foreign good morning vice mayor Reese good morning Madam clerk are we all ready to go we are and just um to give everybody in the room information mayor shivi is on Via Zoom this morning as well so we'll cover that in roll call okay I'm gonna call this meme to order this is our joint special meeting of the Reno city council Redevelopment agency board for Wednesday March 29th uh 2023 Madam Clerk let's start off with the Pledge of Allegiance I'm going to ask president Sandoval to lead us in the pledge this morning I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you all right we'll move on to item A2 roll call council member breckis I'm here doer here Martinez here Ebert absent at this time Taylor here Reese here Chevy here uh vice mayor you do have a quorum of the Reno City Council thank you so much let's start with public comment do we have any public comment this morning sorry we're just checking your sound over here I apologize um we do have some public commenters registered today so I will go ahead and read my disclosure and then we will roll into public comment it should be noted for those in the audience that comments are to be addressed to the mayor and Council as a whole comments heard under this item will be limited to three minutes per person and may pertain to matters both on and off the council's agenda please note that Council may not take action on any matter not agendized 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 say your name and you will be afforded three minutes if you're an attendee in the zoom meeting and would like to make public comment please raise your hand at this time and lastly while in this room please be respectful warnings will be issued by the presiding officer if there is disruptive behavior and you will be asked to leave you will be asked to leave Chambers if the behavior continues our first public commenter today is Tori sunheim followed by Verona Cortez Veronica Cortez followed by Eric larrud this sometimes is this on already good morning honorable mayor and city council my name is Tori senheim I'm chair of the Human Rights Commission and I came here to invite some discussion on a proposal to provide funding potentially ten thousand dollars towards the Human Rights Commission for the upcoming fiscal year Dana barkawi is our vice chair she was not able to be here today but is uh does share these sentiments with me I understand this meeting is the second of several to design the city's budget so I felt this was a good time to make this request and just invite discussion on it the commission we've grown and stabilized over the past few years and we've begun to engage with the public on human rights issues as was our purpose including to activate the public on diversity equity and inclusion initiatives as volunteers we Commissioners donate and invest much of our time and energy into the commissions between our meetings and I think that we have the capacity to do a lot with what we've been given already and um The Next Step I believe is funding and in terms of funding I have really we have a couple of ideas first of all we've had some programming that we have been developing um in concert with some some organizations one was with uh with the a component of the international Cordillera Film Festival to put on some community-based programming around diversity equity and inclusion efforts including relevant film showings and panels part of that that program and I understand that that kind of a that kind of a specific thing is something that we are already working on funding for however we have lots of other ideas um to in that nature and it would be fantastic if the commission were able to utilize funds to meet these new partners halfway in in developing additional programming and we have so many ideas that we would be able to narrow it down and and be um and be prudent about that as as a commission the commission of course would have to vote on in and decide where to prioritize any types of programming but the other ideas is similar to I believe what the Reno arts and culture commission has is is to develop a potential grant program where we could help support Community initiatives community-led and um and self-programmed initiatives on diversity equity and inclusion and those are just those are two general ideas and ways that we felt would help facilitate the Human Rights Commission and its purpose and in furthering that and we believe that financial support will confirm the city's the city's creating and and continuing to support the Human Rights Commission thank you I'm available if you have any questions for me um and I really appreciate your time thank you Miss Sunshine always a privilege to have you in Chambers and we look forward thank you very much Veronica Cortez followed by Eric LaRue good morning everybody I'm Veronica Cortez um a citizen of Washoe County since 77 I'm actually a Saint Mary's baby third generation born and raised Sun Valley Virginia Palmer billing first and Reed so just a little bit about me um homegrown I really never done a lot in Reno but here we are and I'm here to introduce myself so what I do is I have a little ranch called Valley Amigos we're going to be out at Farm day at the Rancho San Rafael so I don't know if this works yeah just place it on there and then the clerk will come so this is what I do um community events I'm a lunch lady been a lunch lady since 99 graduated in 97 so I really haven't been out of Washoe County president of the Nevada School nutrition Association for a couple years travel did that anyway I'm back in town and right now what we're doing is we're working with animals we have this Farm day going on in the bottom you'll see that goat that spot that's Ariana and we've been doing this for a few years but um I've been actually invited to join this organization now that has gone on a bigger level and we actually do like bull rides so if I can change this I don't know if this will fit is that too big just just leave it we'll get it updated Okay so there'd be an advertisement of what we do now and uh so my dad is Hispanic uh he came in from Aguascalientes when he was about 16. work for Bender Warehouse till he retired out had a temporary labor Service Company I have a pizza place out in Sun Valley we're just homegrown and what we're trying to do is get some we don't want money so everybody should be happy about that we're looking for approvals and blessings so that we can continue these bull rides we've never really been in Reno except for the livestock Event Center which I'm gonna throw out some numbers Ticketmaster collected 150 000 it took a hundred and two thousand so we gotta check for twenty thousand and we couldn't pay any of our artists and stuff so we've got offered to do an event in the global Arena the glow Plaza downtown it's not open yet it's off of 4th Street 670 uh West Fort Street um the new organizer of those events was a guy who's doing the Cinco de Mayo in the Grand Sierra but we've decided to bring our events to downtown Reno so we have an event planned we submitted an application for the 30th of April it's called um it's going to involve um hopefully bull rides if we can get them into the glow Arena we have um this would be I can put this down it's kind of our idea of how we'll set up the globe Arena like I said it's not ready yet it was supposed to be open on Cinco de Mayo but hopefully we can do the grand opening April 30th um we've already been in contact with the fire department we have the remsa lined up we've already done the sound permit we have the vendor's permit the I think it's Jane uh the person who bought the Sands I can't remember their name exactly they're going to be handling all the alcohol we have ESI signed up for security so it's like we're ready to go we had planned to do it in the Reno livestock Event Center but something happened dates got erased money got handed to other people and we got kicked out so this was kind of our last choice so if you could please just give us a blessing and help us out if we come across end meeting I'm Veronica my best friend is Erica and we just want to Buck symbols and have some fun so thank you so much for your time thank you Miss Cortez in our final public commenter today is Eric LaRue welcome always a privilege to have you in chain thank you good morning Council my name is Eric LaRue I'm a downtown Reno resident I've lived in the Montage since 2019 and uh piggybacking off the last speaker I'm a Reno native Hunter Lake Swope and renal High just thought I'd throw that out there I also am a board member on the downtown renal partnership representing residents so I am very engaged in downtown Reno and very vested in what is going on in downtown Reno I understand that part of your meeting today and yesterday is is dealing with your budget for next year and making decisions about how to move forward with some projects for downtown Reno I want to speak today to urge you to dedicate funding to the following please take action on the recommendations from the Virginia Street Place making study and any other downtown Improvement plans that are being put together there's been a lot of effort Behind these plans especially the Virginia Street Place making study and now is a great time to act create a plan to accomplish these recommendations and improvements fund the plan to accomplish these recommendations and improvements and execute the plan to accomplish the recommendations and improvements I know the downtown renal partnership will be willing to work with you and so will many downtown residents also make improvements to the code enforcement process so that the City of Reno can better address what is detrimental in downtown Reno maybe the code needs to be revised in some way streamlined whatever that is maybe more employees need to be added to the code enforcement departments but what is key is that the City of Reno needs to hold businesses accountable for their bad actions that create unsafe and unpleasant spaces and to hold building owners accountable for their lack of action that allows for unsafe and unpleasant spaces also just an idea but how about adding some Reno police officers on foot patrol in downtown Reno that could go a long way to making downtown Reno a better spot lastly support events and activities that will increase foot traffic in downtown Reno this will be good for downtown businesses this will be good for downtown residents and it'll be good for downtown visitors please do all that you can in this budget to help downtown Reno become a more vibrant and clean and safe centerpiece of our great City we appreciate all your efforts and we look forward to working with you to get to keep moving forward and getting these things done thank you thank you Mr Root and also for your written public comment we appreciate that sure thank you thank you all right vice mayor we have no additional public comment in the room however for the record you stated we did receive one letter um in favor of an item which has been distributed to the Reno city council and we do have one voicemail which we'll play now good afternoon this message is being left at 13 35 on March 28th message is for the March 29th City Council budget meeting mayor council members city manager my name is Jim Galloway a 16-year resident of the Palladio on First and Sierra Street when I moved downtown there was a local micro transportation system the Sierra spirit that's sexy or electric but timely and functional it no longer exists please budget a local transportation system for those of us who live here to take us between UNR and Midtown I used to be able to walk but as I age has become difficult consider us seniors nothing fancy but practical place thank you very much for your consideration vice mayor Reese with that we're closing out public comment and we're moving on to item A4 approval of the agenda okay can I get an emotion second I have a motion by Cowboy second by Mr Martinez any discussion on this item I'll call for the question all those in favor please signify by saying aye aye any opposed May motion carries unanimously okay moving on to item B1 and we do not have any public commenters registered for this item today so we're just ready for a presentation from president sandfall okay I think um [Music] yes sir thank you Mr vice mayor Madam mayor and Council uh Eric Edelstein assistant city manager for the record I'm here today to to take you through a journey of the various layers of downtown um past present and where we hope to take it for the future I'm really excited to launch today's uh today's agenda um with our good friend um from downtown and the University of Nevada Reno uh president Brian Sandoval president Sandoval welcome always uh you know you've got some friends with you Mr Flores and Mr Brown so thank you Mr vice mayor members of city council city manager City staff for the record Brian Sandoval and consistent with the previous speakers Little Flower School Bishop and Oak High School University of Nevada so uh great to to be here and thank you for the opportunity to present today you just introduced Michael Flores who is indeed our vice president of government relations for the University and Austin Brown who is our coordinator for governor Affairs are going to be seeing much of them and have seen much of them before I get into my remarks I'd like to thank councilman Martinez for his support of our students who are attending Latino leadership conference in Chicago and I understand you'll be on our campus today meeting with our students so very grateful for you and your mentorship of our students so now uh to our very proud institution the University of Nevada Reno founded in 1874 will soon be celebrating our sesquicentennial this year which is hard to believe 150 years of serving the people of the great state of Nevada as you may or may not know we are a Carnegie high research institution which means we are one of the top 120 research institutions in the country and we are also also have a Carnegie Carnegie classification for being Community engaged which means our students faculty and staff are engaged in the community we're very excited that we are an emerging Hispanic serving Institute which me institution which means we will have a 25 enrollment of latinx students we're all we're about between 24 and 25 percent now so we're right on the precipice we were also recognized as being a voter friendly campus fourth year in a row I believe our student engagement and supposedly it interests all of you um was over 80 percent and so we're very excited about that I want to take a moment to talk about our graduates and the key metrics from the 2021 first destination survey which is comes from our campus 67 percent of our graduates are working full or part-time post-graduation of this 60s of this 67 percent 90 percent are full-time employees 72 percent of the full-time employees are employed within Nevada and 64 percent are working in the greater Reno area of the 72 percent bachelor's degree recipients working full-time in Nevada 83 percent are originally from Nevada and stayed in Nevada for work and this one was interesting to me 56 percent originally from another state and stayed in Nevada so I think that speaks to the experience they've had in this community we are now as you are as well engaged in the midst of our legislative session and spending a lot of time in Carson City our our budget priorities with regard to the legislative session have been first and foremost a restoration of our budget we took a 12 percent budget cut which meant we had to keep approximately two 200 to 250 positions open on our campus in order to budget so that limited our ability of our staffing and for our faculty we're very pleased that Governor Lombardo has put a budget has restored that budget in his Governor's recommended budget we're also seeking the construction of a New Life Sciences building for those of you and I know you all are are familiar with our campus the fleshman AG building which is where a lot of tremendous research goes on that building was built in the late 50s and there's only so much you can do to an old building particularly with modern buildings down standards in modern research so we are hoping to get a new Life Sciences building we also have sod and the governor has put in his budget more money for graduate medical education which is to allow for medical more medical residencies in the state of Nevada you may have read that some of our graduates of our Medical School placed locally here at renowned health for a Pediatrics residency so we're really hopeful that with these with more gme we can have more of our medical students stay in town another important component of the budget is an increase in our graduate student stipends as you can all appreciate the cost of living has increased dramatically and these stipends have not grown concurrently with that so the governor has proposed an increase in the graduate student stipend which will allow us to recruit more graduate students which increases our research portfolio and increases the amount of graduate students on our on our budget or on our campus also within the governor's budget our cost of living adjustments which we're very pleased about um I believe it's eight and five eight percent in the first year of the biennium five percent in the second year of the biennium that will be very helpful in terms of attracting and retaining quality faculty on our campus and speaking of the legislative session UNR day is April 3rd at this coming Monday and there will be a reception at the 5 30 at the Griffin company you obviously are all invited but we are going to have students faculty staff even members of the band at the um at the legislature so I want to next move to a very exciting project our Gateway District project and I want to thank you all for your support and your interest in your project and in this project and as you can appreciate this really is that really first present concrete example of this partnership that we're excited about um extending with the with the City of Reno you're looking at the parking garage and I'm sure you've seen it as you've driven on Interstate 80 we're very pleased with um the construction and completion of that parking garage and I want to thank those of you who are able to um come to the ribbon cutting I had the opportunity to ride in the original Batmobile which uh as I said then if you would have talked to the five-year-old Brian in the 60s he would have never believed that he would have had the opportunity uh to do that but we have indeed been working um with Edgemoor which is a national developer on a public-private partnership for the construction of a new business building as well as a new hotel conference building that is um the image that um that we the the latest version and I think very close to what we hope to accomplish and as you can see it's very beautiful that is on the corner of 8th and Virginia Street you see in the bottom right hand corner um a portion of the Walgreens drugstore just to to orient you all and as you head north on Virginia Street on your immediate right you will see the hotel conference center with approximately 150 Keys a conference center on the top floor with the Tara similar to what you see at the Nevada Museum of Art and this will allow us to host extensive events will allow the community to host events on campus to the right is the proposed business building it is in the shape of an L but it will accommodate our College of Business we'll be able to relocate that within it on the bottom you can see a rotunda looking type building beneath it that is a new lecture hall which will seat three to four hundred individuals so we will be able to feature lectures that will be on the bottom okay this is a better image of that on top is a cafe restaurant and again you'll be able to host meetings and plated dinners there so we're really excited about the the types of meetings and speakers that we can attract um to the campus next image please so this is the plaza in between the two buildings so on the left would be the business building on on the right would be the proposed hotel conference center but again an opportunity for for people to settle to talk to chat again we're very excited about that the business building will be approximately 120 000 square feet this will be the new front door of the University as you recall and again I want to thank you all for your support of renaming Center Street to University way this building will be immediately adjacent to University way and you all invited I believe it is October 12th at the top of my head for the groundbreaking for that building presuming that we do get the support of the Board of Regents who with whom we will go in before in the first week of June so you're now looking at the currently existing Nevada State Health lab on the north end of our campus it's immediately adjacent to our Medical School we're very grateful to governor sisilak and the legislature they appropriated 75 million dollars for the construction of a new state public health lab and if as I know you were all familiar with the state public health lab that is where all the testing for the state of Nevada occurs particularly the covet testing during the course of the pandemic that building was constructed in the 70s and again similar to the fleshman AG building has kind of reached as we like to say it's been fully amortized and needs to be modernized so the governor sisalak and the legislature and their wisdom did appropriate that 75 million dollars for a new building that construction will begin this year probably ask the question what are we going to do with the current building the legislature are also appropriated three million dollars to remodel this building and it will become the new home of the School of Public Health so we're very excited about the neighborhood that we're developing up there with the nursing school the school of Publix Health the medical school as well as well as the Nevada state public health lab next slide I believe we we talked about um in a in a previous discussion our new University of Nevada Reno at Lake Tahoe um as you may be aware Sierra Nevada University and their Board of Trustees essentially donated that campus to the University of Nevada Reno and it is now UNR at Lake Tahoe we did make a commitment to the Northwest Commission on colleges and universities as well as the U.S Department of Education that we would do what's called a teachout for the students the Sierra Nevada University students so that they could finish their degrees in the exact same areas that they were or they had the option of taking our courses as well but as they matriculate out we have to decide what we're going to do with that beautiful campus so what we have in mind is you've heard of studying abroad a semester abroad we will have a semester at Tahoe for our students and it will be interdisciplinary it will be undergraduate themed experiential transformative and immersive experience at the lake there are dormitories on that campus so we'll be able to accommodate between two and three hundred students at a time the tuition will be identical whether you're attending classes here in Reno or up at Lake Tahoe but it truly is an opportunity and experience that you will not be able to get anywhere else higher education and it will be available to students at the other institutions throughout the state of Nevada so we very much welcome that we also will have what we call a summer at Lake Tahoe again what we are hopeful of is at some point in the future that it will be essentially a Tahoe Institute where we will have world-renowned speakers meetings and discussions up at Lake Tahoe conferences Etc that will begin this summer also a residency at Lake Tahoe we really want to invite preeminent faculty from other institutions to teach at our institution and as I like to tell people anything with Lake Tahoe in the sentence is probably a yes and so we think we will be able to attract people our next local government partnership meeting will be hosted at Lake Tahoe on this campus so we're hopeful that you will all be able to attend and we we'd love to tour you you're looking at the library on the campus of the University of Nevada Reno at Lake Tahoe which when it was part of the Sierra Nevada University was ranked as one of the 10 top 10 most beautiful libraries in the country and I think you can see why next slide please we also have established within the last 18 months what we call Collegiate academies or University of Nevada Collegiate academies essentially bottom line it's an opportunity for students to take college courses and receive dual credit as of um fall of 2023 in a few short months we will be present in 16 campuses in Clark County and it is going extremely well it's an opportunity to provide College access to first gen and underrepresented students we've been very specific and um targeting those high schools that didn't have those programs to provide those opportunities to the students It prepares them for the rigor of college provides them with foundational math and writing School skills to to succeed in college the cost of the of the class is seventy dollars so essentially you can get a three credit class for seventy dollars and if depending on how many classes you take once you graduate from high school you could have a full year of college completed so it it really is helpful as you can imagine on so many levels and it may even allow some students to double major when they come to a university because then they can finish in in four years probably asking the question what about Washoe County we have had many conversations with the superintendent and we will likely be in four to six high schools in Washoe County as well and we are identifying those high schools now to provide this same opportunity to our high school students we what you're looking at are the shields that we use in Clark County Centennial High School and Cheyenne High School which were the first two high schools in Nevada to to have the Dual enrollments so again we're very excited about that moving on um you are looking I guess what I'm going to speak about is our renovations to our Athletics facilities up on campus many of them were dated particularly for our women student athletes so I thought it was very important to focus on that what do you what you're looking at is the women's swim and dive team locker room if if you've been up to the the university in the Lombardi wreck they used to have to change in those orange and yellow Lockers in the in the basement and didn't have their own dedicated locker room facility so this was a a priority uh similarly our women's track team the track was dilapidated so we have updated and resurfaced that track we've also our bill in the process of building new locker rooms for women's soccer golf and track teams we're also as you know are women's tennis and softball teams their facilities are at the old manoke site off of Valley Road they didn't have locker rooms so we were putting some upgraded temporary locker room facilities for them we also are in going to break ground on a new basketball locker room and Lounge facility for both men's and women's basketball teams if you attended a football game last fall you would have seen that we replace the turf at Mackey stadium so that is new and the football team will also be having updated locker rooms in weight rooms so there is a lot of activity the softball team and you should come see there to see them they're like 21 and four they're having a great season but we've provided a new Surface for their softball field as well so a lot of things happening there next slide please you're looking and I know you're all familiar with the Tesla building the the purpose for this example is along with Tesla we're working with redwood materials and many of the new Advanced manufacturers throughout the state but one of the focuses on our campus with regard to research is what we affectionately called a lithium Loop and as you know there is lithium deposits in our state where the lithium will be mined it will be processed here it will be brought to the the gigafactory where Panasonic and Tesla will build or make those batteries that will be installed and used for the power walls and and the vehicles and solar power and and those things but we're also working with redwood materials which will recycle the lithium as well so in all of the industries that are coming to this region we work very closely with regard to placing our students as well as as well as providing opportunities for them once they graduate we also you may or may not be aware we are working with apple we have What's called the digital wolf pack initiative every incoming freshman and transfer student receives a complimentary iPad Air as well as a stylus and a keyboard and something that was very important for me was digital Equity one of the things we learned during the pandemic is not all students had devices or had access to the internet so this is an effort for all of our students to start in the same place but it also develops digital agility which allows our students once they graduate they will be up to speed on the technology so regardless of the profession that they enter they will be prepared for that we have been invited by Apple to apply to be an apple distinguished University we would be one of less than 10 in the country that would have that designation and we hope to hear about that this summer next slide please and final slide as I mentioned in my introductory remarks we are are celebrating our sesquicentennial and what you are looking at is the official logo for the sesquicentennial and one of the iconic buildings on campus is moral Hall so that is what is depicted we will begin that celebration on on our 149th birthday which occurs on October 12th which was again the groundbreaking for that business building and we'll be celebrating events through October 12th 2024. I also would ask you to mark your calendars for October 14th because we are literally kicking off the celebration with a football game against the University of Nevada Las Vegas Running Rebels at Mackey Stadium we certainly would like to partner with all of you on any ideas that you may have with regard to the sesquite Centennial I think it's truly a great celebration as you can all appreciate we have many graduates from our proud University in the community in any way we can partner we would like to do so and also I guess in closing like to um thank you because when I was driving down Virginia Street I saw a pennant for the University of Nevada Reno on one of the light poles and I thought that was great and we appreciate that so with that Mr vice mayor I appreciate the the time and opportunity to update you on the happenings up at the University of Nevada Reno and happy to answer any questions that you or any members of the council may have thank you president Sandoval thank you so much and for the presentation of course it gave me goosebumps I Am A Smith Ridge huffaker lens Pine Clayton McQueen Nevada um so I I'm like you someone who is always rooting for the wolf pack and for our region I think one of the things is is that and this is really the mayor is not able to be with us here in person today but is here online but she often remarks and and shares with other Mayors across the United States that vibrant cities all have incredible universities there's just something about it that drives in a Innovation creativity Arts Athletics and those things make a place a home right and so the City of Reno is honored to be a partner with you in the efforts that you've undertaken and you know candidly your leadership is something that is we all want to look towards and partner with you to do the things that we know are going to create a great City so it's an honor to have you in Chambers today many of the things that you've presented on I have been privileged to attend or be a part of because you've invited us into the conversation I don't think that was always the case I think sometimes in the historical past we were in our lane the university in its Lane and never to the paths should cross but I think that has changed with the um with the just the acknowledgment and recognition of our deep connections to one another so it's great to have you here I'm going to see what my colleagues would like to chat with you about this morning but again thank you so much thank you let's start with Miss newer yeah thank you so much president Sandoval for being here it's great to see you and Chambers um I'm I grew up out of state so I can't give all the lineage of all the elementary schools junior high schools high schools Etc but I am in Nevada graduate and I'm one of your 56 that percent that came here and stayed here right I absolutely love Reno and the university I serve on two boards at the University one is the Mackey School of mind which Mackie School of Earth and environmental science engineering uh it's still a mouthful for me but on that board and also the mpa board they started a new board about a year and a half ago several of us serve and it's great to be able to support those both undergrad and graduate programs I'm going to be really looking forward to the future of Sciences you know as you mentioned Redwood materials I'm associated with a different company that does lithium recycling it's just getting off the ground up in Canada actually would love to come down here so I may set up something for you you know to diversify we can't put all our eggs in one basket but the other thing I'm really pleased to partner on I also serve on tamwa and we've been working together with the university on the one water Nevada which is a very special social program several of us had a chance to go out of state and see some of the programs in California that are transforming water water that has been used once reclaimed and is being used again and we hope to implement that technology here and so it's a really close partnership with the university and I just think that's the kind of thing I love to see where government and the university are partnering on Innovative projects so I hope we can continue that I hope that you get your budget restoration you know it's very important for all education at all levels to be able to have that funding from the legislature and it sounds like this might be the year right they're talking about 2 billion more than when you were in office as Governor you know in terms of the budget probably more than 2 billion but I mean 2 million excuse me if I got the right billion two billion right um so I I just um I wanted to note that um for the entire time I've been on Council going on nine years now I have pressed for the University to come across the Great Divide of I-80 right and finally we are seeing those that movement with dormitories with um you know actually all the way down to Moana there's the Ali which is the um you know the senior education process I'm actually speaking there in a week um but to be able to infiltrate our community in various settings and to be able to go up to Tahoe I think is remarkable I'm definitely going to look for an opportunity to get up there and see that campus I just think that of all the things you mentioned that kind of really stuck with me what a transition I was actually asked to teach at Sierra Nevada college I had hesitated because of the drive frankly it is teaching a winner and we've seen what a winner we've had but I'm sure that even with expanded bus system maybe that will be less arduous for students that are commuting but I think the idea is to get them up there and keep them up there you know and allow them to experience Tahoe in a way that they could not in any other kind of setting so more to say but um I just wanted to compliment you on the progress that we've seen and to encourage the these collaborations with the city in whatever way that we can do thank you for being here yeah thank you and Mr vice mayor if I I may to you through you to council madur another item that I neglected to mention part of this connectivity is we are subletting 85 studio apartments in the Reno City Center for our graduate students so I again I think you're going to start to see these collaborations and we are also exploring opportunities on the south side of the freeway if I could give you one pitch if I may yeah Mr vice mayor um maybe you can do a partnership with Walgreens up there it's Walgreens right yes okay so um that needs some of your touch and beautification and um you know if I understated the yeah probably it needs some assistance and uh maybe maybe a buyout or something would be in order but something to bring that make it a really effective part of the campus everyone needs what they got every one of us and so um I would love to see that be upgraded as parking lot I've talked to them many times personally uh whether it's their Landscaping you know their container plannings the the street sweeping whatever it involves I would love to see that because that is now going to be right at your front door we would love that too that's a woman right incredible we've spoken about a number of times there are some engineering challenges of course with being built over the freeway and and some issues there but it's a great idea of course and and and and we've had conversations about um you know the bowling stadium and what opportunities are there for our students and student athletes um we've had some great conversations about the internship programs I know that uh when Mr Brown was the president of the associated Student Union at the University of Nevada there were a lot of great collaborative processes that were begun there and continue to this day we love having your graduates in this building and my guess is if by a show of hand we'd see most of the people in this room have some connection to the university so it's it's always good for us to continue to do those things and I think councilmember Dewer is right there are always opportunities so whenever they arise just continue as you have to include us in them and we'll continue to reach out you've got great people Mr Flores is constantly I mean I was there when you you had the conversation about the dual enrollment programs and a lot of folks from Southern Nevada were here and very excited about it we've had opportunities to teach and lecture on campus be involved with the Asun it's really a privilege to be a part of it and I know that one of your biggest fans is councilmember Taylor so I'll turn the floor for her thank you Mr vice mayor thank you for being here um president Sandoval in my short tenure I just wanted to say thank you for the collaboration that you have with the City of Reno and also for Mr Brown's collaboration I know we've been meeting together and I really um like the way that we're working together and starting to have some of those conversations and the connectivity and moving forward with that um the other thing I wanted to say was um I really enjoy having your presence on the DRP because I think it's really important and we're doing great things there so that is another way that we're having conversations City Center super excited about thank you for taking the lead on that um it's going to need a leader and we see that with you the last thing I would uh I would just say is we're going to have a joint NAB for Ward 5 at the University of Nevada Reno thanks to Austin Brown in April so we'll be looking forward to seeing you there too but thank you for all your efforts thank you councilman and similar to um the vice mayor's comments I also believe a great University needs a great City and the great City needs a great University so we really are inextricably intertwined in terms of our destiny so we will continue to work with you thank you Mr Martinez thank you vice mayor president Sandoval I appreciate you being here and sharing all the great things that are happening at the University Michael it's good to see you again um I do want to shout out that um what y'all are doing and envisioning for the university is definitely going to create that City uh University collaboration that we're looking to establish and similar to the comments from councilwoman Taylor I will say in my short tenure I appreciate your openness and your invitations to come to campus and engage with students I will ditto a lot of the remarks that were already made and add the Collegiate academies it's such a great opportunity to increase access to higher education and expose students who may not have considered higher education as a possibility so I applaud your efforts there I will also plug the youth city council for the City of Reno because I am the staff liaison so if anybody from the University of Nevada you know would like to get exposure on being on a city border commission I extend that invitation to you and our students to come join us thank you any additional comments or questions at this time it's breakfast the floor is yours it's always nice to see you thank you for coming and I I do look forward to your 150 Year celebration I think it's a great time to remember the history and celebrate and remind all of the history of your great University thank you councilwoman and I look forward to our next walk we walk the neighborhoods in the campus and I appreciate our your time thank you okay if there are no other questions Mr Sandoval president Sandoval thank you so much again for being here thank you Mr vice mayor members of the council city manager City staff go pack thank you okay we're on to agenda item B2 is that correct we are moving on to item B2 and I believe we have a couple of public commenters on this item so if you'd like we can open up with that our first commenter today is Fernando Leal and if you are a public commenter in the zoom and would like to speak please raise your hand at this time and Madam clerk said that I'm clear is this a a public hearing do I have to open a public hearing no this is a presentation actually I'm okay thank you so much Fernando Mr Leo thank you so much for being here welcome to the diocese good morning honorable mayor city council City staff I had to put some notes together because I left a voicemail but I figured since I was here I'd rather speak to you uh I want to just start by introducing myself my name is Fernando Leal I'm currently the managing partner and president of the Renaissance Hotel I've been developing in the downtown core and in Midtown for about 17 years I absolutely love this city I hate going after Governor Sandoval that's a very tough sort of act to follow and some of the other speakers but I'm here in support of item agenda B2 and specifically the equal application let me try that again the equal application I'm going to go forward of code enforcement for all business owners and for all property owners we take a tremendous pride in maintaining our property and we spend thousands of dollars maintaining our neighboring properties that are not owned by our organization we do this we are great neighbors but it's not out of kindness It's not a necessity and we understand that the challenge that code enforcement has is is very significant I mean I've been in this market as I've stated for 17 years I came here with a desire to make this my home I love this city I'm not coming in here to pillage the village and go back to Chicago and I take great pride and I take great pride in what this city has done and what we've accomplished as a group so I've never been in front of you to sort of ask for any special concessions nor would I expect any it's again more about everybody being treated equal and that we really do work together so that we can continue this trajectory that we're on and certainly I'm crazy excited except maybe about the hotel that the university is building but there's so many great things going on and I don't underestimate uh with some of you it's great to see all the new faces I think I have established a great respect and hopefully that it's mutual with the new members I welcome you and I think if you talk to some of the people that have been on Council I may not necessarily agree with you but I'll always respect your opinion and what you need to do so I just want to state that code enforcement has a that is a very um that's a very overwhelming job right I mean I think we can go out at any given time and find things so that could be technically violations right we were cited in November of uh 22 last year and I exaggerate not and would provide evidence to anything that I've stated here for literally a beer can that blew on our property and for dog thesis that was in our dog park or our dog area and we understand I mean it was a little bit frustrating was also we had damage to a fence where a guest had you know backed into it and you know for me looking around and given sort of what we've done to maintain our property and again those are the neighboring it was a little bit frustrating but we understand so anything that we can do to support that department streamline Empower them you you guys are the experts we I can't get into the specifics but I hope you'll consider that thank you for your time [Music] you have one public commentary result Mr Cecil if you would unmute good morning Mr vice mayor council members and Mr city manager my name is Gary Cecil I'm a downtown resident and a member of the ward 5 nap I'm commenting today in full support of agenda item B2 regarding downtown enforcement and potential updates to titles four and five of the administrative code while this item will likely Encompass all Wards it's a particular importance to downtown residents both current and the many more coming in the near future rather than a piecemeal approach responding to Reno direct resident concerns item B2 recommends a holistic approach aiming directly at the underlying processes and procedures of line sensing conditioning and the efficacy of enforcement of conditions it will be very worthwhile to work together with all stakeholders City staff business and residents and I'm certain residents are already primed to roll up their sleeves I want to personally thank Lance ferrato and Cindy gilblanco for their patience in responding to my individual concerns on titles four on five related issues and finally I want to give kudos to council member Taylor for being instrumental in bringing this item to the fore Kathleen yukilia clearly heard and responded positively to downtown residents concerns thank you with that Mr vice mayor we have no additional public comment okay item B2 is a presentation is that Mr Edelstein good morning again Eric Edelstein assistant city manager for the record uh Ashley Turney will be providing this presentation but as part of our to use Mr Cecil's word holistic approach that we're taking through the through the day today um we're looking at all of the various layers that are are going to be necessary to make a meaningful impact in our downtown and so this next agenda item is very specifically important to that topic so I'm going to ask Ashley tourney to take this presentation thank you Miss tourney welcome we don't get to see it the lectern quite enough not very often better behind the scenes um good morning honorable mayor and Council Ashley attorney Chief Innovation experience officer for the record I'm here today to talk to you about some things that are essential to a safe vibrant and thriving community rules very exciting I know I was often told as a child that rules are meant to keep you safe and let you know what's expected of you and I find that that actually extends to every facet of our community that's why our business licensing and code enforcement processes and enforcement are crucial for the quality of life for all of our residents in the biggest little city to go over some quick numbers with the council today I wanted to highlight code enforcement last year in 2022 handled over 3 300 Code Enforcement cases these are service requests that were submitted either by our constituents by council members like yourself or by staff of the city you'll note that the largest levels of service for requests last year were in Wards three and five which Encompass nearly all of our downtown areas we're currently evaluating and prioritizing the types of requests that come in and transitioning in order to allow for some more proactive measures you'll note that we did 108 proactive measures last year these are cases that oftentimes are hard-working Code Enforcement Officers will find while they're already out in the field in an attempt to ensure that they are reducing The Chronic nuisance before it begins unfortunately our systems are Antiquated and we need to be able to streamline in order to allow for more of that we've also been fortunate for more proactive measures to come out of our city walks by combining all of our downtown departments to identify better ways again to reduce the nuisance before it actually comes into play one of the other things I'd like to note is with that streamline enforcement we're hoping to be able to identify areas that we can hit before they become problems the city has also been running our Motel inspection program over many years we're continuing to look at the efficacy of this program and what the future needs will need as we look at many of our residents still call some of these motels home and we have an obligation to ensure that they're living in decent safe and sanitary conditions I'd also like to note though it's not up here the parking enforcement division actually handled over 10 000 service requests last year the number one two and three calls for service in Reno direct month over month consistently in nearly all Wards are related to parking issues illegal Vehicles abandoned vehicles and occupied vehicles moving on to business licensing in 2022 there were over 22 600 licenses here in the biggest little city of which nearly 6 000 of these are privileged licenses privileged licenses as this Council knows are flat rate renewal fees that generally require much more staff time for evaluation and and also we ensure that these are being evaluated within the confines of our law before bringing them to the city council this Council has long been supportive of our business Community from the measures after covid for reignite Reno down to changes in our recent code enabling more live entertainment to happen within some of our businesses at different times also additional funds from your cares and arpa monies have been specifically dedicated to our businesses Council has also indicated that there needs to be some of these licenses further reviewed and what we've identified is that some of these require more time as we've noted these specifically identify the privileged licenses we've made some changes based off of the staff direction from Council whenever a license that requires a cup or an sup comes forward we ensure that there's now a proactive code enforcement inspection happening before this body ever sees it we ensure that we're creating a more thriving and vibrant downtown and businesses in partnership with that our business license staff from our tax taking applications at the front counters to our compliance officers out in the field enforcing the laws to our special event and activity staff that permitted over 800 events within our area last year this team is committed to customer service and efficiency we're confident that we've done everything within our current laws to allow for the most customer service focused experience but our code is Antiquated much of our laws have not actually been updated since the 90s and though many of us feel like the 90s were just yesterday to give you an idea our code is now legally old enough to rent a car without a surcharge so there are some updates that are necessary we are finding that we are oftentimes hamstrung from an efficiency and Service delivery methodology based off of these existing codes specifically in the area of privileged licenses this Council has often commented on the challenges that come before this body these licenses are just that they're a privilege they have an intrinsic value and they need to be further reviewed to ensure that conditions are enforceable and that we have something that helps businesses and residents to ensure that we're living in a very cohesive environment as I mentioned with privileged licenses there are currently 50 different types of privileged licenses within our code five zero you can imagine that this leads to some confusion from a constituent applying for their business licensing wondering am I a caterer with alcohol or am I an alcohol caterer just to give you an example these are things that have been updated through our code at various times without a holistic view we in the past have had a tendency of part and parceling especially back in the 90s and this Council has been very much Advocates of identifying that that's not the best way to be pro-business so today I'm seeking direction from this Council and authorization to open up titles four and five of the Reno municipal code and we're hoping to streamline our process through this in order to create a better representation and a better relationship with our business community and our residents what we're looking at today is direction from Council including some identification of privileged license concerns we will be moving forward if this body agrees today with evaluation and updates of the existing code we'll be bringing that back to council over the summer ideally we get into fall and winter with stakeholder meetings and Outreach as was noted by some of our public commenters it is absolutely essential that we have everybody at the table to discuss the issues not only what we see as staff but also what the community is seeing and then ideally we will be back before this body next spring for final recommendation and implementation recommended motion is that we move forward and I'm available for questions from Council okay Miss tourney let's start with Miss Stewart thank you I am excited to hear this because I know you are committed to fairness and equity and um that is what you're going to seek to do in this new code um some things that have come to my attention over the years with code enforcement and I think we heard a public comment that probably speaks to this issue which is that our code enforcement has been complaint driven and what that results in is potentially onerous enforcement action on one person when somebody right next door can be doing the same exact thing but they didn't receive a complaint and it's almost like the eyes don't go further than the thing in front of them I've seen it in my own neighborhood where somebody would be called upon on a right-of-way violation you know in other words piling stuff in in the right way or having a um you know a Sani Hut in the right-of-way literally someone down the street Sandy Hutton right away not cited literally someone on the other side of that person with the stuff in the right-of-way not cited but the person either with the Sandy Hut that was a complaint was called or a pile of debris cited so I think that is the equity issue is trying to be fair and so I hope in this code update that you can look at you know not just being complaint driven but actually setting up um you know reviews of different parts of town so that you know this can be done I guess based also on priorities from the city not just a neighbor's priority okay that's one of the biggest things um the second thing is I've understand that some people are required to get a business license and some aren't and I've recently learned about this and I just I want to understand that more like why those discrepancies exist maybe one kind of realtor has to get a business license and one doesn't like like that doesn't seem very Equitable do you have any thoughts already on that I do thank you for the question councilmember that is one area that we are specifically looking at really um so the one in which councilman for edification of the group that we're referencing is that commercial Realtors right now they do require a license however they do not have to pay particular license fees based off of their revenue we don't have a very clear history on how we got to that pace however it is identified that we do need to make some updates in order to have some Equity so that would be an area we'd be reviewing okay and I have one more comment and then I'm actually although the attorney said I didn't need to do a disclosure I'm going to do one anyway but first I'll make my comment um I think that there should be some consideration for home-based businesses you mentioned a catering it could be Professional Services it could be any number of things that are run out of a home versus run out of a storefront and um usually people are running business out of a home don't have the wherewithal Capital necessarily or even the size of business to justify running a secondary space right they don't need to it fits at home we've seen more and more work at home stuff with covid and I just really think that we should take a look at that while you're evaluating things and see if there should be a differential in terms of rates or or requirements just something I think you should look at in terms of disclosure Clerk and allow Miss doer to read her disclosure yeah I don't have one prepared but what I do want to disclose is I have a home-based business and I could have out you know I could pay to have an external business but I have enough space and it works very well um but I also know that most of us the majority of us have some kind of business whether it's in home or out of the home and um I think that I I want to get a reading from our attorneys as to whether you know we can properly discuss this and make recommendations at some point you know do you have an opinion Mr attorney it's it's not just about alcohol yeah so we did in a disclosure it's in your email I I have that one but that is really about alcohol and um this is broader you know this is about 16 000 licenses right so yeah again just to tie it back to the agenda item talks about you know privileged businesses in downtown enforcement um in terms of the fact that you have a business um again whatever comes out of this is not going to impact your business specifically more than any other business okay so there's an ex there's an exception in the law that says that if that's the case then um then you're fine okay well that's what I was looking for I thought that I wanted to disclose that I have them but I think I'm fine to discuss this and vote on it just like everyone with a business because it doesn't affect our business specifically um so I just wanted to get that on the record and you know in case there were questions about that so thank you Miss Stewart thank you it is I think incumbent upon all of us to acknowledge the ethical concerns of serving in public office right and so it was kind of you to check in with the city attorney's office of course ethics are an art not a science so it can be sometimes those gray areas sure become an issue but thank you for flagging it for the body yeah I know that there are people who are very interested in this topic and so thankful for that well and especially one more thing um uh we will be setting a budget and part of the budget is licensing fees um and other things besides the rules that affect businesses so thank you for making those comments and we'll get back into the item now at this time I'm going to go now to Miss Taylor love them they are amazing every single time that I have send them something or send somebody their way they are efficient they're courteous and they're responsive and I know it's not a very big team thank you very much and all the Reno direct people out there um second thing business license my comments are whatever we do I'd like to make it easier this is some of the things I said yesterday um simpler for businesses um I want to thank Mr weissner for his business little Business Partnership that is available for folks um I also was interested um in maybe a pop-up business license I know we've heard some some complaints over the years of people that don't do a real business what that might look like and maybe that's something we can talk with Mr Edelstein at a later later time how that works into the downtown as far as code enforcement I am absolutely passionate about cleaning up downtown and that means trust pan trespassing signage landscape landscape and Aesthetics all of the ordinances that we have get enforced down there because I think it's essential to what we just heard of people coming into our downtown and wanting to invest and wanting to live there so I trust that you and your team are going to make all of those things happen which is no easy feat I'm sure but I want you to know that I am behind you 100 for everything that we need to do to make a clean and safe downtown thank you okay any other comments at this time Miss breakfast the floor is yours thank you so yesterday we established that there was a change of plans to drop these budget hearings from three days to two um and then today you know while it's always good to hear from president Sandoval and and have more or less a policy workshop on this item um we're not doing budget until later you know an hour in hour and a half in and um I just want to say because the manager and the mayor set the agenda um I think it's a missed opportunity my colleague my new colleague just mentioned Reno direct I think it would have been good to go through each department sometimes there's a reason to not do those in a budget year and sometimes there are reasons to do in a budget year and this year with three new members it would have been good to have each department not necessarily make a pitch for what they wanted a flat budget but to familiarize the new people and give us who've been on a while a reminder of where people like the Reno direct team sit to understand how it all integrates in particularly As you move off into you know new policy Direction setting like here on the code stuff so I just I I'm going to object again to the way this budget uh year has been arranged um and the brevity of it in focus and and span and time but on this item which seems to be all over the place presentation discussion potential direction to regarding code enforcement downtown and updates to style four and five regarding privileged licenses I'm confused um I don't know if we're talking about a strategy to downtown or if we're talking about the Realtors ongoing issue that each realtor has to get their own license or can they work under their brokerage you know are they independent contractors and I also heard parking which is a you know a pet um topic of mine that I I worked hard to get a policy spot in our master plan on as a implementation item so um I think if you open up four and five you're gonna have Hornet's Nest of complexity intertwined into Title 18 and I just don't see that you've presented enough to understand where you think you want to go and you said in November or September summer of 2023 you're going to come back with an analysis I just I I'm I think this I don't know what this is doing you know code enforcement is one issue and maybe it could have been two agenda items so you got code enforcement we have an audit presumably a lot of things operationally in that audit are being addressed and managed through you know the city manager who put that function I think in the manager's office and hopefully it's doing what it needs to do okay that's that then opening up total title four and five um whether it's you know the Realtors or the caters with alcohol the alcohol with the caterer you know what are we trying to answer I think on on that um just because it's old you know maybe there are some Antiquated things that you're going to have in their land uses the fallen out and not but but is this downtown Focus are we trying to give code enforcement better tools it's just I I think that this is a real big topic and I'm not entirely sure you know you're presenting to me to understand what what you want to go on because I think if we're dealing with the alcohol and catering and catering and alcohol we're not addressing maybe a lot of other issues so I I think the targeting is going to be very important and standing back at each set and saying what are we trying to accomplish here with this effort um this is the downtown action plan so if the focus is on downtown why not a stop analysis a five-year retro analysis of how we've been implementing this or um you know I just I I don't really understand so five things you're trying to accomplish you're saying streamline some of these 50 privilege licenses so five things we're trying to accomplish we are looking to modernize our code getting rid of things that are Antiquated for example coin operated amusement rides are still listed as a specific license that you have to obtain we're looking for streamline process for application we're looking for change in timelines of renewals one thing that we often hear from the public is when is my license actually due it's due on a particular date but then there's a 60-day grace period and then you can have another 60 days so you actually have a point in time in which your license can lapse within 180 days and still be active and we don't have them on the books so we're looking for efficiency there we're additionally looking for better tools as you yourself just mentioned for code enforcement and compliance officers to be able to enforce this code that this Council has adopted and the last thing that I would note is that this Council has identified a strategic priority as efficient Service delivery currently I would say our staff is doing the best they can with what they have we are not as effective as we can be because of these older systems that are in place please Ms attorney first of all thank you for the presentation I understood the assignment so I understand that what we're here in these last day and a half now to talk about is really um a more holistic approach about the policy-based decisions that we will take as a council as it relates to our budget and our budget certainly has elements that are involved in Economic Development downtown revitalization our business licensing at the end of the day I think what we're going to leave and take away from these several days that we'll spend together is sort of a an understanding of the budget it's process its Nuance will I know every single jot and Tittle of every page of everything know but what I will know and what I do think is the high level takeaway is that we have a direction which is a very exciting one and quite frankly it is refreshing in its Nuance because it allows us as a board and a body not to reach into the minutia of some particular Wicket but it says we're going to chart a course for Reno's vibrant future right I am someone who believes very positively that the City of Reno is engaged in a Renaissance period we've gone through a pandemic we have some changing economic climate but we are ready and poised to just go and have a great future so it's that forward-looking thought process so as I evaluated your presentation materials and the thoughts leading up to it I had a couple of thoughts that I think would be important for the body to think about one is um so to the newer members of course your office and the office of policy and strategy onboarded all of those folks in a way that was very different than when I came onto the body so this claim that somehow these are supposed to be moments of Education based Outreach for our colleagues I think is insulting to our colleagues who are working hard to learn a bit more about the city so that's the first thing I take from some of the comments that have been made the second is is that I know because I've had conversation with my colleagues about their enthusiasm for the ideas being presented so when you talk about the policy-based strategy decision about looking at these two sections of the code and saying we haven't opened them since I don't know is it 1951 or some sections are as late as early as the 50s the most robust holistic change was 1997. so 25 years that to me is anathema to the vibrancy that we're looking to create as a city right and so as we look at the way in which Mr McArdle Mr Edelstein and your office are starting to have Synergy towards the goals that are outlined by this body and then carried forward through the staff I think it's a very exciting time for my part all of those should be looked at and we should be asking the questions about why do DJ trivia have certain Cabaret focused licenses and if we look at them holistically we don't then have to deal with the emergency as they arrive and so miss Dewar's questions I think were very poignant and and and really I think illustrative of what the process will be undertaken do I know every moment or every item on those two rmcs that I want to look at not yet but when you come back I sure will so I appreciate the thought that's gone into helping us think at a greater level and really staying at that high level Focus I know there will be time to get into the weeds and perhaps some of that is happening today when we talk about a specific thing that's been raised by a constituent but I don't think that is an obstacle to your better and and broader overview of it it's you've got to have the vision you've got to go out and cast the vision and with our Direction I think we'll get there so thank you for that let me see if I can come back I know Miss Dewar you said you had follow-up questions okay Miss Hebert okay thank you so much Miss breckis I think you had some comments yeah yeah I really am trying to wrap my head I have had code enforcement functions under me uh as a supervisor for another city I've worked closely with them over years because they're in the planning departments I was in this organization in 1998 when there were only two Code Enforcement Officers so I I do understand the function you know presumably a lot of what code enforcement has is Title 18 which is the the zoning and Land Development ordinances and those have been updated substantially and there's cleanup that's been represented by staff that needs to happen so one would presume they have a clean set of ordinances or someone is highlighting specific pinpointed problem areas for them we have an audit so operationally presumably we know what's needed there you know um and you know they have a department ask I presume in there and and um but the you know we're not going to get into that so title four and five when you um which integrates so much with Title 18 when you open up title four and five and do this analysis um we haven't had an audit of that function that's Global or an outside performance evaluation that we're relying upon do we have one of those we do not at this time part of as Council may recall the current practice in order to open up an ordinance only comes from two places either there's legislative change that happens at the state and which requires us to update our code or the second one would be a council member bringing forward their request to the manager to review and put on the agenda this is coming forward based off of multiple council members yeah I'm not asking about the process and you said multiple council members so maybe other people have more of an idea I'm just trying to understand are you going to have an outset outside set of eyes who knows business license specializes with helping cities diagnose the problem because sometimes I found you know like Title 18 you bring in a code expert they look at your code they have a lot of conversations with you know from code enforcement to the fees people and and diagnose the problems and what you need to fix what's what's the first step if we say go what's the first step and to analyze and bring back to us September is a problem statement the first step is to obtain a consultant to help us with rewrite yes okay you're going to have it that's part of the plan that's part of the book okay yeah and that's that that's that is helpful to understand that they'll be having conversations it's not public engagement yet but it is very um worker user understanding and that's where all these things the caters and the problems and then do you also think that analysis that'll be regulatory will also be operational and say you know um the 120 days that sort of thing you're going to bring in those statements and and so some may be code but some may be operational changes that need to happen within the the Staffing environment you know the the local environment yes that's part of what my office specializes in is identifying the operational changes that need to go in consistently and so we want to ensure that we're rolling those out with understanding full ramifications of code changes so code will not be changed before we understand how okay and I'll have a follow-up question too Miss breakfast why don't you go ahead yeah well yesterday we had and and I think I you know it's been a long standing concern of mine and Mr Taylor did a good job on the finance perspective wanting to balance the statutory confines we have on business licenses is is the analysis going to be a part of that too the analysis will likely start after this Council has adopted your budget this is preliminary discussions as you saw with Mr Taylor yesterday there's a 6.9 million dollar Delta in which we still can continue to change fees so that will come out through process of evaluation is should the fees be changed based off of service requests what's coming in from a staffing level and um uh you know budget request where does it live how much is it for we have estimated fifty thousand dollars for the consultant for the rewrite or the rewrite not just the diagnostic they'll be involved in that process correct that's the preliminary estimates that we've been getting however we've not identified anyone yet because this Council hasn't adopted this item seems a little light to me I think a code diagnostic is probably 20 25 but okay great I'll look for phase one in the summer and see what you know what the evaluation is and you know then we have to Target the code revisions over time I would presume this attorney I think it's important I think councilmember Ruckus identifies an important component I'm glad that um in their support therefore because the ability to work with outside Consultants sometimes I'm challenged by it because I I always wonder we go out and hire consultant and then they do a thing and it sits on a shelf and I know from experience that that's not the take that you intend with this and so I'm I I like council member Reckless worry that you've undershot the mark a little bit about the cost but but I could be open to it I don't know what it costs to be honest with you but it seems a little light so I want to make sure you have enough Runway I also wanted to bring the mayor into the conversation she's with us today and and I'm sure she has thoughts Madam mayor do you want to have the floor [Music] um I do thanks so much I appreciate it first of all thank you Miss tourney for bringing this forward I I think if you own a business there's no confusion on what we're trying to accomplish here something that I think we've desperately needed um you know for years actually so I kind of feel like if not now then when because we're always being reactive instead of proactive I think we saw it with a DJ trivia to Vice mayor's Point made a very good point there um I think some of my questions would be what tools exactly do you think we can trigger that would be particularly helpful you know it sounds like you're going to bring on a consultant which I think is a good idea um particularly and then the other thing I would just stress really um to like a massive public engagement aspect and listening to our businesses because they come across incredibly difficult circumstances that sometimes we never even know exist so I'd really like to see um some some thought put into a lot of public engagement and a public campaign for businesses to be at the table what do you think that tools look like for you thank you for the question Madame mayor some of the tools that we would be looking for actually help this body to govern better in this space some of the updates we would be looking for would be enforceable conditions that are Equitable we do find that there's a lot of inconsistencies when it relates back to some hours of operations as it relates from existing sups so we want to make sure that our business license overlay aren't conflicting with any of those we also would recommend based off of this body's Direction at previous meetings that we take a deeper dive into privileged licenses as I mentioned those do require a lot more staff time than a standard home-based business as council member doer mentioned there's a difference between what the processing of someone who is selling stationary through Etsy out of their garage versus someone who is opening a bar and restaurant and Tavern and privileged additional bottling so we want to ensure that we are spending our resources in the most appropriate way right now it's spread evenly and we know that the workload isn't even so those are some of the tools that we would look for additionally back to your point councilmember Taylor you mentioned about pop-up businesses we spend a lot of time for compliance officers going out to evaluate temporary business licenses that happen at special events so we'd be evaluating chapter 5.13 as well as updates in order to provide better streamline opportunities for our events folks and that adds back to that Vibrant Community that we're looking for all right and what can you just Identify some ways that you'll be business friendly that's something that I hear all the time there's seems to be a lot of complaints in the business Community what does that look like because I want to be very careful that we're not making it more cumbersome what does that look like that's a great point something that we hear often um I personally find that our application process is clunky and difficult we have my staff has listened to me and diatribe for a long time I feel as if we have a lot of self-inflicted wounds that we bring forward we require uploads of documentation that the state suggested maybe we need them but we don't actually need them for some of our laws so our goal is to make it as streamlined as possible again if you are a small home-based business with lower gross receipts we likely don't need the same level of scrutiny that we do for someone who's coming in with something more complex and to your point Madame mayor we want to ensure that we are doing a very thorough transparent process with our business partners in the community we will make sure that we have Community meetings specific to different types of Arenas and different stakeholder areas so that way everyone is at the table because we do want to hear from our business Community something Beyond anecdotal we know where it hurts but we don't necessarily know where it hurts for them so we're actively engaging in listening in that space Also great thank you so much okay Miss attorney I think uh let's see Miss Ebert I think is up first question I'm sorry if somebody already asked this and I missed it will this address some of the issues that were um kind of brought out in that internal audit about uh code enforcement some of these will help part of what we're working on through the code team right now is identifying many of the things in the audit were operational but some of the operational pieces tie back to Antiquated code and so we're hopeful that with businesses being able to be more streamlined we're looking for great Partnerships from those businesses with the understanding that staff will have some more time for more Equitable enforcement of those codes so it'll be twofold there's a good point importantly because this kid did work very hard and that audit was an important Touchstone for this area it is incumbent of course upon you to now take those findings and move forward with it so I think it's a very good point when he makes Miss doer I think yeah up next well it's it's more of a global comment and not so much about the specific subject matter but just the fact and maybe you know I do this sometimes to our city manager um I think it is very appropriate and I'm pleased to see that if any department is planning to initiate a big initiative during the budget year I think this is exactly the time that you should be bringing it to us so if you're going to expend money hire Consultants do a thing no matter what it is whether it's build a thing do a thing analyze a thing I think that we should be exposed to it now like this is the time so I love hearing from the Departments and I always encourage you to do that you know I even asked you before this meeting are you going to have the Departments and you said we're going to handle it differently okay I too love to hear from the Departments but I love that emphasis on a specific initiative that we can look forward to in this year wrapped into the budget thank you Ms Stewart I think I I want to just add my own thoughts to yours because I understand what you're saying but I I have maybe a different take on it and my concept is more like the department ass concept seems insane to me I don't know why as an organization we buy positions or things that don't really work rather than approach it from a global lens meaning I think historically what we have done is we approach the the budget in sort of a hunger game style contest between departments meaning that then then we are then at the diocese playing Solomon right and I'm not sure that that is I think that for me what I see in this presentation and the time that we spent yesterday and today is different than past budget Cycles is it's like a broader Vision a bigger Vision casting and when we dream big and are willing to fail that's when we'll have the sweet spot so mine is a little bit a little uh one off from yours I I think departmental asks are important and with the binder I think some of that is apparent right right and so I don't necessarily think that for me it I will take some of my conversations with each department offline and I would rather us have bigger Visionary Concepts here than have that kind of hunger game style uh effect because that's how I felt in past things your point is well taken and and in no way am I saying it is the incorrect route to go but I think there's some happy medium I think Yesterday When Miss Koski was with us I even said something like um I appreciate that this year we are doing it a little differently and we're talking about it from sort of Economic Development and budget and we're seeing the inner workings of it fit together does that make sense yeah I would like to respond when you oh yeah it's a conversation so so that's what I'm just trying to add so what I've found to be most effective in budgeting is that you have essentially a matrix and you have both line items which is what you're saying not so Keen about looking at line items and then you have programs that are cross-functional sometimes uh Miss Turney's going to be talking to people across the organization not just in one specific area and we heard from Ms Koski same thing she doesn't do it alone she's laying out a vision and many departments are touched so I I have always done budgeting this way both at the line item level and at the program level this is what this is at the same time I would have liked to hear I'll just admit during this budget process I would like to hear from our police chief we have a brand new police chief I'd like to hear our vision for the coming year it's the biggest ask in the budget whether we can fund it or not you know we are already determined we're probably at a pretty flat budget but pretty being the operative word there will be some positions I assume and so I would have liked to hear from her as a new manager uh I got a new team got some new ideas maybe has a cross-functional thing for example it might have been about we want to communicate more what the police department's doing we're going to be working with the comms and other groups to effectuate this thing now she hasn't been very long in the seat and I'm sorry I'm picking on her but it's just an example because it's the biggest ask in the budget and it does cross departments and so you know it touches everything from code enforcement homeless Services housing safety you know bikes bikes speed limits everything and so that's what I want to explain it's just I like to get a big picture from the department head and understand where they're going and what they're thinking about and I also like to hear the program perspective of how does this touch many parts so I hope I've explained it I think so it's like the hybrid of the things I mean I ultimately my point in having this conversation with you which is what this budget Workshop is yeah it's a conversation is that we put money into things that are a priority exactly but we do it in a way that can be successful exactly and so I appreciate your thoughtfulness Mr manager would you like to weigh in I imagine you have some thoughts and make sure you bring the mic real close because our comms team is telling me today our mics are having a little bit of issues no I don't think it's the microphones that have the issues I think it's me that has the issue um the look I have every confidence that Chief Nance who is is sitting right here could come up and wow all of us with a presentation and her thoughts on on the Reno Police Department and where it's headed in the future um we are we were this year during budget workup in a unique space where we were in a period of transition right um Chief Nance is digging into the goings-on of the police department and the all the many things but she was not part of the team that worked up that budget request and so I don't know that it would necessarily be fair to have her come and defend it the other thing that we're we are trying to to do this year is is as vice mayor Reese pointed out is say through the Strategic plan through the lens of the Strategic plan and the things that this body has identified as um as all your many priorities um Bill all right built for you um build for you a set of programs that are effective and and can move the organization and the community forward I believe that we've done that in in these workshops both through uh the new run at the CIP and the maintenance function that director Koski presented yesterday and this is just one facet of how we believe we can improve conditions on the ground to Spur Economic Development and improve conditions in downtown well it was a compliment just in case anybody missed that um what I was trying to say is this is what I appreciate is hearing about a new initiative no it's not necessarily departmental oriented it's across the organization and that's what I like to hear about in the budget and I I think I would say too um you know the The Hunger Games reference strikes a chord with me in that all the many department heads of course have their priorities and they are competing priorities and so part of the job of of developing a budget and bringing you recommendations is separating out um what we believe we can afford what we believe will be effective and what are the more emergent priorities of the organization so that is the approach that we're taking rather than hit colleagues against one another uh in terms of well I'll say one final thing all budgets I mean always resources are limited the president of the University was just here he was cut by what did he say 12 percent he had to hold positions vacant he had to figure that out and who which positions would be vacant what teaching they weren't going to fill what Staffing positions they weren't going to fill are they going to do parking enforcement or teach kids in class I mean those are the tough decisions he had to make and he's hoping to to retrieve it but every organization that does budgeting there's never enough to do everything thing and so we can because we have a movie called Hunger Games we have a um a vision of what that looks like but but your job is to sort that out and help us through this process and I think you're doing it so I appreciate that very much yeah I truly did yeah let me see if anyone is in the queue Miss breakfast did you have comments just I'll come to you Mr Martinez want to go for go first I apologize I didn't see you Mr Martinez yeah I was probably a little late to raise my hand so I appreciate you offering the floor thank you Miss Tony for offering uh that presentation and sharing with us all the work that has initially already gone um gone in gone into this process sorry I was just collecting my thoughts um and so I just wanted to say as the representative for one of the awards that has the most quote enforcement I appreciate you working with um director Woodley to address uh efficiently some of those cases that have come up in the award um I know we're specifically talking about um downtown area um so I appreciate that we just bring to light that some of the things if we were to open up chapter 15 and chapter four will have an effect on the whole city and not just downtown um so just bringing that thought into the mix um I'll also say that getting us involved this early in the process I think it's it's important to show us what you have thought about and how you're going to involve not just the people that may be impacted by these decisions but also community members and having some stakeholder meetings and Outreach planned for the winter I think that's very important um and then before I close I do just want to say that despite sometimes being used to Lodge certain questions lines of questioning to departments I find myself that you've given me the information that I need to understand where you're coming from and where your arguments are so thank you for sharing that and for helping us understand what your vision is for this department thank you and it's breakfast yeah you know um I just want to go in a little bit about your you know discussions about when you have a special use permit and you have District conditions you you know and so on that threat line of thought in my view gets really quickly to what Title 18 is doing and you're gonna I I think we've done Title 18 you know um but it can inform operationally and I like to talk from examples all the time so when I started as a junior planner doing cases in Reno or in Albuquerque code enforcement used to weigh in and comment on every single um case that was taken to Planning Commission city council and obviously a lot of us through Title 18 a lot of our work now doesn't go there it goes administratively or it's just a matter of right but when conditions can be applied under the code framework you know maybe the fixes code enforcement needs to say uh you know sometimes generic language don't write an enforceable uh uh condition to the operation of this business you know that's that's me maybe where I would stop it or just diagnose what Title 18 needs to to to do and I once saw a code planning case condition of a Planning Commission specify that a a bar or a restaurant up in the University could sell croissants and uh you know muffins but then the question was what about Donuts I mean it's just that specific that poorly tasked to hurt uh poorly written to make life hard for code and business and you know that may be more operationally that code will you know remind those who write those conditions don't do it but I just I'm concerned about going into title 18. the other thing is on the budget materials um these improvements are 10 of our general fund Revenue and I don't know what they're going to be with what Matt Taylor brought yesterday because that six million dollar Delta but if some of that folds in it's going to be you know could be as much as 11 so um you know we're gonna go out and do this public engagement everyone's gonna say I don't want to pay a business license you know give it to me for free but if one tenth of our general fund is coming from business licenses I'm really going to look for the recognition through this process that it's a revenue Source because when I came on it started to really know the ins and outs of this budget I was told by those who manage the finance department it's the only discretionary area you really have because you got sea tax that's volatile and you got property tax that's capped so there's all they're always keepers of that Revenue Source in the organization and I hate to see this set up to be you know a streamlining and then we lose the revenue so I just I want to share that I don't I think you know people are saying hey you're sharing too much and being too and you know instructed to the rest of the body is you know 10 is 10 and then the last point is I want to know where code enforcement is going to live because it's it having a city manager's office 120 people is not is not viable we I mentioned this last year a lot of concerns and then dispatch folded into them and I've seen a lot of models where code enforcement could live seen code enforcement live in police departments and I've seen it live in development services I've seen it live with parking and business license we need an answer real soon where code enforcement is going to live particularly because it is um we've done the audit you know we've made the reforms so what's the answer Mr manager what are we going to know where code enforcement is going to live because code enforcement does not live in city managers offices I you know you can show me a lot of organizational structures but I've never seen it in a city manager's office I I appreciate the input on on where code enforcement could live um as you said we did the audit and we're going through the process of uh curing a number of those findings and I believe we committed to coming back this year maybe a couple times with updates on where we're at in that process good points Miss breckis are there any other questions from the body Miss Ebert the floor is yours yeah just to Circle back again about the audits I know that you said it's just going to be kind of partially addressed just through the process of updating the code but if we can just kind of loop that audit in more and use them this process to update the code to address those findings that were in the audit I this is a great opportunity to do that simultaneously if we could do that at the same time that would be my recommendation thank you for that feedback that is something that staff is evaluating other sections of code that do need to be updated for a more efficient effective process so that will be something that will come back before this body later this year okay I'm going to turn it over to the ward 5 member for a motion thank you Mr vice mayor I moved to direct stuff to open an amend titles four and five in their entirety can I get a second second I have a motorbike council member Taylor a second by Miss doer any additional questions at this time hearing none I'll call for the question all those in favor please signify by saying aye aye any opposed nay motion carries unanimously thank you Miss Tony thank you like five minutes just to let finance department kind of set themselves up hold on a second because I actually think we're going to take a bit longer than that it's now 10 till noon we have an opportunity to take a break let me first turn to the city manager the departmental items that remain are under the Redevelopment agency board they're essentially E4 is that what we have remaining today that's what we have remaining okay so I'm going to take a break until 12 30 that gives everyone a chance to reset stretch your legs have a bite or use the facilities and we'll be back together in about 45 minutes perfect listening again and probably um Madame Clerk Clerk okay Madam clerk I think we're getting close to being ready back together um can I just ask before we get started the computer I have refreshed it a number of times but it is not getting me to the next item so I'm wondering if this is It's My I haven't yet made the next item live so I'm waiting for the time stamp to start the meeting on that item I'm watching you always keeping me on my toes vice mayor thank you we're ready to go when Mr Thornley takes the dice and for the record at this time mayor shibi is absent so we're moving on to item e four one which is a presentation by Mr Edelstein okay I think let me uh first clarify something the departmental item that's identified here is E4 we've got to reopen the Redevelopment board first we're going to do it again for three first hold on one second we're gonna do E43 as the first part and then e41 and e42 but my question is for our legal counsel uh Mr shipment or Mr Hall do we need to open each one individually or can the items be opened all at the same time what is your preference a preference is that you open them individually okay so what we're going to do then is I'm going to come back to you madam clerk I'll have you direct us through the opening parts of the e- items and then we're going to go out of order we're going to do E43 first so that's Edward four three first and then we're going to move to e41 and e42 I believe that we can open those two at the same time because the action for them is not uh is not inconsistent is that correct or you still want each one in order it you can take them out of order just have to open them individually okay we'll do that so miss clerk keep us on track two I know that uh we've had a nice break but we're making good progress okay so I'm actually going to start with E1 which is roll call for the Redevelopment agency board so we can open that board council member breckis door here Martinez here Ebert here Taylor Rhys here Chevy Madame mayor is absent at this time we do have a quorum of the Redevelopment agency board we're on to item E2 which is opening public comment for the Redevelopment agency board to which we have none so we're closing opening public comment item E3 is approval of the Redevelopment agency agenda okay with the additions that I've identified that I'll be making can I get emotions so moved okay I have a motion by council member do or second by Mr Martinez any additional questions at this time hearing none I'll call for the question all those in favor please signify by saying aye aye any opposed motion carries unanimously all right now we're going to go ahead and open E43 [Music] good afternoon vice mayor council Eric Edelstein assistant city manager for the record um item E43 is going to begin a discussion on a topic that has been part of the budget for a number of years but has been less than actionable for a number of reasons so very excited to have uh our Director of Finance Vicki Van Buren um present uh the read on Redevelopment agency plans and budgets um as we look forward to the current and extended life of both RDA districts as Van Buren welcome in before we get into the presentation let me remind my colleagues I'm told that our microphones are having a little trouble today so I you'll see that I am sitting in the microphone tip is looking at me if you face it sideways and try to talk into the other parts of it it is not being picked up so just try to angle the microphone at you when you're speaking [Music] and that was not an affront of our city manager I was really talking about myself you have made many of these errors today Miss Van Buren welcome and good afternoon thank you good afternoon of vice mayor Reese and council members today we'll be talking about the Redevelopment agencies the city has two Redevelopment agencies Redevelopment one is the area that you see in yellow on this map in Redevelopment 2 is the ruc in that pinkish purple color Redevelopment one is situated downtown and Redevelopment 2 is expanded across the area in about seven different areas when we look at Redevelopment question about the materials Miss breakfast um what is the question I have I have your um are there pages to follow along and tabs to follow along with this presentation the this presentation it's this is part of the original presentation that was in the binder and so the intent was just so that you could separate it out if you wanted to we put those tabs in the back if you wanted to create an extra space and make it more manageable so within the it's within okay Miss Van Buren please continue of course um Redevelopment one uh that has Redevelopment area one they have two different funds within each one Redevelopment two as well we have a general fund and then a debt fund similar to how we run um the regular City it was established in 1983 and it expires in 2043. it has a span of 60 years it cannot be extended anymore that that will end in 2043. it's in the downtown area and uh the parking garage on Sierra Street is the main area around that the garage is managed by Colliers they take in the garage revenues and the revenues that we take in are pledged to debt so that any excess Revenue over the expenditures has to be transferred to the debt fund the garage that's right behind [Music] um it's on Sierra Street on that corner behind what's the name of the restaurant um the fix there was a fixed amount of Motor Vehicle privilege tax that was given to rda1 when it was established and it'll continue at the same amount and you'll see how much that is it's a very small amount the miscellaneous expenses that you'll see in the budget are include repairs and maintenance to the garage and that's pretty much the only thing in there and the debt fund it includes bonds that were issued a long time ago to build various projects over the time and those Bonds mature in 2027. the bonds that are currently outstanding in rda1 are the 2007 a b and c tax increment bonds the 2007a will actually mature this year June of 23 so that one will be paid off so we'll be left with the two other bonds outstanding those two bonds both mature in June of 27 so we're looking four years out and then we'll be done with the bonds in rda1 this is a zoom in on that original map that's why I didn't spend much time on in the beginning because we do have a zoom in for the map on what it looks like in the downtown area this one's very concise down around the Sierra Street Arlington Street area this is the general fund for the Redevelopment agency um you'll see the motor vehicle privilege tax in here at the beginning as the in the first Revenue in here the parking Gallery rent that we talked about and then in the expenses we have the parking gallery um expenses for keeping that going and any expenses for repairs maintenance and such that flows through here and if there is any excess fun if there are any excess funds in any year between what we take in and what we pay for the expenses that has to be moved over to The Debt Service fund and so on this slide you'll see we get approximately there was a correction in the current year estimated you'll see 1.4 million in there there were some revenues that were not recorded timely we just figured that out when we were doing this they weren't recorded timely and they Colliers had not sent over the information and we had not recorded it on our side so you'll see that extra recording and it was from January to June of last year so we have an extra six months recorded in 23 that's why 22 looks a little short but we trued all that up and we typically in a non um pandemic error we received between 850 to 900 000 in parking Gallery rent Now The Debt Service fund this is the one that we've had we've had to supplement and we've been to council before we had talked about what do we do do we go out and we restructure this debt do we um take a loan from somewhere else do we default I mean there's been a lot of conversations when this came to council a couple of years ago what we ended up deciding was the best option since the these bonds do pay off pretty quickly was to take a loan from rda2 so you'll see in 2022 we loaned money from rda2 over to rda1 Debt Service in order to make sure that we could make The Debt Service payments we loaned 1.2 million Council approve approved the resolution that said we could loan up to three million dollars based on the cash projections that I just did for this RDA 1 and rda2 I don't believe that we will need any more loans over to rda1 I believe this is most likely the end of the loan that we will have to do um there you'll see the ad valorem taxes are going up significantly in this area so in 2021 we collected 1.6 million and we're projecting for next year 2.7 million so it's really starting to take off in this area still not quite enough to make The Debt Service in there but I'll talk about that when we get to the next slides so when you look at the Redevelopment agency we have 2023 here on the left you'll see the green bar is your tax increment or your property tax coming into rda1 and then the the blue line is showing you Debt Service so The Debt Service exceeds the amount of the tax increment coming into rda1 until we get to round 20 25 it's pretty even 2026 right in there but you will see that it drops off after The Debt Service is paid off in 27th so there'll be no more debt so after you see after that those funds would be available to be used for other projects as we go out in those years the one thing I you will see it drops off and then there's that little pickup on the end I'll discuss that here in a little bit after we go through rda2 because it'll become clear as to what happens there and this does depict that we would pay back we could potentially start paying back the loan to rda2 in 2026 and have it fully paid off in 27. when we go over to rda2 it was established in 2005 and inspires in 2035 so it's only 30 years this one is not eligible to be extended any longer because it was formed after 1991 and the rules changed so the rules are it's it's at the 30-year Max there's seven different areas which include Cabela's the baseball district and Parklane Mall and the property tax revenues fully cover the payment of the baseball agreement here in rda2 the baseball agreement is payment for the construction of the stadium and the retail development that was done there rda2 does include a small bond that was for Cabela's for improvements out at Cabela's and that matures in 2035 which is the last year that this RDA exists so this is just showing you the the small Bond that's out there it does mature in June of 2035 like I mentioned and the original amount was only 655 000 and the bond payments on this are around 35 000 a year very small this gives you an idea again of this just shows you just the Redevelopment agency 2 area all those seven areas that are kind of spread out around the city it's not concise like rda1 is when you look at the general fund in RDA 2 the beginning fund balance projected well the beginning fund balance of this current year after the audit is 3.6 million dollars we anticipate ad valorem revenues was going to come in around 5.4 million and then we have the baseball agreement that's 1.1 million going out and then we'll have an ending fund balance of around 8 million dollars at the end of this fiscal year so next fiscal year based on just paying the baseball agreement out of here it goes down to one million dollars and continues at that one million dollar level throughout the end of that agreement through 2043. so at the end of next year we would have 12.7 million dollars in here because it's been accumulating we haven't really been able to do much with it because it was loaning money to rda1 until we kind of knew how those districts were going to pick up we haven't had a lot of money in these as we've moved through them the last few years but they're really starting to pick up so in the rda2 debt fund again this only has enough money in here just to pay that small debt that we have the 40 it's about forty eight thousand dollars in debt service so that's all that this debt service to really exists of when you look at the tax increment projections so for rda2 starting in 23 that very small little debt that you see that is that does include the baseball agreement for this chart plus that little Cabela's debt and it does go all the way to the end until 2023 until 2035. so I'm bringing back that first one when I was gonna where I mentioned I was gonna come back to that little piece on the end of rda1 and I just put these on the same slide so that you could see and lined up their years for you rda2 is going to end in 2035. when RDA 2 ends RDA 1 would need to pick up that debt for the baseball agreement going forward so that's the little bump you see in the line on the ends as rda1 picks that up in year 2036 and then out through the end in 2043. last slide for redevelopment just to give you an idea of what's available to look at for projects and things as you start to talk about what you want to see in projects for the areas now that there is some funding coming in and Eric comes up to discuss some of that so the green bar is RDA to cash flow and the blue bar is RDA one cash flow so as I mentioned before right now in 2023 we're looking at about eight million dollars currently cash available in rda2 and that's your big bar on the left hand side and RDA one has nothing it doesn't have anything available because it's still just kind of aching along 24 it still doesn't have anything 25 and then in 26 we can actually start paying back some money and then we actually get back um the bond deposit that we have on file we have cash set aside for a bond deposit as well that's 2 million in RDA 1. and so once that is paid off then that comes back and you see that bar coming in and then you see that increments start to grow every year after that that's available so this would be the cash available after everything else is paid not anticipating any projects on this at all so you do see that in 2024 you'll have about five million dollars in rda2 about five and a half million dollars in RDA to the next year and then each year you have a little bit more as the property tax increases in those areas and then in rda1 it really starts to grow in 28 and 29 once we get Beyond those bonds and then there's tax increment available in those years as well and with that I'm available to answer questions let me just switch screens Van Buren thank you because quite frankly that's the most comprehensive analysis I've seen in my four years on the body of the RDA and I appreciate that depth of it so let's get started here it looks like Miss doer are you in the yeah first thank you um I thought it was really good too especially where you have them side by side so helpful and the maps were really good today as well um just a really quick question and you answered one which was when is baseball over um but I do think it'd be good to to speak to our members I mean normally that would come out of RDA uh one I would assume but there was no money right and so we we're paying out the general fund there's actually thank you for the question councilmember doer it's it's actually there's actually a Nexus between RDA 1 and rda2 it actually can be funded by either one because of the location of it okay um it originally was planned to be out of RDA 1 rda2 came on and and prospered a little faster and as you know you've been here a while we did supplement from the general fund for a while um for that baseball agreement up until I believe about 2017 2018 and then there were enough funds that coming in from the increment where we didn't have to um but potentially can be paid by either one okay and then um another question was um okay on the baseball so in 2023 you showed a bar chart that showed we had a lot in 2023. yes could you say that again about that one in 2023 that is the that's the amount of cash we have on hand for rda2 right now because rda2 has came on a lot faster but we hadn't really done a lot with it because we were in that transition where we were trying to figure out how to pay RDA one's debt we were going to restructure it how that was going to work weren't sure exactly how fast the increment was coming in for projections at that time because it went from so small to really starting to grow and um so that's what that bar is it's we at the end of this year we have about eight million dollars in rda2 really nothing in one that's available and then after next year we'll have another about five million dollars in rda2 and this was what I chart again um does it it Aggregates right I mean it comes to accumulate if you don't spend it on this particular chart um I did have it aggregated when I first did it did this chart which is interesting that you asked that but I thought it would be better I went back and redid this chart because I think it's more important to see what cash you have available each year right so this would be each year so right now we have eight million dollars that's available in 2023 for rda2 next year we will have an additional four and a half million and then the next year after that another four and a half million so this is going to show you each year about how much you have to look at to spend and then Mr edelstein's going to come and tell us what he'd like to do with eight million dollars is that it we'll see okay I think he will he has plans I gotta watch a movie okay but if and to answer your question if you aggregate all this up if you were to look at all of this revenue and this is one of the things that we discussed when Council went ahead and extended rda1 an additional 15 years when we originally were talking about paying the debt Council agreed that we could loan over from rda2 and we extended it at 15 years this is the benefit that you're going to see by doing this with the RDA 1 the cash flow if you add all that cash flow up you're at about 90 million dollars that's what I wanted to know and just if you look at rda2 it ends up about 90 million dollars as well in a different way not related at all but that's just how it turned out so just to wrap this up um going forward I think it'd be great to hear not just the annual budget but like a big projection 90 million dollars we should think about how we want to effectively reinvest that in the community so okay Miss Taylor you're Nixon the Q Miss breakfast do you wish to speak it well hold on one second because I've just not seen you in the queue so if you would log in no I'm in I see myself on top of the queue yeah it might be under the different number no problem I'll try to get there let's start with Miss Taylor I don't see it and so I'll ask Madam clerk to come help me the vice mayor members sure so I'm wondering if we could just back up a little bit and talk about the history of the rdas and maybe some of the general rules at a high level level I know I can probably meet with you later but what happens after they expire how did they get here what can the money be used for if you could just give me some information um the rdas are created so that you receive any new tax increment in that area so once you create an area say you're making a hundred million dollars in property tax in this one area we create that as an RDA area and that's the new Baseline that hundred million that's already coming in because that property tax is being divided amongst all the other agencies Reno um the county and the school district once you create that RDA area anything that comes in tax increment wise Above That Base comes to the city so that's really where we get that RDA money from is any new growth in that area or the the growth of what already exists there so it's it's a growth mechanism so you capture that increment above the Baseline so for RDA rda1 effect when we don't make any money after that until 2027 we're just paying down debt is that we are receiving tax increment but there's not enough coming in to pay all the debt okay and we have 8 million ish or whatever an rda2 correct could we take money from rda2 and pay off Rd A1 or no no they're separate entities they're separate entities even though we and then the money that we borrowed from rda2 we have to we have to pay back at a two percent interest rate yes once it starts receiving a significa enough that it can afford to start paying back that's the plan what happened after they're gone in 2043 with RDA one what is what happens when they're gone is it just goes back to how it was before you created them so all of the property tax that's generated in that area goes into the big pool of property tax and then it's divided out between Reno the Washoe County and the school district so it's divided just like normal property tax at that point because the RDA doesn't exist anymore imagine there's rules on what we can use this money for and where we can use it there is um there it like for rda2 you have to use it within the rda2 area and for rd1 you have to use it in the rda1 area for the baseball as I mentioned there is a Nexus that because of the location of the baseball field it qualifies for both but you do have to be very careful about we cannot spend RDA 2 money in an RDA 1 area so even though there's money in rda2 we cannot really spend that money downtown it would still have to be to the areas of rda2 thank you for indulging me members her other questions Eric's going to go into a lot of that so I'm going to defer to him on that one Ms Taylor did that answer your questions I know as one of the newer members you sometimes have those questions and I want to make sure they're answered no they answered yes thank you very much Miss breakfast it looks like the computer Gremlins are working and you're in the queue thank you um you know I appreciate hearing Miss Taylor's questions because these are very complex I started um many years ago in a Redevelopment agency as one of my first jobs staff through tax or increment financing as a junior stopper and um so I had you know early formation different state but Reno's RDA experience is incredibly complex and many permutations and you know you I think that as you move forward on this you can't lose track of you know what your values are and what your policy statements are and you know your track record and that's why I objected to the extension of the 15-year because it did not go with an update to the plan which I think still today was in opposition to statutory retire requirements my husband was the Redevelopment agency manager over for Sparks for two over two decades and they did not make really any Investments outside of their plan area they would do minor plan amendments all the time whereas we didn't complete extension of the life of this agency and didn't even update our plan and I think those downtown Property Owners um really had a chance to challenge the city on how we did that and I'll I'll continue to state that but the borrowing from two to one was actually an idea that I came up with asked prior Finance directors it was okay and thought it was prudent at the time but a couple questions for you still are is there any way on the books that either of the rdas now that they're throwing off tip have a repayment to the general fund for those early baseball agreements the baseball agreement as I understand was both the city obligation and an RDA obligation and to the degree that it was paid for out of the um general fund in some past years you said up to 2017. can RDA pay back the general fund for those is that on the books to do we have I have not anticipated that in here but I'm glad to look into that with the attorney's office and see if that's something that we could potentially do absolutely I always want to keep the general fund as whole as it can be and I think that you know if we can track that down and that was maybe I don't know what were we paying a year in those early years I don't remember we were doing it when I got here in 2016. what are we paying this year we're not using any general fund money no it's our baseball obligation it's 1.1 million dollars this year okay so if we have five years that's five million to the general fund number two is I do think we could spend money money can be spent outside of the rdas I always thought that you could cross a Nexus and go maybe a few blocks over to a private the school or a park or something so that's another one to to check into but um I now that the tips are coming off I I think it really needs to be clarified to this body that um who's losing out on these you mentioned the county and the school district but also our own general fund because this would be property tax coming back to us for police fire and park operations you know so it's really it's really big money that we get to play with and in my view it's a thievery from the school district and I will be at school district meetings as this process goes forward letting them know how much money is projected to be taken off of their um of their um Baseline through this RDA life as it starts to Tiff um in the state that I worked at before a city had to go to the school district and the school district said yes okay you're gonna we're gonna give up our property tax to you here and there I think there were some Law changes at some point um School District had no choice on it I always felt that was wrong public policy I think but I don't know Sparks remedied that by making um side contracts with the schools so I'm going to be looking for that because it's you know it's our money and we have a little more discretion but when we're hitting the school district money I have a real problem seeing 90 million dollars whatever they are shares of 90 million dollars over a period of time coming off the School District budget and I'm sure they do you know knowing how hard they went up against the incline tax any additional questions from the body Miss Van Buren um it'll come as no surprise to you but I won't agree with my colleague from Ward one certainly I wouldn't describe the actions of a city in its Redevelopment as thievery that kind of uh that kind of language just as it stands really is anathema to the process of good governance I'm proud to serve on the school board capital projects fund surcharge advisory committee and the oversight of the school district through that process is an important one I have I'm a product of Washoe County Schools I have three children who are the product of Washoe County schools and tax increment financing is a tool right as any tool is and I don't think it you're not here today to stand before us and talk about the policy implications of Tiff right you've given us an overview of its history about the financial implications that it has created over its lifetime and what it's projected to be as a body of course I I've spent a lot of time studying tiffs I have spent a fair amount of time studying tests that are successful and some that are unsuccessful because if you look at them and their use across this country there are varying degrees to which they are successful Kansas City is the example that I would posit I would say roughly um 800 tax increment financing different areas exist within the greater metropolitan area in Kansas City and some of which have been incredibly successful and some of which have not been we have an opportunity here at this body I think to chart a vision and the financing increment that is thrown off by these districts I think gives us a chance to remake many of the things for which we have not had the opportunity to do so either because of our debt obligations through the uh the historical use of debt in this city and also through just our the way we we have to manage the general fund and so it's a different tool I think we should use all tools in the toolbox to do the things that we want to accomplish together as a community for my part and I'm looking forward to the next parts of the presentation I think this is a perhaps will be one of the more important discussions that we'll have as a council the budget is its own important discussion I've been very encouraged by the comments that have been had throughout this process but this one more importantly is is a very exciting one because it Endeavors to allow us to do the things which we perhaps have not been able to do previously now uh with regard to both the rdas I didn't totally understand the explanation that you gave about how they overlap and therefore in one sense the funds could be obligated to pay for the baseball agreements but they might not otherwise be able to be used can you explain that to me again correct and councilmember Breck has kind of got at this too depends on the location so because of the location of the ballpark it has a Nexus to both areas the way it sits so you could say it's close to either one it may be in one but it's so close to the other one the net there's a Nexus they there and that could potentially be for other properties as well as you start to look at properties maybe there is a Nexus that could be made between one or the other about for example the central Fire season this is a question I have in my own mind given the location possibly being very adjacent to there at the old police station site is that the kind of thing where you're saying geographically it can make some sense that it's related okay yes and I've I've I'm expired I'm I'm exploring that option as well and I've talked to the attorneys about that as well so I think we may have an opportunity there too I think Miss breakfast posits an important point about our attorneys the city attorney's office and I know that they always take strongly the inquiries that we make here so you'll let us know how it turns out as to the issue that she's identified because I do think there is some historical um I don't know if it's ill feeling but there is certainly some angst among certain segment of the population who feels like that obligation was perhaps not the one that they might have made I think in in electoral Seasons people are like to throw rocks a lot of times so they they use this as a cudgel or uh and to say that we've somehow mismanaged funds it really wasn't that and the complexities around that settlement are one that took me probably two or three years to get my hands around just to understand it and so the staff has been very good to help me with that so I would encourage any of the newer members if they aren't familiar with the history it does bear some relevance even to our discussions today so thank you for that are there any other questions on this item it's presentation yeah I do have those questions go ahead yeah and that was my question is on the bonds um if you do you know think if the body comes to a point where they see Tiff and they wanted to use it in protection of the general fund which should always be our highest priority um for the central fire station how soon could they issue those bonds out could they issue them on projections that come out as far out as on your um that's that's something I'll have to look into and I don't know that necessarily we we would do it based on this but maybe we we do it based on the general fund but then we um kind of backfill a portion of it based on how it's situated and where it is as far as and it wouldn't be for the construction what I'm thinking of would be for Debt Service as a portion yeah but it's just a thought at this point and we're I'm working on it so yeah we're examining all areas yeah make sure we cover ourselves well obviously we'll go through a public process of amending the plans but um that'd be interesting because usually it's Revenue being bonds being backed by the general fund here you're talking about general fund being backed by Tiff which no it wouldn't be backed by that there's no fun would still back it um for example one of the things where you're going to see when I bring the budget back to you for um there are other opportunities sometimes so with the 60 million dollar bond that we have out for Public Safety yeah we have an opportunity where we can use some of the police impact fees that have been collected for the impact facility to pay a portion of those bonds you can pay a portion that is considered the new growth and so in my mind this would be something similar you would still issue them general fund backed but if you have an opportunity to reimburse from another source or use another source we would be able to do that yeah okay yeah okay anyway now um uh I wanna I wanna kind of talk about it because there has been a tremendous history of uh read uh Tiff abuse documented in urban literature you know and the winds I in my view far outweigh um the negatives and I think that's why California in their last budget crisis got rid of all Redevelopment agencies and move them off into a different thing but so you could have a Mr um let's say Mr Jacobs who's going to show out the glow Plaza or the the neon line development agreement boundary or the GSR who has the GSR property and come to the body and say look I'm going to invest a hundred million that's going to you know be my private property investment and I'm gonna spill off this much Tiff but I want it back you know you wouldn't be getting this tip if I didn't get it back and I want it to make me whole you know and that's the way that wired influential developers benefit from the Tiff and the other communities don't so your projections on properties which you have already as a baseline um do those calculate whose Investments do those calculate does that calculate all of the neon line being built out to the parameters of the development agreement does it calculate out you know because because when people come and ask for the money they're going to have to show above the tip but you've got those calculations showing so um what are you showing in those calculations we had a study done back in 2019 that took into account any developments that we knew of at that point that were in the works or would be in the works and then it took a look at how probable are they to move forward and What's the timing of them coming online so we did have an outside consultant come in and do some projections on that so we could get that but what you're actually seeing what we're actually seeing is it's coming in a lot faster than what they had on theirs because I think they they were very conservative and as far as only looking at the ones that were at a certain point with their plans and everything like that and so that is one area I think where we do need to go out and have that updated again because they did a very good job on it and for a few years it tracked right on but now it's kind of the projections I've used it kind of jumped ahead a couple years and that's where I kind of picked up to continue the same Trend up so I do believe we've had more things come online quicker than what they anticipate painted and so that is something we should look at probably updating because that would be a good use of the money thank you Mr Van Buren does anyone have any additional questions I think that this presentation is very comprehensive I thank you for that thank you um I I continue to believe that under your leadership we are trying to evaluate all the tools like something earlier today that really resonated with me which was that in government we know that there are always more needs and there are funds to do the thing something like that and ultimately what I have appreciated about your approach is that you are helping us to use the tools we have in the toolbox Tiff is an extraordinary tool it is a different and challenging tool complex in all its varieties again some cities have had great relationships with it others not so good let us hope that we approach it with the solemnity which it is owed right and I think that again you are helping us to do that by balancing these sort of competing ideas obviously I think um you know conspiracy theories about who does what to whom benefit no one in this room right all of us are on this diet is because we care deeply about this community just as you work in the service of the city because you do and so I I think as we do so as as when we enter this room if we have the best of intentions and are transparent in our approach coach we will come to the right conclusion and we'll do so together so I appreciate that thank you let's move on to the next agenda items it sounds like we're going to go to e41 and and I think if I'm not mistaken there are staff presentations here Mr Edelstein are there different presentations on four one and four two or are they the same presentation they were contemplated to be handled together right and so I'm gonna open them as item e41 now and we'll have the presentation that you have if there are for some reason catch up or cleanup items that are specific only to e42 I'll briefly open it but maybe not expect you to do another presentation unless there is a need from the body in some way but the clerk is telling me that I don't have to be so formal but I I would like to do e41 open it now we'll go and make the presentations ask the questions I see that you've identified it here I just want to make sure that I am comporting with our attorney's advice an important part of the job is is knowing that although I am an attorney I am here not that and so I want to take the advice that our legal counsel is given we'll open e41 make the presentations ask the questions we'll close it we'll open e42 briefly and then we'll have done the formal process that is necessary to engage in this iterative process e41 good afternoon again vice mayor council Eric Edelstein assistant city manager for the record uh I think through the uh through the presentations today um some of the words I've written down um and probably could keep tally on but uh this topic the topic of downtown the topic of RDA it's layered it's complex and it's all connected to everything else so we can't just talk about downtown without understanding the how it layers out but this is inherently uh inherently complex and and always connected and and there we go so always want to look at at council's goals and I don't think there's a single thing uh in in council's goals that is not uh supported by a thriving downtown and again the downtown impacts the whole city and the whole city impacts the downtown so we're going to focus on the downtown but what we're talking about is enhancing the quality of life that makes Reno a better place for everybody no matter where you live where you work um we are going to talk through this process about a number of plans that are coming online in a layered way um we are talking about dominoes that are about to fall not darts being thrown in different directions so the dominoes are coming and we're going to talk through all those things um I'm not asking for a motion today but I am asking through the Redevelopment agency budgeting process that we consider some expenditures from rda2 so to keep that in your mind as as we're talking so as we look at the the downtown update I bring this start with this map that um that was shown last week at Council meet excuse me from the uh the downtown Reno partnership and this map shows downtown um projects that are happening for residential this is 1300 residential units either in construction or pre-construction in downtown this is different um this is this is important our revitalization manager who cannot be here today Brian has talked about a goal of having 10 000 new residents uh in the next 10 years in Reno and with these units we are we are on our way to having that meeting that goal in downtown um the Redevelopment agency that we'll talk about as we go through here I think is important to remember that it is a leverageable asset um so it is not a is not a it's not a regressive tax we have C tax we have property tax we know how those taxes come in um the Redevelopment agency funds can increase as we speed up the the rate of the rate of growth so they're a leverageable asset they're an investable asset so we're going to talk about how those Redevelopment agency funds can layer in to everything else that we're doing and also we will talk through again layered and complex how rda1 and rda2 are funding and sort of how we'll meet the balance of the lack of funds in RDA 1 with the funds in rda2 so we want to talk now about the projects that are in place we talked about the dominoes so Virginia Street Place making none of these will be new to you but it may be the first time that they've all been kind of put together in in one place to understand so Virginia Street Place making we know that we have two million dollars thanks to your vote a couple Council meetings ago to to take the recommendations from gal which are due here uh in April to be presented to you and apply two million dollars to activating the Virginia Street uh Frontage um to their recommendations um we also have a half a million dollars in a facade Improvement program um I looked for the most dramatic example I could bring to you um just a one small example from an actual facade Improvement program on this one happens to be from Knoxville Tennessee but they are there are many of these programs throughout the country and just a simple example these facade Improvement program plans will be built off of matching funds so we won't be giving complete handouts this will be a matching fund for those interested in improving the fronts of their of their buildings micro Mobility so we've got Place making followed by micro Mobility so next council meeting will be Virginia Street Place making the council meeting after that will be micro Mobility we all saw the uh the impacts of micro Mobility over the course of last summer some are more positive than others however we do know that overall the pilot program showed that the the micro Mobility lanes that were created they increase usage they increase satisfaction and maybe most importantly they increase safety of those using bikes and other modes of via modes of transportation outside of vehicles or walking the next layer Domino here is the prose plan Pros is Parks Recreation and Open Spaces um we don't yet have an exact date for that that final presentation this is a this is a city-wide program um we're looking at all the park park recreation Open Spaces throughout uh throughout the city but um being that we do have a river that that rolls through downtown which makes us unique and special along with the parks that are are included in that the pros plan is going to be another plan that is going to help inform where our priorities are where we can make strategic Investments to drive the overall vision of a healthy and vibrant downtown this is just a few of the elements of the plan but activating the Truckee River and downtown public spaces is probably the most relevant to this specific presentation last element pre-rda discussion here is special events so just a week ago we approved an activation coordinator in the next Council uh meeting if I can figure out Prime gov I will have a resolution to be presented to you all um to uh um to to take the recommendations to help expedite our sponsorship uh funding and uh and then we know that we have 125 special event permits a little different than special activity with special event permits we have 125 current at this point in the calendar um we are going to start looking at where they are when they're happening and that activation coordinator will have a baseline of what's Happening um to be able to start working on Council priorities to activate the spaces and the places that that we know uh again help create a vibrant downtown moving into the RDA so um Director Van Buren gave we we fiercely debated whether this presentation should go before the numbers and admittedly it could have gone either way um so I hope to bring some clarity maybe to some of the questions that came from the numbers but we felt that having a baseline of expectation of what the revenues looked like may help make this element of the presentation go a little bit uh smoother and be more digestible um so the history of the RDA important you know a few important distinctions here is it is separate and distinct from the city you all are the the Redevelopment agency board but um the ways that we can utilize those funds are different than um than a city the original plan written in 1983 had large large goals I'll talk about the plans here in a minute but looked at the city in four to six block spaces of improvement what did we do with those over time lots of things but I think if we're still talking about adding vibrancy to downtown I think we could all agree that we maybe didn't quite hit the mark uh on totality in our in our past plans so we need a different approach to what we're going to do with these with these new funds um what can RDA fund these are the things that that RDA can do so different than than the city itself the RDA can buy property can lease property can incentivize relocation as specifically as it would want can pay individual private citizens or business owners to come and locate a business in a space if the board believes that that is important there is a wide range of opportunity of Economic Opportunity that the RDA can do that a city in and of itself cannot do so we can incentivize relocation we can fund development we can do public improvements we can pay employees which we will talk about uh here in a little bit so as we continue here just to bring back the maps and a little bit more context to the overall conversation um we know that rda1 because of the extension has a longer Runway but not as not as wonderful of an immediate future because of the debt um as uh as Director Van Buren said the the general the general trajectory is based on what we know and what we've known so anything new that comes online is a hundred percent increment that adds on top of the um of the growth that we're we're showing here again I'm going to say this a few different times but this is a leverageable asset that uh incentivizing the right kind of growth that adds the right type of taxes can add increment on increment on increment which then can be continually reinvested in our overall growth um again rda1 nice small simple space I think most of us all know that area rda2 Prime most of us will be hard-pressed to know exactly every parcel um in this space rda2 right now um as you saw has funds accruing and will continue to be accruing funds so important to know we've got more money earlier in rda2 with less of a Runway to deploy that money and get the returns I do not believe these are all the plans but these are some of the plans that have been written since RDA came on board we have plans we have lots of plans the plans all say the same thing we have a wonderful University at the North part of downtown we have a natural occurring river through the center of our downtown and Virginia Street is the main line through downtown so we know this the plans have reinforced it over and over Virginia Street Place making is is an opportunity to get a little bit more dialed into that so we do we have the plans we've seen the plans and we know what we know what those what those plans say so what should the RDA focus on well I asked chat GPT to help me with that answer and this is what Chachi PT shared as uh the overarching goals I did have candidly I did have to delete a few lines just to get this onto a slide but uh I don't think Chachi PT is wrong utilizing open source AI from all of all of the internets we are enhancing our the overall quality of life revitalizing blighted and underutilized areas creating jobs increasing property values and we're going to utilize the tools that RDA has that again are separate and distinct and leverageable from a city itself well we're here today to ask for is not another plan we need an implementation strategy do we need to do some work on the implementation yes but we don't need another plan to tell us where we don't need another plan to tell us what are the well we may need a plan to tell us what types of things we want to do however we know the space we know the area and based on rda2 and rda1 we already know the Geographics that we're dealing with here so we get to get really granular here now in determining what we want to do so the thoughts on implementation discussion here is that we need to have a five-year plan that we get built in the next fiscal year focused on rda2 and the benefits to rda2 while we have a longer runway on rda1 with the arpa funding that we have allocated and apologize from jumping between items here a little bit but because rda1 does not have the funding immediately we do have arpa allocations that over the next few years will fund significant investment into that rda1 space so we aren't leaving rda1 for some long-term future we are investing what we do have that's available to us and I think we have to look at a longer Runway the top right there I'll point to in in the opinion that I bring to this uh to this body I think we need to look at our funding in three ways the last bullet I put there because it is an available place that we can use funding but I think we've done that um as a city and I wouldn't necessarily be advocating for any large projects or facilities specifically but I think looking at our infrastructure and then really looking block by block and determining what is the types of funding for what types of uses that Council would like to see in those spaces that is an exercise that we can do and can be really uh exciting for for Council and for our community to see how these rdas can benefit that quality of life what do we need to execute again through the budget process we are going to ask that rda2 fund a a consultant for prioritization of the spaces and of the uses and then we are looking for two positions a management analyst for property to help us understand all the properties within the RDA and then also a business license compliance Revenue officer that can be focused exclusively on the RDA to continue on the path that Ms Turney spoke about earlier to make sure that in the spaces we've determined as Redevelopment areas we have someone living and breathing all of those buildings all of those businesses and ensuring that the very best of Reno is being represented throughout I hope that that made some level of coherence and sense but if it's not in any way I'm happy to take questions okay Mr Edelson I'm going to start because I want to ask a couple of questions I think will be helpful for me to just situate myself the first is and I'll I'll start here I know you meant it interestingly and and in a lighthearted nature but chat GPT so I think this is a resource that we have got to get a handle on as a city and this is separate and apart from my thoughts about the RDA but you are highlighting for me why I think it's important it is a very interesting tool it has a lot of applications it has some issues that we're gonna have to work through as a society but I'm glad that you are thinking about it but this also tells me that you are um and I believe this when we learned that you would be joining the city team you're you're looking for new and innovative ways to connect and to communicate so kudos to you for including it appreciate that second is I want to make sure that as we approach the what I see is a sort of a I think I described it earlier this morning not necessarily about this but about my general feeling about Reno is this moment of Renaissance an opportunity for us to create the vision we have for the city for the next 20 years I think a lot of the last 10 years have been really focused on paying down debt they've been focused on some of the micro issues related to City governments we survived a global pandemic all those things are important and and have had their moment this is the moment now for us to go out and explore some of these new opportunities and this is one of them when we do that I want us to continue to focus as we are as an organization on filtering all these things through the lens of diversity Equity inclusion so I think that whatever we do miss Esparza will need to be integrally involved in it from the city manager's office and and it really does overlay a lot of what you're talking about and so it must be the lens for which we operate I think to operate successfully yes we can go forward in this period of the excitement of Renaissance Revival I think one of your slides said hope that's a word I think is a very good one so I want to make sure that I have four uh fronted that and then the last thing is is and maybe this is where I'll leave it to you to talk me through it but um look all of us on this dice would probably have ideas differing similar about how to and what for and how to spend the money right so for my part I I want us of course to prioritize people and I am this beautiful Community we live so things that are coming to the top of my mind as I dream a little out loud are the Lear theater um I think about the train station and the California building um perhaps the South Side School although I understand that many of the renovations being done there are the obligation of our tenant but my point is is that these are beautiful facilities long suffering we've never found the financial resources to make them what they should be which is incredible so consider those as part of this the river park right this idea that we have never had a dedicated funding source to allow the river to be all that it can be and that it should be we were in Columbus this fall a group of us from the City of Reno and we saw a beautiful river system that was flanked by parks and and recreational opportunities so we've got to I think focus on that our citizens consistently say that Parks and Recreation are a number one thing and so I want to make sure that those are some of the things I'm just sort of putting out there at an initial part and again incredible presentation I appreciate the the hopefulness and the joyfulness of it because that's not always present in government so thank you for that let me see who's in the queue first I think Miss Stewart you were nope then it's telling me Let me refresh give me one second I don't see oh Miss Taylor in the queue Saved by the Bell thank you for that I'm trying to follow the rules thank you Mr vice mayor thank you for the presentation I'm very excited um about the opportunities a couple things you um we have we allocated three million dollars to the river right last the river parks so this can be part of this revitalization in addition to the 2 million in the facade absolutely just a Miss okay in the presentation yes um DRP explained that they were going to be doing a facade some sort of a facade Improvement downtown too so whatever you decide to do moving forward I would encourage you and them to work together so that we are maximizing our resources they might have already got some of the laid work leg work done for us so if we don't have to duplicate efforts I think that would be something fantastic um can you explain a little bit the the what you need to execute this is really important because we do have so many plans and you can go back and you look at this and it's just the same and the same and the same so when you look at these three positions that you're asking for how do these folks get us to where we want to be with the execution and what we want to see thank you for the question there's to me there's two columns here there's the property and it's its use current highest and best potential in the future and there is the type of use that then can be connected so we need to understand first what is in the RDA so that management analyst understanding everything from what are the what are the buildings what's currently there what is it zoned for what are the potential things that could fit into that that existing space and then all the things that can fit into that existing space and then it's matchmaking and prioritization and that that is going to be somewhat of an iterative process um it is uh the possibilities are somewhat endless which can also make them difficult to rein in but in its in the most simplistic answer it's going to help us identify what are the top priority parcels and what are the council directed um priority uses that we'd like to see and then we can create incentivization plans to get those uses so let me ask you something right there not to interrupt you but something you brought up was use of tax increment and then you had six things that we could do or we could use that for have we done that in the past because when vice mayor was talking about you thinking outside of the box these are things that I I don't know if I've seen us do but I'm super encouraged by them and supportive sorry Mr vice mayor I'm going over uh thank you for the question um I believe we have done some of these things I do not believe we have done all of these things we have funded employees in the past um we have incentivized relocation we have we have funded development the buy property lease property of I'm maybe the retract but I I wouldn't I wouldn't want to say that for sure on the record so that we can use that will help us reinvest in these rdas to kick off more money so it's kind of a self fulfilling prophecy if I'm understanding you're you're correct um and the specifics that are allowable by by RDA is um these are these do not have to be nudges so the the concept of a a development agreement on a block if we decide there's a space that we want to incentivize a certain type of development what you know be it housing be it mixed use this body could in theory create a development agreement that utilizes some of the funds to specifically fund the specific objective in the specific place and we could pre-agree to that and then someone with Assurance of speed and certainty could then take that development agreement off the shelf and give the council what they've asked for chicken and pickle I'm done it's in the notes thank you yeah chicken and pickle I'll Echo that too I when you said something we had what 65 projects that we wanted to do along the river to help with flooding and revitalization and other issues and one of the things I think that we did that was the best was we created a map book so so at every block of the river you could see what was contemplated and that plan the map was put together with the citizens with in uh charat type formats we brought in a consultant we papered the whole wall and the the citizenry discussed these priorities and I I think that could be a potential model you know to follow to figure out okay what are the next steps what's priority One what's priority two is there a logical way we go about that um you know I have talked I could come up with an idea a day on how to spend the money or what we should do the first three things that came to my mind you know I want to confirm and agree with Vice mayor's list here which was primarily historical buildings and I but I also want to think about things we're already working on like bathrooms we've built two bathrooms in four years uh they're not that expensive I mean they're let's just say rounding 250 000 that's the building the bathroom installing the bathroom maintaining its life cycle cost so that's probably a small pittance right related to 90 million but it seems like we need you know they all it's like in the maslav's hierarchy we need to be able to you know eat sleep and maybe pee too um right so so that's on my mind is we're looking at a bathroom every year and a half because we're putting together all this grant funding and it's just too slow I think that would be a major thing to get all 10 bathrooms done um the city plaza so the whole entire time I've been on and before I ever joined Council they've been talking about some kind of shade at City Plaza right it's only getting hotter even though we've had this winter from heck um but and I'm not saying cover the whole thing but we've seen some magnificent designs we've seen average designs we've seen simple designs that aren't very expensive but I think you came up with it when you said the place making I sat in on that discussion of What the residents talked about it's one bookend of the whole Virginia Street I would love to see it I would love to see the development at the far end you know develop redeveloping the Circus Circus garage and then the third thing the vice mayor mentioned Dei principles I would also like to see sustainability principles threaded throughout everything we do can this be a green building can this add to our energy Independence can this if it's parking or parking related can we have EV charging you know and so on in other words it shouldn't be kind of old style it should be new Focus if it's a building the coloration of the building the heating ventilation of the building uh could we further require installation of solar throughout the whole downtown Corridor those kind of things I think just I mean just as a principle just like di is a principle so just some thoughts to get going but I'm assuming you've kind of got the road map with your place making your facade your micro Mobility your Parks your special events I'm all embedded in there I assume is the bowling Stadium something we've talked about forever but anyway but that's not so much that's reactivating the space it's not the look and feel of the space because it's largely look the same but it will be interesting to see the things that make it different you know change the look just like we did with the retrek cover it changed things stuff like that oh thank you for your comments if I may also say the limitations of chat GPT or on display with those two references to sustainability and Dei is the historical references wouldn't have wouldn't have caught those so well the truth is is that sustainability is diversity Equity inclusion because of course people in marginalized communities are most impacted by climate related issues and so they're not opposite they are the same those are the same lens I think that we're just learning how to characterize the way we use language to describe them that way but certainly all of those things would be true of Miss dewer's proposal in mind we see the world very similarly on those issues and trees of course I'd be you know they'd be I got my hands slapped if I didn't even mention it you know we have the heat island here and this is the greatest concentration of the heat island is right in the downtown core and so anything we can do you know if it's trees if it's something else the shade yeah thank you this breakfast I think you're next in the queue yeah um have you read Nevada revised statues 279 that governs uh I have read it once I would not say I'm an expert in it have you read the rda2 plan if it was listed there I have likely read it if it was not I may have not okay um is it your interpretation that we need to go back and do the plan redo amend the plan because I I a little nervous you know the statue really speaks a lot your Redevelopment plan and you know if we're going off here or going off there making you know this these investment decisions and they're not in the plan um you know that could be a problem if you talk to the attorneys about you know the plan the overall plan thank you for the question so I I understand that I believe the references to uh the the Redevelopment plan must be uh presented to the state I believe or there must be every year you need to report true yes so I think I tried to have a little fun with word play um we do need to create an implementation strategy I don't think we need a full plan I think we know the spaces we know the uses we need implementation strategy and I think that would suffice um for the for the statute but I have not conferred with uh with legal and obviously I would before we would present anything further yeah I mean you're presenting budget items and I would I would say you know you the plan is the plan okay when they set up the organization The Entity they have a plan but there's procedures to amend the plan to put in say example Mr Reese's value of Dei Investments you know to kind of set the intent I'm just trying to understand you know because she had no more plans but really you live and die with RDA under your plan and subsequent amendments is is how I've always viewed it and um I'm just wondering if we're going to go out and amend the plan and you know unlike rda1 rda2 has a lot of players a lot of folks in there who have a you know tie of their taxes to the tip and the in my view the plan or its Amendments have to be as specific as possible for that person to be satisfied because they seem to have a little extra kind of right to the tip or questioning the process so I think that's important I think the practicality of it is um the council may be here and say we want public investment we want public improvements and you may have developers asking um or meetings with you you know all the time about I want to do this and I want tip have you had anyone has anyone walked through the center city people um Mr Simons uh representatives of Mr Jacob asked about the Tiff talked about the Tiff in any way no we've not I've not had anyone directly ask or have I taken a meeting related specifically to Tiff because I've seen you know what came up during the development agreement actually I think it was one of Mr jacobs's first asks we kind of put it over here but was for the tip because you know giving Mr Jacobs the taxes that are increased when he invests is very different than bathrooms along the corridor it's different than my proposal to give and make hold the school district and you know I just also think that the fundamental of a statement that tip tip is not regressive it is regressive I'm out my home is outside of an RDA boundary and when they come through and re-about reassess my property my property taxes go up the city share goes into the general fund to get police officers out there but downtown it it doesn't the growth here and we've got to sync that up with the fact that we had a downtown property owner wanting foot patrols you know well well the increases in his property taxes you know playing for the police budget so you know we need the plan to conceptualize what our priority is going to be because um you know maybe that is maybe we we do integrate it with the bid and get and bring some police services down here but it's going to be very difficult for a body like this to resist an ad hoc request by Mr Jacobs or the row or a Center City whoever for the you know the property tax on their properties that's going to be a hard one for US unless it is solidified in a plan that has gone through the public process um and that's where Redevelopment abuse happens and has happened and I think I'm hearing some great things here we need to put it in a plan and not leave it open for these asks and your your conversation of leveraged asset incentivize that means giveaway and you know there can be giveaway but you know for me if Mr Jacobs is going to get any money it's going to be for 470 new uh residentials um you know sub-market Rate Rentals you know to compensate for those that He demolished those are the kind of conversations I'd be looking for in a Redevelopment area plan in the subsequent implementation thank you thank you I think Miss breakfast raises good points um perhaps we come about it by a little bit differently I and I assume the best intentions of people and so I I just want to make sure that you understand that I haven't well first of all I haven't talked to anybody about Tiff other than the reading of white papers and trying to understand it I think I've had conversations among staff but again these are all important conversations if anyone is going to root for Reno whether it's someone who is interested in developing the Leer and maintaining it and and seeing it restored or whether it's someone who owns you know several hundred million dollars worth of property in West Reno whether it is things that we want to incentivize in any way whether that's affordable housing or trees all good inquiries I mean I think all these are a possibility for us as we move forward as I understood at your presentation today was really focused on getting some direction and I I think we've had some great conversation with the dice and hopefully you've gotten the direction you need I I just continue to believe this is an exciting time to be here at the City of Reno I'm humbled to be a small part in it I see you all working on the staff side every day in the service of this community and again I continue to believe in the best you know sort of thought about it that people are good-natured and trying to do the right thing so just continue to keep that Joy is what I'm trying to encourage you to do I cannot tell from this whether or not there are still people in the queue Miss Taylor are you in the queue next okay thank you so much I don't know where this comment goes and I think you're probably the last one of the day so I'm just going to leave it with you and it is something that we have heard through public comment and people coming here and I know we have Chief Nance in the office police on the street walking downtown is very important to downtown and I don't want to say I know how to get there or what that looks like but we need a presence downtown of police walking at least until this takes off and again I'm not the expert but I I hope everybody hears that thank you thank you yeah um when I was bringing up the flood project earlier the reason I did is it's a lot more 90 million it was a minimum of 350 million to a billion nevertheless and probably what I left unsaid was I presumed that you were going to have the plan so the flood project 2 is required by NRS to adopt a plan by the local government like a formal adoption and it's set out in statute just like the RDA you know and whenever we we exchangeable we we can amend it all day long as long as we have it in front of us and take a vote I have presumed you were going to take that step I had simply said once you do as part of it to communicate the plan a visual showing you know block by block what kind of projects you might think of for 90 million and again it doesn't have to be the be all and end-all you know it can demand it can change some things will come to the fore some things later but I do think it is important that we have a government Focus plan of infrastructure sidewalk repair you know all the things that some of the the things that we did for example in Midtown that probably need to be replicated here in downtown improvements we we dropped wires down improved drainage improved parking or redefine parking improve walking spaces you know I understand we have sort of a legacy on our many of our sidewalks which are those stepping stones but they're trip Hazard they need to be revised that's why we did the street escape plan was to come up with a with a more pedestrian friendly so I think only we are going to make those kind of improvements right the average bear is not we already have had requests prior to this for Tiff and so probably predate some it was for the West 2nd Street project they came in shared a huge project and said we want 100 million dollars a tiff that we're going to generate and we want it fed back into the stuff we're going to build so I do expect the kind of thing you know if they're going to make a big investment people are going to ask for money for we didn't do it no we did not do it and they they did not move forward with their project yeah but I mean they came and pitched it to us we had a lot of conversation about it so I'm just saying we can expect it as has been discussed but I think that's why it's important for us to sort of get the big pieces whether it's a cover for the I don't want to be repetitive but whether it's a cover for the Plaza fixing the sidewalks you know the basic stuff that only we are going to take care of you know the irrigation system for the trees nobody wants to do that stuff but you know we got to do it I mean if we want a different place so I'll just leave it there thank you if I may say this is this is the reintroduction of of a tool that's been fairly dormant for a long time there is work to be done uh as more people get wind that there is increment I certainly expect to ask I think if we take a disciplined approach yeah um that's agreed upon by the body then we can avoid the the trappings of of one-offs yeah good really good thank you so much council member breckis yeah um you know um one of the answers to you know foot patrols downtown um you know my answer and I'll be bringing up as we move forward in the process with the bid is you know fewer uh marketing people through the bid money and maybe allocation of those funds because you know that to me is the safety and cleanliness concept of the bed and kind of stumbled across that in my last analysis now I want to get a little bit into um your ask of the budget and I I you know real high level you just said it's been dormant to me that doesn't call for a project manager looking block by block you know that's like GIS technician work and so on and sometimes I see that we want to move forward and I think this is more addressed to the manager than you in some area and we bring in a real low level person who maybe doesn't have the the cert um the subject material expertise of a journeyman type person or a you know a mid mid career professional and there's lack of ability to move forward in a an item so you have a Redevelopment agency um or what's that guy the person who's not here Brian McArdle what's his title revitalization manager now is he funded through tip he is not he is general fund now in my view I don't understand why he's the manager so that implies some subject material expertise his position isn't tip funded um and and then you have you know the general fund goes and you have a a more of a programmatic nature for what he is doing um at that higher level he's doing this higher level because I really don't know what he's doing and I've sat through months of Redevelopment agency joint meetings and I haven't had one thing on the item on the agenda to tell me what he's doing so you know revitalization is very tight in Reno to Redevelopment so I would move him to tip but I don't understand what this program management person is going to do are they going to work under him is that the idea I think they could work under him I think they could report directly to me um in overseeing the Redevelopment agency um I think today's today's asks are as much conceptual um as they are anything we have not asked for any any funding of staff from the RDA for a number of years there were up to 12 people funded out of the RDA at one point um so we felt that this was a starting point to stand back up the functions without diluting the work throughout other areas of the city and other functions of the city yeah and I you know believe me that story of having 12 people there I remember that I work with them I knew them I you know been there know that so to me as your first one out the shoot why hire a program management assistant to be the Redevelopment key person unless you are which you know I never understood and I'll be honest you weren't on the budget you know I've got the budget from last year over here and a third assistant city manager was never in the budget just kind of happen so maybe you're the redevelop I mean I'm trying to under I'm really trying to understand the organizational setup and ask um and then the work program you think the task is easily translated into exactly what Mr Edelstein just said which is that it's a it's a work program of implementation of 40 years worth of plans and that of course requires a particular set of skills as particular expertise but even more than that it requires bandwidth and so what we're trying to do is create bandwidth to actually go out and implement the Tool uh of the RDA and Mr McArdle doesn't do that I think revitalization uh is a much broader concept uh at least for us than confined to just the RDA and so as you've pointed out during this meeting and previous meetings there are particular limitations of the rdas there are particular rules that surround how that money gets deployed and how it gets used and it can be a very powerful tool but it's one that we need people to focus on and they need bandwidth to do that and so in order to make sure that we have people focusing on that particular work we do think it's appropriate to put a couple bodies in the RDA and have them Shepherd it through and make it actionable but a program management assistant I mean what expertise do they have to work on this really sophisticated level of statutory requirement and the plan I mean that's that's like a what a three or four year professional uh work experience I think is Mr Edelstein described right it's it's having someone to go and do the pick and shovel work that goes into understanding what the inventory of buildings and facilities and opportunity is uh in the defined spaces um I don't know that I agree that that's particularly technical work I think that that's time consuming work and then Mr Edelstein Mr McArdle myself the broader group um can have the high level conversations about you know where things can be leveraged where things can be deployed and we can make recommendations to the to the Redevelopment board yeah I don't know I don't know it just seems you know I'm kind of lost on a lot of the positions that have come in and what they're doing like the urban Economist a third assistant city manager revitalization manager that's been on the books for a long time and we had a predecessor to Mr McArdle but you know looking at the pick and shovel of the properties that's like surveys work that a consultant would do I think that I I don't know I just I don't I'm not really getting it I don't object to putting someone on the Redevelopment agency as it's funded staff I just am very puzzled by the fact that it's a program manager and then the reference that your time I mean golly I hope you're you know increment time on this um but thank you I'm going to come now to Miss Stewart I I don't have anything oh no I I was hoping you would get us closure on this particular agenda yes we sorry um well this particular item was about presentation discussion and potential direction to staff so the question for both you and our city manager is do you think you've heard enough direction or do you need a specific motion today because this doesn't say add three people is that I mean do you have a motion prepared for us or there's no motion okay you just wanted to have the discussion debate I mean this is a lovely thing about what our council's supposed to be about is to discuss policy directions overall program directions that's what we're doing here Mr Hall do we need a motion on this item at this time you can just accept the presentation yeah so motion okay go ahead okay I'll make a motion to accept the presentation and have staff put together a plan implementation plan based on what you heard here today okay I have a motion by Mr Doer a second by Miss Taylor open for discussion Miss breakfast yeah I mean the the effect of the motion is sending down by April 1 a budget that shows this program management analyst in there I I don't know what they're going to come back with frankly no I think that's what it does so can we get confirmation on that I mean you have to have a budget down to DFA by when if budget down to the state prior to the adoption by this box right April 15th final budget yeah there will be changes there are always changes right it's an iterative process until we get down to final adoption and even then it's a living document throughout the year as we augment it quarterly and certainly my expectation would be Mr Edelstein that you've heard this body and at least the majority of the body is supportive of your hiring that type of position and so the budget will have this position in I would think so I'm not supportive I I really I I don't object going into the RDA um with staff but I want to understand the work program I want to understand how it integrates into the the other functions that are in the city manager's office I really have some organizational issues that are long-standing you know in general and we're skipping departments um and I don't and so you know I just I'm not there yet um I could be fine with consultant studies and sort of things like that but I don't think this is down there as much and I'm I'm concerned that the plan which is basically like the charter you know like we have a city Charter is kind of not front and center and a program manage analyst isn't going to do that so I'm going to vote no okay I'm gonna comment on the motion though really quickly okay um I just want to say maybe it's my experience in trying to do a big difficult challenging thing with many many dollars at risk that I could not have done it without getting a couple people to help me do it and put the plan together put the map together make sure I covered everything get the budget together that take to your point Mr Rancher that takes people it doesn't just sort of come and while we had Consultants on the flood project at the end of the day the staff had to carry the ball so I I have no problem with you know funding this at the level that you've suggested Mr Martinez did you have a comment before we take the vote yeah I just had a quick question that you may not have the answer to this at the moment but I know these RDA fundings um have a term let me write like we know there's going to be an end cap to it so if we were to fund these positions has there been any thought to the continuance and financing these or is this something that would only last until the lifetime of an RDA thank you you want to do it go ahead so um if you were to keep these positions on if there were sort of a role for them in the organization beyond the life of the Redevelopment agencies um they would have to be rolled in probably to the general fund um some of the revenue that is increment that we're talking about will come back to the organization as general fund Revenue um from property taxes but that is sort of some of the difficulty with winding down a Redevelopment agency um but again you know having a having a defined framework having an understood and adopted strategy for how we go about deploying that this re these resources in their final Glide path is I think important okay thank you yeah and I know that time is probably going to come after all of us have been here on the dice but I think it's just something that we need to keep in mind because the decisions we take today obviously impact the future in the direction that we're headed so I just want to bring that up thank you for the question Martinez uh we have a motion by Miss Dewer a second by Miss Taylor all those in favor please signify by saying aye aye aye any opposed motion carries okay Madam clerk we're going to open item E2 I don't believe we are going to have any public comment on it or additional presentation so I'll open and close it at the same time that brings us back to you Miss Clerk thank you um vice mayor we'll go ahead and move on to item E5 which is closing public comment for the Redevelopment agency board we don't have any registered at this time so I'm looking for a motion to adjourn Redevelopment agency most by Mr Martinez a second by Miss Taylor any additional questions at this time hearing none I'll call for the question all those in favor please signify by saying aye aye aye any opposed May motion carries unanimously thank you so we are now going back to closing public comment if we have any members in the zoom who would like to make a public comment please raise your hand at this time um before we go there uh Mr vice mayor I guess I was going to ask we're kind of closing out this two-day budget session so I didn't know before this final public comment if you wanted any Council comment you know I don't particularly have any maybe one or two items small items but the next time we see this well you'll be presenting the file budget right in May yes right so I just I don't know if we have any of us have parting words I didn't know if you do I do anybody does I have a final comment I miss breakfast yeah first I you know Miss Van Buren has not gotten the C tax results in yet they'll be coming in tomorrow but they're trending below and but she's building a budget on is it a four percent sea tax increase I think the direction of the body sh and and I just don't think you can presume a c tax it's going to be made up on other places because you've got projections on those I think that if she gets sea tax to Trend even below because it's always month to month that she should be uh the direction should be to come back in May with a a four percent a two percent and a zero C tax you know and do it how you want straight cuts or whatever but this is the time to cut this is the time to start tightening the belt I came on in 2012 and you know said all along Reno did not put itself in a position to weather the downturn last time as well as other jurisdictions so the hits were harder and this is the time to start to do that I watched Washington County was doing things ahead of Reno Sparks was doing head of things ahead of Reno Reno got to the point where they just started to have to rip bodies out and make very drastic cuts and I just don't think that you know the way we lag National Trends and all that it's prudent to be tracking a current year see tax below and still show a growth in your sea tax so I would I would encourage that scenario work be done and directed to the manager and um and I think that's just you know most most prudent and another thing is you know whatever era we go into and hopefully we won't go into one but the rescue is always has been Federal response in some ways and the feds have already come in on the covet so if there's another down to your they're not going to come in again there's no Rescue out there and you know the governor was here as Governor Sandoval the the state response to the rescue before was you know pumping the pumping um the abatements to Tesla and and you know that story has been very mixed on how it played out so I think it's just really time to be prudent in budgeting and reduce the C tax to the four percent she shows the two percent and the zero if this next month January Trends below thank you Miss breakfast Miss doer yeah thank you I just um I wanted to use this time uh to complicate compliment our manager and the staff I really think that you did an awesome job putting together a big picture budget and I thought that there were parts of it that were very educational even for me and no matter how many times I've sat through a budget I learned a lot here today and there's new ideas and I really appreciate it um I will um in the interim take a look at the positions and kind of prepare for these scenarios Miss breakfast laid out like no positions one two up to ten and see what I think and I'll try to communicate that to you Mr manager you know separately I also want to say the one thing we talked very specifically about these fees I was pretty satisfied we talked about the appeals I just wanted to go on the record of saying I I'm fine with a hundred dollar or less for the um uh I guess it's called the development project appeals and I'm fine with a sixty dollar uh roughly which is an increase I think for the administrative appeals I just wanted to say that on the record so I didn't say it quietly in the back room or something um but anyway but generally I thought the fee study was very well done and you know I appreciate where we're going with all that and also this look at the business licenses I think it's worth a look and um the Improvement in process that we're going to be expecting over the next year I think will be welcomed by everyone and especially finally the code enforcement we've all talked about it a lot and it's a very useful tool that we've probably underutilized so I wanted to commend the focus on that too all right thank you okay any other call Miss Taylor thank you Mr vice mayor I think if we have some parting comments mine are um first of all thank you for this process obviously it was my first time thank you for all the hard work went into it some big picture ideas from what I understand is I'd like to see some ideas for how we get to close that 177 million dollar Gap with capital Improvement projects my priorities for whatever we had left I think there were a whole bunch of ass in the back of the book there's not a lot of money to go around I would say um Public Safety and maintenance and operations are two things that we might need to invest in with that again um just my thoughts I will say this again because I think it's important I would love to see police on foot downtown and the improvements to downtown and that's not just because downtown is in Ward five I think it's because what everybody said here downtown is part of our whole city and it makes Reno better in our community and on the business aspect anything we can do to make it easier more friendly and um work with some of the software in that area and some of the code enforcement to clean it up in four and five thank you very much okay thank you so much at this time I'll go back to Madam Clerk so we're on like comment you registered today I would just like to note for the record that the council members received an email today about a voicemail not being played when we collect voicemails or when we collect public comments we try to keep them directly associated with the agendas since these were two workshops specific to budget the public comment that was left via voicemail was not uh related to the budget however because this came in it's clear that that individual did want their voicemail played today so we have moved it to closing public comment we'll go ahead and play it now thank you so much the recent well-publicized ethics violations by a current city council member and a former council member are disturbing the following is a recent quote from one of the violators to the Press I do want to say this when this situation Rose I asked the city attorney's office if I needed to disclose that a lawyer at my Law Firm does some work for the rppa or even go so far as to abstain from voting on issues regarding the Police contract the advice and opinion of the city attorney's office was that I didn't need to do either I felt like it was important to go above and beyond in terms of transparency so I disclose the relationship to the City attorney the city manager our HR team my colleagues and for the public on the record anyway end of quote it should be emphasized and underscored that this council member according to his quote asked both the City attorney and the city manager for guidance if he should vote on the Police contract and they both apparent had no problem with the council member voting council member who committed the violations is a practicing attorney the city manager is an attorney and it goes without saying that the City attorney is an attorney would a reasonable person believe that all three attorneys didn't understand our state ethics rules would a reasonable person believe that all three attorneys didn't have the knowledge to request an advisory opinion from the ethics Commission or at the very least put a call in to the ethics commission prior to the Police contract vote this could be a lawyer joke if it wasn't so serious okay Miss clerk is that all for today that is all the public comment for today so I'm just looking for a motion to adjourn yeah but motion by council member doer a second by Miss Taylor all those in favor please signify by saying aye aye aye in the opposed motion carries unanimously