welcome again to the Mesa city council meeting for April the 1st of 2024 our uh council is pretty much here but council member go forth is unable to attend and is excused and council member Summers is attending virtually all other like I say council members are present uh we'll begin the meeting with an invocation offered by Pastor Michael Heiden of L Mesa Ministries followed by the Pledge of Allegiance please stand for the prayer and remain standing for the Pledge of Allegiance let us pray uh father son and spirit thank you so much for this past Holy Week where Jesus you laid down your life and took it back up again for our forgiveness and for us to have new and Abundant Life and uh thank you for the men and women you've raised up to be leaders here in this community uh fill them just with your strength and your wisdom and to be with uh this meeting I do pray that your presence and your peace and your goodness Rule and Reign uh during the this time and it's in uh the most precious and Powerful name in the name of Jesus we pray amen amen please join me in the pledge 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 Pastor for the prayer um we do have a couple of items under Awards recognitions and announcements I I will also note that PRI just immediately prior to our study session uh an hour or so ago uh we uh prevented we also uh presented a proclamation on Child Abuse Prevention month and did a uh photo opportunity there with with some of the great folks in our community that uh help with Child Abuse Prevention um tonight though we have two proclamations on on under this agenda the first is to Proclaim April 6th through 12th of this year as the week of the young child in Mesa the week of the young child is designed to celebrate the organizations teachers and policies that support Early Learning opportunities for all children from first things first to the National Association for the education of young children local state and National groups focus on our youngest residents future here to accept the proclamation and tell us more about the week of the young child is Dr anaura Ganesh faculty chair of early childhood education at Mesa Community College Dr Ganesh thank you we're we know you you run one of the highest rated prek programs in the state so thank you for doing that to respect the time I wrote down my remarks thank you good evening and thank you Mr Mayor and council members on behalf of the Early Childhood commit Community your vision your passion and dedication to mesa's youngest children is very much appre appreciate it my name is Anapa Ganesh I serve as a volunteer Regional Regional partnership council member for the first things first Southeast Maricopa region and I work as an early childhood education faculty member at Misa Community College as Arizona's Early Childhood agency first things first is the only state funding source dedicated exclusively to the beginning of the education Continuum first things first in in invests early childhood funds in programs and services that address the development education and health needs of children birth to age age five at the state and local levels we know that Economic Development starts with the focus on Early Childhood years in fact evidence shows that quality Early Learning programs result in short in short and long-term economic benefits to individuals and communities this year the nationally recognized we week week of the young child as mentioned by you mayor Giles is being celebrated next week from April 6th to the 13th first things first has partnered with the Arizona Association for the education of young children to join the annual national celebrations that focuses attention on early learning and the educators who support the positive development of young children this is a time when we can re reach out to our communities to celebrate young children and acknowledge the contributions of parents teachers caregivers and community members on behalf of young children young children are our future and there are many ways that the city of Mesa Community members can come together for children some of these ideas are supporting early literacy initiatives thanking Educators and caregivers who educate and nurture young children and work toward public policies that benefit all young children on behalf of the Early Childhood Community I express my sinc sincere gratitude thank you well thank you again for the great work you're do in our community and and uh I'm sure uh council member spillsbury is frustrated she would like to talk about childhood literacy and some of the other priorities that we've set as a as a community uh but uh and I'm their yes and I'm sure we'll we'll get plenty of opportunities to talk about but this is very much a need in our community and we appreciate those who are stepping up to help us address it Council let's go and uh take a photograph with uh Dr Ganesh and uh celebrate this Proclamation we have members from our Southeast Regional partnership Council can they join pleas invite them up yes awesome thank you awesome thank you I'm going to stand in the middle because I'm holding the paper in Council District order right join yeah all right thank you thank you very much appreciate uh we have one more Proclamation I'm I'm proud to Proclaim April uh 2024 as fair housing month in Mesa this month recognizes the passing of the Fair Housing Act of 1968 which sought to eliminate discrimination and housing opportunities and to further housing choices for all Americans here to accept the proclamation and to tell us more about fair housing is city of Mesa Community Services development director Mary Brandon Mary did you know that we were calling your number on this oh come on up thank you no I'm I'm I'm sorry Michelle our housing director would will also be part of this Mary tells me it's my turn so okay great good evening mayor council we greatly appreciate your support um in honoring the proclamation for fair housing the Fair Housing Act protects people from discrimination when they are renting or buying a home getting a mortgage seeking housing assistance as well as engaging in any other housing related activities so we are going to be celebrating this month by promoting and educating um the community as well as doing social media updates press releases um so we definitely thank you for supporting fair housing thank you uh anything you'd like to add Mary thumbs up all right the boss did a good job didn't she all right thank you Council let's let's go down and again I take another photo with this Proclamation all right thank you very much uh next item on our agenda is the consent agenda we'll invite Mr Kevin Christopher forward to please read the consent agenda Kevin during our study session we removed item 5c if you didn't hear that thank you good evening mayor and council members these are the items on the consent agenda all items listed with an asterisk will be considered as a group by the city council and will be enacted with one motion there will be no discussion unless the council member or citizen requests in which event the item will be removed from the consent agenda and considered as a separate item item two approval a minutes of previous meetings as written item 3A act on liquor license application for American Patriots writers Club Monday event April 19th 922 South Country Club Drive item 3B act on liquor license application for ultimate imaginations one day event April 20th in the streets the Mesa downtown Entertainment District on North McDonald between pepper place and Main Street item 3 C Act liquor license application for lendus Elementary School parent teacher organization one day event April 27th 7900 East Eagle Crest Drive item 3D ion liquor license application for Maurice Coast Mazon XX 1352 East Broadway Road item 3E act on liquor license application for Total Wine and More 1834 South signal be Road item 3F act on liquor license application for Revel surf Beach Grill Pavilion 4503 South Power Road item 4A approving contract for downtown restaurant incubator project guaranteed maximum price this project is funded by the American Rescue plan act item 4B approving contract for Gateway Library construction manager at risk guaranteed maximum price number two of three this project is funded by 2018 General obligation bonds and the general obligation fund item 4 C approving contract for fire station 223 preconstruction services and construction manager at risk this project is funded by 2022 Public Safety bonds item 4D approving contract for fire station 224 preconstruction services and construction manager at risk this project is funded by 2022 Public Safety bonds item 4E approving use of a Cooperative contract for risers steps and risers skirting for the parks recreation and Community facilities Department this purchase is funded by the transient lodging tax item 4f approving three-year term contract with two years renewal options for a streetl monitoring system with nodes for the transportation department item 4G approving use of a Cooperative contract for the purchase of one five yard Mini concrete mixer body truck for the transportation department this purchase will be funded by the local Street sales tax item 5A approving resolution modifying fees and charges of the parks recreation and Community facilities Department item 5B approving resolution extinguishing a portion of a 20 foot Public Utilities easement located at 2055 West Riverview Auto drive to allow for construction of multif family development item 5c has been removed from the consent agenda item 5D approving resolution to acquire natural gas pipeline transmission capacity through participation in the bidding process and approving entry of associated contracts upon a successful bid for additional natural gas Transportation capacity at its clawen Gate station item 6A introduction of ordinance of zoning case 23- 940 for property generally located north of Baseline Road on the east side of Mesa Drive this is for a reone with the new planed area development overlay and major site plan modification to allow for modifications to two automobile dealerships an item 7A approving Subdivision plat for Enclave at Mountain Bridge the property gener located south of mcps Road and West of Ellsworth Road mayor and council members these are the items on the consent agenda thank you Mr Christopher um we don't have any other requests to take an item off the consent agenda do we no mayor we do not all right thank you we have a motion for approval by Mr Freeman seconded by Miss spillsbury please vote Mr Summers how do you vote I vote I thank you okay the motion passes unanimously with the council member go for absent uh first item off of the consent agenda is agend agenda item 5c this is approving and authorizing the city manager to enter into a memorandum of understanding between the city and rn1 real estate LLC for approximately 25 acres of city-owned land at the southwest corner of University and Mesa Drive um Mr Freeman I know you you asked to have this taken off the consent agenda would you anything you'd like to say on this item I would thank you mayor Chris Mr Bray I was just thinking how long have we owned this property how manyan many years has it been I sorry to put you on the spot uh it had to be 20 something like 9 late 90s yeah mayor that's the man next to you he was probably he was the one that was here mayor how long have we owned this property since before 1996 okay thanks mayor thank you not to put you on the spot Mr Bray but I I've been thinking about this and the importance of this uh opportunity we have to develop the property and I remember I think it's about 6 years ago we entered to a robust discussion with the neighborhoods and how the neighborhoods input would uh be important for this development and then obviously that development fell through so now we're with culdesac and and I know they build a great product however I'm still a little I'm very concerned about the parking on the property because realistically most of us drive everywhere and I I know we're trying to create a niche here in this develop have walkability and and using public transportation with parking as well but I I see that still not having enough parking the other thing is the timelines to build this I think the timelines are I think we're talking maybe 10 years out on everything so a lot can change between now and then but more importantly I want to see the neighborhood input on this whole project and that hasn't happened I know Mr mcy during the days we we spent a lot of time with the neighborhood discussion and and I felt like that was extremely important so with that I just took it off the consent consent agenda just to discuss some of my concerns so with that I'll yield to the blue card or whomever wants to speak thank you we have one blue card from the public uh Tim Tim Bole Tim welcome hi welcome or thank you mayor and memb of council for letting me speak um uh I'm an architect and I'm a developer I lived in New York for 10 years so I've lived without a car for 10 years so I know something about what that's like um I teach urban planning at ASU and so I'm looking a lot at how do we get our city to the next level and I'm always thinking ahead how do we do that um I've also started doing developments as well so I do architecture and then we're starting to do some of our own developments the theory being lousy stuff will come in and you can try to stop it but if you just build good stuff then the lousy stuff can't get in because the good stuff comes in first that's using the market to do it um three things I'm uh concerned about about the uh site 17 um I would say them the Three A's uh one that it needs to be amazing two it needs adequate parking and three it should be part of the American dream um it needs to be amazing that um when I saw there were two proposals originally one had movie studios and was kind of playing off of asus's film school that we have now in downtown I feel like this as it gets it to its next iterations should definitely emphasize the new identity that we're going to have we've got this film school now I think we should do something more with it we shouldn't just forget that we've put this giant building back here we should do something with it um I think we should reiterate that um the culde project in 10p is fantastic the architecture is fun it's fun to walk through um if you see the the top everything is skewed in neat and interesting ways this plan doesn't do that currently and I don't know if this is just a kind of a placeholder for how it's going to go but I would I would consider discussing with them how do you make this feel unique and interesting with building placement and everything like they did in Tempe um second is adequate parking I have a similar concern with council member Freeman um it's I've been reading that's described as a light rail uh related project um but it's a third of a mile to 2third of a mile from the closest Light Rail stop uh which means a five to a 15minute walk and in our famous summers in Arizona 5 to 15 minute walk is something pretty hard to to do um I've tried to do it many times when we first moved back from New York in August which was not the right time to move back here from New York we tried walking to the fries to do our grocery shopping like we did in New York and we almost died um so I would caution us on significantly reducing the parking um I think there's currently planned 800 spaces for a thousand units um what what we've noticed in our developments when people don't there's not enough parking people will park elsewhere we always consider that if there's a street they can park on if there's something they can Park on great um if there's not parking here will people start parking at the grocery store to the South or to the you know the place to the South will they be carrying groceries across University will people jwalk across University um that's something concerned to me there's not a good space if there's not adequate parking there's not a good space for that parking to go and then finally the American dream um Mesa was designed as an American Dream City many years ago with uh reduced um property taxes and everything so you could own your own home in Mesa I have six children of a rising generation and they have thousands of friends all of whom don't have any hope that they're going to be able to purchase a house at any time in the future and so I know that uh the market gets to decide whether things are for rent or for sale I would strongly emphasize any project that the city is sponsoring and pushing to make that project for sale that's what builds a foundation builds a a longlasting uh group of people living in the city and that's what keeps our kids coming back thank you very much for your time thank you Tim Council uh any discussion on this item Miss Pilsbury um yeah I guess I would just ask what um how much flexibility do we have is this this is just the umou right so a specific site plan things can still be looked at changed with feedback I mean I I also have the same concerns with parking obviously because I always do um and yeah again same boat with with kids and places to live and and wanting people to own and anyways I there's there's a lot of things we've talked about that I would like to have more input on um excited about this partnership with culdesac but definitely think there's things we need to work out so we have room to do all of that still correct M Mr Smith mayor and Council yes theou is just sort of the starting point right it sets out sort of the beginning of the negotiations in a general direction um but it we're not locked into it so but you know the developer obviously wants to know if they're going in the right direction and obviously they're hearing feedback back tonight too also um and so but we're not we're not bound by it it's um it's a non-binding agreement and as we've seen in other mou situations there there are changes that occur over time okay I mean the last thing we want to do is is make so many uh issues that they end up backing out and we lose this opportunity again so that's obviously not what any of our goal is but um but yeah I think there are some things we need to just make sure that we're looking at really carefully parking being one of them so thank you thank you Miss Duff um just a just a few comments we talked about a lot of these things at length during study session but um Jeff please correct me if I'm wrong we have the mlus a general understanding of what the objectives that this site will accomplish and the community goals and such right so our our agreement to AG to move forward on these basic the basic context of this development then we're going we're getting getting an appraisal and then we have a development agreement and how the price of the land what will be built we'll have that development agreement cover the entire All Phases or just the first phase All Phases and how it's all going to work and we'll be able to get a little bit more concrete it's going to go through a resign so it's going to go through the public process and planning and zoning and go through Council again and then we'll get into designs and and things like that but the objective of this property is to be car light so we don't want to get into the ratios that we have across the city um they prioritize Mobility community and open space and they prioritize Transit over cars and parking and that's the concept of this development of culdesac is doing this and they're talking about other options to make those uh to move from one from the development into downtown or to transit or other places through shuttles um bike sharing car sharing options if you need a car you can rent a car for just the time that you need it you don't have to own a car um which is much more efficient for the cost of living for sure so it and as time goes on our downtown needs to be that way we need to centralize where we do Park minimize the use of cars um to navigate across the street for the groceries to the other side of downtown that maybe can the the shuttles and have these wonderful micro Mobility or micro um multi-use paths to have other options and it's certainly decreases the cost of living to not have to own a car I own a car I live in downtown um I did go one year without a car just to see how long I could go and then I got this job at Council and I'm darting across this city um but I could spent so much less money and not having to own a car and this Uber when I needed one so there's a if we can be more efficient and being able to navigate within the densest part of our city and have all your services and amenities within a short distance if a family can get down to just one car or maybe just rent it when they need it it's it's a huge Improvement in the quality of life when we're people oriented instead of Transit oriented and this is one of the reasons I love culdesac and what they represent it's a lifestyle it's a choice uh we have all kinds of other developments and single family housing all around downtown you can choose um the lifestyle that you want um I'm not worried about I I think it's um we're moving into the future by agreeing to move forward with culdesac and so I'm not concerned about the parking and the American dream I think is of owning a house but is it really people want an excellent quality of life um owning ask the young people a lot of them don't want a house and they want they want to move wherever I think the quality of life is the most important I the American dream being tied to a house I think is very limiting in the idea of what the American dream is thank you thank you any other comments Council uh I'll add my two SS my priority for this location has always been I wanted this to be a neighborhood that people could be proud of a place like like East Mark or Dobson ranch or Red Mountain Ranch or what one of or the Citrus neighborhoods or where people are asked where do you live they'll be proud of this neighborhood and they'll say I live in cesac Mesa and they'll be proud of that and and this a this is not a uh an unknown entity the culdesac development Tempe is been very successful uh we were at an at an awards banquet just a week ago uh picking up some awards for the city of Mesa and one of the other honoraries was the culdesac Tempe development because it is very high quality and there is a long waiting list for people to move into cuac temp because it's a it's a well planned uh it's well executed uh and I am I'm excited that we have cuac to partner with in this uh this piece of that has been that has challenged us for decades many decades uh so I'm I'm genuinely excited now this will not be a a carbon copy of culdesac temp this will be culdesac Mesa and it is not located directly on the light rail so there will be uh accommodations uh to that reflect that it's not you know temp is is car zero so there there will be parking here for folks with cars and and frankly if you uh are tied to a car you won't want to live here uh there and there's plenty of you know Melody on Main and many other wonderful options for people that uh that are tied to an automobile uh so I I I'm excited because this is a this presents diverse housing we need to have all types of housing in downtown Mesa we need to have yes we do need to have owner occupied uh along with with rental properties and right now this project is presenting with a long uh you know significant amount of town homes that that are proposed to be for sale by you know um for sale properties so there is some diversity here it's again this is a a developer and a project that is going to be high quality uh I think it will attract other businesses other people to our downtown uh so I am very excited about going forward with with cesac all right um having said that uh is there a motion on this uh agenda it council member spillsbury has made a motion to approve seconded by council member Duff please vote council member Summers how do you vote i v i thank you uh motion passes uh with five eyes council member Freeman voting no and council member go forth absent thank you uh next item on our agenda item eight is a presentation on the heat relief program and heat Rel relief services offered in the city of Mesa and Maricopa County and after the presentation we have a resolution approving a an intergovernmental agreement with Maricopa County to accept funds related to the provision of heat uh relief services in Mesa including a day respit Center uh Lindsay binki thank you for being here thank you for running our uh the Human Services programming uh tell us a little bit about this uh this partnership with or the the agreement to accept the these this funding from Maricopa County okay good evening mayor and council members I am Lindsay Blinky I'm the deputy director for our community services department and I oversee our office of Homeless Solutions um we are happy and thankful um to be receiving funding from the Maricopa County public health department and in collaboration with them um through with those funds we do plan to stand up a day resit Center in Mesa in partnership with Resurrection Street Ministry this is what we did last year um so we are continuing to be there it was a very successful program and services will be offered miday through September uh so a day respit Center is has comprehensive Services it is a place where people can get out of the heat they can rest they can receive food and water and also there are a lot of wraparound support services so if someone is homeless and coming to this site there are opportunities for them to meet with a navigator and hopefully begin to work out of homelessness we are also excited there will be um a new bilingual call center that is um provided through the county so that anyone in the county can call and um get help in finding a heat Relief Center um including those in Mesa and there will be new no cost Transportation assistance opportunities as well as part of the county these are Loc that we know of so in addition to the day resit Center there will be cooling centers in Mesa um at the Salvation Army in Mesa can there's also Hydration Stations at posa Christo St Vincent dep Paul and United Food Bank um and there could be others Beyond this these are the ones we know of today so we've talked about um Outreach and who is impacted by the heat related deaths and and we've heard that um there's a lot of data surrounding this so what we're doing right now is collecting that data and really looking at what happened last year in Mesa and trying to identify what areas are at most risk or where people were impacted most by heat so this will impact the um the unhoused population we are in constant discussion with our Our First Responders our Public Safety responders excuse me as well as our street Outreach teams so we're talking to them regularly they are on the street during the summer they see people people and they know where those hot spots are so we will make sure that um we are all in collaboration on that we also know that people that are unhoused um are also impacted by the heat so uh We've provided this information tonight this will be part of our Outreach campaign as we continue to analyze the data we'll discover um which areas are are in need of that Outreach we will do also some social media and really get out into neighborhoods work with our neighborhood leaders and HOAs um and mobile home parks and help them spread Public Safety information about heat we will have some proactive messaging too to help people prepare for the heat so that we're not waiting till the middle of the summer to do that and this slide just reflects the emergency rehab program um most notable air conditioning repair and replacement would be key to get um in motion right now if you would qualify for this program or if you know someone who might you have a vulnerable neighbor this would be great information to share with them and we will help to get that messaging out as well there are some eligibility criteria a phone number here and we've listed all of this um we do have a repair of my home uh website that has all this information we've also um begun to build our summer safety website and so right now we do have the emergency rehab information on there and um any cooling center or day respit Center we know of and we will continue to build that out we'll add safety tips and then we'll use that information again to go out into the community and share that thank you Lindsay uh if you don't mind I do have some some questions I I asked to pull this from the consent agenda just so that we could have another public discussion about it and raise awareness about it so thank you for all that you're doing uh last week uh I attended a a MAG meeting where the statistic was was mentioned that last year in Maricopa County 6 50 people died from heat related causes uh which was a 50% increase over the previous year uh I suspect that the the record-breaking heat that we saw last summer and most of those deaths occurred during July and August when we were experiencing that that extreme heat that we are all so familiar with my my concern is and I know that that that you and and our staff are meeting with Dr sunshine and the Miracle begany health department and others and and our fire chief to explore uh to do a deeper dive into that that very somber 650 fatalities number for Maricopa County and to to try to find out how many of those were in Mesa is there uh what can we learn from those statistics so uh I I'm looking forward uh to you and the city staff coming back to us with uh more detailed interpretation of those St statistics so we know if there are mobile home parks or homeless encampments or or or where we can almost predict uh with with the fair amount of certainty that these deaths are going to occur so I'm looking forward to to to that but I have to say I I'm I'm a little concerned because I think right now that the plan that that that we just reviewed is pretty much the same thing that we did last summer or or can you tell me at this stage are we proposing doing something different than we did last summer or is the funding pretty much static and this is what we can afford to do um so mayor thank you for that question we are analyzing that data right now so we have not been provided the details um on locations and causes for for those unfortunate deaths from last season um we are gathering that we have a meeting tomorrow with our key staff and departments to further discuss and create that proactive Outreach um so we have always reached out to mobile home communities that are more vulnerable um and have higher levels of cost for service and so we will continue to do that and we will utilize any findings through data um that show us you know that certain areas are more likely to have issues we will use that data and do very targeted door-to-door Outreach if if that's what is warranted um but we have done some of that in the past I now we're doing a more Ro robust plan and we are accessing that data which we have not had access to in the past you mentioned the emergency rehab program and and the city has moved uh significantly more money into that program this year than previously uh can you talk a little bit about that and and also you mentioned a uh a telephone number for to alert people of what resources may be available is that the 211 number or is there something else uh mayor no there will well we don't know yet um the county is developing that number right now so as soon as we have that we will place that on our summer safety page and begin to spread the word about that it is not functioning right now um it would function just during the high heat months and they are um we've asked them for it after last week's meeting we will they don't have it yet so um I believe it will be it it may be an addition to 211 so we'll let you know as soon as we have that information um emergency rehab program it does Grant assistance up to $25,000 for an emergency repair so those um repairs are highlighted here again um primarily in the in the summer months and and related to heat related deaths we would look at the um repair and replacement of air conditioning so what we want PE the public to know right now is if you know someone that is vulnerable um older and unable to make this repair themselves and they you know they have an air conditioning that's not functioning we want to hear from you now um and see if if you might apply for this uh qualify for this program so that we can start doing that proactively before it gets too hot and they really need that service to to be safe great thank you I think that's the message we want at this point that's what we know and what we want to get out that's right and and I'll and I'll just uh again say uh I know that that City staff is uh committed to uh addressing that that unacceptable number of deaths in Maricopa County and and I don't know how many of them are in Mesa but I'm anxiously looking forward to finding out how and where those people died uh and what we can do in addition to what we've done previously to to lower those to lower that total and I and I know I speak for the count entire Council when I say yes may I hear you loud and clear and we will be sure to do that all right thank you Council any additional discussion on this item Mr Freeman thank you Lindsay in case of an emergency where's the Respite Center going to be at it will be at 11:35 East Main Street is where the day respit Center is so again that's a fuller service of options there are other cooling centers in the community and those are more of like air conditioning and water is available not as many services and um again those are on our website right now of what we know and we'll add any more as they become available so I think in in some of our districts we have aging trailer parks like I mentioned before so it's important for us to message to those trailer parks to where they can get help and then in case they need a place to go temporarily then this is the perfect place and then utilize our emergency services and then Navigators as well will they help or um yes if we're aware of um a community that needs outreaching to we can activate people and and help educate or get them connected to services so do we have a hotline then obviously um we have the homeless resource line so there will be all of our heat related um services and access to assistance will be on that line um and then we will also have that transportation and help line that the county is standing up as well okay may it' be helpful if our council districts had that maybe give that to our district coordinators we can put that on our websites as well thank you thank you Mr Freeman Council any additional discussion on this item all right thank you very much Lindsay we look forward to uh ongoing discussions about this before the the high temperature sit so we can hopefully um come up with a good response um Council uh is there a motion to proceed thank you council member spillsbury for making that motion seconded by vice mayor Heredia please vote Mr Summers how do you vote I vote I thank you that passes unanimously with council member gforth absent uh next item on our agenda are items from citizens present Miss Mosley do we have any requests to speak on this agenda item no request mayor all right thank you that concludes our agenda for this meeting is there a motion to adjourn thank you miss spillsbury all in favor please say I I Mr I thank you we are [Music] adjourned