country and the last 591 US prisoners of war were released and returned home. Whereas Reno is proud home of the Vietnam Veterans American Chapter 989 with over 300 members who actively serve our community and our veterans. And whereas chapter 989 recently presented two scholarships to two veteran students at TMCC and two veteran students at the University of Nevada, they also provide 10 grants to veterans groups in the Reno area. Thou therefore now I Devon Ree on behalf of Mayor Hillary Elshibi do hereby to declare March 29th, 2026 as Vietnam War Veterans Day in and for the city of Reno encourage all residents to sincerely thank and honor Vietnam veterans for their dedicated service to our nation and community. Congratulations. >> Thank you very much for your >> Susan. We're going to take a picture right up here with everybody. >> You want to get all >> everybody all of our Vietnam veterans who are up here. So what you're doing for this city feel like I'm out. Hi, how are you? How are you? I'm good. We're gonna take a picture. >> Come on. Come on. >> I'm not part of that. >> You're trying You're trying to get out of it. I see you getting red. Come on over. >> Everybody say cheese. >> Look at it. >> I took 50 bazillion photos. >> I take one, two. All right. Ready? One, two three. >> You got it. Well, this isn't my >> Here you go. I owe it all to our team. It's all about the team. >> That's right. >> Thank you. God bless. Okay, guys. >> Move out. Make a hole. >> Be safe, gentlemen and ladies. I have to go and see my favorite sheriff over >> the road. Thank you for the road. All right, Madame Mayor. Our next proclamation this morning is for Menopals. >> Yep. If you'd join us at the podium, that'd be great. >> Can you not >> Next up, >> good morning. Good morning, Mayor Shi. >> So, switching gears. Um because one of the things is health is wealth. >> Health is wealth. >> And as women, I know it's a subject that um a lot like mental health. A lot of people sort of have dismissed it and haven't talked a lot about it. And I love the initiative that you are doing. I think it is impressive. It's so needed. And I love that you're bringing it to cities across the country. Oh yeah. And really >> a movement ladies. I mean you obviously here at the city of Reno there are a lot of women >> and um you know women's health is it has to be a priority on so many levels. You are making I mean you're doing things that people are have just been afraid to talk about for so long and that is menopause. Right. Yeah. And that's just it's just life. And so if we can have support for one another and women going through some of those changes, they're really really difficult. Trust me. At one at one point I was in the grocery store and I had to run out so quickly because I was on fire. And then I ran back in and went to the ice chest. >> Where's the popsicles? So, um, yes. And of course, I'm sharing my story because I think it helps other women realize you're not alone. So, um, Jackie, our wonderful city manager, is going to read the proclamation because we wanted to honor the work that you're doing because it's really, really important to talk about it. Um, for so many so many reasons and how it affects all of us women. Um, but I do think it's important as a community to come together and know you're not alone. So take it away, Jackie. >> Whereas menopause and pmenopause are natural and significant life transitions that affect millions, often bringing physical, emotional, and cognitive changes that can impact workplace performance, confidence, and overhaul overall well-being. And whereas despite its impact, menopause is insufficiently acknowledged in workplace policies and culture resulting in absenteeism, employee disengagement, and a lack of targeted support for those affected. And whereas Menopals through its innovative platform offers a pioneering workplace readiness program that trains human resource professionals and employers to create inclusive, informed, and empathetic workplace environments for individuals experiencing menopause. And whereas employers who partner with Minnopals gain access to evidenceinformed strategies that improve culture and yield measurable benefits including reduced absenteeism and greater employee engagement, retention of senior talent and lower health care cost. And whereas the city of Reno commends Menopals for its leadership and workplace wellness and inclusive policy development that reflect both medical expertise and human empathy. Now therefore, I, Jacqueline L. Bryant, on behalf of Hillary L. She mayor of the city of Reno, Nevada, do hereby declare March 25th, 2026 Menopal's workplace a mayor awareness day. >> Y hold it together, please. >> There we go. >> You want to talk a little bit about what you're doing? >> We would love to. Everyone, first of all, I don't think I even need to introduce you because if you don't know this woman, I don't think you know Reno. This is Deb McCarthy. >> Hello. >> Um, she knows everyone. She's always kind. She's always lending a helping hand. You're doing so much in the community. And I just want to thank you for also taking on something that I think a lot of women do struggle with and um it's hard to talk about. So, I commend your courage and what you're doing. So please um give us >> Okay. So >> the overview. >> First of all, it's a team as we've all talked about. So our leader Raquel, >> can you can you go over to Oh, >> okay. >> Yes. And then Perfect. So we >> First of all, we're a team. >> So our leader Raquel Wriggle, she her story is amazing and tremendous and she took it upon herself to stand up for all the other women and the families that have gone through this. So, I'm going to let Raquel start it off because it's her baby, but we're helping raise the baby. So, go ahead. I love it. Go ahead. >> How do you How do you lead with that? Right. >> Well, first and foremost, I'd just like to thank all of you today, the city of Reno, for today's recognition because today is not just about awareness. This signals leadership. I have notes. I'm sorry. >> Good. No, it's good. It keeps you on point because what? Right. Brain frog menopause. >> I tried really hard to remember it all day. >> Experienced women across the globe, not just the biggest little city, are suffering in silence and at home also the workplace. What shows up as burnout, loss and retention and ROI is menopause. At Menopause, we developed an infrastructure for leadership that provides tools and language to assist leaders with policy change for employees, not just women. We have worked with our advisory team which consists of nurse practitioners, holistic chefs and licensed clinical social workers that provide resources like holistic nutrition courses and more. So employees are not relying on things like Google for information. The statistics are staggering to talk about. So Mayor Maryanne Kramer Kromise is from Philadelphia. She is one of our partners. She's also an RN and our clinical adviser. >> Wow. Hello. I can say I'm more comfortable in the operating room where I normally am. So, this is a new change for me. But, thank you, Raquel. Um, the statistic statistics are staggering. Uh, 1 billion women are in menopause right now and annually 1 million continue with a B with a B. Yes. >> And and 1 million yearly continue to go into that. There one in 10 workers are women that are 55 and over and more than 75% of women work through menopause in their transition going through it as they continue to work. And the cost, this is where we help with the cost. $1.8 billion is lost in missed work days for women because women that are suffering will take an average of eight additional days per year. And then with the added medical cost, that adds up to $26.6 billion annually and globally that is lost in revenue. >> Wow. >> Which to me, I think is just staggering. >> So 20% of the women with severe symptoms seem to decrease their hours, leave their job, and that 13% sometimes decline promotion. I was one of those 13%. So, it's more than just awareness that is needed, which is why I'm so um you know, grateful that there are policies out there that are being proposed. I know uh Rhode Island has started uh the first state to allow uh to provide uh accommodations for women in menopause. So, reasonable accommodations that they have. And then the city of Philadelphia also has added on to their amendment that was just for child birth and for pregnancy. They added per menopause and menopause so that they also are having supportive workplace. And then New York is the one that's interesting for me is the fact that they um are having a policy out there that is hopefully going to get approved that will allow an additional 5 days of um sick time for women suffering with the symptoms since I just mentioned 1.8 billion is being lost with women calling off eight additional days. So that essentially would help. So, I'm very thankful that the city of Reno is willing to take on this um awareness and support. I don't know that much about Reno because I'm from the east coast. If you can't hear from the >> I I could tell a little >> the little little accent, but um I'm going to turn it over to Jeffy who we all know and love. >> Well, thank you, mayor. I am super excited to be standing along these amazing women. We do have one other woman on our team who is on the east coast in Pennsylvania and we don't want to forget her because she's super important with our group. She's also from Pennsylvania, Angela Hmel. She is our HR voice and workplace specialist. Without an HR workplace specialist on our team, we wouldn't even know where to start. So, she just wanted to say a quick few words here. Moments like this matter. When communities and leaders recognize menopause awareness, it sends a powerful message that supporting women's health and well-being is not only a personal issue, but also a workplace and economic issue. I applaud the city of Reno and its leadership for willingness to bring visibility to this conversation. Efforts like this help create workplaces and communities where women can thrive at every stage of their life and careers. So, I want to make sure her because all all of her voices matter just like all of yours matter. So, now I'm going to share my thoughts. I just wanted to get Angela's out. So, just bear with me. I had it my phone like There we go. Okay. So, standing here today in the biggest little city during Women's History Month, we want to close it out with a bang. >> This is more than a moment. It is a movement right here in Reno in the city hall chambers. We are so grateful that our city is recognizing something that has been unspoken for way too long. Menopause in the workplace and beyond. It isn't for us just about awareness. It's about action. Today is the first day we begin reaching out. We reaching out and all of you guys starting right here in Reno, Nevada, the biggest little city to create real change for women in the workplace to support leadership, retention, and understanding at every level. Just as important, this is for the men. We're not leaving you guys out. This is for the men in our lives, our families, our partners, our colleagues who have been working alongside women for so many years without knowing the tools and understanding and truly supporting what's happening because nobody really talked about it. So they're like, ah like they're not quite sure what to do with us and we're not sure what to do because nobody talked about it. But we're going to change that. So together we are changing that. We are opening the conversation. We are building solutions. We are making sure no woman and no family has to navigate this alone again. This is our time. This is our voice and it starts right here in Reno, Nevada today. So, thank you. >> Congratulations. >> We also >> of you >> I hope it's a fan. >> There is a fan. Right. There is a fan. >> I I'm envisioning cooling centers in every city. >> So, we we do have a fan in there. We do have We also partner with Kibby Kenny and um Good Day Chocolate. >> By the way, I I was there. Call him out a little bit because you have a supporter in the room and he is the founder. It's actually Councilman Reese's favorite candy in the world and so he's highly addicted to it. So, I wanted to call him out and that is what we call the Candyman Joe Dutra. He is uh the founder of Kimmy Candy and he's also been um I saw you on I think it was CNBC and so you're making Reno proud and sweet. So thank you. >> Yes. So >> all right. So that's so in >> Councilwoman before this team goes I I just want to thank you for what you're doing. Um >> I was one of those people that it hit really hard and really early. I had no idea what was going on. I was not prepared for this whatsoever because it came so early. Yeah. >> It wasn't until I went to my doctor and you know I was pouring down tears because it's not just hotness that is a characteristic of this >> and he said here fill out this form and so I go and fill out the form and there are 16 symptoms on the form and that's how they generally diagnose it. it's not with a test um because it's all relative to your own hormonal balance >> and I had checked some 14 of 16 surgeries and I said okay and he goes well I think you are imp menopause and I had no clue again it was so early we heard nothing about it um I was unprepared but once I understood uh what was going on and was able to take steps within days my life changed and um it's because of the knowledge of the doctor and and now for you all to be bringing this to our community and helping women that won't be I was baffled for months. I had no idea what was going on with me. So, thank you for what you're doing. >> That gave me goosebumps. So, I'm glad you're doing better. >> Yeah. >> Oh, yeah. Well, it was quite a while ago. >> I have to say one more thing that's inside your little goodie bag. There's a woman personal thing that the men are to share with their women friends. >> Okay. Just letting you know. So when you take it out, you're going to go >> now. Everyone wants to know what's in those bags. >> Um, >> it's from Par. >> I want to hand it over to Councilwoman Anderson. She's actually doing some really incredible work and I don't know how we can follow you but through Siren and it's really amazing um because it really connects other women to again make them feel like they're not alone. And I've been reading um some of her writing and it's really really impressive. I'm going to hand it over to Councilwoman Anderson. >> Oh, thank you. I didn't know that. and I didn't know you were reading. >> Um, what I wanted to talk to you ladies about is first of all, what kind of courage it must take for you to come up here and talk about this because I'm blushing >> while you're sharing this and I'm like the hype man for our women across the country to like face this, you know, head on and deal with it with their families and like really really talk about what's going on. But I wanted to share one really brutal story and it has nothing to do with me although I was a witness. Um, I used to work in a corporate environment in a workforce development company with the smartest, most amazing people. And one of my mentors, um, one of my favorite mentors to this day was a man. And I worked with a a woman who obviously it was about 10 years before I had to start considering that I was also going through this. But she changed. She became much less tolerant of his BS. and he was a very brutal, very smart, very direct man. And most of us dealt with it very well. But there was a time when she just stopped putting up with it. And I remember him having a meeting with me um and he had some commentary about her and he said, you know, women of a certain age, they're just they become incompetent. And it it struck me so hard because I thought, what a brutal and dismissive thing to say of somebody that was so wildly valuable and still is to your company. And so, thank you. Thank you. That that message from him that day made me judge him more, right? But it started me on my plan on how I was going to start, you know, cuz I have two sons and a husband, 25 years in marriage next week. And the only way that you you can succeed in that situation is by being honest and and sharing with people what you're going through and asking them for grace and um once they see it in you because you've pointed out, they'll see it around others and be much more kind. So, thank you so much for putting yourself through this very courageous act and for um just speaking up for women. >> Thank you. Well done. >> Thank you. >> Can we get a >> All right, ladies. Um let's get a quick picture. >> Yeah. Oh, hi. Sorry, Councilwoman Eert. Go ahead. >> Yeah, I just wanted to chime in and just say, you know, there's been a lot of um kind of um almost an attack, I would say, on women's health at a at a um federal level. And um I just want to say thank you for your work in this space and for the reminder that um women's health is a very um broad and complex um you know, subject. And thank you for calling attention to this specific area that um women need specific health care throughout their lives. And um it's not the same as as what men need. We need specific support through um physicians and um maybe outside help, support from family and friends as well. and just thank you for calling attention to that and reminding everyone of the need and the importance of just health care for women and um just continued support for that. Um I think the focus kind of gets um nailed down to one area and we we miss the the the bigger picture. Um, so thanks so much for um just bringing this to light. And I know that I kind of feel like my generation is the first generation that's been really open and talking about these things and going through this together. Um, and I'm just really appreciative to live in a time where we can talk about this openly and and the city of Reno is is recognizing this. So, I want to say thank you to the mayor and and thank you to you all for coming and um just just bringing this to to Reno overall. So, thank you so much. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Well, great job. Um congratulations. Yeah, come let's get a picture really quickly with everyone. >> We have a couple other members of the team that want to get in. >> Yeah. >> So, whenever I um when you were telling me what you were doing, I was surprised whenever I asked you to come and present. I thought you would say no because it's it's got such a very >> um you know stigma attached, right? >> So I want to say thank you for that for being brave. Okay, >> come on. Get in. >> Start over here and then go down the line. >> Shout out. Okay, here we go. >> Perfect. I haven't told you about it. >> Oh, sorry. >> Thank you. >> Thank you all. Congratulations. >> Thank you. >> I had no idea. I'm like, you've been walking around this whole entire >> Madame Clerk, I'm sending it back to you. >> Thank you, Madam Mayor. We're going to go back in order of our opening public comment. We've got Terry Brooks followed by Ray Hopper followed by Bill Shrimp. Terry, good morning. >> Good morning. It's me, Terry Brooks again, and today I'd like to share with you my thoughts on anxiety and what seniors go through. A lot of seniors when they get older wind up with anxiety because of poor health, personal loss or economic insecurity. Such anxiety can then lead to panic or panic disorder and can also lead to a phase of adjustment disorder. Anxiety can be caused by various kinds of disorders such as various kinds of emotional disorders. Anxiety can be caused by phobic disorders or responses that exaggerate anxiety, such as panic disorders. Worrying about problems in our life, such as problems in our health or problems in our finances being threats to our wealth. Problems in our living conditions can lead to panic attacks which can then lead to our fear of more panic attacks which can then lead to obsessive compulsive disorders which can be followed by changes against our obsessive compulsive disorders. That can lead to phobic disorders such as a fear of certain places which can then lead to a need to avoid or escape from such places. or it can lead to a fear of certain situations which can then lead to a need to avoid or escape from such situations. Sometimes when seniors reach a certain age and feel they have no purpose anymore, then they might start asking themselves, "What am I even here for?" It could be that if they find themselves no longer doing anything, then they might see themselves as inferior for not doing anything. One thing I've learned in life is that there's always something to do. Even if it's just writing a poem and coming here to read it to you. I would like to thank you all for listening to me today and I look forward to coming back as something to do that day. >> Terry, >> where are we at? >> This is chapter 29. Just so you know, I've only got 17 more chapters to go. >> Good job. Ray Hopper followed by Bill Shrimp followed by Andre Torres. >> All right. Good morning, Ray. >> How are you doing? >> Thank you. >> Okay. >> This is a tough act to follow. >> No, good. >> I have a overhead I want to show in a couple minutes. Uh, but not quite yet. Um, good morning, mayor and council members. My name is Ray Hopper. I am a Vietnam veteran and I am here representing Help Save the Bees Foundation doing business as the biggest little bee city. On today's agenda is a resolution to contribute $1,000 to our cause. I want to begin with a sincere thank you to Mayor Shivy and Council Member Dair for bringing forward this resolution and for your continued support of Pollinator Health here in Reno. This monetary contribution is greatly appreciated, but even more important is what it represents. It reflects the city's commitment to building a more sustainable, pollinatorfriendly community, something that benefits not just bees, but our gardens, our food systems, and our quality of life. Over the past several years, with the city's partnership, we've made real progress at Valleywood Park. What started as an idea has grown into a living example of habitat restoration with native plantings, educational signage, and a place where public can learn. Through our kids and bees program, we've reached hundreds of children and families, helping them understand the important role pollinators play in our ecosystem. This work happens through collaboration between nonprofits, volunteers, and community partners and city leadership. I'd also like to acknowledge the members of the Biggest Little B city committee who are not able to be here today, and I want to thank them publicly for their dedication and for helping make this work possible. I also want to acknowledge council member Ree for helping open the door for this opportunity and to thank uh both he and council member Dwer council member Dair for showing up and supporting our work on the ground. This truly helps. Mayor Shiv, as you contemplate the as you complete your term, I want to personally thank you for your leadership and your support of efforts like this that help shape Reno's future in a positive and sustainable way. Looking ahead, our World B Day celebration is coming up on May 20th. >> Look at that. World B Day. >> World B Day. May 20th declared by the UN. >> As part of our B City USA commitment, we host this annual event free to the public and to raise public awareness about the importance of pollinators. And we warmly invite all of you and the community to join us. This resolution helps us continue that work and it sends a clear message that Reno values environmental stewardship and communitydriven solutions. So again, thank you for your support and for helping make us make Reno truly the biggest little B city. >> Oh, I love I love that. Um, first of all, do you remember it was many many years ago Sandy Rally? Do you work with Sandy at all anymore? Wasn't it Sandy? Yeah. She came here and she did a presentation. It was very educational. I had I really had no idea um how significant the bee initiative is and it really it really really is. Um how many of you have been stung by a bee? Raise your hand. I'm just curious. Wow. Mr. White, you have not been stung by a bee yet? I did last year for the first time. >> So now I'm trying to find my love for them again. But anyway, um it I just want to say thank you for your service to our country and also to the bee community. And one of the things that Council Member Barice has kind of been pushing um there's a lot of events in our city uh to tie them into the 250th anniversary. So at your event, we hope to be there, but um to tie it into, you know, this special remembrance for our country. Um, and so all of us doing it together and tying in um, you know, the bee communities as well because it's important to our sustainability and our health. Uh, maybe give me one fact uh, that people may not know about bees. >> A good one. >> In its entire lifetime, one honeybee can make 20th one 12th of a teaspoon of honey. >> Wow. Wow. Okay. Wow. Who knew that? >> So, when you when you eat a a teaspoon of honey, it takes 12 bees to make that teaspoon of honey for you. >> That's incredible. Sheriff Bum's back there. I can see him. He's all, "Wow." Um, and you know what else I've been doing? I just wanted to shout out because I I didn't think that it worked. Um, but I suffer from very bad allergies. And so if you're taking local um honey, it really helps with those allergies. >> Absolutely. >> I I was really impressed. So, um another addition to why if I may. >> Yeah. Yeah. And you know, Ray, uh for the last five years, I mean, it's a privilege to donate to you because for the last five years, I have been raising bees um on our property. We have two hives, you know, two stacks. And um what would be really fun uh well and I think I mentioned but last year our >> bears came into our yard and got our honey. So we had no honey that year but um since then we've relocated our bees to a different part of our property and built a electric fence uh very sturdy electric fence not a shaky one. And uh I would love to I note that honey tasting is part of your event. I'd love to donate some honey so you can have some from the middle of Reno. Yeah. Okay. Great. >> All you allergy sufferers, get over there. >> Yes, absolutely. >> Thank you very much. >> Thank you so much. >> Bill Shrimp, followed by Andre Torres, followed by Jamie Chapman. >> Bill, where have you been? >> Where have you been? Bill was a regular for a long time and then I then then >> then I run run into you at certain events and running events and so it's good to see you. >> Absolutely. It's good to be here. I have to say I'm loving the energy in the room today. >> Super positive way to start the day today. Like it's really great with the proclamations and the first couple speakers. So >> yeah. So, um, just to keep with the positive theme, uh, part of the reason I came here today was to say thank you for small things. You guys do a bunch of big stuff. Happens all the time, but some really, really small things. And it happened through the clerk's office, happened through the manager's office, involves Arena police, involves it for something just something so small having to do with the status of Arena direct message. Just a small little thing. And these little things add up. The first guy you guys heard from today talked about the whole starfish thing. Yeah, it adds up. It really does. So, I want to say thank you for doing that. I know it's small stuff, but it matters to those of us who, you know, can't come all the time anymore, unfortunately, but it matters. So, thank you for doing that work. Appreciate it. Uh the other thing I want to talk about is the you're going to talk about neighborhood advisory boards and commissions and stuff like that today. Um in one hand I kind of see it as gosh we lost an opportunity here. Um about a year ago we had to stop it for a bunch of different reasons. Then there was a resolution got it going again. It resolutions are never perfect. They're definitely not. I know today's is a bit of a rework. And the opportunity that was missed was at least in my experience there was no reach out to the people who were serving on boards and commissions to say hey what is working what is not okay what can we do better what you know there's nothing like that so I think that's an opportunity missed and this is an engaged group of people across all of these boards and commissions that serve on these u and the other thing about the NAB specifically there's language in there that says the NABS have to be focused on new development types of projects. Well, in your consent agenda today, you're going to talk about millions of dollars on a sewer project. Okay? And people came to the NAB, to my to our NAB, I a couple months ago, whatever it was, and they would they wanted information on that. What's going on with this? Do we have to hook in? You know, what's this all the all the questions that come about? And so I think that's an opportunity to expand some of the use of the NAP. I think that's probably a good use of the NAP. Not just, hey, somebody's doing a thing that requires a permit that's changing stuff. Okay. So there's some feedback there. The the other thing, and it's in your comments, sometimes for those of us who don't meet in city hall, um nothing against this room, but this isn't a collaborative room. This is a room where people who have to make tough choices sit in a place to make tough choices and then there's the rest of us. It's designed that way. And to me, that's not what an app is. So to do it in remote places, if the people that are there say, "Hey, we need a little more time to finish. Empower those people at that place to make that decision." Yeah, sometimes ending hard at 7:30, it's the way to go. We have to respect time and staff and all that, but throw a little bit of flexibility in there for the people that are kind of running it if we could. So, I wish I could stay all day, but >> Thanks, Bill. Really appreciate a the positivity, but the feedback. I think it's very, very valuable. That's one thing that Jackie is really wanting to um lean into is more engagement and especially council initiatives. And I know that it's been important. Um, so and you're on which nap? >> Uh, word two. >> Two. >> Yep. So I'm the vice chair over there. So >> So pass Councilwoman Der every once in a while. >> Yeah. And I was, if I may, Madam Mayor, I was going to say we're so happy to have Bill. He transitioned from Ward One, which, you know, parts of uh W 2 now encompass. >> Uh, and I brought in several members of the Ward One NAB because this is their area. Um he's been incredibly you know thoughtful and engaged and helpful and I wanted to assure him in there if you wrote read it closely we will be able to uh routinely go to 8:30 now instead of 7:30. We've had to cut our meetings off short several times and it was really rough on people. Um and there is some flexibility I think built in but I'm going to ask Jackie that's if we know in advance it will go longer. But I also agree that in the moment if it's going longer and we have 10 more people than expected, we don't want to send them home uh without them speaking. So I hope that we can give some flexibility to the chair and to um the um the staff with Tyler that are supporting that NAB to make that call in the moment so that and then I do want to support another thing you said, Bill, which was, you know, it makes an awful lot of sense if you're going to change the NAB or any of the boards that you run it by them. that they at least have it on their agenda whether city staff can show up or not to get that feedback so that we can make it even better. So, thanks for being here, Bill. >> Yeah. So, you Thank you guys. I know you're doing a lot of big things today. I saw your agenda, so thank you for taking a minute for the small things. >> Well, Bill, I thought I would see you on the ballot. >> Uh, you know, um, >> next time. >> No, I I thought about it for a minute and, you know, I'm not brave enough for that. >> Yes. Yes, you are. Um, and also will you please tell your daughter? She's an amazing athlete. >> She's a senior this year. It's her last season, so she's >> goes by quick. Well, please tell her we said hello. >> All right. Thank you. Thanks. >> Have a great meeting. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Andre Torres, followed by Jamie Chapman, followed by George Eddie Lorton. >> Hello. >> Thanks for the help this morning. Oh, no worries. Good morning. My name is Andre Torres. Um, I want to thank the city of Reno for supporting Dancing on the River for continuing to believe in events that can bring people to the heart of our city. This is our 13th Dancing on the River. Can you guys believe that? >> No. >> Yeah. And this year, we've dedicated it to those who serve our country and protect our freedoms. But I want to be clear about something. I would love a parade. I keep hearing about this parade. It's phenomenal. I personally explored the possibility of how to make it happen. And I respect what it means for our community. But a parade deserves time. It deserves coordination and strong community partners. that work hasn't come together in time. We're less than a hundred or we're about 100 and so days away from July 4th. So while I personally am not doing a parade, we at Dancing on the River are going to make a strong patriotic event out of it. We're celebrating the 250th founding of our country. We're going to be waving American flags and we're going to have something called the freedom moment at 7:04 p.m. on July 4th. I have some cool stuff. 7:04 p.m. a freedom moment. It's going to be a time where we pause, reflect, honor those who serve and the freedoms that we enjoy. We also want that to grow with spirit. We want it to we want it to resonate with our populace. So I am advocating instead of a parade, we do a veterans art exhibit on the Virginia Street Bridge as part of Dancing on the River. We can come together as a community and see the art that our amazing service members and veterans have put together and reflect upon it and just understand what being an American is all about. I'm looking for sponsors. I'm looking for anybody to help me put this vision together because as you know, Dancing on the River has always been free and it will continue to be free. So, I welcome the chance for next year to work with community partners to do a parade. No problem. But I don't feel that it's the right time to do this year. I would rather we redirect any kind of support from within the community or in the city into making this veteran artifacts. So again, thank you so much to the city of Reno for standing by with this event and helping us create a Fourth of July celebration that is heartfelt, patriotic, and unforgettable. Thank you. >> Wow. Well, I when I met you last time, I was like, you should you're Congress like like Colonel Malone, right? >> My kids are too young. >> Thank you. I want to say thank you. Um and here's what I would say and I really want I would like the council to support this. I think that they do because it's 250th um it is a rare opportunity and we should be supporting as many events that we know um that are the ones that really bring people together that they've already kind of been in motion. Yours is one of those. Dancing in the street is one of those. I think it's important that the city help fund those this year. Um I know they're they're killing me over here. They're going to be so angry. Um, but I think that we should be your partners in this and get you um the resources that you need, the financial um, you know, sponsorship that you need. I I see Jamie out there pounding the pavement every single day for uh, DTS, right? And I think we tie it in this year to the 250th. We have an events um, fund. And I know this has been really important to Jackie. The last meeting we had, she said, "You guys, I'm excited. What do you want to And so we were all talking about this, but I think it's important getting behind you guys. I would just say this. I watched Miss Turney throw a Veterans Day parade in a matter of 10 days. And so we can make it happen. We can do both. And I would um I think actually you could do it at desk along with your event. Doesn't have to be a big parade, a small parade. You saw the veterans here. It's important we celebrate this together for our community. And um and and that's why I'm saying Devon's idea was to support the community events and tie them into the 250th celebration. So in your messaging, come out, be a part of your community in your country. That was his big message. And I know Councilwoman Taylor has been a a big advocate and Brandy's been a big advocate and so is Miguel. Actually, everyone up here when I when I look at all of you. So we want to do what we can to support you. We'll put it on the next agenda so we can allocate special events funding for everyone coming together from a parade to dancing on the bridge to dancing in Midtown. And um I know the sheriff behind will be joining because that's what he does. He loves to dance. We're wedding crashers. We we've done that before and I've seen him dance. Remember that. >> So he'll be there. >> You know we have a free class. >> I'll need it. >> We're ready. >> I'm I'm gonna come, too. Anyway, thank you. >> Thank you. Thank you, mayor. >> So, please let us know what you need. I'm gonna have our staff get with you um and figure out how we make it all come together with the city because the city hasn't jumped on board yet uh with anyone initiative and I think these are really good initiatives from a parade to the bridge to Midtown. >> Thank you, mayor. I do have one thing I would like to add. >> Yes, please. >> Um for me, the message is unity for a community. If it if it it takes several groups to be able to bring this together 250 years ago, our forefathers and mothers decided to do this. And this is an amazing celebration. I'll work with whoever we need to. Thank you. >> I I love it. And I bet you have you been to D you've been on the bridge dancing down there. >> Oh yeah. >> Oh yeah. >> Yeah. >> We haven't seen you. >> See it. I'm not a good dancer. >> Look, we have free classes. >> I'm a good spec. I'm a good spectator. I've watched I watched you guys doing the um what? Electric slide. >> Oh yeah. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I've watched I've watched >> when I started I didn't I had two left feet and they were both just kind of attached by robot legs. >> But you know what this is what it's all about is coming together as a community for free because at the end of the day it doesn't matter who you are, where you came from, what money you have, you can still have a good time in our community. Thank you. >> That's fantastic. Thank you so much. I love it. Jamie Chapman, followed by George Eddie Lorton, followed by Tasha Holloway. >> Hello, I'm Jamie Chapman from Midtown Reno. I first I hope to see everybody here at Dancing in the Streets. That would be great on July 11th. Um, but I wanted to share uh take a moment to share a few updates on the momentum happening in Midtown and how we're continuing to support small businesses, community vibrancy, and economic activity. I'm excited to let you know that Midtown was awarded two different grants from Main Street of America this year. One of those grants will be focusing on starting a Midtown art matching grant program that'll be available for all of the Midtown business members and we'll be launching next month. As a part of that project, we are currently building the Midtown Art Committee which will help d um guide the direction of public art and select pieces that will be installed throughout Midtown. If anyone here is interested in being a part of that, we invite you to apply to be a part of the Midtown Art Committee. Those applications are open now. The second grant that we received focuses on creating artistic wayfinding signage that we will be putting through Midtown. That project will start later this year. But both of these projects are really about continuing to invest in what makes Midtown unique and creating an experience that supports our businesses and community. Now, I also wanted to talk on the Title 18 conversation around live entertainment. Midtown is one of the areas where this balance is most visible. We have increasing residential um density alongside small businesses that rely heavily on the energy activation and foot traffic to succeed. From what we're hearing from our business community, the current conditional use permit process can be a uh creates real barriers and especially for small businesses. The cost, complexity, and lack of consistency make it difficult to navigate and can unintentionally limit activation areas that are it's meant to support. At the same time, we understand the importance of addressing noise concerns and being a good neighbor. What we're hearing consistently is that is not that businesses don't want regulation, but that we want clearer, more consistent, and more accessible standards along with enforcement that focuses on the bad actors rather than barriers for everyone. Events like Dancing in the Streets are a great example of what thoughtful, well-managed activation can look like. We operate under a special event permit and work closely with the city, RPD, um, fire to ensure safety coordination and a positive experience for both businesses and residents. These events are also really expensive to produce, as you've heard. And even small adjustments like allowing music to continue until 11 p.m. instead of 10 p.m. can make a meaningful meaningful difference on the participating businesses, vendors, um, and overall event success. So, I just wanted to that was it. Appreciate the city for continuing to engage with the community and we look forward to this being a part of this conversation as it does go move forward. >> Thank you. >> Jamie, can I just ask a couple questions since you're with us today? Yeah. >> Um, >> your event with Dancing in the Streets is July 11th. >> Yes. 7-Eleven. >> 7-Eleven. I love that. Um, free slurpies for everybody. >> I'm trying. Do you have a connection to 7-Eleven? I'm trying to make that happen. >> Let's talk. I love that. Wouldn't it be fun? >> It would be so cool. Um, what what is the cost? Cuz I came to the event at the Reno Public Market a couple weekends ago. Phenomenally successful event. You were raising money for uh the event in July on 7-Eleven. Um, what what is the cost? >> I think the total budget for Dancing in the Streets for the year projected is 107,000. And that's to pay for artist talent art whatever all the >> Yeah. So, okay. So, Dancing in the Streets works kind of like the uh Bernie man is how I describe it because most people understand that where Midtown's the org and so we are paying for things like the permit, the uh security ports, all of the logistical things and then each stage is a their own organization and we hope to one day be able to fund that, but they uh create their own funding and Midtown runs a sponsorship deck that they send out. We do all of the deliverables that they get for their sponsors to pay for their stages, but they are responsible for getting those sponsorships. >> And last year the city did inind you. Uh >> yeah, it was I think 40% of our permitting fees, which I want to say was around 10,000, and I think our permit was 25,000. >> Okay. Look, I think what you've heard from this council consistently is our desire to support events in the community. Um it's of course a difficult challenging space because there's legacy events, there's new events, there's smaller events and at the end of the day my goal is to see that we participate as fully as possible with dancing with the streets. So we're going to just have those conversations at this dis but perhaps you and I can find time with my staff to just make sure I understand all the numbers what you're looking for in terms of support what you've already gotten because it sounds like you got some grants. 9,000. We're at 9,000 right now for community funding, which is huge, right? Incredible. The community donating >> a lot of buy in from them. But it sounded like you also got some grants. >> Oh, yeah. The grants are not for dancing in the streets. >> It's part of Midtown. >> Art matching grant that we're doing and then uh artistic wayfinding signs that'll go throughout Midtown. So, it supports the small businesses, but not the events. >> Well, we're going to try and figure out a path. >> Cool. I appreciate that. Thank you. Thanks S. Thank you, Jamie, so much. Jackie is gonna come out and dance this year. I've never seen you dance. Jackie, >> can you dance? >> Uh, that's probably >> I think I bet you could line dance. >> I bet you could line dance. And they're free. >> I see you with a cowboy hat on. I know you like a cowboy hat. >> All different types of dancing. Like >> I love it. She likes a cowboy hat. I do know that. >> We'll have country. >> There you go. I love it. >> Okay. Thank you. >> All right. George Eddie Lorton, followed by Tasha Holloway and Neil Jordan, followed by Britney Aila. >> Hi. >> Good morning. >> How are you? My name is George Eddie Lorton. How are you today? Nice seeing everybody. Well, we ended up um I'm glad to hear more about the parade we've been working on a couple months now. And uh I was thinking about it earlier in the year, too, just because I want to make sure we had one. So, it would be appreciated with cityort support and I'm hoping everybody's on board. So, I just want to make sure that I'm not timed out because they had a 90-day period. So, would you promise me that, Hillary? That >> they won't time me out? >> No. >> Okay. >> We like I said, >> yes, >> I I want to give Ashley Turney major props. She made it happen within 10 days. And it was I actually thought it was the best one we've ever had. She had M out there. Yep. >> I people loved the um what do we call those trucks? They're >> the atmosphere people there. >> Big these big trucks and people were rooting them on and it was amazing. It was amazing. So I know it can be done. >> Yep. And you know I've done a lot of things. I don't spend my time on how not to get it done. I spend it on how to get it done. So I think it'll be easy enough. We have you know over 90 days to get this thing done. It'll be easy. And if I have to finance it self finance it I will. I'd appreciate the council's help. So, I'd like a commitment from you if everybody's on board with it. Like I said, I was 14 when the 200th happened and then at 250 I'm I'm 64 years old. I doubt if I'll make another one. So, it'd be a great way for our community and I know last week you guys got busy. There's a lot going on in our city and I applaud you for that. It's it's been stressful, I'm sure. But now, if we can move forward with this parade, I'd love it. And I uh called Aquaya to try to get a permit process going. And I talked to her before because I wasn't sure what the council was going to do yet. And I called like on Monday. I still haven't got a call back. So if I could talk to someone in regards to having this permit or if the city's going to end up helping me and we don't need the permit, whatever's going on, I just want to make sure and get that in the move so we can make sure we're not stuck without a permit or there's money issues and it doesn't happen. I'm going to make sure it happens. Like there's others doing events and they don't seem to want to do it because it could be a competing event. But I think the more the marrier at this time of year. I think it'll help everybody's events. It'll bring everyone down for different things as where this is the one time parade. Everybody does it. Trucky's doing it. All our surrounding areas are doing it. So I think Reno needs one. So if you could help us, I'd appreciate it from everyone. And even if I have to put money in, I don't have a problem at all. I'll do what it takes so we can move forward with this, bring some unity to our town and include everybody. So, if we can get our little groups, it would be wonderful. So, >> um Rachel is typically in charge of that. I don't know Kayla. Um I'm going to ask our city manager who who's the best person, Rachel? >> It's probably there's a couple of different groups, but why don't you leave your contact information with the clerk and then we'll reach out to you. >> Okay. And it would be great to get Midtown, your group, your group, everyone together. We should all be celebrating this together and we should and I know this council is supportive. They want to support our country and they want to support our community. >> I love it. And it'll bring us together. We need it right now, I think. And you know, things are divided. But another great thing I like about it is, you know, we don't have to do it in the day if people don't want if they're too hot. We could do it around dusk maybe and or before that and then people can still hang out for the fireworks afterward. You know, maybe we could talk to the Jave Resort cuz some of these floats don't have lighting and stuff. So, they could park them overnight, go get them the next day. But there's always problems. It's finding solutions and that's where you know what we could work on. So, I thank you for the time. I appreciate it. >> All right. Thank you. >> Thank you so much. Tasha Holloway and Neil Jordan, followed by Britney Aila, followed by Kendra Costalei. You >> putting on a parade. >> Thank you. Good morning, madame. Madame Mayor, um, Vice Mayor Martinez, council members Noma Jordan for the record, executive director of the Downtown Reno Partnership. We're here just very briefly to give a quick update as a follow-up to, uh, when I came before you a couple weeks ago for a presentation. A number of you had asked about a um kind of a scavenger hunt or a bingo type style game for the bowlers and beyond for different events downtown. And I alluded that I had some information, but I didn't have it all. So, I'm going to turn it over to Tasha who has great updates uh to give you all today. >> Good morning, everybody. Tasha Holloway. I'm here representing Visit Reno Tahoe today. Um, as we know, the Bowlers are so important to our destination. And so, every time they're here, we're trying to come up with new ways, new things to give back. And the big thing for them has always been, what about discounts? Remember when we used to do coupon books, things like that. So, our team this year came up with, thanks to Jamie Chapman actually with Midtown, she introduced us to uh proxy mapping, which is basically a digital way to it, it could be used for many purposes, but this one we used for uh local business discounts. So, we've been working with Courtney Meredith and her team at Design on Edge to communicate with businesses in all of Wo County to provide discounts for our bowlers. So, we're just talking Hello. We're just talking about bowlers today, but um this will be a program that's in place for all of our convention attendees coming in. The idea is you're using it just like you would a Google map and you can go you can filter by dining, uh shopping, um wellness, activities, things like that, and the businesses have have provided their discounts. They can access us them on there. But the cool thing about it too is we can actually add in points of interest. So I know part of the conversation was scavenger hunt. What about art? What about different, you know, important pieces around the destination? So, we have things in there like the city, the Reno Arch. We have um Sparks Marinas in there. We have, you know, different um sculptures that we have around town. So, it's so easy to use on the back end. We can add anything. We're collaborative with our community partners as well. DRP has been phenomenal in all of our efforts. Um, so it's really exciting to share and I wanted to share with you since we kicked this off with USBC, this would have been March 14th, we have over 60 participating businesses with discounts. Um, that includes, like I said, points of interest in all of Reno, Sparks, and Tahoe. And then we've had over 2,000 map point clicks with 943 unique viewers. So, this is unique viewers from USBC checking into it, looking around the maps, being able to see what's out there. So, we're excited. Scavenger hunts are also a possibility. We didn't want to do it with the Bowlers because it's such a big group and it's such a long period of time, but say if we have other groups we want to do special activities with, we can actually brand the map as well. So, we've done that for the Bowlers, too. So, we're really really excited about this program and um hope we can continue to work with the community on adding pieces to it. Yeah, that's amazing. Love it. >> Can you want to see? >> Oh, and I have Yes, you should all have as well. >> This is it. >> Yes. So, you can scan that QR code to actually get access directly to the map. Yes. >> No, that's awesome. >> Um, and you did this at the DRP, too. >> We did it. Uh, the RCBA was the main um component of it, but it ties right into the uh initiatives and objectives of having an award. if you hit three businesses, you get a certain something if you check off so many things on on the bingo card or the scavenger hunt list. So, the platform is there. I just wasn't able to speak fully to it when I was here the last time. Uh Tasha is the expert behind all of that, but we collaborate on all those things. >> Absolutely. >> That's so good. Um I under RDA, we can talk about it, but I do want everyone to know and I understand um ACM attorney, do you want to come up here? I've been mentioning you a lot. You want to come up? Um, I have never heard the bowlers so thrilled and excited to be in Reno. I want to commend the collaboration that happened between the city, the DRP. Am I correct? I hear that you had a lot to do with coordination of downtown. Is that correct? I I want you guys to talk about it because it was it was the talk of the whole event and I'm really proud that all of you guys came together. It made such a I've never seen it like that. It so it goes to show me that when we're working together, everything can happen. Um but each of you played a really really big role and they they were just so impressed with Reno. So you need to understand um that your efforts have just knocked it out of the park. Just out of the park. >> Yes, we all like working together. It does make such a difference. And to hear their feedback and see what can we do and we live in a digital age. Come on. You know, like let's do these programs that are so easy to use that gives them exactly what they're looking forward to. So yes. >> You want to talk about safety? How you what you did? >> Sure. Ashley, Attorney, assistant city manager for the record. Thank you, Madame Mayor, Vice Mayor, and council. We've been working very closely with multiple stakeholders that are very invested in our downtown CP. Uh we've actually been having bi-weekly meetings for about two months now in collaboration with the sheriff's department, Reno Police Department, RSCBA, the DRP, our maintenance and operations department, our parks and recck department. Um the I'm trying to think, I'm going around the table mentally. Um obviously our partners over at the row, we all have a vested interest. Uh we know that RSCBA does such a great job of getting people here and our focus really is the experience that they have once they are here. And so this was something that all the partners came together and said, "What can we do to ensure that these 55,000 people who will be in our community over the next four months have not only a great experience while they're here, but I want them to come back." And so the experience they have while they are on the ground, the interaction they're having with our public safety, our first responders, uh that's something that really makes a big difference in their experience. So we've made sure that between partnerships with the DRP, our maintenance and ops teams of creating custom signs so they felt welcome when they came in, working with RSCBA to ensure that we have um businesses that are represented in our downtown core and our fourth street brewery district. really making sure that people see the real Reno and have an opportunity to come back and visit us. So, it's been a concerted effort and all hands on deck. So, we're grateful for the support from this body because we know that that message was heard loud and clear when we had the contracts come before us. So, we've really spent a lot of time and energy in ensuring that the experience is one that we're really proud of. Okay, that's awesome because I don't talk to Jackie on the weekends unless something unfortunate has happened. And I called her and I knew and I I kind of hesitated to call you because I knew that you was going to make your heart drop cuz when she calls me my heart drops, you know, over a weekend because I tried to give her a couple days rest and I she picked up the phone. What's wrong? >> And I said, you're not going to believe this. I said, this is all positive news. I want to tell you about the team. I want to tell you about the DRP. I want to tell you about the row. I wanted to tell you about Reno Tahoe um the RCBA and she really sang your praises so you need to know that um it was very much recognized >> and she was very happy that I wasn't calling to give her bad news but I have never seen anything um or you know just USBC was just glowing so I wanted you guys to know. >> Thank you. We do know that's a tall order so uh happy to fill it when we can. Good job. All right, girls. Thanks, >> Madam Mayor. Yes. >> Do you mind if I ladies really quick? Sorry. >> Would you mind um working with my team to set up a meeting maybe in 3 months and so we can review the data and just um so we can learn >> what you guys go through, what works, what doesn't work. And then my vision um and I know it originally started with Miss Eert is that we would be able to do something like this but also for locals bringing them in um into downtown and giving them credit or whatever you know whatever it is. Is it g does it geollocate when somebody visit visits a business or do they have to go in and manually say I was here? There are a few different ways to do it. The way we have it right now for the bowlers is they would have to manually check in. However, anybody using the map, and it's not an app, which I think is great, too. Um, when they go in there on the backside, we can see where the phone origin is. So, we know where they've come from when they're using it, but we don't always know exactly how they're connected or how many places they've visited. >> Okay. So, you can tell who's purposefully engaging, but and then you can tell traffic patterns. >> Yep. Yes. And there are ways to do it. Like I said, for this one, it's pretty general um because there's so many bowlers and it's such a long period of time. But as we keep getting into this program, we can really hone in on a little bit more. As Noma had just mentioned, um there are ways that they can actually check in where they'll have to. It's more of a requirement. And then from there, we can get a little more data as well. >> Okay. Well, thank you for this good news. >> Thank you. Of course. Thank you. All right, Madame Mayor. Moving on to Britney Aila followed by Kendra Costalei. Hi, thank you for letting us talk today. Uh, my name is Britney Ava. I am a parent of two Wo County School District students. They are on a field trip right now to the city hall. Um, >> come on up. >> They wanted to be on TV. >> You on TV. I don't know how many people watch it, but maybe one upstairs. Our our team upstairs. Um, hi. Tell us who you are. >> Um, so I'm also a teaching associate professor at UNR of psychology and I'm here as a co-leader of the wait until 8th movement. Um, so wait until 8 Reno Sparks has recently come to our community. Um, and I'm here to talk about a free documentary screening we have coming up on April 14th from 5:30 to 7:30 um, at HUG High School. It will be moderated by um Sarah John's of KTVN2 um with a discussion afterwards. Um we're looking at kind of student mental health, children's mental health and screen time. Um and so we're trying to put on a documentary. It's free to the public so that they can come and be aware of what's going on um and be involved in some discussions and form a sense of community around the space. Um child care and dinner is provided for free as well. Um, and registration is required by April 9th and you can register on our Reno uh wait until 8th Reno Sparks Instagram page or you can email us at wait until 8th renosparks@gmail.com. The documentary just follows students from elementary school through high school and parents and families and talks about what screen time is really like in the world today because obviously we all know it's very different from when we grew up. um and it follows what to do and how to start kind of a movement of getting students um and children interacting with screens. Wait until 8th is an organization where we try to take pledges to wait until at least 8th grade for unrestricted smartphone use and looking for different alternatives that we can give our um students. >> Wow. Wait. Okay. Again, when is it? >> It is April 14th. >> Okay. A and where? >> Uh 5:30 to 7:30 at HUG High School. >> Okay. All right. Um, that's fantastic. Are you watching the the court proceedings going on right now? >> I have been following them. >> Yes. I I sort of equated like cigarettes and seat belts, >> right? There should be labels or some initiative and guidance and um but it's fascinating to watch. It'll be interesting to see how they rule. >> They just ruled yesterday meta. So >> Oh, >> yeah. >> Wow. Wow. >> Forced them to pay $375 million. >> Wow. >> Coming to 49 states. >> Coming to 49 states. I love it. Ry's paying attention, too. I have to put myself on a content diet because then I will scroll too much. >> We have restrictions obviously in our household. >> Good. Okay. What's your name? >> Lucas Aba. >> Lucas. Nice to meet you. What's your name? >> Ben. >> Ben. Nice to meet you both. Well, thank you for coming. is it's your spring break right? >> Yes. >> What a way to spend it. >> I know. >> Life of a >> kids are probably at the beach and they're at city hall. >> They have a birthday party right after this. >> Okay, good. All right. See, it's not all boring. All right. Thanks you guys. Great job. I'm glad. Keep coming. Keep telling the community. It's It's really important. >> Yeah, we're trying to put on more. We already did one a while ago um at Colin Ranch and so we're going to keep trying to put these on. >> I didn't want you to know that. So, please make sure you reach out to my office. I think it's really important what you're doing. >> Awesome. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Kendra Costalei, followed by Christine Calagher, followed by Nick Shar. >> Kendra. >> Hi. >> As a woman of a certain age, I'm feeling very seen today. >> I know. And you look beautiful. And I knew Kendra way before politics. Many, many years. You look great. >> Thank you. So do you. >> Go ahead. All right, mayor and council. I'm Kendra Costalei with WM. Uh, and I'd like to start by thanking you, uh, city manager Bryant, Suzanne Gronman, Cynthia Sparza, Roberto, Lara, and the parks and streets departments for continuing to work closely with us to provide the best service possible to the community. I am here today to provide additional clarification about the April 1 rate change for both commercial and residential customers. As you know, under the franchise agreement, WM may only apply one adjustment per year. It's based on the US consumer price index for garbage and trash. And this year, the CPI was 5.27%. Fuel, steel, or other required supplies may see major inflation swings, but rates stay locked for the entire year. Separately, the franchise fee moved from 8 to 14%. When you combine the CPI adjustment with the city's uh fee increase, the overall impact to customers is just a little over 11%. So given the complexity of commercial rates, I won't break that down today, but for a typical household with the largest 96.96 service level, this comes to about $142 per month. Smaller service levels will see lower increases. Senior and incomerestricted rates are available for qualified residents who can apply at our customer service desk at 100 100 Basser Street in Reno. More details are included in the next bill insert. Customer service can be reached at 775-3298822. >> Reno households receive four transfer station drop offs per year and 20 extra waste stickers for curbside collection. WM also provides substantial services directly to the city, including waste collection at public buildings and parks, five cleanup bins per ward to support spring and fall cleanups, transfer station, and landfill access. And together, these services are valued at more than 2.5 million annually. Outside of the agreement, WM offers HHW vouchers. That's household hazardous waste vouchers each July for the disposal of up to 50 pounds of material without charge. Free dump days at Lockwood Landfill are a residential program and accounts are not required. This year's dates are April 16th through the 25th. WM is currently working with Reno Fire Department on their fire fuels mitigation efforts by donating one bin for every two funded by a state farm grant. And these programs help keep neighborhoods clean, reduce illegal dumping, and give residents flexible, lowcost disposal options. These are services many cities do not receive as part of their base franchise, and they directly support Reno's goals of having a clean and safe community. Thank you for your time and your commitment to the open communication with our community. >> I'll just flip this over. >> Kenda, good job. Okay. And I bet everyone goes, "Oh, I know you're from channel 8." >> Yeah. Well, some it's been a long time. >> I know, but a long time, >> but I I've seen it with my sister, too. So, I know they do it. >> I know they do it. So, it's just kind of fun to always see a familiar face. >> I have this job because of your sister, you know. Talk about >> Isn't that funny? That's how Reno is small. >> All right, Kenda. Great job. >> Thank you. Christine Calagher followed by Nick Shakar followed by Stephen White. >> Good morning everyone. I believe it's still morning anyway. We've still got time for it to be morning. Uh good to see you madame mayor um and distinguished council council members. My name is Christine Calagher and I serve as the executive or I'm sorry assistant director of the Kenny Gwyn Center for Policy Priorities and I'm also the very proud president of the board of Truckucky Meadows Tomorrow. Now, I know it's no secret to anyone in this room, but whether you're a community member or a decision maker, making decisions is not an exact science. Oftent times, we find ourselves relying on our senses, as we should, what our eyes see, our ears hear, and even what our guts sense about what is going on in our community. Um, oftent times, um, we also listen to stories like we've listened to all morning from community members telling us what their experiences are. But sometimes what is missing when we're coming to the table together is a shared sense of facts and shared data. And that's the exact gap that Truckucky uh Truckucky Meadows Tomorrow um stands in. So TMT tracks data on quality of life across the region. And that data as as you likely know tells a very clear story about the challenges we face as well as the progress we're making. So, I'll just be very brief and share a couple of data points from our data portal uh as of this morning. So, 51.1% of Reno renters are spending more than 30% of their income on rent, which of course, as you know, signals that about half of our neighbors are excessively costbururdened when it comes to their housing needs. And of course in economic stability about a third of our households in this region fall into the Alice category, meaning they're asset limited, income constrained, but employed. Uh so they're working but still struggling to afford basic necessities. And finally, in the realm of community well-being, indicators on issues like homelessness, health care access, and public safety remind us that growth doesn't always guarantee a high quality of life. And so while these challenges are real, the power of data is that it doesn't just identify the problems, but it helps us identify solutions. And when we look closely at the data in the Truckucky Meadows, we do see encouraging signs like growth in the number of subsidized housing units over time, strong labor force participation rates and job growth, and also increased collaboration across government, nonprofits, and the private sector to improve health, education, and community well-being. So in other words, uh the data uh shows us that while these challenges are very real and very felt by our senses and our stories, we also have the ability to come together around shared facts to find solutions. So in that spirit, I would like to turn things over to TMT's executive director, Nick Cher, who is going to guide you on how we can better collaborate with you uh to bring these shared facts to the table. Thank you so much. >> I love it. Nick, you're growing up. >> I am. >> I love it. I love it. It's so good to see you. I remember. I mean, we've been working with you for many, many, many years. And you were Well, you're still very young, but you were really, really young. Remember you was just >> I do remember. I was terrified the very first time I was here. >> This is amazing. Okay, take it away. Good morning, Mayor Shivi, Vice Mayor Martinez, Manager Bryant, and the members of the Reno City Council. Well, first I just want to say thank you for the opportunity to be here in my various roles. As you've alluded to, Mayor Shivi, I've had an opportunity to work with many of the elected officials, with council members, and with your staff on a variety of projects over the year. But I actually want to start, I'm supposed to talk about Truckucky Meadows tomorrow, but just on a very quick personal note. So several weeks ago, my mom came here to give a public comment and had collaborated with council member Martinez on the Grand Canyon sidewalk project. So I dropped her off at the city hall. She was a little nervous to be here. And then actually there was a city employee who drove her home because I had a busy day that day and I spoke to her that afternoon and she was just elated and she felt that you gave her such kindness and such patience. So that really means a lot to me personally and I wanted to make a note of that. So, thank you for that and especially to you, Council Member Martinez. But I'm here to talk about >> Just Hold on one second. Who can I don't know if you can if they'd let you do it. This city employee. I mean, it speaks volumes to the customer service, the care that comes out of this building. Jackie, are you proud? >> I am. >> She's very proud. I love it. >> I don't know the name of the city employee, but my mom was in good hands with the team. >> See, I love it. But thank you so much. to tell your mom thank you. >> Yeah, she's excited for sidewalks in the neighborhood. >> And I I'm very lucky to have I couldn't have asked for a better board president with Christine serving with Treky Meadows tomorrow. And I have another thank you in order. And I want to thank you for your past sponsorship of our community progress report. And I know many of you have seen this before, but the report is really a snapshot on how we're doing in the community. And I'll put one thing up on the screen where you've been a past supporter before. So, we track so many different data points, but here on our civic and neighborhood engagement, it was sponsored by the city of Reno where there's some opportunities about how you can get involved. And it is tough for me to talk about everything that Treky Meadows Tomorrow does in a short public comment. But what I did want to share is that we really exist to be that bridge between what are the things that matter most in the community and then how are we actually doing, what's really happening. I think when you are making decisions as elected officials, when you're working with your teams, it can be very tough to sometimes know what are the real numbers, what are the data sources, and that's where Truckucky Meadows Tomorrow comes in. I love being here because I do believe that you can make the greatest impact at the local level. That's why I'm in this community. I believe that we can make positive changes together and we can do so in a smarter fashion through data. And if this is something that resonates with all of you, I would love the opportunity to maybe give a deeper presentation about some of the ways we can work together. We track 500 different indicators. Some of them can be broken down by zip code. We can get as granular as census track as well. So just one idea of where maybe Truckucky Meadows Tomorrow could come in is with doing profiles on each of the wards looking at graduation rates, crime, healthcare, all sorts of other things and cross indicator analysis. So, we track a lot of data, but we're also not limited to what we currently have. We do custom data projects as well. We're in the process of uh finalizing the one Truckucky River dashboard that will show all the vital signs for the Truckucky River. So, in summary, it's great to be here. I would love the opportunity to collaborate, share some of the data, and I just want to share one final thing. Our data is vetted by a group of data professionals to make sure everything is always sound. and we have one of your team members, Carissa Bradley, who is on our data advisory group, and she's been wonderful to work with. >> She's fantastic. That's awesome. Okay, so here's what I'm going to challenge you with that. You're going to come back. You're going to give a presentation on um some of the most fascinating data points in our community and uh we'll work on that. But like something that are it's going to knock our socks off. I think the data is so important to decision making and what we do and I it just and you guys I mean how long has this been going? Five years. >> We've been around for more than 35 years. >> 35. Well, I I didn't know it until I think it was Kylie Row. >> Kylie Row that sort of launched it. I think it's really impressive and we can all make better decisions locally with your help. So, I I'd love to see a presentation on exactly how we can do that. I don't feel like we use you enough. I'm glad the city um is working with you in some in this capacity, but I just feel like we can we can really make a difference if we come together. So, >> absolutely. And I would like to ask all of you to think about what are those areas what are those data points that you wish you knew no you know you knew more about in our community. I imagine there's probably things on the wish list of if only I knew about this. That's where we come in. >> I love that. Well, we could take a a survey when you're here. How's that? We'll put a presentation on. It's gonna >> it's going to be fantastic. Okay. And so I did find out >> who this employee is. This is no surprise because this woman has dedicate How long has she been here? 20 maybe 25 years. >> Over 20 years. She is remarkable. She Everyone loves this person and you can te clearly see why. She went out of her way to take your mom home. >> Mhm. No one knew about this, but we should all be super grateful to the one and only. Guess who it is. Brandy, do you have any guesses? Miguel? No. Kathleen? >> Jackie? >> I don't know. >> Megan? >> No. >> Carl? John? >> Carrie Kosski? >> Of course. >> Of course. Right. So, Carrie, I don't know if she's watching, but everyone give her a big round of applause. She made your mom's day. You know what? If she had to walk home or something would have happened and that's how you take care of a community. So, absolutely. >> I Yeah, that's impressive. Now she's embarrassed. I know she is up there. Her face is red and she's very embarrassed, but we need to recognize that. >> So, thank you. All right, we'll be in touch. >> Great. Thank you, Mayor Stevie. Steven White, followed by Sean Sullivan via Zoom, followed by Morton Holm. >> Hello. >> What I was gonna say? >> Bring arts to the park. >> Good morning, mayor and city council members. Um, I've done pretty much everything I can do. You know, I've won federal court rulings. I've passed state legislation. I've gotten your artist codes written here in Reno. I spent the last 24 years hassling the city government trying to bring beauty to, you know, to the world, trying to bring opportunities to artists in your community. Way up in the high mountains rock of the Rocky Mountains, there live a family of little elves. And on the first full moon of the spring, they go out in the forest and they find little magic mushrooms. And they take those little magic mushrooms and they freeze them and a dew drop. And they only give them to people that are going to bring beauty to the world. And mayor, you have helped fund the mushroom displays and therefore it's only fitting that you also received a mushroom magic mushroom in a >> Is that what that is? >> And that's what that is. >> And I gave you a little note on a card. I hope you read the little note on the card, >> but that's pretty that's a very rare thing and I don't think you'll ever see another one. >> Okay, cool. And it really did comes from the mountains of Colorado. >> And uh I was lucky enough I guess I've brought a lot of beauty to the world. So I was given a little bag full of these. I've kept them for more than 30 years. And you're the first person I've given one to. So >> God bless. >> Thank you, Mr. White. >> Please give us fund give us funding for art in the park program. >> Have you gone to um arts and culture arts and culture commission? Yeah. >> Have you been there? >> I'm sorry. >> Oh, I'll I'll get with you. I'm gonna get staff. >> I haven't heard back from you. Um, >> but you know, we we still need funding for these art displays. And you know, I went online and on Amazon >> burner. >> You can literally buy a gazebo, like a 12 by 14t gazebo made out of timber. >> It'll withstand 100 mph winds. It'll just cloud a a three-foot snow load and you can get them for under $3,000 in a kit. Those could be put up as a pavilion for performing artists in the public park along with the mushroom displays. So, I hope you'll >> just start, you know, building community participation in the arts at all levels. We need this for our kids. >> God bless y'all. By the way, I can't afford to do this anymore. I can't afford to come in here anymore. It's just too expensive for me. I live on a fixed income. >> Well, we're going to we're going to continue. >> There's not a whole lot more I have in So, >> thank you, my friend. Thank you. >> God bless you. Thank you. >> Thanks. >> Byebye. >> Bye. >> Sean Sullivan via Zoom followed by Morton Hol. >> Hi there. Can y'all hear me? >> Yes, we can. >> All right. Uh, thanks uh for uh all your time and and efforts in uh making Reno uh a great place to to be. Um all these uh people uh supporting various art initiatives is is great to hear. Um I wanted to uh have a more serious uh bring up a slightly more serious topic um regarding data centers. It seems uh been watching the news and it or reading the news and it seems uh a lot of these are getting kind of approved kind of willy-nilly. Um not quite clear to me how these benefit us. Uh they use our water, land, our power. Uh they may create some construction jobs and a few long-term jobs, but really not that many for how big the building is and whatnot and how much power it's using. Um and all of this is to deliver a product that many people don't really want but are having shoved down our throats. So uh I think uh I think uh we should be freezing uh new data center uh applications uh until we can get the the regulation sorted out as well as the uh the the Colorado River agreement and uh and the water issues all sorted out. Um so yeah, that that was my comment. Uh thanks for uh listening to all of our comments and taking the time to do the important work you all do. Morton home followed by Art Rangel via Zoom North Sierra Street at the Pladio condominium. Uh I was before you about a year and a half ago appealing the planning department's uh approval of all night entertainment for the Reno Axe. And uh I c I can happily say since that time the Reno Axe has been a uh a good operation. They have not been disturbing the peace. But my concern when I brought that up to you was because of the experience we had with the uh six bar and the Dubs bar directly across the street from the Plio in my bedroom about 75 ft away. So, I know you care about the noise issue in downtown Reno because that night you spent about an hour and a half seriously discussing the noise issue and how best to approach that. So, I know you care about that very much. Thank you very much. And I know you made some changes since that time to try to make it better. And I think some of the changes you made were good. The problem I think are is is going to be has been the enforcement and the followup and oversight etc. for when the the uh standards are not complied with. Just as a a quick rebrief, um I purchased my home at the Pladio condominium in 2010, about 16 years ago. At that time, the area around the Pladio was a quiet neighborhood at night. Most businesses closed by 10 or 11 p.m. And the few bars in the area did not conduct live entertainment and were also quiet. Residents like myself could get a good night's sleep. The Pladio and city planning departments also stated the surrounding area would be quiet at night located within the Riverwalk district as stipulated also in the re-imagine uh Reno master plan documents. All that changed about 7 years later when the planning city planning department or city approved and permitted all light all night live entertainment at the Sticks Bar, now known as Dubs Bar, directly across the street from us. The distance again is about 75 ft from our building, my bedroom to the front entrance of uh that establishment. In the last year and a half, loud noises, disturbances continue and have worsened as crowds actually attending that event have become larger. Crowds typically start to gather around 11:30 at night and continue to uh exist until about 11:30 until it starts to uh peter out and slow down. However, the wire doesn't close until 3:00. So, you still have people hanging around and spending maybe another 30 minutes celebrating, having fun, but making a lot of noise, which is keeping us up at night. My my problem is I know I'm running out of time here. Real quickly, I I gave you a a packet. I hopefully you have it. It has some pictures that basically document the photos there is very typical on every Thursday night. It's college night. I typically don't get to sleep till about 3:30 at night. I do everything I can to be out of town that night. Um but um the the the in some in summary, I'll just say this the disturbance the noise disturbances have not been mitigated. When you get large crowds like that, they're going to make noise. So in the future, please please you got to consider I understand people wanting wanting u to make the process easier. But I caution you about doing that because the consequences once you give them that permit is very hard to take away. And um it appears um contact the police department doesn't work. They don't have the re resources and the and it's going to be a real low priority. They can't address disturbance of the peace issues. Um, and I don't know if the city really has anybody that over oversees that because these documents show the doors being blocked open um past 10:00 at night with with noise >> going on inside >> and they didn't even know that that the door was supposed to be closed. And um >> I don't want I don't want to take up too much of my time, but I >> please please read the rest of the document. It >> Thank you. >> I think it highlights the problem in some of the photos document. >> Definitely. Thank you so much. Good comment. >> All right, madame Madame Mayor, our final public commenter today is Art Rangel via Zoom. >> Hi, Art. Welcome. >> Can you hear me? >> I can. We can. >> Okay. Well, thank you. I'm glad I can still say good morning and not good afternoon. And uh I'm here for item C3 on your council agenda. Art Rangel, downtown Reno. Um why is live entertainment in the downtown and M midtown area even an issue on today's agenda? Uh especially given that for years downtown residents have been complaining about the excessive noise, rowdiness and crime that happens at late night and early morning in down the downtown reason area. The reason that we're here, and I can tell you this as a retired city planner, the reason in my opinion is because your development services staff does not consider residential use units in mixeduse districts as residential. Although master plan policy 3.1B provides for residential housing in the mixeduse downtown area. As an example why I say your development services staff does not consider housing in the mix district as housing. Consider the following in Angela's discussion and her staff report. And she states and I quote, "Any establishment offering scheduled live entertainment shall meet the following standards." And there's A, B, C, and item D reads as follows. It says exists exits and entrances to the estab establishment shall be oriented away from residentially zoned property immediately adjoining the site. Item D or E. And that same report says outdoor live entertainment shall not be located within 1550 ft of any residentially zoned property. Close quotes. Why is it the downtown high-rise condos zoned mixeduse but are 80 to 90% residential not considered residential? Why doesn't residential adjacency protection apply to these high-rise properties yet residential adjacency applies to property zone MF30 which is high density residential. The land use is essentially the same. I believe your development services staff has forgotten the fundamental principle in land use zoning which is separation of incompatible land uses. Housing and entertainment can coexist but not if the entertainment continues into the late night early morning hours in close proximity to housing. Downtown residents as you just heard and property owners can tell you that nothing good happens after midnight. Some late night entertainment leads to rowdiness which leads to crime and a bigger strain on our depleted police resources and city budget. This may tell you why people do not want to invest in downtown Reno. Thank you for your time. >> All right, Art. Thank you so much. All right, Madame Mayor, we have no additional public comment registered for opening public comment. For the record, we did receive 13 comments prior to 4 PM yesterday, Tuesday, March 24th, 2026. These comments were written correspondents received via our reno.gov online public comment form or by email to our office. Copies of these have been distributed to the Reno City Council and are available to the public on reno.govme. >> Okay, thank you so much. Uh before we move on, I'm going to um hand it over to our city manager for any housekeeping updates. >> Thank you, Madame Mayor. We're going to do approval of the agenda, approval of the minutes, and then we'll do a consent poll. The consent pulled items will be heard after the RDA. So, to be clear, we'll do the consent poll immediately go into item C1, followed by C2. Then we will open the RDA, hold all items in the RDA or address all items in the RDA, close the RDA, then do pulled consent items, and then go on with the regular city council agenda after that. >> Okay, >> move to approve. >> Um, hold on one second. I'm going to hand it over to vice mayor. >> Thank you, ma. Thank you so much, Madam Mayor. I think given item C5, I was going to request if there's a possibility to move that over to our April 8th meeting. I know it's important for us to get those updates, but I requested some specific information about some of the challenges and future initiatives that are going to be presented that aren't able to be provided. So, just to make sure we have all the clear information, if it's okay with the city clerk, wanted to see if we can move that over to the April. Is that okay with you meeting? >> Yes. Thank you, >> clerk. >> Yes. Okay. Thank you. Perfect. Okay. Mark that on your agenda. Okay. Uh I think we're good. >> Yeah. Move to approve as changed. I have a motion. >> Second. >> I have a second. All those in favor say I. >> All those opposed. Motion carries unanimously. All right. Uh, madame clerk. Can we get a motion for the minutes? >> So moved. >> I have a motion. >> Second. >> Have a second. All those in favor say I. >> All those opposed. Motion carries unanimously. >> All right. Um, Madame Clerk, item A five, >> consent. We're on um consent agenda pulled items. >> Okay. Thank you so much. I'm going to ask council members which items they want to pull. Starting with you, councilwoman. Nothing. Okay. I don't see any green lights. I see a green light over here. >> Oh, I was just waiting door. I see a green light. >> Yeah. Thank you. Um I would like to pull um item B6, which is $6 million if I'm reading this right. >> Okay. Um, and u the group of items that's B7, B8, B9, which are all about uh the septic system. The only really I'm pulling them just because they're a large dollar, but really the reason why is B7 is receipt of a over $3 million grant and it's rare that we get such big grants. I mean, occasionally, but it's rare. And I really want to um thank the staff for their work on this. So I I can wait for my comments till later. >> All right, sounds good. >> To approve except >> Okay, I have a motion. I have a second. All those in favor say I. I. >> All those opposed. Motion carries unanimously. Um and I think we should bring those back um so that we can move on. Are you okay with that? >> Yes. >> I mean, I could do it right now and be done with it, but >> how long do you think >> like this is going to take a minute? >> Okay. All right. >> Can I just do it? Yeah. >> Okay. So on B6, I just wanted to highlight uh that we are um expending $6 million. Um I I like to pull off the items that are over a million dollars so our residents know what we're spending our money on and that we're doing good works in their neighborhood and it's incredibly important. This one is the University East Phase 2 street rehab program. Um so with that, I'd like to move u to approve item B6. >> Second. >> All right. Thank you for acknowledging that. I think that that that's good. Yeah. >> All right. I have a motion. I have a second. All those in favor say I. Those opposed. >> Motion carries unanimously. >> On item B7, U. This two, this is this is this large grant um that we're getting for the Rivermount septic to sewer conversion program. And I just want to point out the council took an important vote which um allows us to move forward with a septic to sewer conversion program for over a hundred homes. And rather than set up an SAD, which was the idea that was originally proposed, we went out to the public, we had a very extensive public community meeting, and they said, could the city front the money and then we will pay as we all hook on to the sewer system, the new sewer system. And the city went back and as specifically, we already heard praise about um our public work staff today, Carrie Kofsky, um and Katie, I see. And here's Khalil. And here's John. And here's John. Um, they're all here today. But they did a tremendous amount of work in reaching out to a variety of funding agencies, including state and federal agencies to bring in money to help pay for this, reducing the cost to our citizens. And I would just love to hear from one of them, you know, how they applied, who they applied to. This one was a state of Nevada, um, and the success that we had. and I'm only asking for a one minute kind of summary on what you did and how we got here. >> Good afternoon, Kayla Garcia, management analyst. >> Hi. >> No, it's good news, so I'm happy to bring it. Um, >> this grant opportunity came at a very good time for this project. Um, it became available um last April. We submitted our letter of intent, >> so a year ago. >> Yep. And then in May, council um approved a resolution supporting the grant. And in November, we received notice from the Nevada for board for financing water projects that we were selected for this project. >> And I didn't know it was through that board because in in my way deep past, I was in charge of that board and gave out grants all over um uh Nevada for water systems primarily to come into compliance with Safe Drinking Water Act. Um so that's who funded this That's correct. Well, it's through the Nevada Department of Environmental Protection, but that's >> at the board for financing water projects. And then um and didn't you apply recently for another one as well? >> We have submitted an earmark or a community project funding request to our federal delegation for an additional $1.3 million. >> Right? So, in total, maybe 4.1 million offsetting individuals cost to hook up. And this is to help them do the right thing, right? Get off the septic. And I' I've gone public. I'm on septic, too. I told this group, I wish this was coming down my street. Um, I would love to get off my septic system, but here we are. Um, okay. Well, thank you so much for being here, Kayla. I really appreciate Mayor before. >> Thanks, Kayla. Hold on. Um, Council Ree has a question. >> Thank you so much. I wanted to just say thank you certainly to the staff. Incredible work and and a very uh timeconsuming process, but also I want to thank Council Member Der who is uh sort of underplaying her role in all of this. Uh this has been a an incredibly complex issue. Um I have for the last two years sort of been paying attention and been able to be in some of the meetings, but Miss Derer has been leading the charge to find a way forward because it has been a very difficult thing for the neighbors in that particular community and Miss Der without your sort of um leaning into it, I don't think it would have happened. So, um, as much as I, uh, believe that the staff has done incredible work, I want to just make sure that Miss Derer, you know that we understand how this came to be is partly due to the work you've done. So, thank you for that. >> Well, thank you. And I can't really take all the credit. I mean, Carrie Ksky here is my so-called partner in crime. She's the one who identified the issue with John Flandsburg way long ago, and we just didn't know how to move forward. And I would only say my part really had to do with helping facilitate the community meeting. Well, of course supporting the staff and their proposal, but helping to facilitate the community meeting so that they got to no and hell no. They went from there to yes, 80% were on board. We love this. So, that is a huge change in um resident um sentiment and support of the city. They were in hate, they went to love. And that is the part I guess I'm most proud of is that we can help our citizens and we can do something good for the environment and their future as well. because many of these systems are going to start failing and all of that cost would go to each individual one. There wouldn't be a community sewer project. So, thanks for the thanks for the kind words, Council Member Bree. >> Okay, good job. >> Okay, we need a motion, I think. >> Yeah. Well, I'd like to make a motion for B7, B8, and B9. Those are the actual items that are implementing the project. So, >> okay, I have a motion. >> Second. >> Second. >> All those in favor say I. I. >> All those opposed. Motion carries unanimously. >> Thank you. Okay, good job. All right, madam clerk, I'm going to send it over to you. This is um item C1. Uh do you have any public comment on this item before we get into it? >> Thank you, Madam Mayor. We don't have any public commenters registered. >> Okay. All right. Thank you so much. At this time >> Oh, we do. >> Oh, sorry. One second. >> What's your name, sir? >> And also, we did receive one letter of correspondence on this item. >> Okay. um which has been distributed to the Reno City Council. >> Okay, the floor is yours. >> Yeah. So, how you guys doing? My name is Maro Gil. I've been in this community a little over about two years now. And how I got into this community was I've been in Nevada for quite some time. You know, I hope my time start, but I do want to give you a little bit background of who I am. I am newly elect third vice president for the NACP. I come to this I come to this state by way of Mississippi up under uh Senator uh uh the the governor Tate Reed. Right. But I do want to address you guys here and this is something that I just want I I mentioned this to the NLCP and I just said maybe I need to work with you guys. I briefly talked with the sheriff here uh about this because also my my uh son is a is a police officer and my stepdaughter is on her way to become a federal agent. Right. So I do this is very very near and dear to me and I think that this is something that this city right uh really needs at this moment. So so I'm going to go forward with this. All right. Um, and excuse me if I'm a little nervous with this, right? But I'm not really nervous a lot. And I had the opportunity uh to meet and sit with uh Councilwoman Anderson. Uh my daughter got a chance to actually meet her also. >> Um >> that's great. >> So again, my name is Maro Gil. I'm a civil leader. Again, like I said, I'm third vice president for the Reno Sparks NACP branch number 112. Right. And I'm here to call uh on this body to take serious and and overdue steps to establish a civilian oversight committee for the Reno Police Department. What this is what what this city has witnessed in recent months should come to concern every person sitting in this chamber. We have seen officer involved shootings of unhoused individuals. We have seen command level leadership placed on administrative leave under circumstances that have not been fully explained to the public. We have seen an outstanding labor organ organization step in to install interimm leadership in a department that serves this community. This is these are not isolated incidents. These are symptoms of a system that lacks independent accountability. A civilian oversight committee is not an attack on law enforcement. It is a structural safeguard that protects both the community and the develop in the department. It creates a formal mechanism for residents to have their concerns heard, reviewed, and respond to by the body that operates outside the chain of command. It builds the trust that every effective police department depends on. Cities across this country have implemented oversight models with real investigation authority, not advisory bodies that issue reports and wait for someone to act. Reno deserves the same. This community and in particular our most vulnerable residents deserve to know that when something goes wrong, there's a process in place that is transparent, independent, and empower and empire to produce real outcomes. So here's the thing, council men and women and and mayor. I am asking this council to direct staff to begin a formal study of civilian oversight model to engage community stakeholders including civil rights organizations, faith leaders, builders, business owners and residents from every ward and to return to this body with a proposed framework no later than the end of the third quarter of this year. The RPD leadership crisis did not happen in a vacuum. It is a recent it is it is a result of years of deferred accountability. The time to act is not after the incident, but the time to act is now. And so I just stand for before you guys. When I first got here, uh I seen a a coffee with donuts. And I'm going to tell you I'm just telling you guys my personal story about this and I'm sorry about the time. My son was a high school football player in Utah, right? And this was back in 2019 when all this stuff was going on, you know, in our communities across the country. He could have went to BYU. He could have went to Utah University. All this thing, but he called me up and he said, "Dad, you know, I want to go and be a cop." I cried like a baby, guys. Here is I got my son, you know, in my culture, right? Go play football. Go play basketball, right? And he calls me and said that I want to be a cop. You think I said no? Nah. I honored that, right? I was so happy for him. I got pictures of this. And what he did was he became a cop and his first job was Cedar City Sheriff. He became a deputy with the Cedar City Sheriff over in Utah. Fast forward, he came over into Mary PD, which is a suburb in and outside of Salt Lake City over there. Right. And then one day, he called me up and said, "Dad, you know what? I think I'm going to go I'm going to go a little further with this. I'm going to become I want to go join the army to be an MP." >> And so now he's he's a sergeant right now. only three years only three years in and I'm super proud. So, you know what that did for me from a and you guys can probably see me. I come from the streets. I don't come listen I don't come from a a you know a law enforcement background, right? Like that. But what it did was it had me give more respect to the men that serve our community, men and women that serve our communities. And so for me, this is ain't just something on paper I want to do. I want to be that bridge. And the NACP want to be that bridge to make sure that this community has a voice, right? To where now it takes a burden off of you guys, off of the county, to where now we can come together. And like I said, I'm in I'm in war six. I purchased a house down there. I'm in I'm in District 2, right? I absolutely love Reno. I did not have Reno on my radar, too. >> I was going to ask, how did you get here? >> Right. So So I will tell you, she probably going to be a little embarrassed by this. my my fiance and hopefully we'll be getting married here very very very soon because we've been together for quite some time. She's actually is the is a part of ELT, right? ELT is executive leadership at the VA here. Her name is Cammy Strauss, right? She runs all nursing services, chapter services, and all those things, right, at the VA here. And that's how we got here. We had no ambitions to come here. We had a good house, you know, over in Sandy, Utah. But we came here and we absolutely love this community, man. And like for me now I'm trying to tell everybody and they mom and dad about Reno, >> right? And two and now I'm also getting into bowling. I see you guys embrace the bowling uh community here. I'm like man like wow now we need to start bringing in you know underserved communities to start teaching them about bowling. So this this is more than just by the oversight committee for me guys. >> This is near and dear person to me and I would love to be a part of this this planning process with you guys. Like I said, hopefully one day I'll be able on NAB uh with with uh Council Member Wall Anderson. So again, thank you guys. >> We're going to get you involved. >> Thank you so much. So much. >> You're a doer. >> Matter of fact, I think he's in your ward. >> No, he Well, it used to be, but >> he said district two. I wonder if he Oh, you're >> He said district two, but >> two. Oh, that's what he meant. CD2. I thought he me two. >> It's W six. W six. >> All right. District two with Mike Clark and W. And >> congratulations on being a proud father. >> No problem. Mr. Gil, Mr. Gil, my uh staff is going to get my card to you so that we could have coffee. Thanks for engaging with me on social media. >> Well, I want you to bring this young man with the little glasses on cuz he he you guys have no idea. I tell can I tell the story? >> Stand up. We can't see you over there. Everyone, Officer Mccurio, you've seen him. He's his Hollywood style online. >> He's very famous. people always there's like that guy that guy I you know the guy that's in the videos the guy that's doing this it's you >> right so long story short you know I I went to the coffee and donuts with him and uh and some of the other officers and also uh uh Mr. the Hicks uh office also. And actually, man, you know, they did something with me there. They embraced me when I came there. They didn't know who I was. I didn't know who they was. But you know what happened? I facetimed my son. >> A >> and they had a bidding war between the county, right, and the city arena and the city of Sparks. And who's going to recruit my son? And with my son right there on the phone, I don't know if you remember that or not. Yeah. And to to me to me that meant everything to me. And two, for a person note, it said, "Man, Marico, you you're really changing your life." >> I love that. >> And so that's why I said So anyway, thank you guys so much and I hope that we can get this oversight committee uh created because I think the community really do needs it. >> Nice to meet you. >> Nice job. >> All right, Madame Mayor, we have no additional public comment on item C1. >> Okay, at this time, uh we have a special guest in the house, Sheriff Darren Balum. Come on up. front and center. We also have acting police chief of the Reno Police Department, Chief Sulino. Nice to see you. Thank you so much for being here this morning. I'm going to hand it over to our um city manager, Jackie Bryant, to lead us into this item. Thank you, Madam Mayor. As you know, we have before you an interlocal agreement between the city of Reno and the Washa County Sheriff's Office for a maximum of $2 million for contractual temporary support of some leadership for the Reno Police Department. This item has this contract has already been approved by the Wo County Commission and is here today for your uh review and approval and we are open for any questions. either myself, John Shipman, who is a city attorney on this matter, or Sheriff Bumar, our acting chief Sulerino. >> Okay. Thank you so much. I'm looking for green lights. I uh see a couple over here. Um hold on one second. Um I'm going to start this way. Go ahead, Counciloman Neighbor. >> Yeah. So, thanks for coming out today. I know this has been um uh kind of uncharted territory for all of us. So, thank you for coming out today. And um I have some questions and I just want to be clear right from the get- go that this is not my questions are not in any way uh criticism of anything any part of the process but I am looking for kind of um a step by step of how we got to this point just in the interest of uh transparency. I know that my community has had a lot of um >> you know questions that I can't answer because of an ongoing investigation and things I frankly don't know either. So just looking to be open and transparent about how we got to this place um how these decisions were made and just just so that the public that's watching right now can understand the process that we went through. >> Manager. >> Thank you. Council member Eert. I'll attempt to address your question. So, um, some a complaint was brought forward to my attention that some individuals in the Reno Police Department had engaged in alleged misconduct. I forwarded that complaint to the appropriate authorities. Um, I think it was approximately two weeks ago, 3 weeks ago, this coming Thursday, I put those individuals on administrative leave. And then on Monday, actually I put them on administrative leave on the Monday following uh I served them with a notice of investigation on the Thursday. So we had Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday. I put them on administrative leave and that's when we had our first press conference uh where we introduced acting chief sulfurino and the proposed ILA with the Wo County Sheriff's Office. The the reason we cannot discuss the alleged misconduct is that the Nevada Revised Statute uh 28 chapter 289 prohibits it. It is a specific prohibition against discussing alleged improper conduct during an investigation. It's designed to protect peace officers uh from embarrassment, shame, criticism before an investigation has concluded. So that's why we haven't disclosed the names other than the individual um Chief Nance that we needed to disclose that name simply because I had to bring in an acting chief in this case. So that made sense. So we don't disclose the names. We don't disclose the alleged uh misconduct. Uh, the investigation is being conducted by an outside entity, the Nevada Department of Public Safety, and it is a third-party independent investigation, one that I am not, uh, privy to what is happening or the investigator's thoughts or findings at this time. >> Um, so just kind of a followup on that also. Um, I know that we are working with the county. Oh, can I have a little bit more time? Is that ahead? Um, and I know this is an agreement to um pay for for time. Um, but there's there's been comments from my community that the county officers are already being paid by the county. So, why would the city then also pay for them? They're already um paid by the community through the county. Um so can you just kind of explain why um the city is then also paying? >> I can uh we'll let the sheriff answer that question then I'll back Phil with anything. >> So what I would say is uh when we entered in this ILA there are resources and yes my budget comes out of the general service but under sheriff then under sheriff now acting sirino that is my number two. We are the largest entity as everybody knows in the county um and the largest law enforcement. our budget's the largest within the county and so having uh him sent over to the Reno Police Department as the acting chief, he is right now focusing on everything over at the Reno Police Department. So I do not have that position. Um I am going without that position uh for the betterment of this community and so that is where yes he may be being paid by the county but all of his assignment right now is within the Reno Police Department. >> So is he being paid by the county as well during this time or so? It's just a reimbursement for right now for the time he's spending over here. So, he is dedicating 100% of his time uh over at the Reno Police Department to make sure that everything that they need day-to-day operationally that you need for your constituents is fulfilled. >> Okay. And then will you um shuffle your staff around to fill gaps in your department? >> Yeah. So, what I've done, as I told the commission last week with the mayor and manager Bryant, is I am moving up one of my assistant sheriffs to acting under sheriff, as well as moving one of my captains, and we are rotating on a monthly basis. And so, one of my captains, one of my five, is a acting assistant sheriff throughout this time, however long that takes. >> Okay. Thank you. >> You're welcome. >> All right, Councilman Ree. >> Thank you so much. Um, first of all, thank you to you, Sheriff Balum. Um, I know that your heart for this community extends to all of it, right? Some people observe that the uh sheriff's department is sort of I don't know an island unto itself and only involved in in matters involving unincorporated areas. I know that that's not the case and that you've had a consistent presence throughout our community including the Reno for many years. We've also had a 20-year history where oftent times I'm on the other side, right? We end up being on different sides of the table, but I know um that you have provided stable and consistent leadership of this community for many years. similarly uh acting chief sulfurino um we also have known each other for almost as long and also again been on the other side oftent times but what I will say to both of you is that it's been a unique time and a process for us and I think Mr. Eert is um right to ask the questions important because our community doesn't always see all the moving parts and the minutiae of government can become very um difficult to navigate and what we don't share with the public leaves it open to them to have their own opinion or thoughts that are not based on the factual realities that we face. Uh for my part I am supportive of the action here which is the ILA. Um, I thank you for your willingness to be a part of that conversation because of course, um, I think when manager Bryant was trying to make decisions about how to move forward, I I suppose you could have said no, I I can't do it or I'm not willing to do it or we don't have the resources to do it. But that's not what you said. Um, you said yes because you wanted the best for this community. You wanted to make sure that we knew that we had had consistency that the work would continue to be done. So, I'm I'm grateful to both of you for the leadership in this area. And of course, my hope is that we'll resolve what we can resolve as quickly as possible and then um folks will decide how to get back to a new state of normal. Um that transparency I think is important to our public and and certainly as a budgetary item. That's really what we are looking at today. Um there are lots of other questions that have been asked um but not necessarily ones that I think are important to today's conversation. I want to ask um acting chief sulfurino um just can you give us some sense of what's been going on for the last 10 days? I know this was not on your bingo card uh in life and so here you are um and certainly uh looking ever the part today and I appreciate that too. Um the men and women of the Reno Police Department are incredibly important to all of us uh at this body and uh for our role and that we want them to understand that we're we're working very quickly to resolve what we can. but maybe tell us how things are going. >> Absolutely. Uh madame mayor and vice mayor, councel, manager Bryant, Sheriff Balum, thank you for your trust honestly. Uh the weight of this responsibility does not go lightly and the men and women of the Reno Police Department are amazing just like the men and women of the Wo County Sheriff's Office. Uh so to having been very um intimate with fiscal affairs and understanding the current state of the economy, the current state of everybody's budget, fiscal responsibility is my key. The day-to-day running of the Reno Police Department continues without waiver. The watch commanders, sergeants, men and women on the line are doing their jobs as they always have. My role there is to make sure that we're coming in at budget, that we're using fiscal equity, that we're not missing out on grant opportunities, and that we're using regional collaboration where we can so that not one agency is bearing the burden of what everything is happening in our community. So over the course of the last two and a half weeks now, I've been getting out uh from out behind my desk and meeting the men and women of the Reno Police Department and understanding uh the creature comforts. What can I do to enhance certain capabilities? What can I do to ensure that the machine that is the Reno Police Department continues moving forward in a positive direction? Uh too big of an entity to sit still and stagnant. So progress that has been made on projects that we're moving forward. Obviously, we alluded to some of those here today about drone as a first responder and some of our other initiatives with real-time intelligence. Uh we're continuing to make sure that those things are moving forward and are not stalled. Other areas that we're looking at are efficiencies to see where we can, you know, trim some of the fat, so to speak, and make sure that we're making good business decisions. And honestly, just a it's an honor an honor to stand before you. It's an honor to uh be asked to step into this role. And as one of the uh police men and women as I started visiting briefings said, "Why you?" I said, 'How do you say no? How do you say no to this opportunity to come across the aisle and help your brother and sister agency? Um, the honor is truly mine, and I thank you guys for your confidence in that ability, and I'll be here as long as you need me, as long as the sheriff keeps me on loan. >> Oh, impressive. Impressive. All right. Uh, any I'm not seeing any more green. >> Nothing. >> I do. >> Oh, you do? Okay. Go ahead. >> Yeah, I have a couple more things. So, um just kind of back in line with just trying to understand how this all worked out um in this situation because it's a personnel issue that we're addressing. A lot of people I think don't realize that council really only um has the um ability to direct the um city clerk and the city manager. We are not directing the city staff. So, um I'm curious about like the process and um who was the authority um to make the decision to make the interlocal agreement. >> I can answer that and that was me. >> Okay. >> Along with the sheriff. >> Yeah. So, there's the interlocal agreement made by you because you are um head of staff. Um, is there a set order for things like this to happen or is it just at the city manager's like judgment or is there like a level of emergency? Um, >> so there's a there's a couple of different inner coordinated factors that I should say. First of all, um, I have the ability to execute an interlocal agreement at any time with any of our partner agencies up to $25,000. Uh so that was order of business immediately to ensure that the public safety in this community was status quo. They should not have any difference and I don't believe that they have had any difference of awareness. So that was the first order of business. Secondly, because the amount we set at $2 million, in the event that we would need that much money exceeded my signing authority and it exceeded the sheriff's signing authority, we then had to go have those contracts approved by both the Wo County Commission and the Reno City Council. But we do interlocals all the time. Yeah, >> we have numerous interlocals in place right now. It is a common practice to have an interlocal. the uh thank goodness that this is not a normal situation and so that's why we're here to have the interlocal approved. Secondly, the mayor has the authority and charter to call upon the sheriff for assistance at any time >> for an emergency. This constituted an emergency. So that's another legal reason that we went this path. Did that address your questions? >> Thank you. Perfect. Um I did have I think a couple more. Um this is more for the sheriff I believe. Is this payment arrangement? Is this like a net neutral for you? Like is this um like are you getting paid like daily for your salary? Is it um like a lump sum that we're paying? Like how how is the payment structured? >> So similar to the other contracts we have with the city of Reno like the crime lab and others uh we will be billing on a quarterly basis. And so, um, all that funding, we created our own IO within. So, when he does his time, he puts that in. So, we're tracking exactly, uh, what is going over into the Reno Police Department, which is, uh, now acting chief Sulfurino's salary. Then, we will send a bill over like we do the crime lab, and that'll be paid on a quarterly basis if we're here that long. >> Okay. So, they'll get paid regularly, and then we'll do like a reimbursement quarterly. Absolutely. Okay. Okay. Thank you for that. Um, I think that's it for me. Thank you very much. >> Great. I don't see any more green lights, so I'm going to send it over to Vice Mayor Martinez. >> Thank you, Madam Mayor. I'm happy to uh uh move to approve the interlocal agreement between the city of Reno and the sheriff's office. >> Okay. Thank you so much. I have a motion. I have a second. >> All those in favor say I. >> All those opposed. Motion carries unanimously. Thank you so much for being here and I just want to say thank you for your partnership all the years I've worked with you. You are um a wonderful human. We've crashed many weddings together. We'll continue to do that. But I just want to say um thank you for your partnership. I never thought about that. I think Councilman Ree makes a really good point. What happened if I would have called you and you said can't do it. And that's not what you said. You said whatever our partners need, we're there when you need us. um you know it's it it is unprecedented right now but I want to say thank you um for your cooperation your dedication to this community and uh very grateful >> and if I can may say one thing madam mayor vice chair and fellow council members and manager Bryant first of all thank you as well shown that trust in my office and myself uh sending over then under sheriff Cory Sulfino I have no doubt he will do a great job but what I want to reassure this council and I think it's very important like I the commission as well is a couple things. One, we will do whatever it takes to make sure the men and women have what they need at the Reno Police Department to provide the services that you expect this community expects. More importantly, that they go home and two, that all the constituents that you serve, and as you pointed out last week, we all serve in this community. >> That's right. >> Whether they're calling because they're a victim of a crime, whether they're calling because they need help, that we as an entire region bring those resources to bear so that we serve our community. That's the number one priority of all of ours. And then lastly, for those that may think this is a opportunity to commit some crime, um I think it's not only the wrong time, but it absolutely is the wrong time because the collaboration is growing stronger. Um the DRP and Ashley kind of stole my thunder. Uh downtown is a perfect example of what we can do as a region. Um and I want to add one more entity that's dedicated and that's NHP in that project. So they are all bringing our patrol resources, our hope team, Reno Police Department's core team for the outreach. Um so when bowling is gone, we will not only maintain but we will sustain downtown so that we can dance in the streets. Um and hopefully you will all get a invite next week on April 1st um for the 250th celebration over at the historic courthouse. The sheriff's office uh we have to do the morning uh pledge of allegiance. So we will be inviting you so that we all can do that safely. Enjoy the downtown and everything you bring. So thank you for having that trust in my office and myself. >> Can I tell you I've already seen such a massive difference downtown. It's unbelievable. Uh it really the coordination I had no idea. And yesterday Chief Sophino you said we're going to have people walking the beat. We haven't seen people walk the beat for a very long time. And that's sort of old school policing, but we know it works because you're interacting with the community and you're also keeping the community safe when you do that. Um, it's really really impressive what just I was down here walking and I saw all of our officers giving high fives to kids and it just was impressive how you were collaborating with the DRP. We haven't seen that for a long time and we've just been really craving it. So, I want to say thank you for your leadership on that. Madame Mayor. >> Yes. Go ahead. I also wanted to say thank you for reaching out to me and calling me directly to let me know um you know what what you were doing on your end. Um I just want to say that publicly that you know you you reached out to me and um asked me you know what kind of support I needed in my community and I appreciate that. Um and I am looking forward to more um traffic enforcement in my ward. that is something that um we all really want in that community and I I I see sheriffs all the time and the unincorporated county because my word's kind of a patchwork out there. Um so I know that there's a a large, you know, presence of the the sheriff. So I'm looking forward to seeing more um just kind of um more engagement in in the ward out there. So, thank you for reaching out and and listening to my concerns and the things that we need out there. >> Yeah, >> absolutely. Thank you guys. >> Councilwoman Der, go ahead. >> Before you run, um I too wanted to thank you. I had an outstanding conversation with you, Sheriff. Um and the fact that you did take the time to reach out to us and spend as much time as you needed reassuring us about your role and your intent and your willingness to help. I mean, that meant the world to me. Um like um council member Eert, I too had an issue and my issue was not about my ward but more about data and numbers and you and I talked about the neighbor system neighbor system, excuse me. And um it's incredibly important to in terms of transparency with our community that we do have accurate numbers about how how crime has been in the past, how it is in the future. is is the real issue misdemeanor crime versus you know battery and and murder uh and those kind of crimes. Um you know what is it so that we can get a better handle on it and that we can let our neighborhood advisory boards understand too how crime is changing in our city. And um you really seemed committed to the data piece as well. It's maybe not so sexy but the end result is so important. you know, that's where we can actually communicate with factual data and it's not I feel or I think or it's less or it's more, but we have something to point to and I really appreciate that that effort's going to continue during uh the time that Chief Selfrino is here. And so that's great. Thank you. >> Yeah. Yeah. I want to just kind of piggyback on that. That's been an issue at my NAB when we haven't had that information. Um, my NAB board members and community members have specifically asked if crime is on the rise because of social media. They see all this stuff. There's more access to this information and, >> uh, Chief Nance would tell us, "No, it's it's going down, but we never had any factual like here's numbers on it." So, um, you know, she would always say, you know, it's it's, you know, not not great information, but we weren't able to counter it with facts. So, um, living in this age where you can see stuff, you know, constantly on your phone, it's really helpful to have that data. So, thanks for bringing that up. Yeah. Yeah. So, thank you. >> Lastly, I just want to say thank you to you, Chief Sophino, for your hard work and dedication. I had someone walk up to me the other day at uh the grocery store and said, "You don't know me, but um they do work at the Reno Police Department." and said that you walked right up to them and had 15-minute conversation and she said, "I feel seen." And I just my heart just felt um very warm, but also I wanted to just say thank you so much for um treating um our wonderful Reno Police Department with um kindness and respect. That meant a lot. So, thank you. Impressive. Impressive. >> So, all right. Well, have a great day. I know you guys are really busy. You got a lot of work to do. So, get out of here. Go. Bye. >> All right. Um, >> I'm going to hand it over to the meeting over to vice mayor. >> Yeah. Okay. Thank you so much. Yeah, I'm good. Sorry. I was just ensuring I think we have a first in a motion. I don't know if we voted. >> We did not. Just making sure we are getting all of our steps in. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. So, we'll close item C1 and move on to a guest presentation from the Washer County Register. Our vote is item C2. >> Thank you. >> And just for the record, this is a discussion item only. So there is no public comment on this item. >> You guys ready? >> Yeah, whenever you are. >> Great. Uh, good afternoon, Mayor Shivi, Vice Mayor Martinez, and Manager Bryant. My name is Andrew McDonald, and I am the registar voters here in Wo County. Thank you for having me here today. It's finally nice to meet you. >> I have to run out, but I want to say >> thank you. >> Appreciate it. Thank you very much. As we drive down to the 206 election, I wanted to give an overall update on our department. Starting with maintaining the voter roles. So, when I started with the county um the board of county commissioners voted me in about 13 months ago, I made a commitment maintaining the voter roles was the department's number one priority. I think you'll see and agree that we kept that promise. Starting with bulkless maintenance. When I became ROV until present, we inactivated about 55,5001 voters, cancelled 25,12 voters for inactivity and not participating in the voting process. So, bulk voter list maintenance occurs and has occurred until the recent 90-day federal uh NAVRA deadline on March 11th, which prohibits my department from performing bulk list maintenance until after the primary election. inactivation stem mainly from undeliverable ballots that come back to us and postal service data that those folks are no longer those voters are no longer at their address. So in compliance with NRS 293550, my office sends those address confirmation cards to those voters and they have 33 days to respond and if they don't then we inactivate those voters. So inactive voters then are cancelled since they did not serve or should I say vote in those two consecutive general elections. In this case, it' be the 2022 and 2024 general elections. And therefore, we cancel those voters. There was no disenfranchisement here. Simply our office following the NRS when voters do not take action to um participate through the voting process. The next slide uh is another way to represent the data I just mentioned. You'll see the major drop in an act in active registered voters moving to inactive uh around October through November where we dropped about 32,400 voters from active to inactive. Something else that we are uh working on right now is precinct readjustments. So 24 new precincts are coming online. The NRS also says that you cannot have over 5,000 active registered voters in any one precinct. So, this is not redistricting. I just want to make sure that's very clear. This is not redistricting. This is simply adding precincts where uh folks have moved into that neighborhood. The neighborhood is growing. It's getting up to that level and we want to make sure that we add new precincts. The ballot stays the same, the choices, the contests stay the same. Um and we used historical data to take a look at some of this uh for and forecasting. Again, no district lines were redrawn. The voter transparency project, um the b the board of county commissioners, commissioner Andreola, uh chairwin, chairman asked me to start taking a look into a transparency project, which I have done. Um and that is really because now with the statewide uh voter registration system pushed down by the the Nevada Secretary of State's office, uh a lot of folks want transparency into the voter records. So what we're doing is coming up with a transparency tool that will capture periodic snapshots of voter registration data and using a cryptographic hash will be able to create a unique digital fingerprint of that data set. And by having that data set, we'll have publicly available uh information where anyone anyone is allowed to independently calculate that hash algorithm and confirm that the file has not been altered since it was originally captured. uh and published. The purpose of the project again is to provide a transparent tamperevident record of voter registration data over time. By preserving these snapshots again and their hashes, the county can maintain a historical record of the changes and ensure that unexpected modifications can be detected or investigated. We don't expect any, but this that's the point of the project. A website will be provided for further instructions, definitions, and information about voterless maintenance, time frames, including processes of voter inactivations and cancellations, excuse me, regarding building of vote centers. So, the primary election vote centers, we'll have about 22. Well, we have we will have 22 vote centers this coming election. uh early vote centers and 50-day election vote centers. Last general we had 24 and 55 election uh day vote centers. Um some of the featured locations are on the screen. We wanted to be in this Reno Sparks convention center. So we did a deal with them and got that vote center for election day. It will be our biggest. We'll probably have around 30 to 40 ballot marking devices or voting devices at that location. We always have the uh Nevada, Reno, Nevada University, UNR there. Truckucky Meadows, we have this college kind of new uh to us this time around. The public market is somewhat new. We haven't had that in a long time. And the school district, we can't perform voting without the schools. We have I think it's 22 election day locations for the Wo County School District. So, it's a great partnership we have with them. How did we get here? uh when I came here I didn't see a a model for sighting of vote centers. Therefore I work with our GIS department bunch looked at a bunch of community data they crunched over a couple months and what we looked at is where is this heat map where are voters coming from uh low access to vehicle ownership bus routes ADA communities etc. We want to put vote centers in the right places of the community. Uh therefore um we are doing that. Um the data reinforced actually that we weren't really that far off from where we started from. So that's good that we have them in the locations that we should have them in. And again, I'm excited to announce that super center over at the Reno Sparks Convention Center with at least 30 to 40 devices. We'll also have a new mail ballot dropbox at our CARES campus, the county cares campus. And I'll be uh asking the board of county commissioners to approve uh the 2026 primary June election vote centers early voting and election day vote centers at an upcoming board meeting on April 14th. So what's new? This is very new to Wo County and actually the state of Nevada. Um in 2025 the board of county commissioners approved the purchase of new ballot marking devices. These devices will allow voters who vote in person to cast a fulllength tangible ballot. This will be the first election that voters will be able to do that, use that new equipment. Yesterday, I showcased this equipment at our new warehouse location from 3 to 7:00 p.m. Uh, I think we had roughly about 100 community members come out and take a look at this new equipment. Uh, we invited the public, the media, other prominent community members to participate. The point here is voting has changed not only in the state but Wo County. No longer will you have that VVPAT, the voter verified paper audit trail. Roll up on the screen on the little machine over here. You will physically get a ballot in your hand. Once you print it, you can check it, feel it, touch it, ensure that all your votes are on there, and then you yourself will go cast this ballot into um we're calling the ballot box, but it's really a vote center scanner. So, I you know, the voters have been asking for this for quite some time. So, we are really happy to be able to provide this to them. Uh warehouse update. I'm not sure if you all know, but we outgrew our warehouse, especially buying all this new equipment. Therefore, we're moving to 655 Longley Lane, uh sweet 145 in Reno, Nevada. Um so, we're happy to say, uh that the move has started. All of our voting system equipment has moved out of our existing warehouse. um by the 31st all the racking will come out. We'll be purchasing new racking, new technology, so on and so forth. But our our warehouse will be there. Our headquarters will stay where it's at for this primary election and the November election. Therefore, we will then after before the uh presidential cycle, we will move into that new location and our whole headquarters and warehouse will be a team uh unit and we will no longer be at 9 street at that point in time. So the proposals are due on the 19th of March. That has passed uh for the buildout office space, training room, visibility corridor for the public. And then the award will happen on the 19th. One of the things that we're also pretty proud of that was asked of us by our board of county commissioners is the youth engagement. So, we created a high school program uh for the importance of voting and and outreaching to those community uh those youth community members and kind of giving them what is the experience going to look like when you first start voting. I know I never got that experience. So, I started kind of voting late, but I think if I would have gotten that experience as a high schooler, I would have started the voting experience much earlier in my uh voting career. Anyways, it was a great experience. We met with uh Sparks High School. Students were excited, participation was high and the students um pro we were providing them actual voting equipment. So not only explain the voting and what how it's impactful to them, we provided equipment and let them vote a mock election on their uh in their school which was fantastic. More events will be coming as we kind of wrap up this election cycle at hopefully some Reno City of Reno schools, right? Um, I'm also proud to say this is the first thing time that that the state of Nevada I'm bringing ADA curbside voting to Wo County, but really kind of to the state. I'm hoping other counties will follow Wo County's lead here. Um, again, first time in Nevada and that cart there is kind of what it's going to look like. Um, we will be letting voters vote in the comfort of their car. As you guys know, folks have strokes, heart attacks, so you don't know why folks can't get out of their car. Um, so how that program would kind of work is uh we'll have signage at an ADA um parking spot saying here's a phone number, please call us. We'll roll this cart out to the voter. We'll check them in just like they check in at a vote center, verify who they are and that they should be voting. Um and then we will roll that c that checkout uh station again out there to them. Check them in. They'll vote their ballot. We'll print their ballot for them. Hand them their ballot. They can view it. and then we'll put it in a secret sleeve for them and then we will bring that ballot back in on behalf of the voter and cast it for them. So, this is pretty exciting. Again, first time ever this has happened in the state of Nevada. Clark County has had mobile voting where they kind of pull up and pull devices out, but they've never had ADA uh voting. And the reason for some of this, not only is it the right thing to do for the community, uh but the DOJ, Department of Justice, we had a settlement agreement with them. They visited in 2024 in the primary uh 10 of our vote center locations. Fortunately, all 10 of those locations failed ADA compliance. Therefore, the cart program was born. Um the most common uh u p u hurdle was the path of travel from the parking structure or parking lot into the vote center. Uh they get pretty picky. It's 170 point checklist. Uh such as if you can put a marble in that crack, it's going to fail. So, as you know, it snows and there's different weather conditions here. So, there's a lot of crack pavement, a lot of slopes. The whole point is to make sure those folks are safe as they get out of their car and enter into the vote center. This way, they don't have to do that. So, we are allowing them to uh stay in their car and give us a call. So, this election, unfortunately, even though we have done all these surveys, we started all from scratch on all of our vote centers. And it's not just us. We use vote centers from all over the community, not just watch county facilities, but out of 100% of our vote centers, still only 20% are 100% ADA compliant. Again, this curbside voting program is very important per title 2 of ADA. They allow me to modify uh the vote center or, you know, close it and use another one, but we're having to modify because we can't find 100% um compliant locations. some operational improvements that came into 2026 leading up to it. Uh in 2022 before I had got here, the county hired a third-party company called the elections audit group. They came in and they audited all of our department. Um I think there was some several uh issues with the department, not so much with ballots or whatnot, just the structure, the organizational structure, how many people were working there, are you overwhelmed, etc. So out of that um we had about 140 findings um give or take and so we looked through all those findings and we went through all those recommendations uh line by line and we actually completed all of them. So I'm happy to say we have a full staff on board now. Uh we have our our SOPs our standard operating procedures in place 43 of those and counting. Um, and we have uh more enhanced training going on into the community. And one of the recommendations was to provide more space so we could actually process ballots intake on election night where we're having to kind of shut down certain parallel processing because we just don't have the room. So, we're getting that new warehouse and new uh headquarters into the future. Uh, automatic signature verification. So, this is a very technical topic. I'll try to um for my own sake uh make it as easy as possible. We'll be rolling automatic signature verification out during this election, the first time ever uh here in Wo County. And the software is used to compare the signature on the vote bymail ballot envelope with the voters's reference signature in our database. If the signature score meets or exceeds the verification threshold, the ballot is automatically accepted and does not require human eyes to manually review it. If the signature falls below the score, the ballot is flagged and sent to bipartisan teams to compare the signature. Look for manual look look at manually those signatures. And not only just that reference signature, but any signature you've ever signed. So, if you've got 20 signatures through 40 years of, let's say, voting, um, we are going to look at every single signature to make sure that we find a match. And if we can't, then that ballot will go to curing and we'll send out a cure letter to to that voter. The testing required 13,416 signatures reviewed from the presidential election. That was our sample size to get to this number. We brought in the city clerks, uh, city of Reno Sparks and my deputy Addie better back here to compare all these signatures. I didn't do it. They did it. I wanted to make sure it was unbiased. Therefore, and I asked them to provide me a recommendation of the score um at a score of 72 and that's not a percentage, it's a score, a threshold score, 72 zero signatures failed. Uh therefore we will be moving forward uh with a score of 72 on this automatic signature verification software for these upcoming two elections, the primary and the uh general election. Just note that's a very conservative uh score and approach. There is a Southern California county that uh the lower the score the looser. Uh uses a score of 45. So, we are very very conservative in Wo County and I wanted to make sure that no signatures um failed at that number. So, that's what we've done. Moving forward, uh the mail ballot package changes. Uh if you've ever received your mail back mail ballot in the mail, which I hope you all have, um it wasn't necessarily very patriotic. It kind of had this pink stripe down the middle. Uh we moved over to the Secretary of State's mail ballot print vendor. And in doing so, we could redesign our whole envelopes. Um, they're also paying for all of Wo County ballots moving forward. So, that allowed us to get into the warehouse and do some other things. But the point here is you'll see a new design, uh, fresh sticker, too, that you'll be getting an I voted sticker that really represents Wo County. When I came here and I saw it, I said that's not Mount Rose. What kind of what if you look at your old I voted sticker, it didn't represent the county. Um, there was no Truckucky River, which we put in there. There was no trees. It looked like the skyscrapers of New York. I wanted to represent Wo County with the flag in the background. So, we kind of did a 2.0 on our sticker. So, I'm proud to show you uh the outcome of that. Um, not only do we overhaul the mailout package, but I also want to just kind of plug here. If you are an inerson voter and you do not want to vote by mail, please let us know that because then you're saving taxpayer money by not sending a mail ballot to you. if you're always voting in person. In Wo County, we're 51% in person voting and 49% um vote by mail, if you will. Therefore, a lot of ballots never get, you know, returned to us. And that's a lot of taxpayer money at roughly $4 a ballot when you do the math, right? Like I said, the state is going to pick up the cost of this, but it's still state of Nevada taxpayer money. So, please file a mail ballot preference form. I'm really saying this to the public, too. It would help our office um and the taxpayers moving forward the 2026 election. Just in closing and some important dates, I just wanted to remind folks, sample ballots must go out by May 20th. Of course, we're going to try to accelerate that date and hit uh earlier than that. Instate ballots by the 21st. There's a new law that says SMA sample ballots must go out before instate ballots. So, we will hit those dates. Early voting again, May 23rd runs for a few weeks until June 5th. Then we break over that weekend. When I say we break, we are working. We're counting mail ballots. We're doing lots, but voters uh have that break and then election day on June 9th. One thing to note here, due to the Junth holiday, we normally would have canvas of the vote on the 19th. Uh we will have canvas of the vote. County commissioners will be canvasing the vote on the 18th uh of this for this election and that's my presentation to you. >> Thank you so much. Are there any questions from the dice? Yeah, council member Der. >> Yeah, thank you so much. This was very informative. Um, I'm a former WO County employee and as such I was one that was uh deployed to manage what was then the largest um voting site which was the Livestock Event Center >> which I'm going to guess doesn't meet your ADA. Is that correct? >> Well, we we use now the Ninth Street inside the the atrium. Yeah. U during co I heard that that was utilized. I wasn't here at that time. Well, this goes back quite a while. Um, to like the 20, you know, the probably 2005 to 2011 time period was when I was doing this job. >> But one of the things, and I brought this up before, and I just wanted to find out where you were at that time. Um, we did not have people in the in the voting area to help me and other poll managers uh work with people who spoke Spanish and Spanish as their primary language. Yes. And um I had to work hard to at that time to get um the county to recognize the issue because lots of people were coming in and I do not speak Spanish. So I was unable to explain to them the process. Um and so I actually on the spot deputized a young lady who was uh bilingual and uh she worked with me the entire day um you know assisting. Now I understand you have improved things. Could you just tell us about that? Yeah. First of all, our mail ballot envelope that goes out uh in the instructions, the voter instructions, the secrecy sleeve, it's in Spanish and in English. The ballot is dualingual. It's also in English and in Spanish. Um so there's that just number one. Number two is at polling locations or vote centers, we do try our darnest to hire um at least one person from the Hispanic or Spanish community to basically work for us. um and other languages if we can, right? I mean, there's others. Um but yes, by by law we are uh supposed to give uh Spanish speakers there. >> A question I had is you said that you've changed the sites and I understood from our clerk that a number of pre-existing sites did not meet this ADA. Can you just give us a sense of that and like how many new sites are there that maybe we didn't see last year, last time? >> Yeah. Um I don't have the exact number on me. Um but we tried hard to so so it's kind of a long story. I'll make it very short. >> Uh the fact is since so many failed ADA um we were really struggling to find locations. We didn't think we're going to have that problem. Therefore um and we we started the cart program but we started it late. >> What's Oh the cart program >> the ADA cart program. Yeah. Curbside voting, I should say. Um therefore some locations that still failed ADA were having to to utilize them. >> Okay. >> Um and again late to the game we started just saying voting must go on. We're going to use locations even if they failed. >> Okay. >> So it kind of makes it a little difficult cuz I would have picked diff some other locations if I would have known in the beginning that would >> Well, I heard that you were wanting to phase out those in uh if I may just for a moment phase out those that were in supermarkets. Is that true? So, our goal was trying to to move away from churches and supermarkets. And it's not because I'm not a believer, if that makes sense. Um, it's just because churches close, right, on Sundays, so we have to pack everything out on Saturday and then come early on uh Monday to to do that >> logistics. Yeah. >> Uh it's hard to have a private vote sometimes in the supermarket. Um but again, we were up against the wall with ADA, so we will be in uh several supermarkets. I think there's two or three. >> Okay. And then lastly, I just noticed my own uh residents a lot of times they get very confused by these changes like, "Oh, I always voted at Horseman's Park and now I'm voting at XYZ school and now I'm voting at a certain library." What What are you doing? Is it each sample ballot going to show their location? How's that work? >> Absolutely. Yes. So the sample ballot booklet will have each location for early voting and the hours because some locations say I don't want to be closed on let's say in the general Nevada day for example, right? So, or Memorial Day. So, there just please check your sample ballot booklets. All that information will be in there. Uh, early voting and election day. And also our website will have it that doesn't write yet. But once the board of county commissioners approve it on the 14th, then we will post that on our website, too. >> I just hope you push that out because that's probably one of the biggest issues, concerns I get is that I don't know where my polling place is. We always go X. They want us to go Y, you know. Well, they even know us at Y. >> Yeah. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Thank you for the comment. Thank you. Council member Eert, do you have something? Yeah, go ahead. >> Okay. So, I have a lot of a lot of sticky notes here. Um, the first thing I wanted to ask about is you mentioned kind of a fingerprint for voters like that there's a file that um you can tell when the last time it's been edited. Can you tell me a little bit more about that system? Is it like a like a blockchain kind of deal or what is it >> similar? So what we're doing is working with CIS, the center for uh I think it's information internet security. Thank you very much. Um so we're working with them, our own uh CIO uh department if you will. And the whole point there is again is to verify that files that we're taking out of the top down system voter registration system. We're taking our data out of that putting it up for the public to verify that it matches every single time. So yes, it is like a hash algorithm. And so you'll be able to there'll be instructions for the voter to or citizen uh to to take a look at that, go through the instructions and verify that no data has changed since we pulled it down. Okay? meaning we're not putting illegals into the voter roles and neither is the state. That's the whole point is for folks to verify that data cuz it used to be decentralized. We had our own database. So did all the other counties. Now that it's centralized, people are questioning the voter roles in the data. >> Yeah. >> Okay. So, does this also track what the votes are? Because I know our votes are supposed to be, you know, Nope. >> Private. >> It has nothing to do with voting itself. Okay, great. Um the other thing you well several other things but um the heat map you showed can you please show that again? >> Sure. there. I don't know that that shows all of my ward and I'm sure you're just, you know, grabbing a section to show, correct? But, um, I am a little concerned about the availability of, um, voting, uh, facilities in my ward. I know uh I think it was last election cycle we had one uh physical location for the primary and then we only had two places to vote um for the general election. And um you know what happens is we have uh long lines for um election or for uh inerson voting on election day. And I'm just concerned that um you know we might need a little bit more uh more locations for voting on especially on election day. There's a lot of people in my community that feel very strongly about voting in person on election day. Um so I don't know if that's a possibility or if your heat map says eh we're not going to do it. But also like I don't know how accurate that data would be if people show up and there's a huge line and they're just like forget it. I'm not waiting. Yeah. You know, >> I appreciate the comment. Thank you. And I'd love to work with you uh if you don't mind in the future election to to find vote centers. We have really tried to actually find vote centers. Is really hard to do. It sounds simple, but there are some locations there isn't a large enough facility. Yeah. >> And we don't want something where it's only going to serve a few voters at a time. We want, you know, volume, right? Um so I'll say that. The second thing I'll say is I don't have the exact Nevada revised statutes, but in reality, we're only supposed to be putting up about 12 early voting locations and 20 election day locations. So, I'm doing about 100% more than what's required by NRS. >> So, just geographically, the ward up there, like we're we're further away. We only have two access roads to get in and out. I'm not sure how familiar you are with that area, but it takes a long time for people to get back and forth out of that community. It's um just um there's a lot of different kind of constraints that the community faces up there. Um so it just it has kind of different needs. So I would like to talk with you maybe offline and see if there's some um some things we could do to kind of help uh with some pain points out there. Yeah. Yeah. Um, I do have some other stuff, but I know I'm over my time. If somebody else would like to go, >> let me just double check with anybody. No, if you want to keep going, we'll just restart the clock for your your second round. >> Um, so the um counting ballots, you mentioned between 65 and 69, the like early voting when that stops and then the final election day for the primary. Do do you actually start counting votes before 69? >> So, we don't tabulate votes. We scan in ballots. If you're talking about like uh mail ballots, we definitely process ballots. >> Okay. >> Um but we cannot release results until the secretary of state himself calls each county and says, "You're now able to release results on election day." Yeah, that's what was a little concerning to me that that might sway, you know, people's vote on June 9th if that information were to get out. >> Absolutely not. Even I and my staff cannot run a report. It's illegal to do so. Okay. >> Uh through NRS. So, yes. >> All right. Um the other thing was um you mentioned the voter roles. Um, is there ever any um kind of cross referencing with other agencies to kind of uh attempt to clean up the voter roles further like with the WO County assessor or is it just kind of its own own list that you have? >> Yeah, Addie, you want to help me out? So, Addie is a I call her the queen of registration. she'll know all of this stuff. So, if you don't mind if that's okay. >> Of course. >> Thank you. >> Good afternoon. Yeah, so that's a really great question. Um, we use a lot of county data to verify voter information. For example, like assessor data, we use that to verify if someone does live there, if it's a parcel that exists. Yeah. >> Um, one of the biggest things that us as a county because we partner with the Secretary of State is we're part of the ERIC program. Um, and what that program does is it essentially takes any state who participates in it. Um, I think there's quite a few. Um, but essentially they share data and what the ERIC program does is says, "Hey, I have a voter in Virginia and you have a voter in Nevada, so you need to cancel that registration." So, it allows cross comparison between states who do participate. >> So, how do they determine which state needs to count like cancel the voter? >> Yeah. So, the most recent record will be the one that remains active. So, for example, if you have a voter who moved from Wo County to one of our most popular like Florida, we get a lot from that. Yeah. >> Um if they moved to Florida since their registration date is more active, then we would cancel the registration. >> Okay. So if they have a more recent vote in Florida, then it's like, okay, we'll cancel the registration here. Is there any kind of notification that goes out if somebody's dropped from a voter role? >> Yeah, we send courtesy notifications um just to say your registration's been cancelled. Okay. Um but the biggest determinant I would say is when we have a lot of people who have moved and it's not really the most common thing to think of when you move, you're like, "Oh, I need to update my voter registration." Um, but one of the biggest things that happens is if you are if we don't have any activity from you and um you didn't vote, you haven't updated, we'll send an address confirmation card if there's an indicator that you may have moved. So, we're not immediately removing someone just because they haven't voted or because they haven't had any activity. >> That's interesting though, like if you think they've moved and then you mail an address change form to them if if they've moved. >> The biggest thing um is for example like a ballot that is nonportable mail. The address confirmation card is forwardable. So, that makes more sense. Yeah. >> Good. Okay. And then I know um I don't know if it was last election cycle or two cycles ago, there was people that received duplicate ballots or they received a ballot for someone that was deceased. Has there been like significant cleanup of that? Like was that part of this whole process or do we expect to see, you know, kind of oneoffs? I don't expect anything to ever be perfect. But um has those specific >> add before you step away can you just give us your name and title for the record please? >> Yeah. Addy veter deputy registar voters. >> Yeah. Uh with the bulkless maintenance slide. If you could put that back up. Um Addy, you'll see that we've done extreme amount of cleanup. Um about 15% of our voter role actually active voters went to inactive um and canceled. So about 70,000 people have been either inactivated and canled in the last 13 months. Okay. >> So yes, a quite extensive amount of of list maintenance has been completed >> and all of these people did not vote in like the last two elections. >> So the inactivations is from the mail ballots as I mentioned you know earlier um and getting information from the USPS that they no longer live there and we send out that card. >> Okay. then we inactivate then uh also part of that's the first step and then after two federal general elections then we can cancel them if they don't update their record sign a petition or vote. >> Okay. Okay. >> Thanks so much Council Ree. I'm going to move to Council Maurice and we can go back to you if you have further questions. >> Mr. McDonald, thank you so much for the excellent presentation. I was able to hear my colleagues comments in the back. I wanted to maybe start at the beginning which is I don't know that I've had the privilege of meeting you. Tell us your background. >> Sure. Yeah, thank you. I was actually born here in Reno at St. Mary's Hospital. >> Uh 1975. >> Uh so uh yeah, and I I went back to Loyaltton, California. That's across the border here if you guys know where that's at. Lived in Pollola, all those smaller trucky uh northern uh California areas. Did live in Fallon at one point in time in Carson. Um I was a my stepfather was a a carpenter, so he built a house and then moved us along all over the place. So almost worse than a military brat, I think in a way. Uh but I I moved down to San Diego at at 19 and I uh worked at the county of San Diego for uh close to 25 years I want to say. At the end of my career there, I was the assistant register voters. They have 2 million active registered voters there almost as much as if not more than the state of Nevada. Uh so uh I came back up here because my grandma had 19 uh 19 nine kids. 19 would be a lot. Nine kids. I have like 70 cousins that live here. I wanted to come home. It had I've been gone almost 30 years. So I figured I'd come back and take the job. Uh I did apply I was a deputy and then I applied to be the registar last year. So I've been about 13 months in the job. >> Well, thank you so much for that. I just thought it might be a good starting point. We've had some turnover. Elections are very challenging in this country. Um I want to make sure you understand that our role is unique at the Save Reno because we essentially outsource our elections uh to the county. Um and uh always um I've had a very high degree of trust and respect in uh for the office um for the work that you do and for your employees. And so I thank you for that. Our elections in this country are both safe and fair. Uh the right of ballot fraud is infantessimal in this country thankfully. And so I think obviously your presentation highlights the importance that your job is to follow the law and the process as laid out by our legislature in their infinite wisdom. And certainly you have some obligation to follow federal law. In this country, there are 263 million people who are eligible age to vote. That's not meaning that they all vote, but that's the number. And then 2.5 million of those are in Nevada, as you said, a little bit more than San Diego where you were. Um the open house that you held earlier in the week, I had some constituents reach out and they thought it was great. They really appreciate it. Especially our disabled community was very interested in a lot of the things that were going on in that space. So, I appreciate that. Um I wanted to ask uh two questions and I'll just be able to go over slightly. Um first in the last election there were a couple of errors in ballots and it happens I think in every election meaning there was like one ballot that was printed which didn't have an opponent. There is one ballot that I think had a person who had no um they weren't maybe running in one race or their opponent wasn't listed. So, how do we do like a I don't know. I I would think that you would send it out to the candidates who are running to say, "Hey, here's the draft of the ballot. Um, make sure you're on there and your name's spelled right." That kind of thing. That that just seems to me a pretty obvious way to correct that. Because what happens is when the person who's running doesn't see their name on there, they're like, "Oh gosh, the world's ended." And then they had to go back and do some crazy things. So, how do we just stop those little bit of errors? >> Yeah. Uh, and if you don't mind, I'd like to maybe correct something here. In 2024, the general, we never had any missing names on the ballot nor sample ballot. Uh, in 2024 primary, was it Drew Rebar that was left off the sample ballot? U, I had just got here. Not that that it matters, but it the registar voters unfortunately did uh, unfortunately. >> Yeah, there's some turnover. It happens. >> Yeah. So, proofing is where it all happens. And we proof for about two weeks, two, three weeks. Uh internally we have an army of staff that does that for hours and hours and hours. But I hear what you're saying like let turn it over if you will to the candidates and have them check to make sure that they're on there. But you also have to remember we have four roughly 400 iterations of the ballot. Uh it's not just one ballot that we send out to everybody. All the district lines and the the wards that we have here. Um it's extremely hard to know that they're on every single ballot if they're not looking properly. So, it's really kind of our job to do so. Um, and I'd love for the city of Reno and the city of Sparks and they've asked uh so we can show them the sample ballot booklet and the ballot and they can pour through it, too. The t the timelines are very very shortened now that the legislature said you need to get your sample ballot booklets out before ballots. So, we are under the gun and just to get a sample ballot booklet out and make it look extremely nice and have everything in it proper and and also proofed is extremely hard to do. >> Thank you for the answer. I appreciate that. The only second question I want to do is how is your office sort of paying attention to or how are you dealing with the evolving US Supreme Court juristprudence in this area? The Supreme Court in the uh Watson versus RNC case of course this week has been discussing whether or not ballots that are received after election day but would be postparked by election day would be acceptable. I you know political talking heads will tell you what they think the court's going to do. It doesn't really matter to me whichever they do. just understand that sometimes the court will make those decisions very late in the season in June. Obviously, I my guess is it will happen after our primary but before our general. So, what are you doing to stay a breast of those kind of changes in the law? >> Yeah, I appreciate the question. I literally just sent a summary of what you just said to our county manager, Kate Thomas, letting her know uh what's going on with with with this position of that at the Supreme Court. You are correct. uh we probably won't have uh anything until after this election, probably around mid June uh maybe early July. Uh but yes, we are working with the Secretary of State's office diligently and so are all the other counties to ensure that whatever that decision is, we'll be have to be ready for it and or the Secretary of State as the chief elections official in the state of Nevada says we're not going to do it this coming general and we're going to wait until the presidential. That's his prerogative uh to do so and I will follow uh what he says to do. >> Thank you so much. Thank you so much. I'll go back over to Council Member Der. Yeah. >> Yeah. Uh I'll make this quick. Um I wanted to follow up on Council Member Ree. Two things. One, it wasn't just the one you mentioned that had errors. Even uh a race I was in didn't have my name on the ballot. Um in certain precincts, right? And I think that was your point when you said four >> so many iterations. Uh within the the precincts, let's say within the district or ward or whatever. Um there were errors in maybe one or two precincts um that had dropped my name and um it's just an example. I can only imagine what you're going through to make sure everything's right in so many iterations of the ballot because let's say my name was in that precinct but for that precinct they had a different set let's say of assembly member or congressional member or whatever you know. >> Yeah. >> I mean I can only imagine. So, um, it was a little more widespread than maybe just the one you're aware of that it happened before you came right before same same election. But, um, the other thing I wanted to ask was about the sample ballot. That was another challenge in the last election. Sample ballots were arriving. Some people had not received them before they got the real the regular ballot and they were so confused. I mean, yes, they kept saying, "Am I getting a sample ballot? Am I still registered?" And so you this time you're saying you're going to try to make it before a certain date. >> Even if I have to hold mail ballots, I will do so until the sample ballots are shipped out. Uh we have a very strong relationship with our both our print vendors for both sides. Uh but it is the law now. It is law. It is NRS that says you must get sample ballots out before ballots. >> Okay. Now I don't know really the current situation with mail. Are these things going to Sacramento now? No, they >> we're still using our distribution hub here in Reno. >> Yes, and we actually just met with the post office manager uh recently. We went and did a tour of the facility, talked to him, and we asked that specific question. And the answer is absolutely not. No ballots at all will go over to Sacramento unless they have a outage for that machine for a period of days where he must route them because it's faster to do so. >> Okay. Yes. Because the mail delays were were also an issue in in the last election. You know that by the you said we sent them >> but people didn't receive them. You know there was like a five day six day sometimes difference between when you might have sent them from when they received them and that's what made them confused and you were saying to the press we have distributed all sample ballots. Um, lastly, I just wanted to ask, I know at DMV, um, they're doing, you know, whatever it's called, motor voter registration, and a lot of people, I I guess don't select a party and they get automatically registered as nonpartisan, right? And >> if they're new voters, that is correct. >> And then are we seeing is there any better education at DMV or do they just say nothing? I mean, are you working with them to explain this is part of your license and registration? the Secretary of State U and the DMV have that relationship. It's not necessarily our office. Uh we're taking the brunt of it obviously and we are sending uh that form out on behalf of what the DMV just registered that voter as and saying if you want to change your political party, please do so on this form. If you are already a Republican or Democrat, you will stay the same and you should stay the same. But if you didn't, uh then you should notify us right away. Yes. >> Yeah. Okay. And you can do same day registration, right? So, still can. >> And can you change your party or your address on that same day? >> You can. >> Okay. >> Y >> I mean, that to me is a fail safe that if some of the information is wrong, they have a chance to correct it at the poll. >> Absolutely. >> All right. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. Before I hand it over to Madame Mayor, who's back, I just want to ask a couple of questions um and take my turn. I think during the presentation at the beginning, you talked about, you know, cleaning the or maintaining the roles. Um, and I wanted to see what sort of uh protections there were in place for any overseas citizens uh throughout that process just to ensure that those folks weren't inadvertently caught in this process. >> Yeah, I'm bring up Addie real quick for that. >> Yeah, >> good afternoon. Um, yeah, you know voters or citizens overseas, they have a lot of special protections around them to ensure that none of that does happen. Um, for example, the majority of our YOPava voters are email preferred method. So if they if we get something back from them and it was mailed, it should have never been mailed. Um they should have had something emailed to them. Um just because a lot of people use their last known doicile here in Wo County, even though they've been overseas for x amount of years. Um so a lot of those specific parameters, if we do send an address confirmation card, they are a preferred method by mail and we get that back. Um they will be inactivated, but that's only because that's their preferred method of being contacted if that makes sense. So they kind of have special parameters, but they still do comp they have to comply with the requirements of the statute. >> Perfect. Yeah, I just wanted to make sure that they weren't inadvertently caught in this process. I appreciate you clarifying that with um the other question I had was about the curbside voting. Is that something that's going to be available at all of the voting centers or is it just as specific ones? Sorry. >> I apologize. I haven't been saying my name for the record. Angie McDonald for the record. Uh, yes. Even if the site is 100% ADA compatible, we will have a curbside voting program at each boat center. >> That's good to hear. Thank you so much for ensuring that you're providing ADA accessibility for our voters. And then um the last one is just to make sure that you reiterate, I think you said 51% of voters decide to do it in person as opposed to mail ballots. and just curious if you could give us the information again for those individuals that want to be removed from receiving uh mail ballot. How do they fill that out? Um and just to ensure that we can get that information out for folks >> on our website, right? >> Yes. Um on our website, there's a form called a mail ballot preference form. Uh they would fill that out, send it back into us, and once they do that, they're not going to get receive a mail ballot again unless they opt back into receiving a mail ballot. >> Perfect. Thank you so much for spreading that great information. Thank you. >> Yeah. >> Uh, Council Member Eert looks like she has a final round to go. >> Okay. Great. >> Um, >> so I I know Council Member Reese alluded to this, but I'm not sure if he was talking about what what I'm interested in. Is there any like um federal uh changes that you're worried about that would affect people's registrations? Um any changes that could potentially happen before the primary or the general >> before the primary? No, I don't believe anything is going to to take effect. Okay. >> So, we're not really eyeing that right now. We're solely focused on the primary. >> Okay. So, the general maybe. I mean, should people check to make sure they're still registered before each election? >> It's always a good idea to uh check your registration, especially before a primary, just because if you think you're one party and you've kind of flipped and flopped, I mean, we are a swing state and a swing county in that state. Um, and people do want to sometimes participate as a Republican or a Democrat and an NP, but they want to vote those party ballots, right? So, if that's something you want to do, please make those changes uh now. Uh not last minute if you could. It would just it's a smoother process. But yes, always check your uh registration. >> Or if somebody's moved and hasn't voted in a while, but suddenly wants to vote. Okay. So, can you tell me how somebody could check their registration? >> Um yes, they can go on our website and which will redirect them to the Secretary of State's website and it's a very simple >> What's your website? >> Uh Wo County uh register voter. It's wo county.gov/voters. >> Okay. Thank you. Yes. >> All right. And it redirects to Secretary of State and then they can >> once they go to click on check my voter registration, it will redirect to the state and it's very simple to type in their name and >> Great. All right. Thank you. And then um you had mentioned that there's a $5,000 or $5,000 5,000 person limit per precinct and there's 24 new precincts. Correct. Can you tell me like it's a maximum of 5,000, but I'm assuming that these 24 new precincts do not have 5,000 in them? Correct. Okay. Okay. Um, can you kind of explain like how many are in them? Like what's the determining factor on like, okay, now this is a precinct. Why do we have 24 new ones? >> Yeah. So once we hit around 3,500 uh voters in that precinct, we start looking at splitting that precinct and making another precinct because we do this for an election cycle. So we want to make sure we're good for the general election also. So it's like a one-time deal, if you will, ensuring I mean, yes, we'll double check it before the general again, but it's just to ensure that we have plenty of precincts and we're not going to ever go over 5,000. >> Okay, that makes sense. And you said that we removed 32,000 c. Can you tell me again what's the total amount of registered voters now? Has it gone down due to that or I know we have a population increase. So where did we end up? >> So as of this date of this slide it it's you know two weeks ago now. Um but it was it about 312,000. Maybe add you can check on your phone while I'm up here if you don't mind please. >> Oh that's okay. I'm just looking for >> the rough numbers between uh 312 and probably 315,000. >> Okay. down from about probably 350 >> give or take. >> Okay. Okay. Um I think that is Oh no no no. Uh counting I know there's always a lot of um frustration around how long it takes to count the ballots. Um is there any changes to that process to kind of maybe expedite that? And I know there's some things we just can't avoid like with mail and ballots that we have to wait till they come in from the mail. Right. Correct. But is there any changes to the um process of counting the ballots that um will speed up processes where we can? >> Yeah. So our new ballot marking devices uh the old way of voting you still have that that same kind of look as you're voting, right? That that that terminal is the same. The output is the paper ballot, right? And so when you go to cast that paper ballot into the ballot box now, which is the vote center scanner, that will have two SD cards on them. And for all intents and purposes, that is your digital vote. That is casting your vote. Okay? >> So we'll only have two cards coming back as opposed to like at UNR when we have 20 machines. You have 40 sticks coming back, two from each machine, a primary and backup stick that have the votes on them. >> Okay. >> So that will speed up election night results in that regard. It'll be less uploads to do. Okay. >> Um but you're exactly right. mail ballot is kind of takes longer to to count >> um especially after election day. >> Yeah. Okay. All right. Thank you. >> You're welcome. >> That was it. Thank you for the extra time. >> Yeah. Thanks so much, Mr. McDonald, for the presentation. Looks like you've answered all of our questions. So, appreciate you being here and giving us an update on what's going on. >> Great question. I appreciate you allowing me to come to this uh council. Very, very good. Thank you. >> Yeah. And um if it's okay with everyone, I'd like to take a 30 minute uh lunch break. Uh if that's okay, Madame Mayor. Um unless you want to scroll through some other stuff. >> Well, I want everyone to get up. >> You good with that? Fine. Okay. Um the only thing is is I just I know when we have people waiting in the audience, I just >> always kind of cringe. Is there something that we could do? >> Madam clerk, do you have any >> Is there something we can do relatively quickly? >> The only participant we have in the audience right now for a specific item is C3. Otherwise, we just have um community members here to watch. >> Oh, yeah. We are >> right. Right. Um okay, let's do this. Let's um just break for 20 minutes really quick. I need you guys to get up and get something to eat and >> refresh and then uh we'll come back. >> Okay, >> sound good. >> Perfect. Thank you. >> Thanks. And then I'll probably say Miguel, we should have 30 minutes. >> So we will reconvene at 1:50. >> Perfect. Okay. I used to come for the station. I used to come here and enjoy the hotels and go down to the river and and I was familiar with the automobile museum, but I never in a million years thought I'd be working here. My name is Philip McDougall. I'm the president of the National Automobile Museum. The history of the National Automobile Museum goes way, way back. So, most people know the name Hera from the casinos, but they don't know the story behind it. Mr. Hera, he had a collection of 1,400 of the most unbelievable cars. And when he passed, he didn't have a will. The community got together and they said, "You can't sell all these things. This is part of our community. It's part of our identity. We need to keep them here." They raised money to build the museum. The city said, "We're going to contribute the land. If you get the money to build it, and then the Holiday Inn, who purchased all the assets of Mr. Harris collection and said if you do all that then we're going to throw in 175 cars of the total collection of400. So all those things came together because the community thought it was important and in 1989 the museum was opened up. We want to be a community partner and we are right. We have events we have older cars, newer cars, Elvis's car, Jurassic Park, Back to the Future. We have a brand new children's educational activity center. 3,000 square ft of technology for those kids and adults to get hands-on experience on how cars work, how next generation of technology was created. We wanted to be different. We wanted to embrace the community, be a community partner. We did a complete renovation and then we went out with an active campaign, not in that car mode, not museum mode, but outdoor concerts, speakers, parties, birthdays, and a whole new selection of cars. I think the biggest change is that we have a new exhibit every 60 days. It really is fun to watch how a family can come in and they'll just go in five different directions because we have something for every generation. It's not just a building. It's not just the cars that are in there. It's the people. It's the livelihoods of everybody that's around this town that keeps us going. The downtown partnership has been a lifesaver for us. Just helping us overall in the day-to-day challenges we have. Like any business downtown, we can't make it without the security issues addressed, without the communication addressed, and it's all one big team down here. So, the restaurants help us, the uh businesses help us, everyone here. We all kind of depend on each other. And that's what we're trying to bring to the equation is another partner who can help us all be a little bit stronger and a bigger community partner. Uh, I see a greater emphasis from the downtown partnership, from the elected officials, than the community leaders to get together and say, "If we really want to succeed, we have to succeed as a group. No silos, the restaurants, the businesses, uh, the the gas stations, everybody that's here has to get a common bond. Otherwise, we're not going to succeed. It's the storytelling. It's the camaraderie. And we had that not only with us in the museum, but all the local businesses downtown here. We have the same common bond and passion. Downtown Reno is the place to be. It's a family place. It has something for everybody. Come to the museum. Go to a local restaurant. You're going to feel safe. You're going to have fun. And you're going to be 15 minutes away from wherever you live. My name is Robert DS. I'm a field specialist with Rise. And this experience with Bonnie Pace and the Pathway Pilot has been awesome and tremendous. And I'll never forget it. I'm free. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. N. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. I see. Heat. Heat. What home means Nevada to me is is just that it's always a place that I find comfort and soulless. We travel a lot. We camp a lot and I just love coming home. Home means Nevada for so many reasons. My name is Scott Dunith and I'm the owner of the Home Means Nevada Company which was formerly Reno Envy. I grew up in the Bay Area and I went to school at UNR and my thought was that I would spend 2 years in Reno and then I would go back home. But after the two years, I just fell in love with the place. I love the people, the community. It's just been awesome. I was talking to a friend. I was giving him my address and so I told him Scott Duny D Reno Envy 89523 and he's like Reno Envy. I'm like Reno Envy. So it was kind of at that moment that was our aha moment where I realized that the state abbreviation for Nevada Envy sounded like the word envy. So that's where it all started from. What's great about the downtown Reno community is that, you know, people believe in Reno. You know, we have something here. People really love this community as much as I do and and people really resonated with the idea of having like a local brand. Uh downtown Reno honestly has has been a challenge, but we're a small business and we've been down here since 2008 and honestly, if we can do it, you know, there's a lot of opportunity out there and we kind of wanted to prove to people that retail works. in 2012 rebranded ourselves and we went from Reno Envy and renamed our our brand the Home Meats Nevada Company. Kind of tried to support the local artists in the community by bringing their products in and selling them on on their behalf. We have all sorts of great stuff. We have coffee from Glory Cloud. We have local honey. It's important for us to collaborate too with local celebrities. Christa Palmer is an Olympic athlete and we had the opportunity to partner with her and create her own authentic Christa Palmer Battlebborne t-shirt. >> My name is Christa Palmer, Nevada's Olympic diver. This is a really special company to me because my roots are in Nevada. I grew up down in Carson City. I truly feel this connection between home means Nevada and my story. This has been a really cool partnership that I've been able to develop over the years with Scott projection of Reno downtown. I really see it opening up more doors for people to continue to get outside, continue to take their dogs for a walk and enjoy the Reno River Walk to be able to have space to enjoy those lovely afternoons. I think that's where I kind of see the progression of Reno going and for more people to enjoy what Reno is. It's truly a treasure here. People believe in Reno and we believe in Reno. There's so much opportunity and so many different types of people in downtown Reno. And the city of Reno has been great with this partnership with the visitor center. The RSCVA has been great. The collaborations that we do with the community, with the university, with Christa Palmer Olympic athlete. It really is about a community that kind of binds us together. If we didn't have that support, we wouldn't be able to survive in downtown Reno. I have always felt like Reno's been kind of our little secret and we love to share that secret. We love to see Reno grow and prosper. Great for shopping for friends, great for gift giving. So come on down, visit us, check it out. It's been a while. >> Come visit downtown Reno and see what you're missing. Do you want to make a difference in your neighborhood? The city of Reno's six neighborhood advisory boards are your chance to shape the future of your community. From parks and public safety to development projects, your voice matters. Joining an NAB is easy, and it's a great way to connect with neighbors and city leaders while making Reno an even better place to live. Applications are open now. Visit reno.govnab to learn more and apply. Get involved and help make Reno not just livable, but lovable. Hi, I'm Reno Fire Chief Dave Cochran. It's an honor to connect with you as we look back on 2024, a year of innovation, strong work, and unwavering dedication to protecting our community. The Reno Fire Department reached incredible milestones, overcame challenges, and made a real impact on the biggest little city. Let's look back at 2024 and the achievements and highlights of the Reno Fire Department. 2024's wildland season tested our region with incidents like the Gold Ranch, Davis, and Callahan fires straining resources from across the West. Although these fires happened just outside Reno city limits, our firefighters stepped up to assist while ensuring our Reno community remained well protected. In 2024, RFD deployed 264 resources to more than 100 wildland fires, contributing over 65,000 hours of work. These efforts brought nearly $2 million in reimbursements back to the department. Right here at home, we responded to 51,737 calls for service, an increase of over 2,000 from the previous year. Our commitment to service continues to grow along with our community. The safety and training division saw impressive growth in 2024, paving the way for a stronger, more skilled team. We proudly promoted 11 captains and eight operators, hired 25 new firefighters, and welcomed five single roll EMS personnel. This year we ran two 3-week fire equipment operator enginemies, one two-eek fire equipment operator truck academy, and a two-week acting captain's academy. These intensive programs help sharpen our skills and prepare our teams for any situation. We also expanded our monthly company level training sessions, introducing specialized active shooter training and wide area search exercises. And through partnerships with surrounding fire departments, we enhanced our response capabilities for wildland fires and hazmat operations. Additionally, we upgraded the training facilities at station 11 with new technology to improve the delivery of our programs, ensuring our team is always ready to meet the demands of our city. The Reno Fire Prevention Bureau experienced significant strides this year in 2024, starting with the appointment of a new fire marshal, three fire captains, and three new fire inspectors. Our team saw great success in our arson investigations, achieving an impressive 80% conviction rate and completed over 6,000 building inspections to help keep Reno safe. For the fourth consecutive year, we hosted our dumpster program thanks to a grant from State Farm. This program helps neighborhoods in the wildland urban interface clear dry vegetation and debris, creating defensible space. Thank you to everyone who participated and helped reduce wildfire risk in our community. In 2024, we were also thrilled to receive nearly 245,000 from FEMA's fire prevention and safety grant to develop a community wildfire protection plan. This comprehensive framework will prioritize wildfire mitigation efforts, improve emergency preparedness, and ensure long-term safety for Reno's residents and infrastructure. Keep an eye out in the coming months for ways to get involved. We're excited to collaborate with you in 2024. We work closely with our community partners to update the regional hazard mitigation plan. The plan assesses the potential impact of all prioritized hazards to the region and provides mitigation strategies and actions to reduce such risks. The update ensures the plan remains effective in addressing the evolving needs of our communities. We also prioritized firefighter health with initiatives like our fourth annual cancer screenings and the introduction of the coronary calcium scan. These proactive prevention programs are vital in detecting early markers of heart disease and cancer. Critical steps for firefighters facing heightened risks associated with their profession. Additionally, we launched a groundbreaking pilot program with the Epic Brain Center exploring enhanced mindbody performance treatments. This innovative approach supports firefighters dealing with PTSD and other mental health challenges while empowering them with improved executive function to perform at their best. >> 2024 was a landmark year for the Reno Fire Department Emergency Medical Services Division with 30,649 calls for service. Collaboration played a key role in 2024 as we joined forces with regional partners to strengthen our unified response to medical emergencies. We were excited to welcome our new EMS management assistant and expand our specialized training for our single role program. Ensuring our EMS team is always prepared to meet our community's high demand for advanced emergency medical services. We conducted division level training on new medical equipment, including cutting edge video luringoscope blades that are vital and life-saving situations and new medications that can be used to treat various patient presentations by our mid and advanced level providers. We also implemented a new medical charting platform, further enhancing patient care. >> Reno Fire Department's support services division achieved significant milestones in 2024. enhanced vehicle maintenance and repair, increased apparatus safety, and equipment modernization. Through our apparatus replacement program, we added two new brush trucks designed for firefighting and rugged terrain and a state-of-the-art ambulance, ensuring our fleet meets the diverse needs of our community. We also enhanced operations by refining the use of fleet cameras throughout our vehicles. These systems capture critical moments during incidents, training, and daily operations, providing insights that improve safety and support crew education. Our logistics team continues to push innovation forward, adopting advanced battery powered tools on our fire engines and ladder trucks, and improve personal protective equipment. These enhancements extend equipment lifespan, improve functionality, and prioritize firefighter safety. Looking ahead, we're excited to introduce a new heavy rescue apparatus in 2025. The first of its kind for our department since 1986. As an all-risk fire department supporting many different types of incidents, this addition ensures our crews are ready to respond to any emergency, no matter the challenge. >> As we reflect on 2024, Reno Fire Department has much to celebrate. from our interlocal agreement with the Reno Tahoe airport Authority, enabling us to assume firefighting services across all airport properties and our partnership with Truckucky Meadows Fire and Rescue, which now provides automatic aid to ensure the closest resource response to emergencies, no matter the jurisdiction. We're building the foundation for continued growth and excellence. I'm pleased to share that we also received the keys to 455 East Second Street, our future central fire station. We're excited to begin serving you from this state-of-the-art facility in 2027. At RFD, we believe that being part of the community is just as important as responding to emergencies. Whether it's hosting fire safety programs, participating in local events, or building relationships with residents, we strive to be more than the first responders. We're your neighbors, partners, and advocates for a safer region. None of our work would be possible without the dedication of our team and unwavering support of our Reno City Council, state, and federal representatives. Their commitment ensures RFD is always ready to serve and protect our community. On behalf of the Reno Fire Department, thank you for your trust and support. Together, we accomplished so much in 2024, and we look forward to an even brighter and safer year ahead. Thank you for standing with us. Hello and welcome to On the Agenda, a semionthly podcast by the city of Reno that quickly updates you on actions taken. Grab a slice, hit a ride, get a rush, and roll the dice. Step into a world where Nevada's northern lights shine bright and last calls are rare in a city that never sleeps. Where the spirit of the Wild West lives on through daring rapids and rocking out goes beyond the crowds. Founded on the rebels of resilience. We aren't what you expected. We are what's coming. We don't just embrace downtown. We infuse it with life. We are a convergence of adventure, art, and taste. It's not just our city. It's our identity. The mighty Truckucky, our lifeline, and the Nevada sky as our backdrop. Downtown Reno is a tribute to our roots and a leap into the future. Discover 110 blocks of stories of residents entrepreneurs creators and masters of their craft coming together in the spirit of discovery and progress. In a city that never ceases to reinvent itself, we are the unexpected. Been a while? Downtown Reno invites you to rise with us again. What's your story? Grab a slice, catch a ride, get a rush, and roll the dice. Step into a world where Nevada's northern lights shine bright and last calls are rare in the city that never sleeps. Where the spirit of the Wild West lives on through daring rapids and rocking out goes beyond the crowds. We are the unexpected in a city that never ceases to reinvent itself. Been a wild? Downtown Reno invites you to rise with us again. What's your You know how uh speeders got categories? >> Categories. >> Different types, different cars, want to be race car drivers with zero talent and all the insurance claims. >> Go on. Yeah. So, you got the I didn't realize I was going 95 type. Like the car magically went 45 over just on its own. >> Oh. officer. I thought I was going 45. Nobody. You thought about going 45. Well, then you got the uh I'm late for work, guys. Like going 25 over is going to make up for the 30 minutes they spent laying in bed watching Tik Toks. Ain't nothing like risking a reckless driving charge to get to a job that you already hate. We can't forget the I was just keeping up with traffic, folks. Oh, the if everybody jumped off the bridge defense. >> Just because everybody else is breaking the law doesn't mean that you get a free pass. >> Nah, but it does mean we all get to sit on the side of the road together while we trade live stories and I write this ticket at lightning speed. There's one. Yeah, we got a black Volkswagen uh headed your way, guys. Got him. >> In all seriousness, Reno, we need to slow down when driving on our roads. >> Speed and impairment are the two biggest factors in fatality crashes. >> That is why the Reno Police Department will be conducting proactive speeding enforcement on McCarron and around the city. >> Slow down, Reno. Nevada. >> The I'm not from Nevada and pretty sure the speed limit signs all look the same everywhere. We are the unexpected in a city that never ceases to reinvent itself. It's been a while. Downtown Reno invites you to rise with us again. What's your story? >> I'm Corey. I'm a housing manager with the city of Reno and we are here at our second Love Your Block project pop-up nursery for Yori Avenue residents. We had residents of this neighborhood apply. And we've got about 75 plants and trees here to give out to the neighbors to beautify the neighborhood, get a little more green here. one day of planting and a lifetime of shade and and beautiful greenery in the neighborhood. >> The Yori pop-up nursery is project that my neighbor and I kind of came up with. People get to beautify their yards. Sometimes landscaping is intimidating due to the cost. This initiative, this project helps kind of eliminate that obstacle for a lot of people and so it'll be nice to see more plants in more people's yards and just make more of a beautiful neighborhood. Uh, secondarily, I'm a huge fan of pollinators and native plants, and so getting more of those in the ground is just going to help the environment overall. >> It's super exciting. I love this project. I started the bee friendly campaign, which was created to help people talk to their neighbors. So, a lot of times when you start a pollinator garden in your front yard, it doesn't look like a traditional yard. So, I created these signs to kind of help with communication. It's a great neighborhood gathering and I'm super proud to be a part of it. >> We're just so excited to be here in partnership with Reno Food Systems, Be Friendly Nevada, and the Nevada Division of Forestry alongside all these neighbors to to get in the neighborhood and get planting. The Pioneer Center is a nonprofit performing arts center located in the heart of downtown Reno. We are in an absolutely gorgeous one-of-a-kind historic building right on the banks of the Truckucky River. Our building was constructed in the 1960s. So, we have been open and operating as a nonprofit performing arts center for over 56 years now. I'm Denise Su. I'm the CEO of the Pioneer Center for the Performing Arts. One of the amazing things about being a community performing arts center is our historic stage is the very first performance opportunity for so many young children in the area. Aspiring young musicians and dancers will perform their first recitals here on our stage. There is an incredible magic when all of those children come. All right, Madame Mayor, we're going to reconvene the meeting. It is 1:54. At this time, Council Member Eert, Council Member Reese, and Vice Mayor Martinez are absent. >> Okay. Do you have any public comment on this item? >> Would you like to open Are we opening the RDA? >> We are. Um, at this time, Madame Clerk, I'd like to um call the role. >> Perfect. Calling roll for Wednesday, March 25th, 2026. Redevelopment Agency board. Board member Taylor >> here. Der >> here. >> Martinez absent at this time. Eert absent at this time. Reese >> here. >> Anderson here. Sheavy >> here. >> You do have a quorum of the redevelopment agency board. >> Okay. Thank you so much. Do you have any public comment? >> We do not have any public comment registered. Let me just verify that we haven't received any written correspondence. We do not have any written correspondence to report. >> Okay. Thank you so much. >> Move to approve the agenda. Second motion. I have a second. All those in favor say I. >> I. >> All those opposed. >> Motion carries unanimously. >> Okay. Madame mayor move to approve the minutes from >> Thank you. I have a motion. I have a second. All those in favor say I. >> All those opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Okay, next page. Um, we are item B1. Okay, so this is uh discussion only. Take it away. >> Thank you, >> Miss Tney. >> Uh, madam chair of the RDA and board members, Ashley Attorney, assistant city manager for the record. Uh before you today is a discussion on the use of redevelopment agency funds for policing activities pursuant to your direction from the January 14th RDA meeting in which you directed agency's outside council which is Rory Robinson with Keer Cra to provide a public opinion regarding the feasibility of utilizing agency funds for policing. Um I do have Rory Robinson is with us today. She has put together a presentation. This was presented to the advisory board meeting on March 2nd for their discussion as well. And I'll be available if there's questions, but she will be the one to take over the presentation. >> Okay, sounds good. >> And I believe you're from Las Vegas, correct? >> Yes, I flew from the Las Vegas office. Spent some time in a Reno office today. >> Okay. So for the record, I'm Rory Robinson with the law firm of Cam for Croll, which as Miss Tie said is the outside council for the redevelopment agency, and we answer questions as assigned um by staffers requested by the board. And we've been asked to provide a public opinion, a public discussion of use of redevelopment agency funds for policing activities. Typically, as you know, our advice would be confidential. Uh the board has waved um their attorney client client privilege with respect to these matters. So, I can discuss them freely in public. Um there's no particular item for discussion before the board. So this is going to be a general discussion of what you know the breadth of the agency's powers are and what some of the limits on the agency's powers are and I apologize but my voice is getting shaky as I may be coming down with a cold. >> Oh no. >> So anyway they're with me. Um >> so the first question why policing? Um the agency board has requested a public opinion um since their January 14th meeting and I think there's an obvious nexus in people's minds between blight which is how we identify redevelopment areas when we're forming um a redevelopment agency or identifying a redevelopment area. And there's a definition of blight. And we understand that the existence of that blight causes um a need for disproportionate expenditures for crime prevention. Um there are public health and safety expenses that may be higher in those areas and the maintaining of adequate police protection. Other public services and facilities are higher in the redevelopment agency. So it is a good question to ask. Is this something that the redevelopment agency board can um step in? What is the limit of their powers with respect to these matters? Um that second bullet point is a paraphrase of the findings of the legislature when they adopted the um redevelopment agency um governing statute, the community redevelopment law. So the powers of the redevelopment agency as an administrative agency are going to be limited uh as determined by the Nevada Supreme Court. They stated this several times. Um the city of Henderson v. Kilgore is usually the case that's cited. Um that the powers of an administrative agency are limited to those powers specifically set forth in the statute and certain powers that can be implied um if they're not expressly granted. But those powers have to be necessary to the AY's performance of its enumerated duties. So bear with me. We're going to be looking at the statutes, parsing through the statutes and looking what the agency's duties are today. Um also from the same um Supreme Court opinion, when the language of a statute is plain and unambiguous, you give the language its ordinary meaning and do not go beyond it. So those are the principles we're starting with. You can compare that to the powers of the incorporated cities under NRS chapter 268. So when you're acting as the ward the um I'm sorry when the board of the redevelopment agency your powers are going to be somewhat more limited than they are as acting as the city council um of the city of Reno. So the powers of a governing body as um set forth in 268 are going to be those powers expressly granted necessarily or fairly implied and then with respect to the matters of local concern and this was added um I think in 2015 to the um um NRS chapter 268 which is the powers of incorporated cities. This greatly expanded um with respect to matters that were not um fiscal the powers of the city council when acting with respect to matters of local concern and matters of local concern. I won't go through the whole definition, but that does include redevelopment. So, there's going to be some overlap between the powers of your powers when you're seated as city council verse your powers now acting as the redevelopment agency board. Um, one of the powers that is applicable, Thank you, cuz my voice cracks. Um, one of the powers that is applicable to both is the ability to deal with real property. Um, you know, sell real property for the purposes of redevelopment. The community redevelopment law is in NRS chapter 279 that sets forth the enumerated duties, purposes and powers of the agency. Um it establishes requirements for um redevelopment plans. So there are two as you know um redevelopment areas within the city. Each of those are governed by a separate redevelopment plan, which is one of the documents that's going to govern how money may be spent within the redevelopment area. They're not going to expand the powers granted by statute, but they may in some ways limit the powers um granted by statute. And then it also permits the use of tax increment funds for certain redevelopment projects. My presentation is going to focus on those tax increment funds. There's a provision for the city to be able to provide funds to the agency and a revolving fund. Um since we're talking about, you know, use of the redevelopment agency funds, I I've focused my presentation on the use of those tax and growment funds. So, beginning with the enumerated duties, purposes, and powers, um the there are several declarations of the Nevada legislature in adopting the community redevelopment law and these discuss the purposes for which the redevelopment act was established. And primarily they deal specifically with bricks and mortar, the improvement of real property, the development of real property, acquisition, disposition of real property. And they set forth certain goals. So the development and redevelopment of blighted areas, providing for the general welfare of um inhabitants by remedying injurous conditions. So you'll see a pattern where there's a discussion of these general issues um which can include crime and blight but the powers that are granted to the redevelopment agency are at the time that the statute the community redevelopment law was established is supplemental to the powers that existed within the city and these are specifically related to redevelopment. So blighted area is defined as um an area that's characterized by at least four of the following factors. Um the existence of buildings and structures that are defect have defective design, physical construction issues, faulty arrangement. So again although there's a mention of crime it's speaking of crime in terms of the existence of these buildings are unsafe unfit or unsafe and are conducive to crime. Um so the powers are directly related to the manners that you're dealing with real property personal property related to the improvement of real property right um there's discussion of economic dislocation deterioration dis disuse inadequate streets open spaces utilities and um depreciated values impaired investments social economic maladjustment so these are the purposes of the agency. Redevelopment is defined as planning, development replanning redesign clearance, reconstruction or rehabilitation or any combination of those a part of a redevelopment area and the provision of structures and spaces appropriate or necessary. Again, the focus is very much on dealing with real property and improvements. There's a declaration of state policy specifically with respect to affordable housing. I included this. This was adopted later um after the adoption of the original statute um in 1993 I believe. Uh so if there is an intent to expand the powers originally granted, then it has been the legislaturator's practice to go in. Um this was a um further declaration added to the statute to specifically deal with affordable housing. So the agency does have general powers um powers to sue and be sued. Um obtain services is among the general powers of the agency. It also has the ability to select a um point and employ personnel as it requires. And these provisions have to be read in the context of the overall specific powers of the agency which are related again um to the powers expressly granted with respect to um matters relating to redevelopment and um the elimination of blight. There's also the ability um to obtain services from the city. With respect to real property and improvements, the agency can act as an owner and has practically all incidents of ownership with respect to real property and then um additional powers as the redevelopment agency with respect to clearing building structures, other improvements, sale or lease of property and with respect to the property that the agency owns, it can rent, maintain um manage such real property um as as the owner of that real property. With respect to other projects, which can include public projects owned by, for example, a city project or a privatelyowned project, which is where you have your owner participation agreements is one of the um ways in which the agency funds privately owned projects. That power is expressly granted as well. Um and the agency has the ability to pay part or of the value of the land and the cost of construction of buildings, facilities, structures or other improvements. And so this is again you have your owner participation agreements with private developers. This is, you know, if we bring it back to policing, if there was an interest in, you know, the city having, for example, a police substation, that would be um a publiclyowned improvement perhaps that would be able to be funded with agency funds pursuant to this provision. Um and again there's an express provision in this statute related to the public and private improvements that permits the funds to be used um the tax increment funds to be used. That's a reference to the the tax increment provision in the statute and um you would have to go through the process of finding related to that that it's a benefit to the redevelopment area that no other means of financing are reasonably available and those um statutory provisions. The agency also has the ability to do these related activities um prepare plans improvements um for redevelopment of blighted area. So this can be general plans. It doesn't have to be specific to any particular improvement. Um to disseminate redevelopment information and accept financial and other assistance from any public or private source. You see that stated in um the community redevelopment law in several areas. The idea that there may be funding provided from other um sources for the agency um and also to create a residential plan. So the redevelopment plan again I won't go into a lot of detail because the redevelopment plans are not going to expand the power of the agency with respect to um how it may spend its funds. But if you do have a specific project to consider, you also want to make sure it's consistent with the redevelopment plans. And if it's not consistent with the redevelopment plans, uh you may need to um do an amendment to that plan if you want to move forward with that. But both of the plans reference that all the powers granted under the statute um can be utilized in furtherance of those plans. Again, with respect to tax increment funds, uh primary source of the redevelopment agency's funding is through the tax increment um generated within the redevelopment area. And that provision that allows the payment of the tax increment um provides that it must be paid into a special fund to pay the cost of redevelopment. Um we read the definition of redevelopment earlier um and can also be the indebtedness incurred by the redevelopment agency um to with respect to financing and refinancing redevelopment. So again, the AY's powers are limited to those expressly granted by statute and implied powers necessary to the agency's performance of those enumerated duties set forth in the statute. It's also going to be governed by the particular source of funds, any limitation on that source of funds. So um with respect to certain examples uh the first question is may the agency fund crime prevention through environmental design and when it comes to this area absolutely there are a lot of different ways in which the agency could fund um just better planning everything to deal with the improvement of real property um whether it be a construction or um demolition of certain um structures within the redevelopment area that would um you know better align with um lowering crime, helping public safety. One of the items um that would be possible is um security cameras and alarm systems um that can be included within buildings and other improvements. um you know just again demolition, removing barriers if there are unsafe areas, redeveloping that area. Um those can all go toward um you know bettering public safety and policing. The agency also has some limited powers with respect to just general costs of policing if it is necessary for the agency and the performance of any of its other functions. So those um could be if you think about what a normal development would entail if there's security required for a project um there's the ability to cooperate with the city. Um but again you would have to check your ability to as the as the city uh you know to require that of um your police officers. But from the agency's perspective if this is necessary to the development of the redevelopment area if there's a large project that's requiring um overnight patrols something like that those are all things that are within the powers of the agency. um you know if it's proportional and reasonable within the scope of the development project or redevelopment project excuse me that the agency's undertaking. The final example would be payment of salaries of police officers as an offset of the ordinary cost of policing and that is not something that is directly provided for in the statute. Again, there's the ability to hire employees, but that has to be um required by the agency's performance of its duties. And again, its duties are related to primarily development um and redevelopment projects within or for the benefit of the redevelopment agency, I mean the redevelopment area. So, um I'm happy to take any questions with respect to specific examples if um >> Okay. The board has any questions. >> Okay, perfect. Yes, that's great. I appreciate it. Um it's kind of hard to break it down because obviously you know this like the back of your hand. Um this is what you do, correct? >> Right. Right. Yeah, I I do have um yeah, a few years of experience working specifically in redevelopment. >> Yeah. Is that your main area of law? >> It is. I work in real estate, primarily real estate and corporate. I was um in the city of Henderson city attorney's office, brought in specifically to work on a large redevelopment project there and worked with them for four and a half years um with probably the bulk of my time in in redevelopment. >> Perfect. Okay. Appreciate your knowledge, Rory. I'm going to ask um if anyone has any questions. No. Okay. Do you go right? No. No. You go first. No. No. You go first. No, you go first. Um Okay. I want I would like to break it down >> because I'm going to go through this a little bit and then um so we can understand. I think it was hard to follow. Um, obviously we're not attorneys, so I know that you can help us get there. And well, I'm not an attorney. He's an attorney. Sorry. Sorry. I apologize. He's Well, I just played one on TV. No, I'm just kidding. >> Everybody drink. >> Everybody drink. Right. Exactly. Um, so let me just start by saying like actually what Nevada law says. Okay. Because first of all, there are some areas where it is very broad and but it says under NRS 279 388 blight includes conditions that threaten public health and safety. Okay. Endanger life or property and discourage investment. Blight is not just buildings. It includes unsafe conditions. Right. >> Am I right? >> Yes. Absolutely. Nevada law further states redevelopment exists to eliminate the menace of blighted areas to public health, safety, and welfare. >> So that doesn't just mean just buildings, >> right? >> Correct. >> Okay. Um and then public safety is not separate from redevelopment. It's it is part of its purpose. Correct. It's part of its purpose indirectly. So the purpose of the redevelopment agency would be specifically related to the elimination of blight. And by eliminating blight, that's one of the benefits, one of the indirect purposes of redevelopment. >> But you're saying to me, I think I'm hearing that you're saying that only blight is only tied to buildings. >> I'm when I say I'm sorry, I should have said more broadly than just buildings. It can include streets, um, you know, physical improvements to real property, real property and improvements. Um so it's the idea it can be open spaces, it can be um parks, anything to do with kind of that concept of real property as opposed to so um a more general, you know, like public safety is very much an ongoing um police power of the city um that's specifically granted under statute under the charter of um the city >> to um the city. >> Okay. >> And so, you know, with respect to those police powers, that would be a different power. There's definitely, like I said, there's some overlap. >> Say that. So, let me just finish. The Nevada attorney general in opinion uh 2022 and and three further confirms that a redevelopment project includes any undertaking of the agency pursu pursuant to NRS279. So, that is intentionally broad. We know that it recognizes that development redevelopment must address real conditions on the ground, not just physical structures. Um, but I want to go to your memo that frames this issue as funding policing or backfilling positions. Did you say that in your memo? >> Um, are are you referring to the one the um red or the attorney general opinion with respect to the revolving fund? Um, I think in your memo you mentioned and and I read it a while back, so I'd have to go back, but I'm pretty sure um there was an insinuation that we were to what how I perceived your memo is that we were trying to backfill positions through the RDA. that that was one of the examples one of the areas in which um a discussed point you would not be yeah you would not be able to like backfill you know the idea is you're not going to it was insinuated that that's what we wanted to do so I want to clarify for the record that was not it >> um but >> um I was addressing conditions in the redevelopment area vacant buildings dark corridors and unsafe environments. Um, and those conditions are all under blight under um, Nevada law, right? So, the law does draw that clear line. >> Um, and so what it means, just so everyone knows, general government services not allowed. >> Targeted actions to eliminate blight allowed. Correct? >> Targeted actions to eliminate blight allowed. And so um so actually then if you think about it so then the real question quite honestly are we allowed to fix buildings but ignore um the unsafe conditions around them because if that's the interpretation that's how I'm we're not uh we aren't eliminating blight we're preserving it. So that's how I'm reading this. I think your memo is very confusing >> with respect to the definition of blight. Um, sorry I should go. >> So just actually this this might be easier where in NRS 279 does it say we must ignore unsafe conditions that are part of blight? >> It does not. Okay. >> It does not say you must ignore unsafe conditions. It is primarily going to be a matter of interpretation of the statute. as the United Supreme Court has interpreted it >> and that concept of the agency having limited powers. So you may have a purpose that is to provide for like the general welfare and safety but each agency is not given unlimited powers with respect to its purpose. it is um going to be given specific powers related to like its goals I should say. Um so a goal of eliminating blight is to lower crime, lower the need for additional public safety. Yeah. you could you can specifically target those areas with officers if you are seeing problems in that area because it does say um again um because if you look at public it's um I believe endanger life or property public health public health so that's telling me people but I just think that you can't redevelop a place um that people don't feel safe in and I don't believe the law ignores that is what I'm trying to say to you. So, I do think that maybe there was some miscommunication of what we were asking specifically because I heard you before when you target it um in the RDA area specifically, let's say a building was getting targeted over and over again, seeing lots of crime, we would do we have the ability to do whatever we can, which is lighting or um what did you call it? see Ted um secured cameras and also that would include if we needed police officers to go down there and mitigate um and help the public uh safety and their health. Um I would think that that would qualify cuz you're saying you can't have one without the other. Do you see what I'm saying? Under Nevada law, I don't read it that way. >> I I um and I I do apologize to um for not being clear on that. So there are certain public policy statements set forth in the statute specific in the community redevelopment law with respect to goals of the redevelopment agency. If you go through the history of the agency, I believe it was 1959 um I believe when the redevelopment um community redevelopment law was established. At that time um and for most of the time since then Nevada was very much a Dylan's rule state, very much limited powers of local governments, very much limited powers of all of the agencies. And so there was this recognition that there was blight and the local governments didn't have the power to address that blight. So the agencies are established if the um legislative body which would be this body when you're sitting at city council had the ability to establish a redevelopment agency and adopt redevelopment plans for specific areas which were identified as having blight. So the goal of the redevelopment agency is to eliminate that blight. It's recognized that the blight causes all of these other adverse knock on effects. Exactly. >> So that is a shared >> Yes. >> A shared goal of this body when sitting as city council the shared goal of the city of Reno and the redevelopment agency is addressing crime. The powers, the specific powers granted to the redevelopment agency through the statute are powers related to taking a specific pot of money that would be in excess of what um beyond what the city receives through tax revenue. It's specifically identifying an area within the city where you have access to additional tax revenue, that tax increment, and um using those funds to eliminate blight. And so blight is um primarily relating to um lack of re or lack of new development, disuse of areas. Um and that's what downtown would be, right? physical, right? And so, you know, when I'm sorry, bricks and mortar is like a very broad concept of things like roads, public spaces, areas, these redevelopment agencies exist for a limited period of time under the statute. And um the overall scheme is here are some specific powers that were granted for the redevelop um redevelopment agency to go in make physical changes um to the area. There's again some additional powers related to that like you know disseminating information related to redevelopment area. >> Okay. Well, I really appreciate your um explanation. I think there was a communication um gap in what what exactly what our goal was and I know staff knows that and so I am a little um frustrated because I think um Rory that it it puts you in a position where you're coming in and you don't know exactly maybe you know what our intent was and the goal was. So I appreciate >> Yeah. And I'm happy to address um specific questions. That's what when I was working with my examples, I was trying to come up with, you know, this broad spectrum of here are things that are clearly possible and then things that I think um, you know, are not within >> well and what we can do is say, hey, does this qualify? Does this qualify? You can come back and say, I think this does, this does. That way when it's more defined because again, you guys, Nevada law is very broad. It's very broad in that sense. But when it's targeted to eliminate crime, which is a public safety, health hazard, um that all goes hand inand all of it working together. Otherwise, what are we going to do? Just, you know, put money into buildings and then that's it. There's so much more. It all has to go hand in hand. And it does, it is defined in NRS. So, I think I wanted to just clarify the intent was for redevelopment purposes and extremely targeted because all along here we have buildings that are boarded up. Um they're it's dark. Um it it's it's the perfect place for redevelopment. And so that's what we're really trying to work on, Rory, is get it really targeted and use every tool. absolutely have the powers with respect to the old buildings, the dark buildings. >> Yes, you can bring light, you can tear them down, you can, you know, remodel within the powers of, you know, no other means, you know, reasonable need means of funding them necessary. um you all >> but we could use police officers, ambassadors, people to stand there if we needed in that in that capacity to protect us >> from crime due to blight. Correct. >> It is my opinion that the redevelopment agency cannot hire police officers for general patrols. >> I didn't say general patrols and that's where we're getting mixed up. I it's specific and it's targeted and it's in the RDA, not general patrols. >> Well, I'm sorry, within general patrols within the redevelopment agency. So, my example would be >> if it's blighted though, that would qualify the way that I read it. And again, it's very very broad, >> right? And there is an ability to request an opinion of the Nevada attorney general with respect to my recommendation on that would be, you know, to be very specific. Yeah. >> With what exact program um that you're interested uh in pursuing uh you specifically, you know, dollar amounts, time so that you can get an opinion back. Uh because that would be the enforcement agency with respect to the statute. >> And um very common in other cities. I've studied this a lot. It's very common in other cities um to have police enforcement where they need it in blighted areas because it is attached to crime and it is attached to public safety. So, I'm going to hand it over to you. >> Oh, thank you. Go ahead. >> Um Rory, thank you so much. I've seen you here a couple times. I've seen you at the RAB board a couple times. Um super impressed with the work that you've done on this. It's not an easy question, but I'm I think I'm just going to kind of go back to what we're supposed to what we're looking at from the agenda. It's feasibility of expending agency funds for police. And um what I'm hearing you say is probably not for police. For other things, that's possible. Um I think on a broader scale looking at this issue, I would be absolutely in favor of using general funds for more police. it's more sustainable getting out of the blight, the buildings and the stuff because it seems like it might be a gray area. Um, I would not be in favor of using redevelopment funds for police. Um, even if this wasn't the answer, probably not because it's not sustainable. Um, I think we need a sustainable funding force for police if we're going to bring it downtown. I also think that we're making some great strides that we heard earlier in the collaboration with the sheriff and some other places that we're seeing downtown. I think you're probably at the end of a long frustration of not seeing police downtown. So, um my apologies to you for that, but I I guess I'm just wanting my colleagues to understand where I'm coming from for this position. If we want to fund police downtown, I think we need to make a budget decision and we're right in the middle of budget where we say we want a walking team downtown. Tell us how we get there. That um >> I think we're finally going to get there. >> Yeah. So, actually that's on its way. >> That that's all I have to say, but thank you very much. I appreciate you being here. >> We were just talking about I think we're finally getting a walking team. So, I think that's on its way. And I think Kathleen brings a really good point in the sense I think there's a lot of frustration for the seeing the lack of services downtown in in a capacity. But I want to be very clear. Yes. I'm not talking about long-term sustainable policing. I'm talking about like when I go to the sundowner and I see those windows that are, you know, being thrown out of it or I see people that are living in there going in and out and then they're robbing cars that are right outside there. I can't use police to deal with that public safety health hazard. Is that what you're telling me? I'm just it's a matter of when you say I can't use police it's the redevelopment agency is not the body that is in charge of the police. So that is very clear through you know the the city charter you have general police powers that include policing under when acting as the city. Um and again I apologize if it's been confusing saying you know you as city council sitting as the redevelopment agency board. Those are all within the powers of the city. But the redevelopment agency because it is a administrative agency, it has only those powers that are specifically >> I just wanted to clarify this is not something I'm looking for sustainable walking patrols. That is general policing. We we have a budget for that. That's what we do. But if we want to clean up downtown, we're going to get really strict and get really focused on the properties that are dark, blighted, and causing crime. >> Right. I I just I'd read it wrong because it says under public health and and safety and keeping people safe. So, I think that's the best way to look at it is maybe get a general opinion, but um and there I I read about redevelopment agencies all the time and in different cities, Denver, LA, um specifically targeted those areas that were having problems. And so, that's all I'm saying. I'm not asking for general policing. general policing absolutely should come out of come out of the general fund. Um, but I am saying if we needed them to do in the RDA, I I wouldn't think twice just as we do we pay Miss Turney for being a redevelopment director and an ACM out of the general fund and the RDA. I could see because this is how she's a great example of we use a police officer down there. Let's say we have, you know, weeks of patrol or whatever that looks like. And then all of a sudden, um, you know, we come back and say, "Oh, the RDA should pay for his services. It took him out of his regular patrols. He was doing this, that, and the other." So, I could see how the RDA could pay for that those services of his two weeks. Is that something that's correct? Because you're doing it with Miss Turney. >> There there is a specific Nevada attorney general opinion that it's quite old. I think it's about 30 years old. Um that deals specifically with the revolving fund. And so again, the revolving fund is something that a city typically would establish at the beginning of the redevelopment agency um after it's been formed that the city would fund. And there's a provision specifically with respect to those funds that are a little bit broader than the powers granted to the agency with respect to tax increment funds, its ability to use those funds. And even in that opinion, it was very limited use, short duration, the matters that you were speaking of. But that would be funds going, you know, going from the city to the agency to use, you know, th those funds. >> You could say the same thing for her position that how do I know that she's working on the RDA and not the city side from the general fund? I see. You know what I mean? Seems the same concept to me. >> So that's all I'm saying. Mayor, I'm going to move over to um Council Member Ree. >> Thank you so much. Um, Miss Robinson, um, I appreciate the both the written work product and the conversation today. Uh, and of course, as two lawyers, we share a language and a common, um, you know, experience in legal research that is hard to translate to people who are not that. So, um, for my part, um, I'll try not to be overly formalistic in that way. Um, I I feel the frustration that Madame Mayor has with this conversation, and it's not directed at you. Um it's I think that there has been a desire of this mayor over many years to really address some of the things that ail our downtown and um part of the issue is that the redevelopment agency has not had funds for many years and so there was never the option to look at what would the powers of that agency be and what are the limitations of their power. So for me, I totally understand um uh Madame Mayor's concerns, frustrations, and sort of the general belief that hey, there is something going on within this geographic area and we need to use the tools we can to address it. Now, for my part, I wanted to maybe understand and take a step back from the specific legal analysis you've given and ask um like who is it that would be well maybe I'll say it this way. You have posited what I'll characterize as a narrow and legally specific interpretation of the statutes and um the applicability of those statutes through various court cases. And I think that's what lawyers do, right? where you're trying to advise your clients that there are a range of things that could be possible and your advice is to keep us out of trouble, right? That's what lawyers do. And so you've said, "Here is my best professional advice based on my experience in redevelopment agencies and legal training of nearly 26 years. That tells you how old we are that says this is where we are now. I want you to sort of step aside from that for a moment and just answer sort of this series of issues which is to me let's just say that we um we as a body want to flex our our um policy chops and we want to occupy as much power and authority as we can muster. Right? I get it that in a Dillan's rule state the goal is to make us as small as possible. Right? And and in some ways it forces us into irrelevance at times. Now, that's the Dylan rule framework and we all operate within it. But what if we wanted to be more large than you believe we should be and we went out and did a thing uh that was inconsistent with um the the materials that you've provided? Who is there to like bop us on the nose when we did that? If if if this body said in advice be damned, we want to go out and uh take care of these blighted and unsafe conditions like this one that Madame Mayor posits about the sundowner. That's quite concerning to me. I I don't want to hear that people having their cars broken into and people coming in and out of it. Who who is there to bop us on the nose if we go out and dedicate funding towards a a goal of public safety if we step out of our lane? So the attorney general is in charge of um generally enforcing the statutes. As I mentioned, there is always the ability um specific to um the city attorney to request an opinion from um the attorney general with respect to the interpretation of statutes. The attorney general also um you know has the ability to investigate uh you know the the matter could be found to be uh void. So that you know whatever was approved may have to be repaid from funds that that don't exist. Um you know to the extent there may be any ethical violations. The ethical statutes are pretty narrow and specific but um you know there's definitely the ability to investigate if there's anything involving um you know your use of specific funds the way you're doing your budgeting. There is a um a separate statute with respect to budgets and funds with a board that enforces that and the name of the board is escaping me. Um but you know it comes down to public funds or a matter of public interest and so you can say you know who's the real body who's being hurt. Everybody wants this. Um but there are other agencies that you know in the absence of the existence of the redevelopment area would have access to those funds. there are other bodies who may think that you know they're have a better right to use those funds. So there are bodies of interest um you know that may complain and at the end of the day um there's a chance that you know it may be unclear what could happen is it's okay it's unclear you know you do your best interpretation we all did our best in interpretation and the legislature may step in and say well that's really not what we intended and now we're going to narrow your powers >> well and in Henderson versus Kilgore who who was fighting whom in that >> Henderson versus Kilgore was the um employee management relations board. I think I have that um the name wrong or the name correct of the board and they >> someone was fighting with someone else about the limitations of their power. >> Right. It was with respect to I think it was granting a preliminary injunction and in that case it was the preliminary injunction isn't in your enumerated powers and it's not necessary for the performance of your powers and therefore um this it's not a power that >> well and certainly no one >> they possess yeah >> who cared >> yeah who >> who sued who >> um I believe it was um the was it >> no I think that's Right. You have it right. That >> Henderson sued the um the agency for um exercising the power with a preliminary injunction. >> Yeah. Um and I guess I'll leave it because I've gone over time, but I guess for my part um I um again I I express some frustration with Madame Mayor's example because all we're really trying to say is that we have a and we'll just pick on this one. We have a building that's blighted. That building is apparently the home to people who are causing crime and nuisance out of it. Uh breaking into vehicles. We're trying to figure out, it sounds like your advice is pay for the police officers out of your general fund, not out of the redevelopment agency. And we're just saying, is that really really what we should be doing or not? And and I reserve judgment on how my colleagues would see it. But I understand the the limits of the authority that you presented and and I understand the consequences. >> I am being um conservative uh >> yeah just because but also if you think about what what the mechanism would be for you know are you going to enter an interlocal agreement? It has to be within both agencies powers. Um so what would that look like? If you kind of think through it, the um redevelopment agency would it be paying the city because they can't employ their own police officers. They would be paying for the performance of some power that was within the it would have to be within the agency's powers um to pay for that. >> But that's >> with respect to interlocal agreements that you >> I don't even want to get into there. Here's what I'd just say. Rory, really appreciate you um and and your knowledge. Um, and I think the best thing is get it really defined and then then we could ask. And I think I get frustrated because I get told no a lot. I get a lot of push back. This is why people get really um I think tired with with government. We love to be bureaucratic and it and this one is where I'm going to push back. Um but I also say, you know, whenever we've been asking to and this has nothing to do with you, but we've been asking to see um more enforcement downtown. I haven't seen that. I'm trying to pull every lever possible anywhere we can because I'm tired of hearing we um we can't fund it. We can't we can't do this, we can't do that. Quite honestly, like code um it we need to have blighted buildings be um nuisances. They do it in Las Vegas. It triggers immediate um where the power is in the city to actually do something. And so those are the kinds of things, everything we possibly can if we really want to revitalize downtown. Um, then we need every tool possible and I want to explore every single rock so that by the time that you know I'm gone that they have all the tools that you know they um have at their disposal because it's been hard. It's been challenging downtown. And I'm so frustrated, but I I know um you know this and so we'll just keep working together and I'll ask you what do you think of this? What do you think of that? And we'll bounce it off each other. So >> yes, and I hate to say no. That's why I'm like security, too. That's your job, right? So, but I get frustrated. I just so you know where I'm coming from is is the constant no um that you know we get met with. But that's why I think we just got to keep figuring things that are the ways that we can be more innovative or you know >> understood. So thank you. >> Okay. Yeah. Go ahead. >> Totally hear you. And you know I I would recommend that we put a package together a simple package a simple example and do a request an attorney general opinion. And if we get an opinion that we can't do that thing, and I've already recommended this to Rory and to our manager is I believe that, you know, we should consider taking one of our two bills that we have each year and requesting an expansion of a redefinition of powers uh for the redevelopment agency. If if we get a no from the attorney general on a specific case that we're trying to move forward, then something's really broken and we need to ask the legislature to help us fix it because we need to be a better city. We need to address these issues. And to your point, let's turn no into yes. Let's enable the special taxing authority to be able to fund the issues that underly blight. And you know, blight is not one thing. It is a combination of things. It it just because you have a broken window doesn't mean you have crime. And just because you have crime doesn't mean your building is falling apart. >> True. >> But they go together. They often go together. And and to the mayor's point, this has frustrated me as well. How can we solve just one part of a problem when it's an integrated re uh integrated cause and but we're somehow restricted to only addressing the look or feel of the building or the or the sidewalk or the street, you know, whatever that is. Um I I don't get it that why you would be allowed as a city to solve one part of the problem. And you yourself point out that you can extend your powers. If this is what's required to address the issue, then there's an implication that you can extend your powers appropriately and legally. >> Appropriate. We got to do it appropriately. >> But I mean, >> that's why we got you, Rory. >> But I mean, it might not specifically say you can do that thing, but if it's part and parcel of the thing, then you should be able to do it. Um, and the other thing is you used words that we're not familiar with. One of them is revolving fund. We don't think we have something called a revolving fund. We haven't heard about it. Ashley's saying no, we don't have it. But I guess I do wonder why we don't have it. If it has a broader power, then maybe we should have it. Like maybe that's another way to address this issue. >> Certainly. Um and the reason I didn't go into detail on the revolving fund is trying to understand this matter in context of you know we we have a specific issue of the um within redevelopment areas blight but also um you know the the city's general fund perhaps limited funds there because the revolving fund is funds are funds in the in the revolving fund are appropriated by the city to the redevelopment agency. So the way the statute is set up is very much for the city um >> to like upfront the cost. >> Yeah. Well, the city and the redevelopment agency to cooperate because originally again it was an expansion from the old very narrow Dylan's rule. We still have a Dylan's role but it's been modified but um to give the additional powers to the city. So the city still has the power to give money to the agency and then the agency can utilize those funds. And within there, again, it's a very old attorney general opinion specific to the use of policing, but it was also a narrow opinion um in terms of limited in time, limited in amount, kind of what um the chair was speaking of of, you know, get in, get out, um focus on a particular >> I just have one followup. You said, if I may, Madam Mayor, you you said in your um explanation that >> we um it it was the city's original power to deal with police, but I'll counter that that it's the city's original power, I don't know the term, to deal with code enforcement. And yet, we're hiring code enforcement officers in the redevelopment agency. And I'm having a struggle to see the difference between and and the mayor is trying to draw an analogy between the the director's role, but but here we are hire you're saying we could hire code enforcement, but we can hire a police officer. And that gets really fuzzy to me. I understand they have different roles and responsibilities. One carries a gun, one doesn't. One has a paper that can write a a red, you know, a red tag, a building, maybe the other police don't. You know, you know what I mean? like they have two different kind of powers. They both originate from the city and you're saying one at least I've understood you saying one can be funded >> and it's sorry to interrupt you. >> No, but you're saying one could be funded from RDA and one can't. >> Um well, it is my understanding that the code enforcement officers are identifying um areas for redevelopment staff to focus on this. That's that's part of what they're doing. Um I I don't I don't know enough about that project. I don't um want to get into the the nuts and bolts because I don't know exactly how it works, but that's my understanding. So it would be uh part of the exercise and of the redevelopment agency's um powers with respect to identifying areas for redevelopment, you know, plans, projects, etc. as opposed to that additional step away of, you know, a public safety function. >> Yeah. Well, I think it's kind of a gray area, not a bright line. And I understand you're giving us your interpretation. We may hear something different from the attorney general. And then if we're not liking any of the answers we're getting, then we maybe should move forward because this is such an important issue to the city. >> Yeah, I I absolutely think that that that is an appropriate path to like I said. >> Okay. >> Yeah. Thank you. So, I've been doing a lot of listening from everything that everybody is saying. So, I wanted to give you a hypo a hypothetical scenario in the way that I understand that we can potentially use these funds. And I think we have, unless Jackie you correct me and it's not an applesto apples scenario, we have something that's going on in the city right now that we just approved today where would it be appropriate if we had a building downtown that we were redeveloping and it created an increase in unsafe um conditions or the conditions around that building were so unsafe that we needed targeted intervention from law enforcement for a specific amount of time. Say maybe we were um demoing a building and there was a big open pit and people were jumping into it for fun and we needed security around it or we needed policing. Could the RDA enter into an agreement, a short-term with the city of Reno to pay back like have two officers on that special assignment for a limited amount of time and the RDA reimbures the general fund or the police department for those services. Is that possible under the what you've just described to us? >> Right. So that in my opinion would be under that example two that I provided the um the second illustration where if it's you're the redevelopment agency is undertaking a redevelopment project with respect to that building um you know owns that building and if it's necessary in order to advance the redevelopment plan that this is constantly being broken into and one way to think about it is is this something that any other developer would have to undertake as part of undertaking this redevelopment project, then I think it's much easier to argue that yes, this is necessary that they may have to do additional security for this particular project um for a limited period of time and that is different than just a general um you know kind of deciding that the entire redevelopment area um you need some more patrols or >> and in that scenario We wouldn't be hiring police officers through the RDA. We would be compensating the Reno Police Department for their special assignment, which was increased policing in that area for a specific amount of time. >> Yes. I I believe that because there is the ability to use city staff, there is the ability to enter into an interlocal agreement with respect to something that's within both parties powers that you're able to you know show at each instance here is our authority and um you know depending on the reasonleness of the amount, the time duration um and if it really is necessary to carrying out the redevelopment plan. Yeah, I think that that would be appropriate. >> Okay. So, um, Miss Door and and Madame Mayor, to me that kind of answers our question is that if we had a specific building that was unsafe, why would we invest in the building without the safety? We could do targeted, but we're not hiring police officers out of the RDA budget. we are paying back our department for a specialized targeted assignment. So that that that's pretty clear to me, >> right? And so um that's what I was saying. If we took an officer, put him onto a property for two weeks because we were seeing some targeted crime, then >> it would be I would think Jackie would say, "Hey, RDA, you took my guy out of, you know, general policing services. I feel like you should reimburse us because that was a function that we had to go and address the crime in, you know, in a in front of a building or whatever. >> Well, I think more importantly though, it happens. It's the order in which it happens. It becomes part of the planning process of the redevelopment of that building and it becomes part of the budget and planning process. So, it's not it's not surprise, you know, officer so and so was there for 3 weeks straight. We we assigned them there. >> Yeah, good point. Okay. Like it. >> I think it this is good. It's giving us a really good idea of like where we want to go and like what Brandy just said, really brilliant thinking. Really smart. So, but it's really helping us hone in on the tools, how we use them, why we use them, when they trigger, what, all these things. We've never had this before and it's a really exciting opportunity for this council. I'll be gone. Councilwoman Dur will be gone, but it's amazing for you guys to have something um this magnitude to be able to leverage and so we appreciate you helping us figure out how how to use it the best way we can. So, I hope that helps. >> All right. You >> you Oh, go ahead. >> Yeah. Um I had a question. Um you had mentioned like we would have to kind of separate how we were um paying the police like we have a separate RDA department, but I was thinking about um the DRP. I know that uh maybe it was a year or two ago now that we modified the agreement to take out uh a line that said that they would pay for additional officers downtown with the um additional assessment money that they collected for people that lived in this, you know, DRP area. Would um would the RDA be able to work with the DRP to help fund um police in those areas? >> Again, I think it would have to be like if you divide up the specific functions. Is it related to a project of the redevelopment agency? then absolutely this um the statute fully contemplates cooperation among various agencies. There are other statutes that allow cooperation among various agencies. So it really is what is the role that the RDA is taking on. Is it going in and saying, you know, we're going to be responsible for paying, you know, general policing costs within this area because it happens to be in the RDA or happens to be adjacent to the RDA. That's very different from um saying you know we're doing a joint project and um you know we're we're going to fund the portion of the project that is you know disseminating redevelopment agency information or we're going to go in and while you're paying for policing we're going to pay for physical improvements. We're going to pay for security cameras. Um, you know, public private property, that's perfectly um acceptable. Um, you know, if they're they're part of the the improvements themselves or, you know, they can be posted on light post, you can create additional lighting. Um, but it's going to be a matter of what is the use of the funds. >> Okay. Thank you. >> All right. I don't think we have to take any action. Okay. >> So, that's good. All right. Well, thanks for I I will try to go home and get more clear next time. No, I get it. I listen, we're learning kind of a long, you know, so we're just going to ask you a lot of questions and push back because we're trying to do everything we possibly can to get to Yes. And >> absolutely, >> your job is going to keep us out of the out of the fray. So, we appreciate it. >> Thank you. >> All right. Thanks, Rory. Good job. >> Okay. Real quick, I just want to ask were were we going to now ask for a opinion on whether or not we can use these funds in that way? Like was that something we decided to do? I know it was mentioned by council member Derer, so I didn't know. >> Yeah. Um cuz I think Ashley, you're going to get up on this next item. Correct. It's like a council meeting. So then it goes down to public comment in here and then um then we can include it in there. >> Okay. >> So madame mayor I would say Ashley attorney assistant city manager for the record you're not agendaized for action today. So if that is something that you would like >> that's what I was going to say for future agenda. >> Believe that if they would like to request an opinion from the attorney general they need to take a formal motion in order to do that. >> Well hang on. Can't I just make the request of the attorney general? Uh two points. I don't know if the attorney general is the appropriate authority. It might be the department of tax or the local government uh committee. Um there's a process for that. Um yeah, we can't do that today, but we can report back and go from there. >> Okay. But I can make that request without an actual council item. I have that authority, right? >> Um >> the city attorney can request an AG opinion. >> Perfect. But again, that may not be the right department to be asking. It may be the department of tax. >> Can the city attorney ask the department of tax for legal opinion on behalf of the RDA? >> Yes. >> Okay. >> We we will look at that. >> Yeah. >> Okay. >> Okay. All right. >> Thank you. See, there's a path. So, you're saying there's a chance, right? My favorite movie. Okay. Um >> I don't see Pauline in the audience. I think you need to skip this one. >> Yeah, I don't see Paul Klene here. I know it's probably hard um for them in the middle of the day. So, I might um ask you, Jackie, to maybe we start moving RD up RDA up earlier so that they can attend. I'll find out when they can, when they can't, because I um don't want them to think that we're dismissing them because it's below on the agenda. Madam Mayor, is it possible that the RDA um chair can like notify us when they believe they need to come and chat with us? I mean, I think Mr. Klein is a very experienced human >> and I know that it's been a couple of times now that we've had to either delay it or he he wasn't available. I understand that it's a volunteer position, so I'm not holding anyone to account, but I just wonder if that could be an alternative or maybe a written uh submission as we sometimes do to other bodies where he could issue a written report. >> Just some ideas to throw around. >> Yeah. >> Um, hold on. I'm trying to Yeah, I think I I'm trying to think because we talked about this. I have to go back in my brain and remember um that might be a good idea too. Okay. Or their vice chair whatever works too. Okay. Uh we are on what D yeah >> uh D1. So any this is where I'd say board comments including announcements uh commission's activities. Um, one thing I I want to just talk about is, you know, I have sort of this hit hit list. It's the It's the Sundowner. It's the properties. I will tell you, um, the address because I think we have given them a lot of passes to 111 North Virginia Street. We know which one that is. I want um from now on every meeting what communication took place with the owners what the plans are how we're going to move forward um I maybe miss and we can talk it about at a later date has a ring conversation with Mr. ring. He was avoiding my phone calls. Um I, you know, want to also be respectful of the work that you guys are doing, but I I want some cohesion and coordination with the hit list of properties that, you know, the conditions are unacceptable downtown. We've been saying it and saying it, but I'm getting a little frustrated because I don't feel like we're getting the updates on those that we're what is the plan to address those because I call them directly and um we get movement for a little bit and then that's it. So, I don't think that they take us seriously. And again, I think if we really want to change the perception, hearts and minds of downtown, then we're going to get really serious and really strict. And that comes with um code and um the like I said, the nuisance piece um out of Las Vegas. They do it. I think it's a great marriage showing that there's another city that does that. So, I I know I I feel like I'm just screaming at the top of my lungs, but I'm frustrated whenever I see signs um in chalkboard and um just, you know, the constant lack of of care from um these property owners. Listen, if you can't afford to own property, then you shouldn't. And so, we need you to be our partners. Clearly, they're not getting that message. So, I'm getting very frustrated. And I guess my my last six months um sitting in this seat will be um probably pretty repetitive. So, I'm asking you, Ashley, if you could come back and bring us something to where we can really work on this to how do we hold people accountable because I just don't feel like we're moving the needle whenever I when I see some of these property owners just feels like they're just, you know, telling us to go stick it. So, anyway, okay. What else? What else do we need? Sorry you guys, I'm on a rant right now, but I think of these in my mind and I just frustrated. >> Go right ahead. >> Yeah. Um, so just again in case this is now when I need to say it, I would like to get some um official opinion from treasurer whatever that about the um RDA funds and what we could use it on just to make sure that that's on the record. I know we already said it um but I want to make sure I say it at the right time. Um the other thing is um I know that Ashley has done a lot of work in this space and has traveled to a lot of locations and talked with other um municipalities about things that they do um for redevelopment. and I um would like to know if she could give a presentation about things that she's learned from other places that she thinks would be a good fit for for here. If there's um things that she's seen in action for um you know cleaning up vacant buildings or motivating people to not be vacant anymore. um just I know that you have a lot of knowledge and I'd like to hear you know some of the things you've learned and maybe that will help us be better informed in some of the decisions we make and you know we don't know what we don't know so there might be some things that um uh once we hear we think oh that's a great idea we should implement that so I don't know how you feel about that but um I think that would be beneficial to all of us um and yeah and also I'm I'm a little I'm a little worried to hear about like a hit I don't >> well maybe I shouldn't have called it that but I do think you have to understand the the properties that we are seeing um I guess repetitive problems they're they're um habitual problems habitual offenders of blight and um vacant and dark buildings and um so maybe not hit list but habitual problem buildings and downtown. So don't take it literal. I'm just saying they're habitual problems and we got to address them. >> I hope that there is code enforcement going out to them because I know I've mentioned this several times, but the way things went down with the Lake Mill lot uh Lake Mill Maximar and the rightway market there there wasn't a lot of code enforcement issues with them. There was nothing open and outstanding. And I know that there was a different code enforcement officer there at the time, but I have a really difficult time um you know uh trying to address situations that were calling blight if there's been no code enforcement action taken. I think that we need to use that as a tool to address these situations. That's um what it's for. Um, so I I I hope to see that there has been some action from our code enforcement department um before we um you know kind of target anybody. Um I feel like that should be the driver of who we're we're looking at is the number of code enforcement tickets. Not because we don't like them, not because we think they're blight, but because of um actual data that represents um concern for them. So, thank you. >> Okay. All right. Thank you so much. Oh, hit list came from um Mayor Kashell. He had one and he went after the properties that were um habitual offenders and that's where um and it was effective and they listened and they moved and they cleaned it up and everyone worked together and got it done. >> I do have one more thing real quick. >> Go right ahead. >> Um I kind of touched on it earlier about the DRP. I don't know how much the DRP can work with the RDA, but I know that the original setup with the DRP was they were to help pay for additional law enforcement downtown. And I know the last two times they've come to council, they've actually reduced the assessment fee um by the maximum amount allowable. They've also um stopped um paying for law enforcement downtown. They they started doing security guards, which is great, but we need law enforcement. So, I'd like to maybe have some discussions with them about um them getting back to more of the intent of the original agreement and helping to pay for some of these law enforcement. >> Let me explain. So, I think this um this is important context. When services fell far below in downtown Reno, there was some frustration and there was expectations. The city was not meeting and we all know that and that's that's just um common knowledge. So there was a meeting in mind saying that we're not meeting these expectations after over and over and o over they were this was getting addressed. There was frustration among the DRP that they could get more through other means of um of services and they um pulled back their money to spend on that in hopes that they could get services that they weren't getting from the city of Reno. Honestly, that's what was happening. And that money was pulled back. And I I can't blame them one bit in the sense that why are we um you know why why are people paying for services they're not getting and I think that was the biggest frustration that's not fair to the taxpayers right so that's where I think everyone started to come together and say how can we do this um in a way but it also means you got to show that there is that there are services and this is goes back to I think much of the frustration that we are seeing. And um to be honest, there's been a feeling that there hasn't been any presence. I mean, you we walk here every day and there we've seen frustrations. Matter of fact, Jackie, I just want everyone to know, bless Jackie's heart, was out there policing herself. I've seen it many times. Many times she goes out there and does policing herself. And so that's part of been the problem to be honest with you. We're not getting the services downtown that people are paying for. and that goes directly through the bid. So they felt we can do a better job in getting services where we need them. Maybe that's more presence. So that's what they did. They went out there and hired way more ambassadors, get more presence out there. I shudder to think if we didn't have the ambassadors, the clash, the trash cleanup, all the things that they provide, the um pressure washing, all those things, I think we don't realize how much they do and we'd be like sorely missed. And those are all part of those services in that sense. But the policing to be honest with you, it's hard to pay for something when you feel like you're not seeing it, you're not getting it, and it's something is telling you otherwise. And that's really what we saw. So >> So we were not providing the police that they were paying for? >> No. >> Okay. >> Nope. >> Is there a reason we weren't? >> That's a good question. Um I I we can run that down. I don't know why, but we were not. And I think that that's um part of the problem. >> Thank you. >> Yeah. But we we're working on it. Everyone's working together. We're I'm excited. We're going to see downtown officers and patrols. It's going to be great. I do feel like we're we're turning a new leaf. I do. So, I have hope. Go ahead. >> Um yes, thank you. I wanted to request some information. And I heard some really good news on Monday at the Western Nevada Development District Board um Seds planning meeting that the RTC or the WO RTC trick rail study, the um workforce rail has made a significant move forward in its feasibility which is wildly exciting and it has an accelerated timeline and a real project plan that's been put together. So, what I was hoping was that our redevelopment team could get um gather some information about what the real what is the real story on that. And um the reason I'm thinking about that is because we have a list of CIP pro projects that we're working on. And I think if we do have a real project that is workforce rail that is going to start downtown, our RDA should be highly focused on that or we should be considering it. I shouldn't be telling you we should, but um we need to know the reality of that project. So, if potentially we can gather some information on that quickly because I know we're going to be um considering CIP projects and um I know that everyone on this council has expressed um the desire to have workforce rail um come to fruition here. So, I thought that would be really exciting to learn more about. >> I think that's great. >> Okay. I'm not sure exactly what that looks like. Will you help us figure that out? Yes. Okay. Thank you very much. And then the other thing I'd like to ask you, you're over there. Come on over. I can't see you. Okay. The other one I'm going to ask you about is um this is not going to be a surprise, but Chang fence. Has there been talk about any of that? >> In what regard, madam mayor? you don't like them or >> Yeah, they they I I in other cities they put in other facades to make them look um much more cohesive and there's a ton of chain link fence and a lot of times I see it blown over and it doesn't look it doesn't look good. I think it adds to the blight especially when the most of those chain link fences are redevelopment projects that I noticed or they're sitting there as vacant. So I think it directly ties in with that. What's your thought? >> Uh yes, Ashley Attorney, assistant city manager for the record. So I believe staff is looking into various building codes to see what opportunities that they have. U one thing right now where we run into conflict is technically you shouldn't have a fence if you don't have a building permit. And so when we're asking people to secure their property, we don't tell them they have to have a fence. We tell them they need to secure it. So we're looking at alternative options for you there. >> Okay. When do you think that will be? I'll have to check in with the building department to understand where they're at in that project. >> Yeah, every project like you'll see in other cities, they have beautiful facads, local artists that do them. They tell a story about what what project is coming. Um they really look unsightely. I think they add to the blight and the crime, especially when you can see through them and you can get onto other people's property. They've been a problem for a long time. We just haven't done anything about them. I think this is the RDA lane. >> Would you agree? I don't necessarily know that it's a redevelopment space because that's a code in the building department which is the city side. One thing is that developers can do that by choice now. Um one example is you see at the revival project across the street they've chosen to do >> they did a good job on their exterior. So developers can do that now. >> Uh they are permitted to do that. So that's something that >> we can tell everyone they're allowed to do that. They can >> but I don't know if they know that you could do that. Like I think we have to train them of this is what we sort of expect. This is, you know, all all those things because I think they're the first ones that I've seen in Reno that have and and Jacob's Entertainment has done it well too. Um >> yes, it's definitely an opportunity for people to do that and we're happy as the redevelopment agency continues to let people know that there is a more aesthetic way to secure, >> but they won't take that option because they want to go with the cheaper option. So, I want I would like a a way to bring back something that they um when a new project comes in because also they can sit there forever and ever and ever. We've seen this and then no project happens. I mean, that happens all the time, too. But I just think if we really want to clean up Reno or we want to make things look better, especially developments and developers, they should want people to be excited about the project. Um, and so kudos to Harz and to Jacobs. Good job. So, if you could bring back something I know you can bring back something amazing because you've been to a lot of cities, too, where I go right there and you go right there, >> right? >> Mhm. >> Okay. >> I'd like to request something. >> Go ahead. >> Yeah. Um, so Ashley, um, I mean, what did you mean they can do it now? I I didn't understand what you said. So right now a developer has the option when they're securing their property, they don't have to use a standard chain link fence if they would like. >> Is there a rule change? Is that what you're saying? >> No, it's always been allowed. So they >> So what do you mean they can do it now? Like they could always do it. They just became aware of it now. >> No, they've always been able to. They just often choose not to as the mayor Okay. >> commented because of the >> what she's really asking for I think is some regulations >> to require it is what she's asking for. I understand that. And then the second thing I would like to request is uh also to the mayor's point, could we get a list of ongoing enforcement actions, could that be made public on where uh code because where code has taken an action and we're waiting for a response? >> I've just asked for a council memo in that I asked for a council memo on that a few minutes ago. So you'll be getting something shortly. >> Okay. But I mean what I mean is an ongoing like it's do it on we could do it once a week or some however frequently you would like. >> Yeah. It's then a publicly accessible record of where we are with various code enforcement actions because a lot of times when we get code enforcement up here they'll go there's no outstanding code enforcement on them. Something like that and it's like hard to believe. >> Right. >> Like what what is going on? Like we you know we thought they were delaying. They thought they didn't have a problem. >> Right. So, we'll work on that. As a reminder, you do receive a weekly report right now of all new code enforcement cases that are opened. So, that's in your inbox and posted on our website on a weekly basis, but we're happy to get you additional followup as we can as >> we can have access to some matrix that they're maintaining. They sent a two a 14-day letter or something >> and there hasn't been no response at 21 days. That kind of thing. >> Yep. We're happy to figure out. We have dashboards available so we'll figure out how we can make those more publicly available to you. >> I think that'd be helpful to make us more in the know. >> Sure. Happy to. >> You can come up with a way to keep us updated >> on those properties. Am I right? >> Yes. We will figure out a way. We've got some new reporting coming out hopefully with the in the coming weeks. So, we're hopeful that we will have better reporting access for you. >> Okay. But as always, you have those weekly reports and I'm always available to answer any specific questions you have. You can reach out to me. >> Okay. And you can reach out to us, too. >> Okay. >> Thank you. >> Okay. Thanks so much. Okay. Moving on. >> All right. Madame Mayor, we're moving on to item E on the redevelopment agency board. We do have one public commenter in Zoom that has raised their hand. Sean Sullivan. >> Okay, Sean, take it away. >> Hey. Uh, yeah. I had I uh had kind of changed Oh, yeah. I'm Sean Sullivan um from Sparks. I kind of changed my mind. I actually wrote my response and emailed y'all uh just now, so you can read that at your convenience. >> Thank you. >> Okay. Thanks. >> Uh Madame Mayor, for the record, I do need to correct that we made an inaccurate um recording on our March 4th special RDA budget meeting. Um I stated that there were four comments that were general in nature, but there were actually 11 that were distributed to the body. So, I just like to correct that record today. And at this time, we're just looking for a motion to adjourn the redevelopment agency board. >> Second. >> We have a motion and a second. All those in favor say I. >> I. >> I. Any opposed? Motion passes unanimously. >> Thank you. We're going back to the Reno City Council agenda. And we're moving on to item C3, live entertainment discussion from development services. Welcome, Director Fouse. I think they're bringing up your presentation. >> This isn't a public hearing, right? I don't have to open I think it's just a department item. >> Yeah. >> So, yeah. Whenever you're >> That's correct. Whenever you're ready, director F. >> Good afternoon. Angela Fouse, assistant uh director for development services for the record. This is a followup from a meeting we had in June where we were talking about two things. One was downtown and potentially creating a a secale noise ordinance. And the second was our existing zoning regulations on live entertainment. So at that meeting, the direction from council was to go forth and have some community input. So we held three stakeholder meetings. We put out a community survey. And it was very targeted. We weren't asking about noise. We were asking about our existing rules. Again, title 18 live entertainment. And just as a reminder, what is live entertainment? If you go to a bar and there's music playing in a jukebox, that's not live entertainment. But if you go to a business and there's either a DJ playing or karaoke, um there could be somebody playing at a guitar, playing a piano, that is live entertainment. So that's what we're talking about. The rules today, just as a reminder, we kind of have two rules. If you're doing indoor live entertainment, meaning inside your building, anything after 11:00 at night, requires a conditional use permit. And that's citywide. It's not specific to downtown or sub suburbia. It's everywhere in Reno. Live entertainment after 11 o'clock at night triggers a conditional use permit if you're doing live entertainment outside. So maybe you have a restaurant and you have a patio and again somebody's playing um a DJ or somebody's playing a guitar. Anything after 10:00 outside triggers a conditional use permit. Special events are different. There's those are the kind of the oneoffs and they go through a completely separate pro process. So, they're not part of this. Second, specific to indoor live entertainment, we do have some rules. This is all part of title 18. After 10 o'clock at night, the business has to close the doors and the windows. We have a lot of businesses, especially in the downtown area. Then on nice summer nights, you like to keep the windows open, but if you're going to have live entertainment after 10:00, we require that you close those doors and windows. We also require that if you're going to have live entertainment, there's a chance you're going to have people lined up to get in. So, we require a queueing plan. That the key there is to make sure it's orderly. We want somebody watching it so that people aren't pouring into the street. Um, again, typically if you have people lined up, we want to make sure that there's some kind of security watching to make sure they're not getting out of hand. And then separately, if you have anywhere outdoor live entertainment that you're within 150 ft of residentially zoned property that requires a conditional use permit. So, let's go back to the survey. We asked about four questions. So, they're very simple. Looking at our existing regulations, are they working or should we modify those conditional use permit requirements? Generally speaking, we were split about half and half. Um, a portion of the people felt that, "Yep, it's working. Keep doing what you're doing. Don't make any changes." Another portion of the people asked said, "It's not working. You should just get rid of it." Another people said, "Keep it, but make changes." So again, we didn't really get any conclusive answers on that question. The second question was tied to security plans. We don't have a code requirement for security plans, but that's something we as the planning department have been requiring. When you come in for a conditional use permit, we say that that particular business needs to give us a security plan. We have a template. So, everyone has to answer the same questions of how they're going to handle things. And we ask the community, should we keep doing that? And it should should it be just one security plan, kind of a blanket, one-sizefits-all, or should the security plan really be dependent on the type of live um entertainment you're doing? And so I'd say by far 61% said the security plan really should fit with each business. It shouldn't be a one-sizefits-all. Next question was, should we have stricter enforcement? I will say by far the most comments we got from this survey and through this community outreach process was enforcement is key. You can have all the rules in the world, but if you don't have anyone enforcing the rules, it's a waste of time. So again, 63% of the people surveyed felt that yes, we should be stronger in terms of enforcing with the bad operators. Demographic wise, we did ask generally speaking, are you a business owner? Do you live in downtown or are you just a city resident? And 56% of the people that responded were Reno residents. And then from the downtown Midtown area, we had about 19% of those people. So, good to know that this was kind of a broader city of Reno, you know, question or uh the group of people that responded. So, it wasn't just business owners and it wasn't just the downtown Midtown area. In terms of age, um this one kind of caught me by surprise. We had a wide group of people respond. Generally speaking, most of them were 18 up to over the age of 65. So, good to know. Again, a good mix of people. It's not just the young 20-year-olds that were responding and it's not just the, you know, the retired people that were responding. So, a good mix. So, where are we at now? Again, things that we're talking about is we can either change our zoning code and and change the rules. Should we completely get rid of the conditional use permit was one question or should we modify what we have and what's working and what's not? I would say by far the businesses say get rid of the requirement for a conditional use permit. It's expensive. It's about $5,000. Takes about three months to go through the process and there's a lot of unknowns. We tried to keep all of our conditions of approval consistent so that not every business has a different set of rules. But when you get to planning commission, planning commission has the authority to add conditions. So, we're kind of back in this boat of now this business has this specific rule and this business has these other specific rules. So, we're struggling with trying to come up with a consistent set of rules when we have to go case by case with that conditional use permit process. One thing we are doing though is a security plan. And so, anyone that comes in for a conditional use permit for live entertainment, we're tying that business operator to a security plan. So, not the conditional use permit because that conditional use permit runs forever. So, once we put those rules in place, they get to use those rules forever. We have a lot of situations where we approved a conditional use permit 20 years ago. A lot of these in downtown. And so, the same rules apply to every business that comes in and it's a problem now where you may have had a really good operator 20 years ago, but now they're on maybe the 10th operator that's come in that gets to use the same rules. and what we applied 10 years ago to a good operator may not be working for that new business that's come in today. So the way we're kind of handling that again is the security plan is tied to the business operator and when they come in for their cabaret license which is part of the business license process we trigger that they give us their security plan. We had probably a year and a half worth of experience in doing with this so it's fairly new. Um, but again, it gives us a little bit more teeth so that when they say, "Here's the things I've agreed to do as part of being a business operator." We can go back and say, "We're getting a lot of complaints. Let's enforce the things. If you're not doing what you said you specifically agreed to do, we can go after you and potentially we can pull your cabaret license so you lose the ability to operate that bar with live entertainment." So, where we're at today, this um is meant to be just an update for council, looking for more discussion. I think this is an ongoing topic as we're trying to create that thriving downtown. Live entertainment is key. And as we're approaching summer, I know the complaints are going to get worse. You know, some of the complaints we heard today um have to do with noise. And it's not just noise from the live entertainment, the bands. It's also the people that are waiting in line or maybe coming out. Um, so how do we how do we handle that, you know, and that's not something we can regulate through a conditional use permit. Um, but that that is something through a security plan we can say you agreed that you would have security and when your security agreed to handle crowd management and they're not doing it, we're going to come site you. And again, then we have the ability to say if you keep doing these things, we can pull your cabaret license and you can lose the ability to have live entertainment. So that's something again we're working on internally. We don't necessarily need your guys's vote to change that. Um, but that's only tied to any new business that comes in for a conditional use permit. That does not affect existing bars. Um, so if you wanted to pursue something maybe more in a permanent basis, we can talk about maybe updating the business license code which helps to address maybe put security plan as a requirement. Anyone that comes in for a cabaret license potentially if that's the direction you want to go, we can say this is a new requirement. And very much so, you don't want it tied to the land, you want it tied to the business operator. So again, very different from CUP. This is something that citywide seems to be giving us a little bit more teeth um versus that conditional use permit. >> Okay. So, I will open it up to questions. >> Good job, Angela. Really, really appreciate it. I always love your I don't know. You just I don't It's very easy. You make it very easy to understand. So, thanks. Good job. >> Thank you. >> Okay, >> Madame Mayor, before we go into deliberations, I just want to state for the record we received four comments. Um because there wasn't an actual ordinance um we just logged them as neutral or concerned comments. >> Okay. >> Um but when you read them, you can interpret them as you'd like. >> Okay. Perfect. Councilwoman Taylor, go ahead. >> Thank you. I feel like we've been talking about this forever and um I'm I'm going to stay pretty consistent in my comments and my questions. Uh, I think for me, I want to support small businesses and I want to remove barriers for them to be able to do business. I want a thriving downtown. I also want some safeguards against residents. Those are the parameters in which I'm working in the direction that I'm giving. I think when you say that the bad actors that we have from the experiences that I've seen in the last couple of years, we have to make it easier to remove those bad bad actors and swiftly. So we had one particular instance that you are very familiar with that it took almost a year and in that time we'd had a whole bunch of bad things happen next to that establishment and it impacted the residents. So whatever we do I'd like to see us be able to remove the bad actors faster and um more I guess just faster >> with less amount of warnings and hand slappings hand slappings. Um the other thing is when you talk about businesses the grandfathered in businesses everybody that is there now can do whatever they want if we I mean not do whatever they want but we can't impose a security plan on them at this point without going through the business license. >> Correct. >> Okay. So I think that would be the way I would see a path forward is going through business license for security plans. But I think the challenge of having a cup run with the land has really created problems for us in throughout throughout this process for people that are there already and people that want to do business in the city. So I would say business license is the way to go with security plans that are enforceable. Um, and I think Oh, I I think it's also interesting that making my decisions off of what you had put up in slide eight is people want we want live entertainment. We want this to be a thriving city. We want all these things. We don't want to make it harder for people. If you want to do bingo or whatever or trivia, we want those kind of things. But when people work outside of those parameters and are causing harm to the city, you know, 63% of the people are saying we want stricter enforcer enforcement faster. Those are my comments. Thank you. >> Okay, Councilman Anderson, go ahead. >> Um, yeah, thank you. So, I just wanted to support the um consideration of whatever we need to do to consider removing the cup process and also support the licensing process for the cabaret and the security plan. I think that that that is a really brilliant way to help property owners that are bit that are um or just property managers that are operating downtown to take more responsibility for their own their own property inside and out. So, um, those two things I would be in support of. Thanks for your presentation for the data. >> Okay. Councilman or Vice Mayor Martinez. >> Thank you, Madam Mayor, and thank you for the presentation and update and the meeting that we had before this just to make sure we I wrapped my head around everything. And so, I want to not repeat a lot what's been said because I agree with uh most of it. And so I just want to make some fine points on the fact that I agree with implementing this new solution that you found in terms of the security plan and tying it to each operator. I think the fact that we can look at each business individually without a C process which we've heard how burdensome it is for our small businesses to open up shop um and sort of the gray area or uncertainty of going through that process and still not maybe not receiving the permit that you were seeking um and making that tie in. I'm curious thinking about if we head down in this direction long term. I think there's been other processes where staff have had some discrepancy to make decisions based off of that. Do you have parameters in place in the security plan? So maybe like the queuing is not the same for everybody, but there are certain things you need to ensure in the queueing line that you are going to look for for each business just to make sure that there's consistency as we implement this and roll this out. I'm just curious if you can add to that. >> Yes. And what we've done, we've put together, like I said, kind of a checklist or template for security plans that deal with more nightclubs and we have a separate checklist for if you're a non- nightclub. A good example would be the electric pickle. So, they are a pickle ball facility that they have pickle ball outside and inside they have they sell alcohol and occasionally they may have a band. They are not going to be pulling a a 4:00 a.m. concert on a regular basis, if ever. Right? So, their security plan is going to be very different as a non- nightclub type of operation than somebody in downtown Reno who's just a nightclub. Um, but because we're trying to be consistent, we created a checklist of things. Here's, you know, 10 things that you have to address and you choose how to address it kind of based on your needs. But we run it through our police department, code enforcement, planning department, business license department, and make sure all of us have said, "Oo, here's a pitfall that, you know, maybe the business didn't think about. They still need to be able to address it." And it's big things like, "How are you handling trash? What's the lighting outside look like?" When you have people lined up, do you have security to manage them? Um the the pickle ball example, they're not going to have people lined up. And if they do, it's probably going to be right, >> you know, adults with their children. not a big deal. Um, but a downtown nightclub where we they we know they're going to have bands playing or, you know, Thursday night, college night, we know, we all know that they are going to have people lined up that are going to be rowdy and drunk. How do you manage that? So, we say you have to do training. Um, we look at how are you handling that your staff knows when somebody's been over served. Um, we had a great example of one of the bars on Second Street where we saw with our own eyes they turned down somebody from coming in. They said, "You've been over served. I'm not letting you come in." And that's what they should be doing. >> 100%. >> And so, if we can get more of those types of security plans where they they have the training and they know what to do, um, then it makes us a lot more comfortable. >> Yeah. I will tell you, I was in Midtown this weekend walking up and down. I stopped in almost every bar. ran into Nick. By the way, you guys, it was his going away party. Nick Chicone. So, is that how he pronounces it? Chone. >> Um, yeah, he's all Hillary from across the bar. Well, hey, what are you doing here? But >> it was fascinating to just sort of sit back and watch there. It was I was so impressed with how the bars were operating. They had a lot of security down there and people were outside. There was lots of overflow because you do worry about that because you're like, "Oh, it's louder." But um they were managing it so well and all the bars um quite honestly were doing a tremendous job. I was really really impressed. So I feel like with your training and everything that you're putting in place. Um, I really think at least the majority that I saw were trying to do um the right thing and want their business to succeed because if if it doesn't then they shut down. So, I just think you guys would be proud. I you know, I don't know. I didn't go to the other part. Well, I did on California. I actually did. There is a great new bar. I want everyone to know about it because we're all of not all of us cuz some of them over here are young. There's a new 80s bar in town called Miss Finickies and it is a wonderful place and it's a mother and daughter that opened it up and it's all 80s if you love 80s and uh so I started there and then I walked down cuz it was so nice outside >> and it was >> Wasn't it nice? >> Yeah, it was a nice weekend. >> Okay, vice mayor go ahead. >> Just one final question. And I know I'm over time, but uh currently today, if anybody wants to operate live entertainment either outdoor, in their indoor, I know the time is different, 10 or 11, the only way to do that is to get a cup. >> Correct. >> Okay. Even the cabaret licenses. >> That's in addition to you 10 or 11 depending on if it's indoor or outdoor. >> Uh cabaret indoor outdoor as well. If you have that live activity, you need a cabaret license through the business license department. and the sorry that just prompted another question with the security plan currently that's tied into your department in the development services. >> Correct. Because it's not written as a requirement anywhere. It's just something that we started implementing with that conditional use permit. So it's again we've only had a few of them that have come through in the past couple year and a half. Um, but if that's the direction that council would like to go, we can take steps to tie it to the cabaret license so that even if you don't trigger a conditional use permit, you would still have to get a put together a security plan in order to get your cabaret license, which gives us much more control over the businesses. So, as an example, you have a new business going in somewhere in downtown Reno and they were approved 20 years ago for a conditional use permit. They don't have to come back before anyone. They just need a cabaret license. So, we're able to get that type of operator who wouldn't otherwise trigger trigger a conditional use permit because they're grandfathered in. >> But if we tie it to the cabaret license, they would have to get that. And that's not a public review process. It's just staff reviewing it. And so that would give us again more teeth to be able to enforce something that they've agreed to. >> Enforcement. Yep. >> Perfect. Just underscoring that point. Yep. Thank you. Go right ahead. >> Thank you, Madam Mayor. Miss Fouse, thank you so much for the presentation. I know it has been, as as Miss Taylor said, quite a long time because we wanted to get it right. And I think part of the thing that impressed me about you and your department and your team is you really think about the chaotic nature of sometimes our comments and you try to make it into something that's practical and real. So, for my part, I have been paying attention to U Miami Beach uh back east. In February, they announced a temporary halt to all of their cup processes, all their conditional use processes for live entertainment. >> And basically, they're I've just been watching it unfold there. They're having some vacancy issues, some challenges in their downtown, in their live entertainment district core. And so, what they've done is basically put a pilot program into effect. And that's what I'm hoping we might consider here is that count you would return to us with a resolution or whatever mechanism you believe or your staff believes is appropriate which establishes a par the parameters for some kind of temporary stay on the cup process for live entertainment. Right? So my my thought behind this is much like um my colleagues which is we want to have the added protection for our residents that come with say the security plan and the experience we have and we also want to make sure that we are reducing the regulatory burdens and framework hurdles that small businesses have today. We've heard a lot of that. Um, as long as they're adhering to that security plan, I think we can protect the residents and we can also have additional enforcement tools that are sort of specific and not one-sizefits-all. I also think it might be good for the administrator to have more broad powers to make some decisions like I don't want to wait five months to go out on some kind of an issue if we know there's a problem. So, I want to be able to really all you, you know, using due process as a guidepost for all things. I want to make sure we're able to do that. So, our intent, of course, is continuously to support our small businesses, a thriving downtown, and also I think there's a lot of conditions going on between the four street corridor, downtown, and Midtown where they're just about ready to take off. And so, this may be the thing that happens to um sort of catalyze that effort. And so, I I believe that we can try it out before we make any permanent changes, that sort of thing. Um, obviously, this security plan has been, I think, an important part of it. and your experience with enforcing that has been also my guidepost of why I think you as the administrator should have some greater powers in that regard. And so I don't I I don't know what you want to be able to say there. Um I I guess the the stay should only apply to those areas where we're 24-hour uses are already permitted by Right. Right. So we're not talking about every part of the city in a blanket application. We're just talking about those entertainment areas. And then hopefully it still requires and it sounds like it did because that was the question M um Taylor asked. They'll still be required to get a cabaret license through business licensing. Right. >> Correct. >> Um what what do you think is that a workable framework? Is it meet the your needs as as a person who has to deal with this stuff? Tell am I overstepping my bounds? >> And um Tyler Colton, he's a business owner. He had forwarded um the Miami example to me. He probably sent it to you as well. And I I I took a look at it and that's probably the the closest city to Reno because they do allow live entertainment till I think five in the morning, >> right? Where the rest of the country does not. So they are >> they're all night. >> They're all night. So they're a great example to say they're trying it. They, you know, put some some bookends on where and how long and what rules are still in place. I think to your point, we could do something similar. We don't want it citywide. We want it contained within certain entertainment areas. Um, but also to protect those residents, we could require that security plan. So, if you're coming in, even if you come in to an area that already has a conditional use permit, we can still say great, you still have to come in and do a security plan. So, this would be a quick, easy way for us to get that required for all live entertainment until we can update our codes to say it's now required at the time of a cabaret. So, I think it kind of solves two problems. Yeah. >> Well, look, I think you know, my experience has been that deregulation is the best environment for our businesses to thrive, right? Often times what we hear from constituents, whether that's Mr. Coloulton, who's trying to open a second uh bar called the Seldon, um or the folks who are going into the old Morris Burner Hotel, which is Staround Audio's new um uh event hall, different event halls, all that is that just the regulatory hurdles that they have to go through to be successful. keep either a people from exploring their dreams about being a venue or event sponsor or trying to do live music, but it's also keeping our musicians undermployed. Right? So, for my part, I I believe that we can protect the public, allow for um the things that will keep us secure and safe as the security plan allows, but also allow for us to have this opportunity like Miami is trying to do to ignite uh sort of a an opportunity for musicians to be employed, bars to be thriving, uh restaurants to have live music, all those things. And you know, we began this some years ago was really started out as like a fight over um DJ trivia and then it kind of went from there into other areas. Uh but we've kind of moved on from that. I think all of our venues could have, you know, uh drag shows, DJ trivia, live music, different kinds of open mic poetry, readings, all that kind of stuff. A lot of things fall within it. What we want is for their success, right? We don't want to be a barrier to anyone's success or or their uh success financially. So, I think we can get there. And again, I do think the administrator should have some broad powers and authorities so that you're not always having to come back to me. Is that something that could be baked into this? >> Absolutely. And um I'll work with our attorneys. We can put together some language for a resolution or whatever other mechanism we go with that will come back before council. We'll outline again the parameters so the community is aware of there's a give and take with this. Um but and we can put a timeline as is how long we want to do this trial, you know, period as well. >> Well, and I think we're at a time right when we're entering into like the spring summer where we might see an uptick in it >> for sure. >> And maybe this will give uh promoters the opportunity to get out there ahead of it and and go out and find new emerging acts or something. I don't know. Angela, can we do um like I I would love to see us um expedite this any way we could like as a pilot in Midtown. >> Okay, >> that would be amazing. >> Yeah, absolutely. >> And then that way we would be able to say this works, this doesn't work, whatever. >> Yep. >> Are you good with that? >> We Yeah, we we can do it. Um whatever the next agenda is that I can get on, we will. >> I got you. >> Okay. All right. Thanks. Really appreciate it. Okay. Uh >> green light. I just had some questions. So, if we get rid of the CUP, just make sure I'm understanding, we would no longer charge $5,000. They would be able to bypass that. So, this would be a temporary um stall or stay on conditional use permits. So, it's not taking it out of code forever. This is just to try it out for whatever time frame we agree to. >> They would not have to go through a conditional use permit. They still have to do a security plan and they still need a cabaret license which comes before council for final approval. >> But this would be a pilot program to see if we would like to get rid of that alto together. Correct. Correct. >> Okay. So, how many of these do we get a year? >> Not many. I think generally two to three. >> Okay. Um I really want to support our businesses. is I'm going to do everything I can to help them, but I do have a little bit of an issue with taking away the fees. You know, we've got a large deficit. We have, you know, a lot everything's costing more for us at the city and I understand the concept of, you know, trying to figure out a better way of doing things, but um that's, you know, revenue for the city. So, I don't know if I'm necessarily um on board with getting rid of that. You know, if there's another way to do this. Um I do like that we could have things kind of a little more uniform. I think that's good and businesses could um have a little bit better idea of what to expect and and all of that. And maybe maybe there's a reduction in fee or something. But I just have a little bit of an issue with saying we're not going to charge anymore, especially considering we're going to charge, you know, $1,200 for somebody to file an appeal on a um you know, a planning decision. I just think that's completely out of balance and um it's not like uh what's the word? Um it doesn't seem to align with the other um direction this body has taken. So I don't really understand why we would do that in this situation. So those are my comments. >> Yeah. And I think for this particular topic because we've been struggling for several years and we haven't found a good solution that the business community can support and the residents can support. This gives us a trial to say business community, we're going to give you a little bit of of reprieve here. um you have a year or two, whatever that timeline is. But residents, we also know that this may not work. And if we find that that conditional use permit helps us, we need to keep that in there. They can still have a comfort to say this is trial. We're not changing the zoning code at this time. That conditional use permit would still be a requirement, but we're just again kind of doing a temporary stay. This is similar when when COVID hit and we were trying to encourage outdoor dining. So, we gave a basically a two-year reprieve on having to go through certain permitting >> um and fees as well. So, it was a good kind of incentive for the businesses to be able to to do what we wanted them to do and encourage them. >> Um so, hopefully in this case, it's not it's not saying we're no longer doing a conditional use permit. It's just a temporary pause >> to hopefully give more um protection for the residents to know, no, we haven't changed the code. We're just going to try this for a year or two, whatever time frame you guys come up with, and see if it works. >> Okay. So, do we currently charge the full amount at once? >> We do, and it's non-refundable. >> Okay. Would there be an option to um find another way to structure the fee, but have it be like overtime so the business is not being hit with it all at once? It's kind of like a stepped approach. Um, and that way, you know, if something goes wrong with the business, there is a lot of code issues, we would, you know, take whatever appropriate action, but then they wouldn't have lost $5,000, you know, if they only stayed open a short period of time, and it's not so much of a a stress on the business on the front end, but then also the city doesn't give up that revenue source. like if we can find a way to kind of navigate that. I think I would like to see if we can explore that rather than saying we're not gonna charge anymore. I just think um you know just like we charge for business permits and we charge for other things like it doesn't make sense to me that we would walk away from $5,000 again when we have a you know a substantial deficit you know in our budget. So thank you. I have just a brief comment. Um, one a couple things along the lines I've just heard is potentially scaling that cost down to something less. Um, you keep mentioning it's non-refundable, but how many of these do we actually turn down? Like is it how >> we turned down the OneUp nightclub a year ago? But I mean, is this a routine problem that someone applies, we turn them down, and they're all upset that >> No. For the most part, if with any entitlement, if we get to a process where we're telling them, we can't support this. Yeah. >> More often than not, they just withdraw their application and we give them a portion of that back. >> Well, I was just going to say, could we refund a portion? Um, even half of it, you know, like if if they don't get a permit, you know, they refund half of it or something. Yeah, I'm not saying the full amount because you had to do work to get to that point. But >> Yep. >> Absolutely. >> I mean, I just think there are some options here. >> I agree. Like it didn't it didn't complete, so give them a half of it back or something. >> Whether they withdraw or not, even if they just didn't withdraw, but they just got turned down, >> you know? I I don't know. Just to soften the blow. If you're saying that's a real issue, I'm not sure since we rarely turn our people down. We usually work with them to get through the process. So maybe it's just the total cost of the fee upfront. >> 100%. It's >> I don't I don't think that we should not do a process, but I do think we could take a harder look at the fee. >> It's time, money, and uncertainty. I mean, every small business is struggling just to open. >> Sure. >> And when they find out that they can't do live entertainment and they have to go through this process and it's going to take at least three months and you have to go to a public hearing and who knows, right, what additional conditions are going to be added. I'm not really sure if you're suggesting to us that we do away with the COP and then just lean on the business per business license or what what are you saying? >> I'm saying at this point I'm not proposing to make any changes other than let's do this temporary stay >> which is no cup at all. >> Correct. >> But only but an enhanced business license where they do the security assessment. >> Yep. >> They would be required. When you do that, is that something coming back to us or you just going to implement? >> So, um, we'll come back to you with a formal resolution, okay, that will kind of outline here's all the kind of the rules of this temporary. >> When you do, I would love to know what temporary means. You know, is that a six-month period, a year period, what is that? >> Yep. We'll put a timeline on it as well. >> If you're like the expert though, >> I want you to, you know, come back and and you also talk to all those business owners too. >> Yes. >> So, >> yes. Okay. And by far our our issue is a conditional use permit. It's tough when the business changes hands so quickly, right? When you build an apartment complex and you go through a conditional use permit, that's forever. That apartment project's going to be there a while. >> But these live entertainments, the turnover for the operators is constant. And so whatever rules we put in with that conditional use permit, it doesn't work for the next business or 20 years later the next business. I saw one today that was the only rule, the only condition that we said was make sure you have parking within a thousand feet. That >> that's not even a thing. >> Well, it's like a quarter mile in there. >> Why? Like I hearing this, why isn't part of the discussion like we need to change the rules around the cup so that it does change with the new owners? I mean, that seems more reasonable to me so that, you know, we don't end up in this situation because it could end up with a different use or or whatever. Like, that makes more sense to me than saying we're just not going to do it, you know? Um, >> I think that was >> I think our challenge is that if you're in an entertainment district in a 24-hour town, >> it's it's tough for us to say you can have a bar 24 hours a day, but once you start dancing or you bring in a band, we're going to take stronger, you know, precautions. Um, but we don't have a noise ordinance, so we're not regulating noise. It all goes back to the main things. Are you being a good business owner and operator? And we don't need to do that through a conditional use permit. >> We need to do that through the business itself. >> I have another question too about that live entertainment piece. I know that there was some issues with the the oneup. I I was in favor of it, but I know that the rest of the body didn't agree, but um they were requesting, you know, that they could have DJs like come in and play music. And I know that people are allowed to play music. It's, you know, you can have music playing in your establishment. What is the difference between a DJ playing pre-recorded music and a bar or a restaurant playing pre-recorded music? Like I struggle with that. It's like a DJ is not up there playing instruments. They are also playing pre-recorded music. So, can you explain why there's a distinction there? >> And that I mean, I think that's another really good point of, you know, what are we trying to regulate? Even when we had a lot of the the trivia, DJ trivia was a a specific business, but we're saying they're not a problem. They go to different bars and they have trivia and it usually ends, you know, by 11 o'clock, 12:00, but because they are literally a somebody is there doing a thing besides drinking at the bar, now that becomes live entertainment. When we have just a bar is a great example. Let's say you have poetry reading. Again, that's live entertainment because you have somebody coming doing something live that is more than just going to the bar and drinking. Um, so that that whole topic I think is also an issue that we hear a lot of complaints about from the business owners of so I can have a DJ play recorded music or I can't do that because that's considered live entertainment. I mean, it's that's a it's a fair point, but based on kind of the definitions, state law also has definitions on like >> Okay, that was a piece I was curious about, like if there's an NRS definition or a state law or something like that that like had a clear defined, you know, definition of like this is live entertainment. This is, you know, just >> cabet also different, but live entertainment in a different way. Um, so state law defines all of that. Okay. All right. Thank you. >> All right. Angela, what do you need from us? >> So, I think the kind of feedback I'm getting is come back as soon as possible with the resolution and outline some of the top topics you've brought up so that we can do a temporary stay on conditional use permits just again for the record for the public. This does not change our zoning code. This is a temporary change just to try it for a while and see if it works. If we find that um it's not working and it created something that we consequence, right, we can always pull it back and not do it and go back to the conditional use permit. We don't get a lot of them though. So, I'm not I'm not foreseeing that we're going to have 50 businesses come out of the woodworks for live entertainment. That's just probably not going to happen. >> Can I ask if there's any like coming down the pike right now >> for live entertainment? >> Yeah. That this would apply to Huh. >> The electric pickle. >> Okay. But is there is there like five that are about to Okay. >> No. And we we usually don't hear about them until they're ready to open. >> Okay. >> And you can open a bar. So there's a lot of bars, you know, that open in the summertime. And they can still do that. >> Okay. >> And once they want to add that live entertainment, then they they usually come to us and say, "Oh, nobody told me. I'm already doing it." >> That's a common concern we hear is, "No one told me." Is it possible, you know, next time we have an update on this, you could let us know like how many of these are like pending or that are on hold just so we can have an idea of, you know, the financial impact as well. >> Yes. Like I don't need to know the specific ones, but if we could just have like >> a number of how many businesses that are using this. Okay. Thank you. >> Okay. So again, no formal action. and I will take your feedback and be back um at a future council meeting hopefully in April. >> Okay. >> Thank you. >> That's fantastic. Thank you so much, Angela. Good job. Okay. I don't think we have to do much here. >> Well, C4, financial update. >> All right. >> All right. Madame Mayor, we're moving on to item C. >> She's been sitting there all day long. >> The financial update from >> All right. Come on up. I love the spring look. The the color is like the spring look. The blue and light blue. I love it. Okay, take it away. >> Thank you. Good afternoon, Vicky Van Beurren, director of finance. For the record today, I'm here with your monthly financial update, which is very brief this month. It's going to flow kind of like the cycle we have with budgets. So, this one's very brief. The next one um when I come forward in April will be more robust because we'll have some more information at that time because it just kind of depends on what we have available at the time. >> Perfect. >> In the cycle. So it aligns with the strategic plan through fiscal sustainability. And today I'm just going to talk about the current year where we're currently trending. So we have July through February and then talk about the budget development and the feedback that we heard from you council at the March 4th workshop. So current year it it's very similar to what you saw last uh month. You know, we have one more month of data points on some of these. And so property taxes trending 1.1% above budget. That's about a million dollars. Consolidated taxes are 5.8% above budget, about $3.4 million. And then franchise fees uh are 8% below budget, and that's about 3 million below. that does include the um adjustment for the change on April 1st of the sanitation franchise fee that increase. So that does include that if you remember last month that number was 13% below budget. So now it's only eight because of that. Um so with these, you know, between property tax and consolidated tax coming in a little bit higher, franchise fees a little bit lower, they're kind of offsetting each other for the year. Other revenues are pretty on track. So, we're still right on track with how we're projecting for next year's budget. Um, nothing really to anticipate there. Expenditure side, salary and benefits are tracking 3% below budget. I think we'll end anywhere from 2 and a half to 3% below budget. Last month, if you remember, it was 4%. So, as we get a little bit closer and they fill positions, that number is going to go down a little bit. And then service and supplies right now are running a little bit um high as far as they are 11% below budget. I think that's a little bit high. I think we'll really end the year probably around 5 or 8% below budget because this number that you're seeing here, this 11% does not include incumbrances. So, we'll have to factor that in as we get closer to the end of the year. But on track with everything as we're projecting, this is really critical and important because how we project the current year and what we're seeing in that really determines how we project revenues and expenses for next year. So, it's critical that we understand what's going on this year so we get get it right for next year as well. Um, C tax, consolidated tax, just to talk about this a little bit, as I mentioned, they're still trending about 5% above budget. Uh, this is through the January distribution. We still have five months left in the year. So, just as a reminder, there's a lot of uncertainty in the world right now. There's economic uh optimism. it's really falling and it's unclear what the impact of that is really going to be. Um so we need to be strategic and cautious as we move forward. But right now we're trending pretty well. Um compared to other agencies, our other local agencies, Sparks and Wo County, they're trending similar for the budget. Right now, I'm looking at around a 5% um increase for this current year and 3% for next year and which is in line with what other agencies are projecting as well. And I think um that's a conservative space given the information that we have right now. So again, right on track with what we're anticipating for the budget. Um and then just a little bit to give you an idea of feedback from the workshop that was on March 4th. So, the feedback that we heard from you as council, we meaning me and my staff taking notes. Um, we circled up to get our notes together on what we heard from you as council and what you wanted to see and what your priorities for the budget were as you discussed them. So, I think the top two that I had on my list were safe community and then long-term sustainability. We really need to continue to uh look long term because this isn't a short-term um problem that we're having. It is a long-term problem. Maintaining service levels and staffing so that you continue to provide those service levels that the community anticipates and that they expect. Looking at all revenue options or revenue reform, potentially property tax or cax reform, re regional collaboration, um consolidation of services in spaces where you can do that. And then on the fee schedule, I have a note um because there were discussions on the sanitation franchise fee and the CPI that are now on the fee schedule. So we will address that as we move forward um with this process from the feedback that we received. And then there was also some comments on the appeals fee. So I did make a note of that. the payroll system um and the full ERP system that we need and the IT requirements because that's a concern for the ability to meet our legal obligations as we move forward and you council recognize that and then infrastructure and ongoing capital maintenance the long range planning and sustainability of maintaining all of the assets that the city currently has that going to be continue to be a challenge um with the limited resources that we have. So that's why it's critical that we really plan and really do these long range planning sessions. So up next uh will be the April 22nd financial update. That one will be a little more robust because right now what we're doing uh in between the workshop and that meeting. We are checking and double-checking all the numbers. We are finalizing all of our revenue projections with the latest information that we have. And we also are still awaiting some data points from Department of Taxation on property tax. So once we have all that, we will have a much more robust information um report for you on April 22nd at that meeting with the financial update. We'll be looking for feedback at that point again on what the priorities are, what we're seeing at that point so that we can make notes and work with manager Bryant on that moving forward. May 6 that will be the man city manager's recommended budget coming forward to you on May 6th and we will have a full overview not just the general fund on everything at that point again not as in-depth as in depth as the workshop but as we hear comments from you from this meeting and April 22nd if there are things that you want to see a little more in depth we will do that I'll incorporate that as we move along and on that May 6 workshop I'm also going to go into uh debt and talk a lot of not a lot but give you a more in-depth look at debt because we haven't talked about debt at all through this cycle and I like to do that at that meeting to let you know where we are and where the city's paying down and what it looks like. May 14th we'll be presenting the budget to the financial advisory board and then May 20th is the budget adoption and fee schedule adoption date. So that's what I have for you today. Um and I'm open for questions. This is not an action item again. That's just for discussion. >> Perfect. >> No questions. We're good. Thank you so much. >> Okay. Take care. >> Madame Mayor, we're on item C6. >> Okay. What do we need here? >> Come on. Come on up. >> Madame Mayor, is this just the >> We don't need a whole presentation. We've been going over this. Um, what do you need from us? Thank you so much, Madame Mayor. Tyler Shaw, agenda manager for the city of Reno. For the record, I'll give you the quick pitch. The presentation's already pretty short. >> You're amazing. >> Thank you so much. >> I just I I don't know. I You're going to be the city manager one day. >> You're going to make me blush. >> You're going to be amazing. You're going to be doing great things. I can just tell. >> Thank you. So, some very quick background just to make sure everyone knows where we're coming from. Before August of last year, our board and commission system was disjointed. Our boards have been established one by one over the course of many decades. Um, as a result, council directed staff to bring forward some changes to the system. We brought those changes forward through the summer of 2025. And that ultimately resulted in council action in August of 2025. Council adopted a resolution and series of ordinances that made three big changes to how our boards and commissions function at the city of Reno. It centralized the administration of the board and commission program within the city manager's office, created a set of shared governance standards, and created a secretary role which has resulted in more than $24,000 in annual hardcost savings for the city of Reno. Since then, we've done a lot of work to implement council's direction. And looking at centralized administration, we've been able to launch reno.govboards, which is our central hub for board members and members of the public who want to learn more about boards and commissions at the city of Reno. There's links to online trainings. There's lots of information about how to apply. And there's also individual board profiles for each of our boards. This new hub was able to replace more than 40 outdated web pages on our old website. So, this is one of the biggest changes we've been able to make that we're really excited about. We've also started sending appointment letters to let new board commission members know they've been appointed to a border commission and make sure they know their term information and get them connected to their staff leaison so that no one falls through the cracks. And we've started sending quarterly vacancy memos to let you as council know when vacant positions are coming up, but also to let the interested members of the community know when they might be able to apply for a board they're interested in. looking at templates and trainings and our governance standards. Now that everyone's operating on the same set of rules, in September of last year, we were able to host our first board and commission training for all of our board and commission members. We had over a hundred of our board and commission members attend. It was a very fun and interactive training for everyone. You can see a picture there on the screen. Um, you'll start seeing some standard bylaws come to you for approval. This was one of the requirements of the new resolution, so you'll see those in the coming months. And you'll also start seeing your first annual reports in July of this year. Those will be coming to you via council memo. As a quick reminder, those annual reports are the main way the boards and commissions will communicate their feedback and their priorities back to you as council members. It's a fillable PDF. It's designed to be very easy to fill out during a board meeting. We're not trying to create any more work for our volunteers. And then the last thing we've been implementing is the new officer role, which is the secretary. It's been implemented across the entire advisory board and commission system. Like I mentioned earlier, it's resulted in more than $24,000 in annual cost savings. Um, we're doing everything we can to make sure our secretaries are as supported as they can be. We launched a secretary guide which has lots of templates and information for the secretary to make sure they understand how to do their role. Okay, here's the meat and potatoes for today, the proposed changes that are before you all. Um, this resolution does three big things. First, related to meeting time limits, staff is recommending to remove the two-hour time limit on off-site NAB meetings and replace it with a new 3-hour time limit with a city manager approval process for exceptions. Staff is recommending this because we've heard your feedback about the problems with the 2-hour time limit, but we still want to make sure there's some guard rails around staff time usage on our board and commission program. In this case, we believe that removing the two-hour time limit and applying a three-hour time limit to all advisory board and commission meetings will still result in staff time savings um while addressing the concerns that we've heard. To Mr. um Shrimp's point, our public commenter from earlier today, the staff is also recommending to add that um approval process for exceptions to make sure there's additional flexibility for our boards and commissions when there's say a lage type item that needs to go longer than 3 hours to make sure there's an option to do that. The next big change we're recommending is related to empowering our presiding officers. We're recommending some new language enabling presiding officers to better manage meeting progression using some of the principles and also some of the language from your city council rules. The goal with this change is to make sure our presiding officers can run the meetings more confidently and give them open meeting law compliant ways to make sure meetings progress smoothly. This is another area that's expected to result in staff time savings without impacting the work of any of our boards. The last big change is some administrative cleanup to clarify the intent of the resolution, correct any drafting oversightes from when this came before you back in August, and improve consistency. A full table of all the administrative changes is included in the staff report if you're interested. The main takeaway from this slide is this proposed resolution before you today does not alter council's underlying policy direction from when this was adopted back in August. Okay, last slide. Some next steps just to give everyone an idea of where we're going next if this resolution is adopted today. First, I do want to put on the record that I am planning to present this resolution to all six neighborhood advisory boards in the coming four months. Um, again, to Mr. Shrimp's point to make sure we're getting their feedback and letting them have an opportunity to engage in the system. So, I'll say that upfront. Um, outside of that, like I mentioned earlier, starting in April, you'll see some updated bylaws coming forward for approval. Those will be on your consent agenda. Looking at May, we're planning to host a presiding officer training for our presiding officers to let them know about the new empowering language and our resolution and also make sure they have all the support we can give them as staff. In July, you'll start seeing your first annual reports via council memo like I mentioned before. And then in August, you'll start seeing your first five-year strategic board reviews, which will come before you um then. And then in September, we're looking to host our second annual board and commission training. We want to start doing this every year. We heard some great feedback from the last one, and we think it's a really great way to keep our board members up to date on everything that's happening in the city of Reno for boards and commissions. Okay, I think I ran through that pretty quick. My recommended motion is on the slide, and I'm of course available for questions. Okay. I think that's amazing. I know the first button that went on. >> Is that me or >> Yes. >> Oh. Oh, I wanted to thank you, Tyler. You know how I feel. And thank thank Jackie uh for making the proposing these changes. Um, ever since we put in this two-hour time limit, almost every meeting we have run into a difficult meeting. Uh we've had to cancel presentations and then they didn't come back and then people are upset that they never heard them. We've had uh more people than expected come to the meeting. I I mean it's been everything. Um there was a comment made somewhere along the line that we had always ended at 8. No, we had always ended at 8:39. We try to be out of there by 8:30. They'd clean up about quarter or 9 and then the Moana people in this case will come at 9:00 to close up. Um so I just wanted to correct the record on that. that's been stated, but it was not correct. For 12 years, we have ended around 8:30 and we managed to bring it in on time almost every single time. So, I appreciate um the change in the time. I would ask that um administratively that Jackie empower the um you the board secretary sorry the the staff person that's managing it in this case Cali Shai um and with along with the chair to make an executive decision if they have to if they have to stay 10 minutes later to hear the last three people speak then I think they should do that it creates too much frustration otherwise so um that's something I'm asking you Jackie to you know chat with Tyler or Cali, whoever's going to be there and give them some flexibility, but I'm telling you, 95% of the time in the past, we were able to bring it in at 8:30. It's just the odd time that people didn't predict who's showing up. So, that's not something that's in the resolution. That's more of an administrative implementation on your end that I'm recommending hearing from Mr. Shrimp and doing this for 12 years. that I would recommend that we not uh it be more of a a guideline, not a hard stop. Um and then I just wanted to say um I just appreciate the effort and and I'm glad you're bringing it back now so that we can move forward. It there was a fair amount of angst. I will admit um it wasn't just me. I mean I will just share something that Mr. Shrimp said that that you have heard you know they've said it. I've heard it. This room while it's central is not very conducive to sort of a roundt discussion. It's more of a decision makingaking um podium type setup. You speak, we decide. Whereas the NAB is meant to be a collaborative process. And I'm just speaking about the NAB today versus other boards and commissions uh in the interest of time. But they feel very much more comfortable in a smaller room. They feel more comfortable with that easy access parking. um they feel more comfortable that it's more informal and that is the intent to get people speaking and not have them like they are here feel sometimes intimidated by this setup where you know oh my gosh I've never spoken in this big room to people sitting on a dis and that kind of thing it's more collaborative and informal so um I don't know what other groups are doing if they're coming here and and if that's working for them more power to them I just know my personal nab I've just tried to reflect what they are telling me what I'm hearing from them. So, thank you. >> Thank you. >> Okay. >> Hi, Tyler. I'll be quick. I just I want to acknowledge the work you've done on this because my NAB is the very first baby nab that kind of got launched on this new platform and program and the policies and the training that you provided. Um, my NAB loves meeting at city hall. They feel prepared. they feel um supported and there's a certain amount of respect I think for just the volunteer service that they're giving the city and their community when they get to sit here. So I just want to acknowledge the opportunity for them to sit here and have the nab um for the for the words that they do that do hold their nabs here. But specifically for you, you um you put these plans you you you went through a very political and emotional pro process to bring um a very a more prepared group of volunteers in the community to engage at these nabs and I'm just really grateful for the work that you did and um it's working brilliantly in ward six. >> Thank you so much, Council Member Anderson. I do want to add I'd be remiss if I did not give credit where credit is due to Cali Shai, our agenda coordinator, and Christy Smith over there, my supervisor. They've both been incredible in helping make this a reality. So, I appreciate it. I just meal sh like passing and >> she's our uh our new staff leazison to all six neighborhood advisory boards and she does really excellent work with them. So, I'm very grateful to have >> When did you get here? She came over to our team in July um of this year. Yeah. So, right in the middle of the board and commission changes and when we unpaused the boards and relaunched the navs, she took it and ran and I think she's doing a great job. >> Oh, I love to see that. But they have said very very nice things about you. You're your fellow co-workers. So, I want you to know your name is a buzz. So, for all the right reasons, all the look I love it with a little bit of flare there. Good job. Okay. Anything else? Oh, Councilman Martinez or >> Thank you, Madam Mayor. Uh, thank you, Miss uh Shaw, for the presentation. I appreciate just want to add on to the kudos, you know, that you've been receiving. Appreciate all the work that you've done to encapsulate all of the things that you're hearing from the city council and direction that we're providing and trying to put that in a nice little neat package for us. So, I can see all the work that's been done. Um, and even in some of the supplemental sides after your presentation, I think those go to uh illuminate some of the recommendations that you're presenting and the justification for that. And I'll just say that I know my NAB members are really appreciative of um Cali Shai as well and how well she's been able to run the meetings for war 3 and uh it seems like our NAB members have a great experience while they're here on the DIS and they get their opportunity to sit in these chairs and also uh provide their input to our community. So, I'm looking forward to the continued success and what you bring to this process uh in terms of the training that you've been providing for the NAB members and those reports that and I appreciate you making them a little standardized to give our NAB members the ability to give us a product that looks pretty similar regardless of what board or commission they serve on. So, thank you. >> Thank you. Yeah, council member, you were >> Yeah. Um, I just wanted to say thank you so much for all your work on this. You've done a great job and I appreciate you being um, so responsive to the feedback. Uh, I really appreciate it. Um, it's been very helpful to kind of clean things up and, um, address different, you know, pain points that we've had. I do want to um continue asking though for a little more flexibility on the nab. And I admit I don't know how other NABS go like how much development is coming through but um I know for our NAB we have a lot of development usually and I run into the problem of um not all the board members get to ask all their questions and then the community doesn't get to ask their questions and it becomes really frustrating and for a lot of people this is their only opportunity to have those conversations with devel developers and I've seen those conversations be very helpful and beneficial for everyone. I've seen developers make really wonderful changes based off of feedback. So I want to continue to have those opportunities. Um so I know three hours is better than two for sure. I'm not going to argue that. But I do still want to just continue to say that I would like to have the ability to just go longer. I would love to be trained on how to shut it down. Um so that staff doesn't need to sacrifice their night. I because I am aware of that too. I appreciate the time you guys spend driving out to my ward and then um you know taking things down and driving home too. Like that's not lost on me. Um but uh you know last week's meeting got um cancelled because I didn't have a quorum because there was a developer that had a community meeting at the same time and my board members wanted to attend that the month before we had that storm and um we canled the NAB because of you know the roads and also RTC had a meeting for the Lemon Drive uh improvement um project at the same time for that as well. So, I keep running into issues with um the community having to choose what meeting to go to. And then also now um there's been two months worth of projects that the the ward residents haven't had an opportunity to hear about and they're still on track to go to the planning commission and that's fine. um but they're going to get approved without having that first um communication with the residents. So if they get approved, there's not a huge chance that they're going to make changes based off of feedback later. So it's kind of like the ship has sailed on those projects. Um and I really um it's really disappointing. You know, it's hard when I know it could have been better. Um so looking for ways to um solve for that. And uh I know we want to have all developments come through, but I don't know if we could have a bigger lag time between when they come to the NAB and when they go to the planning commission. So if we have a situation where a NAB gets canled for whatever reason, we can have them come to another NAB before they go to a planning commission. Um so those are those are my thoughts on that. And um also, you know, if staff can help um with these different agencies, if they hear that there's a a meeting happening at the same time, that you could um at least inform me about it as soon as possible so I can reach out to these agencies and ask for some kind of uh change to be made so that people don't have to choose. So, thank you. >> Okay. Thank you. I see a green light over there. >> I have a quick question. >> Oh, I'm sorry. Sorry. Hold on. I actually saw a green light over here first and then I'll come back. Go ahead, Vice Mayor. >> No, you're good. I was just reading your motion, but Oh, okay. Yeah, there's still more commentary. >> Go ahead. >> Well, I was just gonna ask or maybe I'm unclear. So, if a meeting's cancelled because of snow, which that was um the road was shut down. You're saying that there is no opportunity for the people to at the NAB to review that project. I mean, it's nothing they did. >> Yeah, thank you for the question. So in the resolution it says that if a meeting is canceled due to lack of quorum, snow or some other unforeseen event, the project skips the NAB requirement. And that's not a staff decision that comes usually from NRS. There's very specific development review timelines that are laid out by statute for different project types. >> We're actually working on a council memo right now to lay that out very clearly, like which project types is there flexibility, which project types is there not, and what does that flexibility look like from the city? Um, but my commitment to all of you is to always try to make everything better. So, I'm appreciate all the feedback. >> Well, if there is an opportunity, I mean, it was nobody's fault. It's nature, right? Um, but we don't want to skip our process. I mean, the NAB members were affected too. Uh, the developer was affected too. But sometimes there is time like it happened to me and um the developer willingly came back. they wanted to get the input from the NAB um before they went to planning commission. So perhaps as time goes on we can look at that section and like you said if there is a NRS requirement well of course but if there's not I I think we should be more flexible rather than more strict on something like that so that I mean we we meet the intent of the process which is to get the input into the planning commissioner's hands and ears and do the best job we can. Okay. All right. Thank you so much. Um, Vice Mayor, go ahead. >> Thanks so much. I move to adopt the resolution. >> All right. I have a motion and a second. All those in favor say I. >> All those opposed. >> Motion carries. Okay. >> Thank you. >> Hey, good job. >> Thanks. >> I am so impressed. By the way, I I did not know that this is you behind the agenda right here. >> Oh, yes. That's that's me also >> because you know I mean right when we were just first looking at it was JW who said what do you think of this and I was like I don't know it just seems so perfect and guess what I love it we couldn't live without it we're up here talking about how great the agenda is so easy to read so easy to follow along you know what you're doing a fantastic job I'm like where has this been all my life >> thank you m >> good job okay Madam clerk. >> All right, Madame Mayor, we're moving on to item F1, an ordinance adoption to be read by the city attorney. >> Ordinance adoption. Ordinance number 6736, case number LDC 26-000029, Whispering Road, zoning map amendment. Ordinance to amend title 18, chapter 1802 of the Reno Municipal Code entitled zoning reszoning a 0.23 23 acre site located north of Crystal Park Road, approximately 60 ft north of its intersection with South Verdai Road and Quily Ranch Road, 595 Crystal Park Road from public facility PF to general commercial GC together with matters which pertain to or necessarily connected there with W 5. >> All right, thank you so much. Any public comment on this item? >> We have none registered and have not received any correspondence on this item. >> Okay. May I get a motion? >> Motion. >> I have a motion and a second. I'm going to go with that that's a second. All those in favor say I. I. Those opposed. >> Motion carries unanimously. >> Madam clerk, >> we're on item G1. >> Okay. This is you, Councilwoman Der. >> Can we get your appointments? >> Absolutely. Um, I just want to note that Pat Cashelle is already on the NAB and he is in an alternate position. I've reached out to him to see if he wants to change his position, but I haven't heard back. So, I'm going to leave him in his alternate position until I get some input from him. Um, it gives him more flexibility on when to attend and when not. Um, and so, in that light, I want to appoint um Brett Jenkins and Nicholas Oliver um to some regular positions. I have four open. Um, several of the people have not gotten back to me. Um, I've I've got to interview virtually everyone. Um, but I do have some more openings coming up like within a month. So, my recommendation for today is Brett Jenkins and Nicholas Oliver into two of the regular positions. >> Second. >> Okay. I have a motion and a second. All those in favor say I. >> All those opposed. Motion carries. >> Okay. >> All right. Item G2, the Western Regional Water Commission appointment. >> Okay. >> Mr. I'll second. >> All right. I have a motion and a second. >> Can I ask a real quick question? Yeah. Go ahead. Um, it was in a Doesn't the term go until April or March 31st of 2028? So, I don't know exactly how long the term goes, but what I do know is that when uh November comes, I'll be off the council and you can appoint someone to that um based on your full complement of your people that are on your board at that time on the council at that time. >> Yeah, I don't know if I can add I I was appointed to WRWC as uh representative for the joint coordinating committee and my time on that position has veered off. We just appointed um Council Member Vibe um to take that seat because it switches between Reno and Sparks. Um and just in wanting to continue to serve the city of Reno in that capacity, I wanted to make a pitch. I know there's already a motion um out there, but if you all consider keeping me on, even if it's today or in November when Council Member Derer leaves, I would love to continue my involvement with the Western Regional Water Commission. >> That's great. I love that. Good. You must be enjoying it. Yeah, it's they're doing good work. >> That's so good. >> Yeah, >> which is why I'd like to just see it through for these last uh six or seven months while we work on the regional sewer project. >> So, thank you. >> Okay. Anything else? >> Um I just I wanted some clarification on how that's going to affect your your service and what you're working on on that board right now. >> Um I think it would just leave the gap, right? I could probably still stay m maintain up to date and keep informed on what's going on, but I will no longer be a member after I believe the end of this month. Then Charlene Bbeby takes over um that seat. So there I won't be there until November if you all decide to reappoint me in November to fill that seat for the city of Reno. >> And I don't that meets every other month. So there's about three meetings between now and November. >> Got it. Okay. >> And I'm not will the sewer stuff be done by then? I'm just wondering if it makes sense to have somebody that's >> going to stay. >> Going to stay. >> And also what precludes council members I don't think from attending any meetings. >> Am I right? >> Okay. Um and I think you and you have done it before. >> I do think it's important for smooth transitions, right? I think that's helpful whenever you have um you know people that are terming out and they'll be gone. So can we what are you working on over there that maybe you can help hand it off to Miguel? >> Yeah, Miguel's been on there. We have a um we have hired a consultant to do a regional assessment of um regional sewer and they're making frequent updates and I would just like to see it through. I've been on this project a long time. Um, I have no idea if they'll be done. I know they'll be reach reaching a milestone before November, but whether they'll be done done, I have a feeling they will they will be hired to do another phase, which would be great. >> So, I think the first phase is at least a year out. >> Yeah. >> So, well, they won't be done by November. >> That's what I just said. I think there's a milestone, but I I don't think they'll be done. I think it's a very long project. But anyway, I'd like to continue staying and I welcome Miguel. Um, also we can have um I don't know if we're agenda for this and I don't know if we have any alternates, but that would be great idea, too. >> Yeah, I maybe they don't have one over there. I don't know. But that always helps because um you just put your alternate in there and then they learn and they sit in for you. I don't know if they have that over there, but I think but I do think um let's whatever boards we're all on um for that transition because some of them are really really important and some you don't even sit on >> but I want you to make I want it to be seamless and whatever um is going to be best for >> serving in any capacity. So, let me I just curiously if Mrs. Door, if you were the alternate, >> would you still be able to show up to the meetings and give your feedback and and do the same work as if if we were to appoint um Miguel today, would you be able to still get the same information by being the one that showed up and listened is what I'm wondering. and the seamless transition is it really do you lose influence or information >> can't vote or I can only make public comment at that point let's say Miguel is there and um you know look I think that it will be fine um I've been on there a long time probably my whole career here you know >> okay well listen here's what we're let you finish um I think you should finish it out because I think that's also respectful as we leave. Yeah. >> There are things that you want to get done. >> That's right. >> But I would like to make sure that Miguel um has an ability to just like you do at RTC, you come and sit over there for me, >> which is very helpful, but also have a way for Miguel for you to do the same thing in that capacity. So, >> all right. >> Again, I don't think the makeup of the Western Regional Water allows for that, but as member has alluded to. I definitely as a member of the public I can still attend, give public comment and stay informed >> on what's going on. So, >> either way, just want to stay involved >> with WRWC. So, thank you for the consideration. >> I Okay, >> I had something. Yeah, I just wanted to say like I think it might be um helpful to Council Member Martinez to have the, you know, to take the torch and have you mentor him in that position and hand it off to him. >> He has been serving with me. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. I mean, he's been serving with me. Yeah. >> And so we we already do that. We already talk. Um we do it on flood as well. Um that's what we've been doing. We we communicate very well. So we've >> Speaking of which, where's the flood update? That's the next item, right, Miguel? He's our chair. In fact, I nominated >> Miguel. Miguel, you got nominated. >> I did. >> Well, I nominated to him to be chair. >> I mean, who are the chair? >> Yes, I am the chair of Truckucky River Flood Management Authority. >> Well, say Councilwoman Der, would you be interested in letting Miguel sit on Western Regional? >> Do you know how hard that is? >> I know. Thank you. >> I am so happy. Oh my goodness, Miguel. Congratulations. >> Thanks. So anyway, I'd like to stay. If you all don't want me to stay or want something else, then then vote no on the motion and we can move on. But it's a very short period of time. So >> it's not about what wanting or not wanting. It's it's just about the seamless process or >> I just want you to know that it's not a want or not want. It's about what is the right next thing for the future of the appointment. That's all. Just it's not a want or not want. I'm going to make the motion to keep it healthy. >> I think uh it's already been made. >> Okay. All those in favor say I. >> I. >> I. >> Motion carries unanimously. >> Um go ahead. >> Was it unanimous? >> Oh, did you vote no? >> Did you vote no? >> Yeah. >> Okay, let's put that on the record. Uh Madame Clerk, will you please give us a roll call vote? So, this motion is to reappoint Council Member Der. We're starting with Council Member Taylor. >> Yes. >> Der, >> yes. >> Martinez, >> yes. >> Eert, >> no. >> Reese, >> yes. >> Anderson, >> yes. >> Shivy, >> yes. >> All right. Motion passes 61. >> All right. Thanks so much. I appreciate the cooperation from all of you. Um, it means a lot to me that everyone is working cohesively. Listen, I know we all don't always um maybe have the same ideas, views, and opinions, and that's great because um I I I learned a lot from Brandy over here. You bring in just this different dynamic, and I I love it. It's fascinating because I'm like, that's really You just made me think differently. So, I'm I really appreciate it. But I want to say I appreciate when everyone is working cohesively together. Um, but I I love that it's also unique and everyone has their own ideas and even if you don't agree with them, there are times, you know, we all get very irritated up here and um I just want to say thanks. It makes a it makes a big difference when everyone is >> Yeah. working together. >> Well, and I want to thank my colleagues as well. It gives me a time um to work with the other board members to um actually transition out if I was just to not show up the next meeting. It's like, okay, she's been here for 12 years, but now she's just gone. We don't know what happened there. So, I appreciate that. And um I I've already thought of a a technique where we can ensure that Miguel gets that position before I go. >> Okay. All right. I just wanted to say that this vote was not anything personal. I just thought it was kind of a a unique opportunity because Miguel has been on and then he's going to be off. Um that this could have been a time to kind of partner there and work together so that it was a transition and we could make sure that that kind of institutional knowledge that you have to share with him and that he also has from being on that board could continue on. So I just want you to know it was not anything personal to you. Um, I didn't take it in any kind of bad way from anyone. I I appreciate the comments and it's just something I had not thought about. So, >> we got to move on to the >> We're moving on. >> I wish we were moving on. I cannot believe it. How come you didn't call me and tell me >> for a flood? >> Yes. >> I thought >> I can't get over it. No. >> Well, I'll connect with you after this. >> I am so happy. See, people don't know the long history of how that board has been hijacked for years. No, thanks. >> And I am so proud of you, Miguel. >> It took the will of the body and council member Derer's nomination to get us up there. So, thank you. >> Yes, great news. >> And not just a nomination, but I went out and talked to the other members and told him that I thought it was very appropriate that Miguel have a turn. I mean, I had nominated him to be vice chair >> previously and he served in that role for two years and then I said it's his turn and he and Reno's turn to be chair of this board. So, >> and that board just so you know it was really really difficult because it was one of those boards. Now it's changed because I think we changed it. How did we change? We changed it. I think we did >> but you had to you had to have a unanimous >> Yeah, that happened before this council. That was in the Bob Kell days. But but when I got on there, you had to have unanimous. And I remember because I was dumb and green, there was something that happened and you literally could circumvent all of the pro uh progress by one person. Think about it. Is that crazy? >> Oh, we thought about it. >> I'm glad I'm in this new phase. >> And I will just tell you, um, at first it was actually just a little moment of history. Bob Cashelle was the one who wanted to change it to not be unanimous, but at the 11th hour and 15th minute um right before the group was to vote um it was Dave Azi who said well there's some benefits to having unanimous because to your very point Madame Mayor he said you know we can be a hold out we can we can uh get things our way and so um it really created some controversy there for a while but ultimately cooler heads prevailed and they went to a nonunanimous approach Anyway, it's super cool. I'm super excited because I also think there was um someone that held that seat for a very for over a decade, I think, maybe two decades close to it. So, I just I'm really glad to see that you're getting an opportunity, Miguel. That's a big deal. >> Thank you. >> Yeah. Good job. Okay. Um Madame Clerk, I think it's um H1. >> Item H1, City Council comments. >> Okay. We've been very chatty today. >> Your green lights on, Vice Mayor. Go ahead. >> Yes. I had a couple go right in. >> I'll make them as quick as I can. I just want to appreciate everybody for that last conversation. Um, and regardless of how everybody voted, I think ultimately people are supportive of me continuing my work over there. So, thank you all for that. And then the other thing was that the youth city council has a survey out to try to gather more of a needs assessment or how the youth are in our city. And so if you are 25 or younger, which definitely I don't think applies to any of us up here anymore. Just I'm guessing I'm guessing um but if you are, you have the ability to participate in the Youth City Council's survey to provide us um with some more information on how your experiences living in the city of Reno and what we can do to provide better services. And um >> you're old enough to go the other way. >> April 4th, I have uh biggest little council connect uh for war 3 and any folks in the city of Reno who want to attend and connect with uh me or learn about what's happening in the city will be at Wheat Berry Baking Company on Longley at 10:00 a.m. on April 4th. >> Okay, that's >> all I got. >> I love it. Good job. Okay, over here. Go right ahead. Um, just, you know, want to thank everybody for the discussion on this last item. I think, you know, it's good that we were able to to talk as colleagues and again, I hope I haven't offended Council Member Derer, but I I know. I'm just saying, >> but thank you for recognizing it. I appreciate it. >> Yeah. Um, okay. Also, I just wanted to, you know, re reiterate again about um my NAB situation and um if there's any way that I could be um helpful in extending the time that the meetings go on, if I could shut things down, just um offering that again. And I do appreciate the extension of the the nab time by one hour. Um I appreciate that. Um, the other thing is I want to say um I'm really disappointed and sad to hear that my my little favorite coffee shop in my ward uh Superstitions Java has shut down rather suddenly. So that was my location for my coffee with your council member. >> What happened? I don't know. They just shut down. I was supposed to have my coffee there a couple weeks ago and somebody texted me and said, "I think they're permanently closed and they have a sign in the door and both locations are closed." So, they were they were my favorite little joint for six years and they they will be missed, but I just wanted to recognize them as um a really great um uh female veteranowned independent coffee shop. >> You should reach out because sometimes you never know. It could be a landlord issue where they needed to fix this or that. >> They made a Facebook post that said there was some kind of medical issue or something, but just wanted to acknowledge how um appreciated they were in the community and that they'll be missed. >> All right. Thank you. Okay. What else? What else? >> All right. >> No second. >> Madam clerk, >> what else do you got for us? Final public comment. We don't have any commenters registered. However, for the record, we did receive four comments after 4 p.m. yesterday. Those have been distributed to the Reno City Council and are a part of the record. >> Okay. Thank you so much. All right. Give me a motion. >> Motion to motion to second. All those in favor say I. >> Those opposed. I just want to know what will happen if I don't entertain the motion. And I say no. >> Thanks everyone. Appreciate it. And we're getting home by 5.