Flagstaff City Council Adopts Strategic Planning Framework to Operationalize Community Priorities and Establish Accountability Metrics

But no, I think my front house is usually had a good winter in our front yard. Okay. Let's do this thing. And a quiet falls over the room. Welcome everyone. Today is Thursday, August 27th. Council member Garcia will be providing the music for the day. Uh, I'm calling this meeting to order and giving notice that at this meeting, uh, the city council may vote to go into executive session for legal advice on any item listed on the following agenda. Can we have roll call? Mayor Dagot here.

Vice Mayor here. Sorry, lost my notes. Council member House, I'm here. Council member Matthews here. Council member Spence here. Council member Garcia, would you lead us in the pledge of allegiance? I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands one nation under God indivisible with the liberty of it all in front of you. I have it memorized. Wow. city of Flagstaff is to protect and enhance the quality of life for all.

Uh, council member Alen, do you have a don't have that one memorized yet? I am very fond of it. The Flagstaff City Council humbly acknowledges the ancestral homelands of this area's indigenous nations and original stewards. These lands, still inhabited by native descendants, border mountains sacred to indigenous peoples. We honor them, their legacies, their traditions, and their continued contributions.

We celebrate their past, present, and future generations who will forever know this place is home. Thank you. Great. I'll turn it over to you, city manager. Good morning. I was going to make the joke that we're going to change the mission statement now that council member Spence hasn't done that. We're not going to do that. Um, Well, just welcome to everybody uh here in the room, council. Uh we have members of our leadership team here, members of the public.

Um we're really excited to spend this day today with uh with Mike Lecher, who um you all know Mike. Mike has been facilitating some uh retreats with council and myself. It's a new city manager. Yesterday we spent almost the entire day with the leadership team uh plan talking about our um strategic focus areas and spent a lot of time working on uh project identification and that's that's I Mike's going to walk into what the plan is today.

Um but my goal as um you know city manager that you've all hired is to make sure that we have alignment between council um and our leadership team on those projects particularly moving into the budget process. Um so excited to talk about um some of those today and it it feels like there's alignment. I think that's that's exciting and that's healthy for the organization. Um, I think just and I've repeated this a few times, but we are definitely in a time of transition right now.

Not only with uh, you know, uh, city council hiring me in November as city manager. Um, we have some staff transitions, we have a transition in our our budget process. Um you all know that we pretty kind of pretty quickly when we came in um dissolved the kind of what was the budget team.

And the idea behind dissolving that budget team was to get our leadership team uh more engaged and have that team be kind of that that team that is talking about um you know the big budget items for the organization. And what I will say from yesterday is that um it was a tough day. I think we all every member of our leadership team was engaged um provided some really great feedback.

But I I would say kind of one of the takeaways I had from yesterday was that it was clear that our leadership team hasn't always been at the table and involved. So I think it's an exciting time to kind of bring all of us together. Um Mike's gonna kind of walk through what we're doing today. And we obviously have um our great team here to answer any questions. Um some online as well. Um Sarah Dar is at a uh is down in Phoenix at the state housing conference.

With that, um I just want to turn it back over or turn it over to Mike and I know you're going to introduce yourself. Appreciate it. Thank you. Good seeing you all again. Yeah. Yeah. Well, yesterday was a great day.

Uh, I can tell you in the 15 years of doing this consulting work, I have never had as much engagement on a leadership team in terms of just totally being focused on what needed to be um changed in terms of the and you got the track changes yesterday with the focus areas and and the strategies and and also the the projects. So just I just want to start by thanking them uh for their work.

It was a lot of work and and Stacy, thank you because I type about my son's sick and in fact I talked to him this morning so Michael could make it up. I typed about 40 words a minute. So Stacy uh what a help yesterday making those track changes. It would have been a miserable day if I had to do do the typing. So, um, you guys know about me and and Michael, uh, we, you know, great, really appreciate being able to work, uh, work with you all. And today, there's there's we had an original plan.

We'll stick with we're still going to go through and focus on some future changes that you want in your your vision, your mission, and your core values. We're just going to ask for your thoughts on changes that you might want because and I'll go over your your survey results on those. It looks like in the in the vision statement probably some adjustments that you may want to make.

Um mission doesn't look explain some of the core values because there was some a little bit of uh uh you know so you understand what those are the intent of those intent of those are they asked for originally we're going to ask for direction on the focus areas and strategies for you to give us amendments but you just got those track changes last night I mean how many of you had a chance so didn't want to put you under didn't want to put you under pressure today to uh to make those changes and um so we're going to we're going to talk about that in a few minutes and then we're definitely going to get direction from you on on the project.

So this is what's today. Still look at the we're still going to look at the vision, mission, and core values for any future wording changes you want in those. We're going to we're going to introduce the proposed focus areas and strategies. And then there's going to be a workshop scheduled for you later to really do a deep dive in there. So you're not today feel like you're under the gun where you have to make those those changes. What we are going to nail down is the project.

You got about between you and the uh leadership team there's about 70 projects. Most of the projects a lot of the projects being um a few for this year. Majority are for which is really great are teed up for 28 but some of those projects you got a lot of projects going on in 28. We may want to move some of those to 29 uh based on you know on staff's time. So the real focus is going to be nailing down nailing down the the projects. So, why didn't we change?

You know, you just why did we make this change? Well, first of all, you just you just received it and didn't want to put you in a position where oh, we've got to now, you know, look through this and really try to make uh a decision as council. Secondly, focus the our focus areas and your focus areas and strategies and I did a total pivot on this line and develop from your community priorities. You have seven currently have seven community priorities.

We added one more so it's eight which is your fiscal sustainability but those community priorities uh which are you've worked under have been uh embraced by the community and and they're quite frankly are different from the focus areas that our firm usually recommends. So we had to make a pivot. I'm actually happy we made the pivot because after I did a deep dive into the community uh your community priorities, they're good. I mean, you did a good job on those.

And then we were able to you have some objectives under those. So, we converted those objectives to strategies. So, what we've done is operationalize your community priorities. That's that's really really good. So, you still have the priorities, but now you have a strategic plan that'll be able to implement them. So we I know there probably most boarding changes on that with the work done by the the uh leadership team yesterday and we just didn't want you making those on on the spot rather.

So we're we're going to focus today the finalizing finalizing every single have five focus areas and we have we we limit the focus area descriptions to three to you know so it's really tight. You guys have more than three to four and it's good. You guys have more than three to four sentences. You've got because of your objectives. You've got more strategies that normally would have, but it's all tied to your community priorities. That's good.

So, there is a lot of work yesterday um that the leadership team did, but looking at that, you know, looking at that frame and then saying we're going to now have the council today folks on projects. We didn't want to rush that time. So you got the document and and um wanted to make sure that you were so we want to the biggest thing is the projects and the manager could arrive. We want to make sure that the work staff does the work you do is aligned with you and the council.

Ultimately, at the end of the day, every project we've got in there, we want you to say that looks that's something we can move forward on or and also adding the projects in that you have some of the projects you have u recommended the staff and we'll show you where the staff is going to be working on those.

There's some that you've recommended the staff didn't um you know didn't discuss yesterday because I wanted to make sure that the council was aware of your projects so we could focus on Mike. Does that thus far make kind of sense? And I see a few nods. Okay. So, how could the change? We're going to allow the council focus more time on take looking at the changes that we made to the focus areas, but we're going to allow the council we're really going to focus today on the projects as I mentioned.

So, the idea is to um to get both the council and leadership team aligned on the projects that you're going to work on. That's especially important because we're right around the corner guys from guess what fiscal year is it 28? Whoa 28. So this is you know this is a good thing.

So we are going to this allows everyone all of us to row together uh the strategic plan and and the talk a little bit I think I've shared this with you at past meetings is a lot of times councils asked what does a strategic plan do for us okay I mean we've got day-to-day operations responsibility of the manager and the leadership team right generally you've got resident and constituent concerns that you have to you have to address. How many of you that rest contacting you? Yeah.

Yeah, that happens, right? You've got your council meetings every what? Two weeks. Oh, every week. So, every week. Wow. Okay. Well, you've got the council meetings. So, a strategic plan is going to help you improve all of these areas. It's going to help you because the strategic projects will be become part of your your council meeting focus. It's definitely going to help as part of projects to make sure you're more responsive and more effectively responsive to your citizens.

And then it it it's all about day-to-day operations. And our your charter, I know, says the council can't get involved in day-to-day operations, but guess what? with a strategic plan, you know exactly what the staff is focusing on to improve day-to-day operations. And that's a cool really cool thing because the two areas that usually between here and here, it's three and one is where um I I call it the uh black hole.

Uh and and why it's black hole is if you don't have a strategic plan, what's your council what drives your council agenda?

What what priorities drive that that agenda and the development of that agenda and the projects and the initiatives you're working on comes up whatever come every day whatever comes up you know uh yeah it's whatever comes up the and it doesn't mean that those things aren't going to come up that you know either citizens raise or community are wanting to focus on but you've got a plan you've got I'll say during you may have 15 or 20 major your initiatives that you're working on that those are that's going to drive your agenda.

You know that that's your bread and butter. It doesn't mean that you're not still going to deal with the routine stuff, but you moved your you you've stepped up your game. That's really cool. The day-to-day operations is like that's my job as a city manager. But but with the strategic plan, you now have projects that are going to be directed for the staff operationally to work because that makes sense and and now you'll know okay this is important.

So you it's not that you're going to interfere but you're going to comes for that for the work and that is a really really great thing because otherwise you end up at a black hole. It's like when a problem comes up then we're going to try to address if you know a new issue comes up oh that's going to become a major that's going to be the direction we're going to go in and you're all over the place.

Um it's yeah so your level you counsel this is got trust me this is really true you determine the level the staff focuses on if you're only interested in all you know there are some councils that are down here just in daytoday nothing you know they look at these two levels they never get they these are the three levels they focus on they never get here they never get the four and if you get the four every everything can change and that's what you're going to do.

So strategic planning dimming plan which you're is you're going to focus on today you're going to do which is we're going to focus on the do part because how many of you you know as a council how many of you have had you've done there have been strategic plans in the organizations or where you worked yeah were they effective no most of I'll tell you why because let me tell you they only focus on this which isn't bad and the strategy and the objectives and and then they go oh from the strategies and objectives you can decide and do your work.

Well, wait, you just left us with these esoteric ideas, but where do we get the work done? So, the plan that you have is not just your various strategies. Guess what? You've got projects really parting focuses on is the do you're and that's what we're going to focus on on today. So, if you don't have a strategic plan, uh there's a guy Peterson Gay. How many of you have whiteboards? Council members have you have a a list of priorities you're going to do during the day? Sorry.

I also have their whiteboard. You have white? I'm almost old school, but I'm going to get one. I saw somebody with one of those and I'm gonna They're kind of expensive, but I'm gonna buy one. Okay. Good. Good. Please. So, the thing is most of us have like we check off. We have all the stuff we do during the day, right? It's routine. And I have a whiteboard. I have all the stuff I want to do. And I got on. So, one side's Mike, you got to do this. This is priority one. This is priority two.

You guys are already always priority one. And then I've got another side that's all my really like deep thinking stuff that I need to work on to kind of, you know, to help my clients and and teaching and stuff like that. What do you think I spend most of my time on? Is it the strategic or is it this routine stuff? It's the routine. It chews up my time. I I've got stuff that's been on the strategic side for months. And that's what happens if you don't have a plan and this is just the bottom line.

I mean, yeah, if you don't have a strategic plan that provides direction that you agree to that provides direction to staff, then you're stuck in the routine. You're not moving the needle ahead. The great thing about a plan is you're still going to do routine stuff as a city, but you know the big stuff is getting done. You know they're going to punch through. You've got 15 projects here. You're gonna punch through. You're gonna get them done. You're gonna make a difference.

Give you an example of Sedona. You guys are all familiar with Sedona. Uh the um we put in a strategic plan in 96. And one of the one of the big issues in there was we didn't control the the uptown uh area. 89A was under ADOT. And one of the initiatives that the council said is we want a to be turned back to the city so we could put in the necess well all those pedestrian improvements that you see now that was done over 20 years ago.

Uh that that but they started that effort and and I I left I went to Tucson before you see this. So every year they had a plan. That effort was done because of a plan well over you know over over time and look at the difference it's made for the community. If it had just stayed it was a mess a mess before. So paradox of routine dayto-day you know get away from the day-to-day focus more on the uh the strategic. And why do you want to focus on the strategic is that's managing.

You can shape your future. You can does that make sense? I mean, you can do things now. Think about this. This is you're this is a great thing. You know, you're you're elected to, you know, to to serve the citizens in this this community. And but not only the service today, you you're looking, you know, you have an opportunity with a strategic plan to look over and say, "These are some things we can do in the future.

This is some these are you know small things that can make a huge difference in people's lives um not only in terms of their the economic well-being of the community but the social well-being and every everything can change by just being able to take the time to make by the way we are going to take a once I get done with this we'll um we'll take take a break uh this is just tease it up then we get into the actual work on the things but I want to give you a little basis and then you're going to have a chance to ask some questions on this.

So, why is a strategic plan important? You do a budget every year, right? What's the biggest expense in the the budget for you council employees? Hey, council member. Absolutely right. Now, where is their time being spent? They're doing a lot of work. I I put a little chart in the book that shows, you know, a department head. There's a lot. It's like a fullcourt press. You're managing a department. You're nothing. You're you sometimes have to respond to council members.

You uh you're dealing with a an iate citizen over here. My my son's the the city manager in Eloy. He we talked yesterday and I said, "Hey, son. How'd your day go?" He says, "Well, I had a there's a guy that comes in. He's a Russian immigrant could speak a little bit. It was and it was a really serious issue. That was not something that he pl you see where I'm going. The department head was dealing with it and he had to like get out of what he was doing and go over there.

It it is a fullcourt press. So then the question becomes how do we carve out how do we carve out a little bit of this a little bit of this time of these folks to get the strategic stuff done? And that's where the strategic plan comes in. But you know that's where we have to control. We have to determine what are the most important projects to get done. What are the things because we've got a limited amount of bandwidth.

Even though you know that and this is I can tell you it's every city we've worked with because we're not private sector we're public sector but if you're if you're private sector you know exactly in terms of the productivity and measurement your employees and what their bandwidth is and what they're doing and all that it's monitored and everything else but we are straight out here. The one thing the private sector doesn't have like my brother was a corporate attorney. They don't have citizen.

They don't have stakeholders uh customers coming in and screaming at them dayto day, you know, they're they're insulated. Their boards don't have public hearings, right? They just get it done. So they they have a pretty good life. We have we're in a complex an incredibly complex environment. So we need to focus on and today looking at those when we think about there's a lot of stuff that we want to do and you you saw a lot of strikethroughs in that report.

Those are things that we might want to work on that staff may want to work on later. There are some things that are what are the most important things that we want to get done that get us the results that actually get results. Get results improving the organization gets results improving the community. Does that make sense? Kind of. Yeah. Sort of. Okay. You guys still with me? Uh I'm getting through this. We also wanted the plan integrated integrated in your operations.

So every year you do the budget that plan come the plan you'll also decide these are the projects we'll do. So you'll approve your budget for 28. You'll also approve this is a great thing. You'll approve the staff's work plan. Here's the projects we're going to do. And then that'll be monitored. That'll be held the between the city manager and all of the staff. all of your leadership team will be accountable for getting that done. Okay.

Um then you'll have that go you'll know when they come to your agenda item Stacy will put this is a strategic project based in this focus here and all that and it'll be everything's updated every year in your budget.

The great thing is is you if you have a project something really comes up important during the year um and I'll talk about that in just a few minutes later is that there's an operating policy you can maybe have 15 projects you say this one moves out to another year we're going to insert this one because this is a priority. So even though when you do 27 when you do your 27 budget you may seem maybe we want to move this project out to 28 and add another project in for 27. Does that make sense?

So, it's it's it's agile for you and for staff. The bottom line is is to remember there's only a limited amount of time to get stuff done. And again, what is the most important things to get done? So, going this real quick. Everything's tied to your guys's key priorities. Trust me when I we we did a real good pivot on this and I want to thank the city manager because I was like, "Oh, I've got I've got my you know, this is how I've trust me, folks.

For 15 years, we've done it with every client around the country. We've got five maximum, maybe six focus areas." No, Mike, we want these priorities. And I looked at the priorities. I Whoa, this is going to be a lot of fun. But it's a great thing because these are aligned already to your community. you've already uh paid for the territory as a military such you've already already done it. So why reinvent it? And and thank thanks to to Joan.

I want to thank you because I was looking at your surveys going why is it that I'm not getting I'm looking at oh we don't necessarily like these focus areas. I was thinking I'm slow but I catch on quick enough. Uh okay.

uh you cannot you can determine the outcomes that you want in this organization as a board but you have to speak with one voice one voice Carter this Carter governance talks about your seven wonderful individuals so how do you speak with one voice to give the outcomes to the community to the organization for them to get things done and once you do that through a strategic plan the means of how that gets done is then but you you've really determined when you approve these product you add these whatever we end up at the end of the day that's going to be that is going to be the outcomes you want the organization to achieve the means of getting it done is going to be left up to Joanne but it'll be brought back they'll bring back the proposals to the council uh for approval all of your city plans that you have in the future every plan that be developed separate from the strategic plan will be will be uh will uh you can you can you can include it uh the items to be implemented.

So but it's strategic plan about it's about being deliberate about the future. I I um I love the future. You know, every I at every every organization I worked in uh from the time I was um except when I was a kid being trained had issues. When I went to Vermont, they had issues. When I went to Sedona, they had issues. When I went to Tucson, wow. Uh I found heaven. They had a lot of issues.

Uh but any case the fact is is that without having the not only dealing with what you have to deal with today but if if we and the folks I worked with hadn't focus on the future all of those places it would have been a disaster because it's not just about what you've got to do today a citizen that's in front of you saying I've got this issue and everything else but that's important.

You've got to focus because those are the people that either elected us or those are in our case the people we serve because we served you. But it's really good to change everything in the future to make everything better. So that citizen complaint doesn't come in. Citizen complaint doesn't come in because you've already resolved it. You figured out a way that can work through it. So it's deliberate excludes. It's not routine.

None of this none of this strategic plan is routine items um that you you can do. um and your day-to-day operations that get done. It's really about managing the future and just maybe you'll answer if you'll go back a slide. Sure.

Um on the exclude um clearly we need the budget to align with what our goals or and I bring this up because you know one of the things I complain a lot about is the speed of government right and um Sarah's online she'll remember this conversation but when we passed the housing bond I was like oh yay what are you doing now you know three months into it and they're like oh no we've got got to wait till next year to get approval for another FTE and then we have to do you know and it was like a twoyear process just to start implementing it and now we're doing a great job implementing it but you know can you just reassure my mind why I get why it's excluded but it also is necessary that we combine the two it's a great question and a very good question Yes, your strategic plan items will have some of them will have budgetary impact and that's why it's tied to the to the budget.

This is your day-to-day like funding the the fire department. U nothing against you chief. Uh they're still going to fund you. The uh funding fire department, police department, you're going to every year you're going to provide funding for those. That's routine. But the and that's why that's why a lot of or that's a great question uh counselor. A lot of organizations fell they don't tie the strategic plan.

So you're going to look and when when um Joan and the staff present and these projects come to you, you know, they'll be they're going to come during the budgetational when they present them, they'll say, "Okay, this is just time. This is just the this project doesn't have a cost, but it's time." But then there's going to be this is going to cost. And then you can decide do we is this important enough for us to to allocate resources to or not and if not then well we don't do it.

So it's does that make sense? So it's definitely linked. Yeah. Otherwise if you don't have the money that's the biggest problem with you they I'm sorry I we have gone in to that paid tremendous amount of money. I mean a lot of money for strategic plans that are aspirational that have these global objectives and they where where it becomes problematic for them is when those things they try to start implementing them and they're tons of money. We can't do that.

Well, of course you can't do it because it wasn't tied into your your budget and then you have these citizens that look at that document and go, "Oh, wow. Well, you said you were, you know, you were going to accomplish X, Y, and Z." Well, no, because you didn't have the money to do that. So, we make sure it's in front. Does that help? Yes, ma'am. Well, good. So, we're going to have a collective vision, all of us. Seven voices, you speaking one voice from the council strategic plan.

Here's our here's our priorities for the city. Ones that have come from the leadership team, ones that have come from you, and here's the direction we're going to go in. This is what we're going to do. And every single year, guys, during the budget, boom. There's we we improve them, we improve, we add more, they move out of the year, the next year, we improve them, and it's just a cycle. Uh it it's really really good.

Um so it I have this thing when I tell you it's like if we get so many complaints uh every year I've presented for the last eight years at ICMA with our national organization and I do talk to city managers about working with their their governing boards and and the you know it's just you guys are a great council. I'm not saying that because you're paying me, but there is a there even without folks that are we don't do a good job at city managers of providing structure for our council.

We don't and I'm talking not just the the budget that's simple but you know strategic planning like we tell them that's a form that allows the council to function. If you don't, you remember when I show you that chart where you have otherwise you have chaos because every week or two weeks they're going to come up with some and you're going to come up with some and they're going and then they're whining about why are they doing that? Well, why are they're doing that?

Because you haven't got you you have not provided a shared priorities. You're doing what you want to do, what we're trained to do as city managers, but your council has not bought into that. And a lot of times you end up wasting a lot of staff time because when it when it comes to council, guess what? Oh, they didn't approve it. Well, were they engaged in it in the beginning?

You know, it's just it it's a simple thing, but a little form, a little time to take about how to work with your council more effectively makes a huge difference. And and that's the reason I love doing this work because you guys, if we work together, us and you, we can do incredible things. Incredible things. And that's why uh strategic planning is so important. So I'm pausing and then we're going to talk a little bit. Yes. Talk you and I'll listen.

Uh so what are the benefits of a strategic plan for you? I've kind of given you a a thousand foot view. What what do you what's the benefit for you for you as a council?

It helps remind me uh what our focus for me and I know that I'm the numbers geek but this is like a dream come true because our I know some people love the priority based budgeting process but to me that was just a lot of smoking mirrors without a goalpost you know and it just didn't give me a feeling of direction and um a measure And so I think doing this and this was a big discussion when we were uh choosing Joanne was um this was the most consequential thing she could implement.

And so I'm so excited that we are doing this because we can not only say it's a goal and we can not only say that it's a priority, but we actually have a plan because getting back to that speed of government, it's like yes, we want to do that, but oh yeah, it's five years out, so we can re-evaluate that and that's where maybe the budget comes back in. It's like, you know, do we need to reallocate funds or or something?

But this actually, as you said, I, you know, living in that space in the corporate world for so long, I mean, this will get us really where we want to go instead of just lip service. So, I'm excited about it. Alignment money. Oh, yeah. I love money. Sucks not that. Excuse me. It It's I like Well, yeah, it's nice having money when you're a city. It's like nice being a good steward of that money.

Being a good steward the community wants and they can see what our strategic plan is and see that we are applying that money that they're paying in taxes and and fees and stuff actually going to the banks that matter. So it's and that's a great thing council members. You'll be able to show the here's what we're working. You know this not esoteric. Not that there was anything wrong with your your objectives uh in the the community priorities, but now you've operationalized those objectives.

So these are the projects we're working on to meet those others. Yeah. Very good. Thank you. I appreciate the alignment. Yes. Yes. You know where we sit, we've got these resources, the pondrosa pine forest, the mountain, the natural uh transportation corridor, uh pioneered by the be wagon road and with all of these resources, uh we're a community and and we've exploited resources as a start, you know, the lumbering industry.

But coming to today, I think if we have a strategic plan, we can make use of of what God has given us in this in this location. And the the immediate thing that comes to mind is um McMillan Mesa where I can't remember how many years ago it was but it was a public referendum. How much of McMillan Mesa should be kept as open space versus development?

and a a compromise was reached in part because the citizens uh didn't come up with a big pot of money to um keep it all open space but there is still a lot of good open space uh up on that messa and I think having a strategic plan helps us to guide uh development lack of development Absolutely. I'll I'll take it one step further than what I said earlier. Um try to explain what I meant by that.

And for me, what it means is it gives us a chance to grapple with the same context and that the community is kind of grappling with in their everyday wondering of what's going on and why things are happening. And that this gives that same community a place where they could reach back and look at what council was talking about to highlight those issues and challenges u and then hear our perspective and how we're going to tackle that. Gives them a timeline and gives them a start and an end date.

These things can be beneficial. I'm I'm excited to work through the program though to see where um where some of the arguments and discussions that are happening in the community can fit into this realistically but we are have overlooked some of those discussion points. Yeah. Um so council member house says it makes sure we have an actual roadmap things are measurable trackable and transparent.

I love strategic planning because it gives a shared vision and shared direction to like ours while keeping us proactive instead of reactive. Yes sir. Yeah. Can I just back up for a minute if I may? Um, so I understand strategic planning. I understand the benefits and I'm I think it's wonderful that we're here and we're articulating this and and we're being very deliberate about it as a whole team.

Um, I'm having a hard time thinking back and conceptualizing our organization as writerless for this. So, we've kind of been doing this work, right? I I' I'd like to get a feeling like on a scale of one out of 10, um how much of a deficit this was before and um you know, uh just maybe have it articulated a little bit better um why this was so glaringly missing that we're taking a day to have a retreat about it.

Uh, and again, actually going through this process is very beneficial and it allows everyone to be on the same page. Um, but I I I just don't look back and remember uh the city of Flagstaff just doing only day-to-day things. Uh, and not really uh, you know, I this is a a compliment and a testament to the city. I I think you guys are very well attuned to what council wants. Um you have been the entire eight years I've been on council.

Uh you know there are moments when things happen or you know the vision gets distracted but uh how essential how essentially missing was this up until now? Yeah. Um that is a great question.

the uh I went back to this council member because you're right you you know I love this city by the way because I'm getting paid to be here again I I I really do um and this is most time I've spent in Flag and each time I'm up there I enjoy more you were you got things done but you weren't deliberate about it you the I mean you and the councils before you did some I'm looking it's clear to me there was some really good thought here.

The issue is you we're not your budget every what this allows you to do is unless you've done this when the when you approve the budget you're going to prove here's the 15 to 20 key priority things that we're going to work on I don't know what the number will be every year and they're both tied together. Now, if you've done that, that's deliberate it as opposed to, oh, let's just come up with an epiphany, you know, and and by luck getting things done because you've had competent councils.

But let me say I'm a new council member coming in. What's our game plan? What do we do? I've got I've run for office, right? I've campaigned hard and this is what sounds good. This is what Mike wants. Yeah. But then I come to the city and then I start that's what I'm I'm going to push as a council and I nothing.

Hey guys, I've worked with you guys like my whole life or as as an adult and uh and now I consult with you and I can tell you it's really hard for council members to kind of check one another. I'm going to tell you I can't tell you the number of times where it's like you know no I'm not I'm not going to do that. I'm, you know, you you can do it as a consult, but I'm not going to check that person or, you know, they'll have the manager.

Uh, so this allows you to be very deliberate as a group about what you're doing as a new council member. I've got the game plan and I've just got to like uh the council member or C said here, I've got some things I want to see added in. We'll see if they can if the rest of you agree, those are the things we'll do. But it's it's awesome. It's just about being deliberate. You guys have done a great job. I'd like to hear from Joanne on this. Okay, then I'll stop.

Just relate it back to the priority based budgeting because I feel like we have developed key community priorities um by name, by label. Uh and those have been available and it's it's a it's been a living uh document so to speak. Um, and I just be I I'm not seeing what we're doing here as missing from the past. Uh, so just help me understand the gap. Sure.

Um so council member I think from my perspective um what happens is you all bring things forward as projects and right now we don't have a way of um including those in our work plan for the division. So I think it's an opportunity for us to get those council priorities included in our projects.

Um on the other side it's an opportunity I think for staff to really understand what direction is and what they what specific projects that because I you know I we're I think we are in a different position where I think our resources are going to be more constrained um and I think we need to be looking at um prioritizing what we're working on. Um, I think we've we kind of continue to say that core services are our priorities. Um, but that doesn't always get translated.

So there there are things kind of constantly that are brought up to staff about working on them outside of those core priorities. So identifying what those are and giving um us a clear direction I think will be incredibly helpful. And then working on those together. Um and I and I would say yes. I mean, we've been using PBB and the community priorities, and I think continuing to use those community priorities.

Um, I think we can do a better job now of prioritizing, you know, what we're working on and having leadership and council aligned. Does that help? I don't think I I don't think we were rudderless. And I I guess I I wanna Yeah. And I I want to be really clear about that. I think um I think it's just a a different way of doing it and and one that you know has that kind of shared governance model that um I shouldn't use that word governance that comes from my NA days.

Um but that you know working together and giving us some clear direction I think will be really helpful. Does that help? It does. Thank you. miss you. I was wanting to ask a question that was relevant to this. I I appreciate your perspective, Robin. Um, so the question for me is is how often are we going to be taking place? Is this going to be taking place as a council? every two years, every four years.

And then my comment would be I think it would be more beneficial understanding regardless of the timeline that we're going to choose to jump back into this to um do it with new council members as well. Yes. So, council member, I mean, it's a um it's a great question and I think it's just a bit of an awkward year just with an election, but my goal would be to do that um prior to starting our budget process to to kind of look at the that project list.

I mean, the goal is to have a three-year project list and then if we need to revisit some of those um and likely doing those probably December of each year. Okay. As the process goes, it'll become refined. We'll become more used to it, streamlined. Instead of multi-day, it might be more condensed. Thank you.

One thing that um I like about this is, you know, I I'm big on communication and making sure that the community understands what we're working on and and actually sees what we're working on and and and you know that parts of that have been said before so that the public sees what what um how money is being used And so I'm looking for a way to um kind of keep this in our in our discussions all year long without you know necessarily big retreats but just coming back to it and coming back to where we are on the projects and where we are on our priorities.

And like what you said about new council members, I think that that's spoton, right? because um every election season we see we see new council members coming in and um it and and it's clear that we haven't done an adequate job communicating to the public what we're already doing because you hear candidates say we should be doing this and it's like well we are doing that um we obviously ly haven't communicated it well enough. So, the communication part is the part I'm most looking forward to.

Council member Matthews and then Council Member House. And just to add to that, um being in the midst of a candidate forum season, you know, the ongoing theme is what are you going to do?

and without a document, you know, a strategic plan to say, you know, well, every year, you know, we review the strategic plan and because it gets blurred, the lines get blurred, especially with candidates that aren't on council yet to understand the manager counsel, you know, uh, relationship and how we run this government.

And so a lot of people think, oh, you're going to go in and you're going to go over to, you know, streets and tell them they're going to need, you know, fix the potholes, whatever it is, right? Sorry, Scott. But, you know, they think they have a more direct power, but it also serves as um, you know, a I I'm guessing part of our review process with you. We're not going to micromanage you. We've given you a task.

this will be part of it to implement these things that we've prioritized and we put timelines on and then instead of you know hovering over you this month and well what' you do about this Joanne I I'm what I'm used to is more of a a review process or like that would be part of the presentation to say you know these were this was our strategic plan this was our you action items for this year you know and and then you're going to talk about where did you implement them um what were the obstacles why did you push it out and stuff?

Because again going back to that separation of management versus policy makers and stuff and it just is really evident right now going, you know, having these forums and having the same theme questions and uh asking what are you going to do about this or when are you going to fix this and how come this hasn't been done yet?

It's like, well, I'm not the city manager, you know, and we can implement policy, but this strategic plan gives us a tool to say, you know, we have a strategic plan, you know, that's public and this is what we've been focusing on. And then if a council wants to change that strategic plan and those priorities, then that's where it just before council member house also provides me a tool to also have accountability with my leadership team. Council member House. Thank you, Mayor.

Yeah, I think just I and I put some of this in the chat, but wanted to just voice it as well. Uh I think going back to Council Member Alen's question on, you know, why we're doing this. Um I I heard it said that there was a bit of a lack of deliberation. Um, and I would say I I think we've been very deliberate in um in addressing the the what and sometimes the why. I think where the strategic plan comes in very helpful is that it helps us to be very deliberate with the how.

how we're um carrying out the plans and the vision that we have for the community and getting on the same page with that. Um so that we're able to move forward on that same page and with an understanding of these are the the processes that we go through to achieve these things. Um rather than just trying to to figure it out on the fly. I think going back to my original comment about this helping us to be proactive versus reactive.

Um that's really where I see this this coming in because so often when we're faced with a a community challenge or a community need, we're having to react to it and uh and try and solve a problem just in that moment. And a strategic plan in my mind helps us to look down the line at what's coming for our community and really be strategic in addressing that how before things come up. Is this being uh taped? Oh, that's good.

You know, actually I I may I might I've had the opportunity for 25 years now to work with local private and um public entities and boards and I can say Mike you mentioned when you're working with a private board it's just you get things done. You don't have to go through a process. You don't have all these public hearings.

I've um I mentioned yesterday Flagstaff's one of the better organizations I've ever been with who has has tried to track it, but I see a strategic plan and I see the benefit in that as it does allow the council to work with the public more quickly, manager to work with leadership team more quickly to try and move things along faster, more similarly to what you would see in the private. It never will be that fast. It's not supposed to be.

Transparency doesn't allow that, but that's that's the way it's that's the way it's supposed to function in the government. And I I appreciate the fact that we get to to work with the public on that. This just makes it more streamlined. I think it's a what I've seen in my experience over those 25 years that this will help a lot in my opin. Yes, sir. So, just trying to conceptualize a couple examples where it's gonna go. And this is just sort of a popcorn thing.

It's not really um don't read too much into it. Uh but you know, we've had a couple um tension uh between the city and uh the organization in this city. Um, for example, a lack of policy around surveillance uh to a purchase um that wasn't thought out from a policy perspective yet. Maybe this is the sort of thing that will head that off at the pass in the future. Um there's been significant tension around the electrification of our fleet.

Um maybe this provides the city manager more cover to push forward with that objective. Um and there going to be other examples. I'm just wondering if I'm on the right track or I'm getting too cooperatic already. I'm looking at um Shannon and Mary. I don't think we had do we did we have either of those and our but I feel like they were in council task force. Um and I I think some kind of a specific example. No, but but I mean it's a good it's a good question. Yeah.

I'm using it as an example to say I think when we talked about things as staff we're looking forward to next budget year and maybe didn't necessarily capture the things that we're working on. So that's something three of us talked about going back and looking at it by fiscal year to make sure that we're identifying those types of things that we're doing right now.

And so I think as an example that would be um included from a broader perspective but not necessarily about you know a surveillance policy. Does that help answer? So we focused I mean you'll see primarily on I think we had some FY27 but a lot of them were you know three years one two three years out.

Um, so what you'll see is a lot of things that we're working on right now that we expect to be bringing back in November for example were probably not on that list that captured what they should be should be. But I think um what I hear from your example is that um what I think this process will do and where I've seen these types of processes be really successful is it's an opportunity for council to express your interests.

what are the things that you want to figure out how to tackle but maybe you're not you don't have the exact idea in mind but you know that this is the broader interest and then staff brings forward projects to help accomplish that interest and then you say uh that didn't really meet that interest I think we actually want to do this instead um so I think through this iterative process you'll see more things just like that but to the two specific examples you provided to Joan and Janet's point um those are not necessarily baked in here because they're already underway.

And so the ones that you'll see identified are ones that are more down the road future focus. Um and the goal is for us to see and test when council are these meeting your interests. Are these the things that you want us to focus on? Yeah, I think I get it. I cap might be another example. Yes. Can I just ask question?

So in in my mind and what you're saying um whether it's a surveillance mechanism or whatever that's a sol that's a potential solution to an overall vision enhancing I would in the strategic plan it would be more about enhancing public safety and stuff not not drilling down to we're going to do X Y and Z because that's more in the the um solutions potential solutions that we may need not even know exists today. So, how could we bake it into the strategic strategic plan?

So, those those things that are important for us to have public discussion on when they come up um before they come up, maybe have it in a work session, but not in the strategic plan because strategic plan is more of a big picture thing that we're going to improve or enhance public safety or whatever. And then we don't even know what other solutions that may or may not fit in our community uh will come up.

So I wouldn't see a surveillance mechanism baked into a strategic plan if that is appropriate. Yeah.

And I think I think one thing I will say is that there are always going to be things that that are occurring outside of the strategic nature of what we all so I mean you know some of those examples I think will could come up not even related to what we're doing in strategic plan but you know we obviously will pivot and work on those items but I think what we're trying to just do is kind of capture the the core of what council wants us to work on. Wow, great great discussion.

So, we only have about I'm going to few more slides, 12 minutes and then we'll have a break um 15 minute 15 minute break. Um so, let me get let me get through the I just want to give some context to the structure the components that that you'll be talking about today.

Um one is obviously you know your vision is aspirational the thing uh your mission is how do we get it done operation your mission operationalizes and directs your staff to think it's done core values and and this was some conf comments in the in in your surveys the core values are all internal focus it's based upon it's their all internal focus within the organization it tells the employees They a standard of behavior that allows that builds them to accomplish both the mission which is their focus and your vision ultimate ultimately but it's all internally focused within within the the organization what are the values when I hire an employee what are the things I'm looking for in that that's what your core values tell you what am I looking for in the leadership what am I looking for in the middle management What am I looking for in the first line?

First line management. Uh your focus areas are always we're always going to get this done. Your your your goals. Those are we are going to this is where we are going. How we're going to how you're going to get it done is the strategies. your strategies that are in this that the the document that you um have looked at is how you're going to and and this is this is really important because earlier a lot of plans just stop here at the aspirational level.

Your plan will actually move to the project level. I I can't tell you how much I appreciate the dialogue that all of the council today and you guys are spot on. every single one of you are spot on about what a strategic plan will do. And I and I appreciate also uh the staff's response uh you know to to your questions and my ramblings to try to to get you there. So we're yeah we're gonna we are going to focus on getting stuff done and that's what's the most important thing with projects.

So let's look at your survey results. I mean the great thing is uh and thanks I had a majority of you submit the survey. You guys want a strategic plan? That was good. You you want it part of your annual budget process. That's really good. Uh yes, you want other adopted plans implemented through it. That's really good. Um you want completion dates. Thank you. Uh as opposed to this will happen some point in the future.

Uh you the vision you guys were a little bit and one of the things when we get to this after break it was the first sentence seems okay. I know there was even you and the staff had heartburn with the second sentence. Uh mission generally generally okay maybe a little bit of tweaks and we'll get to that. Um core values again uh there were some comments about core values. Wait they're they're too inward focused or they should be more outward focused.

Well, they were expected to be inward focused if I have a core value and I told my students this and the reason I said is there a recording on this because I'm I'm teaching a class at university um and a component of it strategic planning. So I want them to kind of hear this not me hear you. I'm gonna the questions you were asking I want my students to hear because I think it's important because someday they're going to be in these seats and I want them to know what to expect.

Uh so I think we're okay on the generally on the core values but we'll we'll see we get there. It's almost like the weather report. Um there are five focus areas. I know this is where I I should have woke up guys. I'm a counsel. Sorry I didn't mean to call you guys and I did that you you had some problems with the focus areas and told you I had to call me and you know I was like hey this is what I've done years and I'm not a rigid guy but I and then I was like oh this is quiet.

Well, any case, I woke up. Um, so we're going to go through a strategic plan in the last part of your workbook. you're going to have a a great strategic plan when we're done, but you now were I've also given you a operating policy that you and the council eventually approves this strategic plan. You need to adopt this operating policy because that tells you how and it needs some adjustments because there are some things that yesterday we talked but you'll it'll tell you how the plan operates.

So, a new council member comes in, here's our operating policy. And it's it's great because it tells you every year during the budget, you update the plan. If there's a project added, you have to talk about staff's capacity to get that done. And there's a lot of other stuff in there. It's a really, really cool kind of like directions on riding the bicycle, you know? Uh, it's a good thing.

So, um, I'm not going to talk in detail about that today, but I put it in there ultimately for you to adopt when you adopt a plan and work on council along with with staff. Um, so we're going to we're going to start uh you got to break I got done in record time. Any questions on that? The back before we take about a 15minute meeting, please uh let's make sure it's 10:30. I'm actually giving you a couple minutes extra. You got two minutes extra.

So, if you can come back at 10:30 so we can get started in on these, you know, the next the real work here. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks for your time. Appreciate questions. Thank you. Go see. Yes. Yeah. You want to share the worksheet now? Yeah. Oh, got it. It's understood. in everyone. Well, and it's nice that you that you recognize the Dutch Brothers. Much better. And I have a deal. All right. The line is so long. Okay. We got it yesterday. So, I think we've got Oh, still missed.

So, um let's get started. So, council, we're going to start out by just your vision, the mission, and core values. We're I'm going to ask you for some key words, just um things that in the future you would want to change in this. So, it's it's not like we're going to change it today, but um from the from the meeting with the leadership team, they wanted to do the second sentence.

uh needs amending first sentence needs a little improvement more aspirational and eliminate the city of and so on your side I just other items that you know and again you'll at a future um retreat with the council you'll refine these but you know they're they're pretty solid that you've worked with them you've had them how many years have you had them for a long time so it's not like this is just like fine-tuning. It's like hm yeah fine-tuning.

So what are some things that you would you would want to add you would see that in terms of changes in the vision statement that hasn't already been mentioned by the staff here on the the right hand side just Stacy and I were just talking over here and what we think 15 years ago these were adopted give or take. Yeah. 15 years she said thanks. So is there any any or are you okay with this look like the staff second sentence fosters and supports?

Was there a reason why they wanted to eliminate second sentence? I think the thought was that we wanted to um simplify the vision statement. Um and so we felt like we could take off the city of um I also talked a little bit and again I think you know the plan is would be in council is is good with kind of what the leadership team has recommended.

We would like to bring something back for your consideration but also just making uh you know a vision should be more aspirational on that a little aspirational. What it makes sense to do on the second sentence instead of making it a set say Flagstaff is a safe, diverse, just, vibrant and innovative community with unique character and quality of life for all fostering economic, environmental, educational and uh cultural opportunities.

When I read your sense, it got a little Author Alen, thank you. It's better. Here we go. Um, so yeah, I I took a lot of time with this and I and I tried to be fairly blunt and honest. Um, I I actually I'm not sure I've ever seen that vision statement before. Uh, I don't know where it exists. Um, you know, I like the the mission statement, which I really do like because it's short and sweet and to the point. Um, I find this uh very I think it's so broad. It could apply to any community.

I don't think there's anything in there that says Flagstaff. Um, you know, and I' I'd like it to have something more that that articulates what makes Flagstaff unique. Um, so I'm just looking through my notes here that I turned into you guys. Uh, I think it should incorporate a stronger commitment to balancing resident, social, economic, and ecological well-being while acknowledging that resources are finite and that we must live within our means. And I'm going to say this a lot today.

I think it should contain a long-term or generational mindset. What does that mean? Uh that we're not just thinking about today and tomorrow, but but we're we're planning ahead just as a fundamental um you know key component of it. For me that's a core value. Uh and I'd like to see it repeated. The thing that caught me was the quality of life for all. Um yeah, we don't want that.

I don't no I don't know that um everyone in Flagstaff enjoys a qu you know a really positive quality of life um because of various factors and I'm wondering if instead of of that blanket statement if we could show some aspiration or helping people to achieve a high quality life opportunity. See something coming. I agree with the mayor on that point. Okay.

said although a vision statement is not a a today factual it's our vision to become right it's something we continue to strive for so then I struggle a little bit with taking that out because it's like we don't want to say right now we we're ridded with challenges and you know we have a vision of what we should be could be and we strive for it every day so I want to make sure we don't take away that this is a good So the great thing with this is we've taken notes here.

The staff will come back and they can re fashion a vision statement based on these that that you'll consider. Let's we can go now to the uh and can I just make a comment? I would say that was fair consistent with things that we heard yesterday.

Um the mission statement is this is writes the organization and yesterday they said you know it's our current mission statement is to protect and enhance quality of life for all very simplistic um and direct protect quality of life um statement was from yesterday's closing what is quality of life it's subjective second sentence from vision statement. And what they talked about was maybe have the second sentence from the vision statement move down here. I'm sorry. This is great.

This is kind of like a game show. Is having that second sentence move down here to the the mission which does make some sense to give it a little bit more direction. Um and then uh adding exceptional public service. Uh that was it. So uh here's the current mission statement. Uh what does the council see and additional things you'd like to consider? Yes. So again, as I just said, I I've always liked this mission statement because it's short and to the point.

It's pretty snappy and it's uh you know it's accessible. Um but since we're getting under the hood and tinkering uh at the risk of broadening the statement a little bit or maybe some of this can go up above um with the vision statement or even with core values. Um again I'd like to see uh incorporating our intent to plan for the future. Uh and uh it could also use a broader understanding of stewardship and justice or fairness. Okay. Next one's core values. Yeah.

that that's the heart of the organization. You guys like that? Okay. Well, any guess uh it's the heart. Core values are all internal. This is what we want every employee to understand to commit to when we are making decisions internally in an organization. We want to make sure this is internal guys, excuse me, and mayor and council. We want to make sure it's consistent with our core values. Everything we do is driven by our core values. Uh hiring um everything.

So it's internal, it's an internal focus. It's really important. I was telling the group yesterday, I can't remember when I years. I remember our c our core values. fairness, integrity, respect. I added this one, pardon me as I remember when I added they were like, "Oh, what what's wrong with you?" My caring and honesty. Those were that f we called it furge for short. But so um yesterday they were they were talking about that uh the lead excellence and transparency.

It's covered by accountability and integrity. Add quality. add something for student stewardship uh and resilience. I heard stewardship somehow uh result driven collaboration, creative and innovative and then honesty, respect and trustworthy, ethical, those things need to be kind of considered as part of it. I was just curious why we haven't put inclusivity or equity as part of our core values up till now.

I also agree with excellence being deleted only because I don't understand what that means in the context of core values and the I like the that staff included collaboration. I like that word better than teamwork. Um and council member house said increase focus on service include responsive responsible and inclusive local government and that was related to the um vision or the vision the mission. Oh okay. But I I have it documented. Okay. Yeah. I'll just I'll just keep going here.

Um from classes survey. Um, so it's I I don't I don't like these at all. Um, it feels like it describes how a corporate organization functions internally. Uh, you know, all these things, teamwork accountability integrity transparency, they're great, but they don't really describe what Flag Staff stands for. It's not this is internal, right? Um, you know, I I believe uh that our decisions need to be guided by values and principles, not just motivational buzzwords.

Um, I I think all of that feelood stuff will speak for itself. So some examples that I included which I've already heard around the room stewardship, fairness, inclusivity, fiscal responsibility. Go down a little bit. Um upholding de democratic ideals, constitution and generational thinking and committed to staff and employee education and continuing learning and improvement.

just um just a couple of points and and council member I want to make sure that you know that we do have the survey results so um well I don't know that everyone in the room is but I would say you know we we utilize these core values internally um with our employees like we use them um through our uh evaluation process for example um so kind of I think thinking of these in terms I mean I I think that that's why we have the the the core values those were adopted later correct those were and I don't know what year um so I just wanted to just make that point not to your point but just kind of overall that's and I agree these the ones I mentioned are a little bit more outward facing council member Garcia then council member Matthews okay so I wanted to speak to that point.

City manager, is there a place where we have more of what Austin's asking for of that outward facing more community value set that um is part of this document? A great question. That is a great question. Yes, we do. And and the a number of these are covered in your in your your what used to be your community priorities, but are now your focus areas. A lot of this language is is is in there.

Now I don't see the democratic ideas, but employee education, learning and improvement, stewardship, all of that is either in somewhere in the document in your focus areas or your strategies. So it's embedded in the doc and those are important because that drives your those drive your your your project.

Then to me it's important that we distinguish that in a way that if a community member opens this up and says this values of Flagstaff they look at it and go how am I supposed to have teamwork as a um but so it's more clearly defined for internally outside location yes and maybe it should be re because these things are definitely in your community those community priorities already had them they're already there. It's just now written as part of the document that the draft document have.

The the great thing is these core values are maybe we should name them internal core values not core you know it's internal which drive and you absolutely need them as an organization because I don't know why this is so important especially with these the generation that we have now that are coming in they want to know what does your organization stand for when I'm hired to work here they want to know what is the core values of that not they know the strategic plan is your community values and everything else.

I want to know what why should I come to work in this organization? That's what these need to need to tell us. Why do I why do I want to come to work here? Having definition and clear guidance I think is also equally important. Thank you. Thank you. So um yeah I thank you for clarifying that this is internal and not this is what Flagstaff is. This is we are a corporation. We are a municipality company and that's how I'm looking at this as a organization with employees.

What are the values that we want to expect of our how everybody's treated and stuff. So I don't agree with all of the things but I do like um results driven. Michelle and I were talking at the break and we talked about the difference between the private sector and the public sector and the private sector um you know has they're results driven. They they have timelines to get some stuff done in the private sector or the public sector not so much.

You have your 9 toive job and there's not a lot of motivation a lot of times at least historically to uh be performance-based right. just like you're going to work 9 to5 whether you take on a new project or you don't. So I like performance or results driven. I think that's important and I think that's been a bottleneck in some of our processes in getting stuff um streamlined is because there's no motivation behind it.

Um I know none of the staff today do this, but I've known over time that sometimes they look at city council, they're like, "Someday you'll be gone." So if I just drag this out long enough, you know, somebody else come in with a new idea. So um I think performance, results driven and performance is important. And I think that um collaboration, I agree with that. I think that that's really critical that we work together as a team. So teamwork, collaboration can be the same.

And um respect um honesty, trustworthy, ethical. I think that you know that is expecting of the way people behave you know on their job respecting others and being trustworthy and and being honest is important. So those are the ones that I would highlight and then um on the screen you can see council member houses to read them off Stacy. Yeah. Service, respect, belonging, stewardship, others, innovation, others, adaptability. Adaptability. deep.

I I really like um that and the well-being especially, however it's worded, that um because if I was looking to come to to work at the city, knowing that it's a place that wants its employees to um be well and take care of themselves would be a big selling point for me. member Garcia. Thank you. And I'm not uh Council Member Matthews, I'm not doing this to push back against you.

It's just to enrich the conversation uh with what you what you brought up, which I think is is an important topic to to discuss. And that's the difference between process driven and results driven. Um because pro uh results may vary. And if you focus uh if you we focus our employees on strictly results, they might take a tact that doesn't actually provide a good process for everything else that they're doing. I mean, we have variance, all kinds of outside um factors coming into this.

Now, to support council member Matthews, I think results are important, but I question and I want staff to be able to kind of uh decipher from this comment the difference between the results and the process. uh driven for our staff and to see uh which one is is uh most relevant to put in a document like this so that way we play on the same playing field and have the same kill moving forward or the even keel moving forward on each project. Thank you Mike.

I think I think what um I would like to do is is take this back to the leadership team just come back and you know work on internal core values. Um we felt like we had some good input yesterday and this has been very helpful as well. Okay, this is great council.

I want to make sure all the comments are there that you u you provide this because you know the leadership team now has some guidance in terms of putting together a draft that you not only in your values but I assume the vision and the mission but you also have this to do a check on and then you 85 maybe 80% of the way there and then you'll fine-tune it 20% and we'll hit pay to Okay. So I appreciate it. Is there a room for a list for external core values?

Your external core values, council member, are going to be your your focus areas and your strategies. And if they're not, then you need to add them in because that that's out we're facing. I mean, when you go to when you go to the community, when we get when that's why, you know, we're we're we want to make sure that we pause and are very um you have honor the time that those are going to take.

It's not something that we, you know, I give the the manager credit for this like don't, you know, try to compress that into the day. So, but once you get those once you have those focus areas, that's what is outward to your community. that tells your community this is what we're going to do always and this is how we're going to do. Does that make sense?

I mean it's it's it's and if it's not clear, you need to make them clear and that's why it's something that I don't think you it's going to take a probably a day to get through those and do honor to them because you guys are smart and you're uh you're engaged and you want it done right and we didn't want to rush it. Okay. I hope I answered sometimes I ramble counsel. It sounds like we're getting to it. Yeah. Are you you're okay? Okay.

I mean, I I I'm you know, I'm just more concerned about our outward facing values and what Black Staff stands for. Uh this does feel more corporate to me and employee, right? It's fine. It is what it is. I would double down on employee well-being. I thought that real quick. That's car. That's good. Okay. So, um what we're going to do now, and I just want to kind of do a little prefix on this, is that the um like I said, most communities I work with have five. You guys have eight focus areas.

That's good because seven of them are from your your community priorities. Now what I did is I grouped and we'll get into those uh projects under those. There's there's two of your focus areas uh or community. They're now your focus area safe and healthy community and inclusive and engaged community uh and livable community. I have those as kind of one set of focus areas and strategies and I have projects together under each one of those since there's a they're very similar.

Um the same thing with your environmental stewardship and sustainable and innovative infrastructure. Um very similar. So there's like one set of projects we're going to do is to start out. We're going to first review and we're definitely going to come back. We're first going to review and we really want your input. I know there may be some additions and some changes on the um what the department heads came up with yesterday to see on each one of these areas.

And then we're going to go back to what you recommended as as the council on projects and and and do that. And I just want to make under each one of the the um formally community priorities now called focus areas. And so just wanted to make sure you're you're aware of that. And and the staff is here to so let's as we go up we'll go to the pro projects now. Yeah. and you already have the track changes for there. So the first these are council and we'll come back to those.

We're going to go to the leadership team. So before you go to this Mike and I I I I just want to make a couple of comments about um staff's comments throughout this document. It was um heartwarming heartwarming to me. there was a lot of division of um creativity collaboration. Um so it was a really great discussion yesterday that um I think have made um this even better moving forward. So when you go through it, I just, you know, just think about it in those terms.

Staff spent a lot of time yesterday talking about, you know, what we wanted this to look like and what we wanted our organization to reflect. And this is your high performance organization area. So it deals with obviously high performance organization. So the first thing that that staff looked at and I'll go through and then we'll pause. By the way, we will take a lunch break at at 12 is an ERP roll out. And this is a as you all can imagine is a huge huge project.

Um it's going to be done in in stages but ultimately everything will be completed by FY30. Um and I won't go into details since we have the IT director here if you have questions but it's going to look at all your business processes and uh propose improvements. So this is a really really good thing.

A really good thing because we had a a session at the university where we had a expert in AI come in and one of the uh epiphies for uh folks in the room was look if if you if you implement AI in a bad process guess what you're going to get you're going to continue to get bad results. So the thing is is to you know focus on the pro process. So I'll stop there. Any questions on this on this one? And then then I'll shut up. But this is one of the biggest things an organization can go through.

It's a complete um revision of of the financial system. We're using our HR payroll. Um incredibly staff intensive. So, it's a it's a a big project and one that's definitely necessary. And is this the means um by which we're able to have our budget interface with the community wants to make a comment, but that's the goal is having it all integrated. might as well stay up for the next few. Stand up, sit down. Uh, morning, mayor, vice mayor, council. Um, CJ Perry, your chief information officer.

So, yeah, the ERP kind of actually covers quite a range of modules. So, as the city manager mentioned, we've got our financial systems, payroll systems, human resources systems, utility billing systems, and our budget systems. So, we're evaluating all of those kind of under the umbrella of ERP. It might be a couple different software packages that we end up going with, but this is kind of more that umbrella project that covers the whole suite of software applications that we're looking at.

Does it all get implemented at the same time or do do parts get implemented along the way? So, we're going through the strategy session to effectively lay out what that looks like. So, I don't have an answer for you today.

um in about six months I'll have a lot more clarity as to you know what that actual road map would look like um so it just kind of it it varies this is a big system so there's usually some sort of phase roll out but exactly what those phases are and exactly you know what they have observation and what I've seen from the teams going through the year roll out and having been through be well and I think several have um the overall goal technology is really important but the overall goal is to see how we can streamline processes um generate efficiencies those types of things.

So you see the technology list you also see the addition of that second sense which I think is one of the the most important pieces of this which is reviewing those processes in that where we can streamline and make improvements as well. Did you uh run over all those subsystems again? I I was taking notes, but I missed a couple. Payroll. So, yeah, finance, payroll, HR, budget, uh budget, utility billing. Those are kind of the the five we've sort of identified, you know, broadly.

Again, that could be all one system. It could be multiple systems. We're we're kind of going through that process right now. Procurements actually we just completed. So we actually have a new procurement module. Um huge shout out to uh Rick and and Patrick and the team. Uh we we went with OpenGV. Uh we're doing some um some business process reviews on that and trying to streamline some of that process, but that actually went live a couple months ago. Okay.

So you might just I'm just going to stay up here. So, a commute. Uh, next one is computer computer AED uh dispatch records management system. Yeah. And I'll give a quick highlight on that. There was a comment, you know, of renewing the hexagon um last uh council meeting. So, that's our current uh CAD and RMS system. So, CAD stands for computer dispatch and record management system for RMS. Um, it's an older system, a legacy system. We're looking at upgrading. Um, this is not new capabilities.

This is not, you know, um, you know, I know there there's, you know, a lot of talk on some of the the new things that that the police department is is doing. This is just replacing that software. Should be seeing a uh, contract going to council. I think it's in two weeks. I I don't have the working calendar in front of me. It's in the next couple of weeks. Uh, we're just finalizing the details on the versat contract.

We went through an extensive process uh with collaboration with all of our partner agencies, the sheriff's office, NEUPD, the fire department, all the fire districts, all of that. We we went through um a really extensive process uh demoed a lot of different software, looked at what other agencies were doing. Term was the one that uh came out on top and that we'll be going through soon. So, we'll be starting implementation on that here very very quickly. Thank you.

So or is the planning building services? So this is um similarly our currently like our permitting process and a lot of um that type of functionality is in our current um ERP um attached to it. This likely will be a different piece of software. There's a there's one or two um ERPs that do have this in, but majority of them do not. So we're kind of going through this as as kind of a separate but parallel process with the ERP.

Um so again looking at business process improvement as Mary uh mentioned um where you know focusing on on streamlining on process making it easier there's going to also be a lot more uh public input on that. So, we're getting, you know, some of the contractors and some of the people that actually use the software from the external perspective as input on like, hey, what would you like to see?

What's what's difficult about our current systems so that we can put that into the requirements gathering process and make sure that the product that we select really works well for the community as well as for staff internal. It's a really comprehensive process. We're going on all of these. Any one of these would be like a huge accomplishment for an IT department. We're doing three of them at once. So, see more gray hairs or maybe just lack of hair from next couple of years. You know why? Yeah.

Now you're going to wonder and we're going to get to that in just a few minutes. modern business systems innovation lab.

um were replaced by um if you go to page I think it's page seven and we'll get to that by another uh we're going to take an overall look at every single process in the city over a period of time uh every year certain functions we select and I'll talk about that the one that we had was a performance dashboard it's great that uh we're going to develop a dashboard organizational goals key performance indicators metrics And most importantly, once you guys, sorry, once the honorable mayor council approved the strategic plan, you'll uh you you want to track progress, right?

And and that'll be really important for accountability with your constituents and uh we want to get that done by 29. Questions on that? what that looks like and and how the public interfaces with it. We don't right now.

I you know I think some of it is also going to because it it also could we assigned it to the uh financial planning team which is the new budget team but it's basically the city manager's office and um budget representatives and our management services direct director that's the financial planning team. So, we'll be talking about it and working on what that could look like. Okay.

Um, this climate housing task force uh is it's a collaboration of folks that we're going to be working on and it's already it's already happening. Staff is already doing it. And so, even though it was it it came out of a recommendation of staff, it's like we're already doing it. The folks that are actually involved in it. And so if council has any question on this, we've we have folks here that can can address that.

And just just so and maybe you I'm sorry I'm talking so much, but Mike, I think you explained this, but these projects came from members of the leadership team. So when we talked yesterday, we kind of vetted some of these um and actually I think educated each other as well on some things that were happening. Exactly. Yeah. And that Thanks for clarification on that. Yeah.

Just a clarifying question is the climate housing task force would if would this question fall into this um like I know that um climate for sure I'm not so much sure about housing um when there's well climate when there's a purchase like of a vehicle and stuff I believe that they have um input and when we're uh when we are upgrading our fleet and I remember our last meeting before break.

We had uh two very large 4x4 clue cab vehicles for the new um maintenance for the um rightaways and I was going to ask a question and I thought somebody else would and I just kind of waited to see the discussion but is that where that would go where there would be it would have been nice if we talked about why we went to a full gas vehicles for those two but at least have it footnoted in the agenda why we didn't do hybrid or something is is that the input there or is that in a different area like what they would have that that process is actually part of the fleet management committee.

Okay. Um and I think in those instances we included the form um attached to that agenda item um to identify that we do look at electric vehicle first and we look at a hybrid and then we look at an I for a combustion engine last. Um I pulled those forms and I just saw the work order so I must have missed that. at the very bottom where they start to identify the specs of the vehicle sustainability fleet as part of public works as well as the division are allation.

So sustainability have a robust conversation about what's needed. Yeah. They're not only part of that fleet management committee but also part of that specific conversation. Todd, is there anything that you would want to add? Um, no.

I I think it's a really interesting um point that you pick up on and I think we're trying to improve our methods in the staff summaries to make sure you understand that there is process and I think as you articulated Shannon that fleet management committee and that evaluation um is ongoing and I think there's different thing I would add is I think there are different objectives that are being met after that discussion.

So um this concept that all vehicles will be X is very very difficult when you have an operation of the city that have so many different operational needs. So we've really shifted that conversation to be more of identifying the true operational need, not the smoke and mirrors operational need, the true realistic everyday operational need and then matching that as best as possible with manufacturer specifications and availability um outcomes of what the work to be performed could be.

So often times I think it's a very specific example that it is one engine type but I think the analysis that the fleet management committee and all those sha stakeholders um share in the discussion of is much more broad um because it takes into account so many different things um other than just a surprised because it is one of our objectives our our priorities Um, and it could have been that I dismissed it that I didn't see at least comments about it in the summary.

Uh, why the supervisor truck was a 4500. Um, and then why was it, you know, why did why did we need that? And I'm sure there's a really good reason, but I I didn't get the answer from that. And then why wasn't it hybrid? And so when the community sees that and they're reading like, wait, I thought you had a carbon neutrality plan full. Um and and so and I agree we've had to pivot and and buy our our our cruisers for our police department all gas was nuclear and stuff.

Those are really legitimate reasons. I just didn't see the reason why there and I was kind of surprised because I don't know what is needed in the vehicles and just wanted some explanation of why that wasn't addressed in a summary. Thank you. Very good feedback. I think it reminds us on why we're improving that staff summary process so that you have all the information you feel comfortable with and the community has full transparency. That's our goal.

So, very good suggestion and we'll continue to refine that summary properly. Thank member Spence. Uh could we hear what CCE stands for? Civic engagement. Communications. Communication and civic engagement. That's the division. Thank you. We'll spell that out. Yeah, we'll spell that out. The final plan, but in fact, that's the next project is to develop a comprehensive communication strategy for um public awareness community engagement. So, it'll be all specific and to have that done by 28.

Music to my ears. Okay, questions on that one. The the next one is again we're going to get the organizational review. You'll see in just a minute succession planning um you're going to be by that's something I HR is currently working on. So by 20 succession plan for most of your house identifying your critical positions that you definitely want to make sure that um are are replaced. Any questions on that council? Next one has come. This is wonderful.

Every every single year the and this will be the city manager will identify specific processes within the city that and obviously that'll be as I assume as part of the strategic planning process and bring to the council. These are the processes, maybe four or five processes to look at. All of that will be engaging employees that are the ones that are most knowledgeable about that process in improvement.

What that'll do along with your the work that you'll be doing with your software, your ERP, but also I was talking director in AI, you'll be able to that'll be a major improvement. I can tell you unequivocally most cities ever never never look at the process. So this is a big a big step forward. Any questions on that one? So I see the responsibility areas of the city manager, but are we going to engage um community input?

because that's probably the number one theme I hear is bottleneck in the processes from the people that actually have to utilize that service or that department and stuff. And so I'm glad to hear. Yeah. And council member, I think it will be both. I mean, yes, we hear a lot from the community. Um, we also hear um some of our internal processes as well. And we haven't again quite kind of figured out what what this looks like.

And I don't want to frighten anybody by talking about um like AI um but I think it's an opportunity to look at just make it you know more efficient and effective external customers. the the last one for the staff and then we're going to go back to all of the councils is this this came up um the streamline boards and commissions and uh review and improve infrastructure. It sounds like we're working so wanted to give staff an opportunity to talk with council about that. Sure.

Um, so we're currently, my office is currently working with a couple of members of the leadership team to review all of our board positions. Um, look at their roles, their responsibilities. We're looking at um areas in which we might improve some efficiencies within our boards and commissions. Um, so we are working through that right now. We're hoping to that to the council with some recommendations um early next year and get some direction from you all. It's it's an exciting endeavor for sure.

This is from your surveys. Uh there was a this this workforce housing assistance partnerships workforce housing and I want you to kind of there's a staff if you look on page 17 I think 24 excuse me let me start out first page 13 17 and 24 there's all references to housing a focus of projects to improve housing housing affordability um those type of efforts.

Um so what I would suggest is when we get to those pages, if that if those don't address what was it what the objective was here, we need to come back and revisit this. Uh but they're already there's at least three initiatives that staff came up with yesterday that are, you know, we're going to do X, Y, and Z to do that. And I'd suggest let's when we get to those uh this morning or after lunch you can you can say well yeah but there's still something missing will come back.

Is that is that okay with the council? Yes. Now child care support was um yes let's pause on that one there. expand initiatives improve accessibility to affordable high quality child care for residents and employees.

That was one of your and and again these were not from the just maybe one council member but I wanted to make sure everybody you know that I got every idea up here but childc care's actually looked up last night and there are cities that are are but it's expensive like I didn't know Pima County actually has where where I live you know they they sub they provide a subsidy that's well so Mike oh go ahead council Um, one thing, excuse me, one thing that pops into my m my mind is, are we in this uh category?

Are we trying to model a program for city employees that might be replicated by Gore or NAU or the hospital for child care support? Um I I see it's both for residents and employees. Employees means city employees I guess for residents. I um kind of back to the workforce housing. We've identified that as a as a priority that we we want to see action on workforce housing.

And as we've identified that priority, we see that um any that we see that the FUSD has uh come up with a program for workforce housing uh on property they own. mountain line is coming up with workforce housing. So um there's progress being made in in all sectors. But in terms of uh city uh action item, a city project, are we thinking of child care support as being a model program serves employees but would also be a model for other agencies in the city? This is one of your items coming.

this account.

Yeah, it's really this came from from the council one of the the comments on the council survey and it's it's and and council member you did exactly you know it's like so with every city we've got a wheelhouse of things that we do that are expectations from our our community uh the basic services but there's also in the case of Flagstaff you've got some really enhanced services as as protections to and well-being of your your citizens The question becomes, is this something that's in our wheelhouse?

I mean, it's very, very expensive. It's being addressed by a lot of other folks. Um, and what you know what, you know, how I think one of the council members said, "How do we do this?" So, if you can't answer why why would we do it and how we're going to do it, then we we but it came up and just just make a a point and Heidi, I'm not trying to put you on the spot, but I know involved in this. She could she could hear. Okay.

um you know partnering with United Way on childare this actually what we started to do was we actually put money toward having someone work um through the United Way I don't know if we call them a United Way employee um I'll get that information for you and put it in the chat. But um we actually have been funding somebody to get started on this and to look into how we can do better child care services. But by no means were we thinking that that would reside in this vision. Just kidding.

Um no, I'm just saying that we don't feel like we should be the ones. We are happy to partner with people and to all. So Liz Archeletta, the United Way uh president had hooked us up with somebody. I think the person's name is Becca. Yes. And um I don't know if she's full-time or 32 hours. Um but at any rate there's and they are going to be coming back to you um probably around January to discuss where their post.

I think that it's a it's an initiative that we could dabble in, but I don't know that it's an initiative that the city should be actually um leading potentially it could be partner to expand initiatives if we want to keep it sense because um I can't speak for all employees but expertise lies elsewhere outside of the city and it's We do a lot of work that is partnering with local agencies and nonprofits and we provide funding to, you know, certain entities as our partnership in achieving that goal.

And that's kind of how I see uh this. I mean it's definitely this is a um quality of life issue and an economic issue um but I see it as more of we are um helping those with expertise to expand initiatives. Yeah. So just to add to that too, um child care is a really critical um need in every community and ours and it affects the workforce if they can't go to work. I'm I I I like saying that we can partnering and help support because we just can't take on every problem.

Our budget already is falling, you know, short on some areas. city manager has talked about we have to look at retraction on some stuff um but championing um United Way and some of their programs or things just to help them expand their programs. I think that's the way to go. I don't think we should have a direct um involvement in anything.

Um, and also this goes back to our conversation we had a couple months ago about um, and the mayor maybe remember it of all the organizations we do support you maybe annually re-evaluating those some of them are contracts but until they before they come up for renewal is that's you know with so many needs in our community I want to make sure that we're looking at those regularly so we can say yes those are not that they're less important but we've got bigger critical ISS issues in that.

And then workforce housing. Um, as uh Spence um mentioned, there are some good um projects out there. I know I've had conversations with the city management team and housing and and planning and zoning about just kind of changing some codes and I hear there's some hiccups and just some of the things that could make it easier to incentivize developers to bring those in.

So, I think um I don't know if it fits there or um in another place and I know Last Cap might work on some of it, but I understand that that the incentive program for affordable housing has a component for 150 AMI for home ownership, but our zoning is only 100%. But if we change that, it's there's other things that complicates. But I think we can work on that and find a solution and that would be a really great uh easy fix in my mind because I'm not a zoning person.

So I just changed the number on there. Um but also, you know, I've heard some other developers that say this is not my wheelhouse. Uh and so I think maybe opening up more opportunity for them to um invest in a pot, you know, for workforce development development that another property can take on. Um might be something to look at. And I don't believe we have that capability right now. But if a developer said, "Look, I I only know how to build this type of product.

I, you know, I don't know how, you know, I'm not going after um tax credits and other things that are affordable or for work of course, but if he contributed to a pot or that was an option for them, I think that that might be utilized and help us fund some private partner public partnerships. I'll be brief about the u council uh the child support side of things, but I'm thinking of the word externality when it comes to that and I might be a little bit off base with that.

But as a want thei the conversation to continue um if that if that's part of the action item that we're going to have but I think in general it's just an if we could contextualize it under affordability. It's just to me another thing that adds up to affordability in a conversation. It just happens to be one that is highlighted and accentuated these days um because of because of the rising cost of everything including that.

Um, so whether we keep it in this document or we move it out, I still want to have a focus on it. That was a great point. So I want to we're going to get to the workforce and affordable housing when we move into the other um focus areas on this one. What we're thinking about just thought would be because we're already doing it is partner to support initiatives. Correct. We're partnering we already have a it sounds like we already have ST that improves.

So it's something we're already doing the division I will be well it's being done by vitality but I just want to make it clear that the reason why we could we're supporting it as a position it's not position that we're overseeing is that that's the partnership but we would never be able to do a an incentive like we do with businesses to say oh as a resident you can apply for this and get money for your childare. We just would never have the funding or the capacity for that.

But we do have the capacity to be a partner to a solution that maybe United Way or others would come up with. Is this accurate? I I think partnering is good. But we cannot be the main people that solve this, but we could be participating. And the way we felt the best to participate was to help with that position. We're going to have this as ongoing. Of course, it's ongoing and it's crazy. Okay. Um, employee wellness. Uh, this came up. Um, I don't know if we have a wellness program. I see not.

Yeah. Wellness program. So is there a particular component that you know we already have wellness and maybe so like is this something? Yeah and I I personally feel very good about our wellness program that we we have through NAPET. Ryan, I don't know if you have anything to add on this one on the play wellness. Yeah, we um can I speak from here? Go up. You're really loud. Uh, sure. So, uh, uh, excuse me, Ryan Saxby, your HR risk management director.

I mean, this is an ongoing initiative that we do partner with NAPE. We have a benefits analyst in my office that, uh, regularly promotes, advertises, emails out, um, wellness events. Um, we've kind of put our wellness program under the larger banner of our flag staff summit learning program which is a map we call a trail aid. So our safety and our wellness events are program programmed under uh our trail aid program.

Um we regularly have conversations with EAC as well employee advisory uh committee on ways to promote wellness. Um I think where we lack maybe is uh the outreach component and the advertising. So, that's really where we're putting our efforts. They're they the wellness programs exist. They're pretty robust. Um, just the response and the attendance isn't necessarily where we'd like to be. So, I see us putting a lot of investment in advertising it better.

And that's starting with sort of the campaign around um marketing our wellness programs. This has already been done. So, it's Look at that. Is it okay just marking through? Yeah. On the forecasting on the forecasting. Just a minute. Um member house. Yeah, I'm going to advocate for that not being marked through as as already done. We are doing a lot of things with wellness.

Um, but this is an expansive conversation that I want to keep advocating for for um, we adopted the resolution to work towards being a recovery ready community and this is a huge part of that. Um, the initiatives that we're were part of are expand beyond just physical wellness or well-being. It's also inclusive of uh mental health and well-being, trauma-informed workplace culture and and practices and supporting the uh overall and inclusive health of our team members.

And I don't think that we are fully there yet. So, I'm going to advocate for that not being crossed through, but looking at ways that we can expand that to to truly be um fully focused on on the wellness of our organization. We have that in our program now, the mental health. Sure. I mean, I can speak to we have our of course our employee assistance program that's available to all all of our employees. I don't want to put the chiefs on spot public safety, but that's a city-wide contract.

So, I think we can work with post-traumatic mental health issues. Chiefs, anything you want to add on that? You don't have to.

I mean I think it's paramount and it's impressive and I thank everybody and especially if you want to talk but at the end of the day at the end of the day I mean in the watching what we went through with Ranger and so many of these other things and Mark's been through a lot with his membership having upping the game with redemption having a brickandmortar facility with over a thousand touch points Now having them come in and do crisis work almost in real time, it's been instrumental in our wellness and I think we're starting to reap the benefits of that in what we're seeing in our morale and our retention and our recruitment.

So it it's huge on a whole host of levels. You've heard me talk multiple times about how important it is for a firefighter and police officer to be well when they're out doing their jobs in their community. Awesome. Well, partner in particular situations with um is it Teros? I believe um local buyers. We've we've called on them uh unfortunately on a couple of occasions to assist our employees outside of public. Uh maybe not unfortunately, that's that's the wrong word.

It's a fortunate thing that we they were available. It's an unfortunate situation that led to it. Um, Council Member House, I mean, absolutely agree that this is an ongoing area that we can continue to create partnerships and work through uh ways that we can employ, you know, improve the work life balance and and find resources for mental health and post-traumatic issues. Um, but I am proud about what we have done in the city of Flagstaff.

I mean, having redemption and some of these just it's available, you can go. um that's not in every city uh in the state and to the um traumainformed work. I mean the ongoing so staff has I believe all staff has has been through that workshop of um trauma informed am I correct?

Yes, we've done quite a few things related to trauma informed groups recently ways can come together and discuss things that they do to be more trauma informed to support each other as well as that extension to how we engage with our community. And we've had the training with the Cookanino with the Cookanino Coalition for Children and Youth.

So, do you see that ongoing continuing to to help employees with how to um how to handle trauma in their own lives and trauma at the workplace, especially those frontline staff members who um deal with the public in various states of agitation. Yeah. recognizing when others might be experiencing trauma and how best to deescalate and engage. Yes.

Um there's a refresher that we're currently in the process of finalizing with Virginia and the small working team that's been um heading this this project up. Um and so that would be uh then added to the HR um training. Uh Brian's team has been developing a site where folks can go in and access um resources available to a coalition. Um they can see events that we have and then it also um links to the refresher training and then even previous training, right?

If they weren't here when we did some of those initial things, they can still access those materials to learning. question um because I agree with council member house that this is a critical component and and invaluable to providing for our employees but on this chart um are being initiatives because if we're doing a lot of the work or do we keep it on there so that it's top of mind or I got kind of sidetracked on when we leave something on and if we take it off and when we add it.

So, if we're doing the work and we've done a whole list of things, does it stay on just to stay on or because we're engaging all of these things, it can come off now? Well, it's it's obvious that that you have an excellent wellness program, but I'm and I don't want to speak for the council member. What I'm picking up, which I don't necessarily see in here, is the mental health com. Is that correct? Well, that's the redemption. It's more mental as opposed to physical. Yes, that's part of it.

And I I think my argument for keeping it here is if we're crossing things off because they are complete, that's one thing. If we're crossing things off that are ongoing, I think that s or signifies a deprioritization in my mind. And I I this is one thing that I I mean I'm I'm speaking through a very sore throat right now because I'm so passionate about this needing to stay on.

This this is something that I don't think we can symbolically or or really um uh deprioritize if it's if it's ongoing efforts and we're still growing and learning in new things. I mean the expansion that we did over the past years or so, couple of years or so in the uh behavioral health work with our police and fire is emblematic I think of how important this is to our overall community.

Um, we are, Arizona is as a whole a behavioral health desert and Flagstaff in particular is a community where we have struggles when it comes to overall wellness programs for our physical health, struggles in overall programming for behavioral health and connecting that to the vitality of our community when it comes to overall wellness. And uh as we say in our our current mission statement, protecting and enhancing the at quality of life, this is a core component of quality of life.

And so I'm going to fight tooth and nail to to keep it there as a priority. Yeah. And council member, this is Joanne, just to add in, I mean, we're not, you know, we'll keep it on here and we're not um deprioritizing anything by striking things out. I think what I will say is if we have everything on here that's ongoing um that we're working on now, this strategic plan would be 500 pages.

But I I mean I I think we all understand the um the mental health component and we we've added it back in here um and included it as ongoing. So appreciate your your comments today. Thoughtful and I agree 100% with manager.

I I think this council member is a great one to add because it has a huge upside to the benefit in terms of employees wealthy health it's great but not everything has that benefit because we may have things that are you see where I'm going this one mental health is a critical component uh and that's a lot of things that employers ignore and if you have those is if an employee has their issues their productivity goes in. So there's a there's a huge benefit to adding to keeping this.

We can't keep everything that we're doing because there's not that benefit. So I think the manager is exactly right. So that one stays in. It's going to be ongoing HR forecasting. We are we had a discussion on this yesterday. We're already doing uh financial forecasting. The uh finance department uh is doing it. was one of the recommendations projects recommended by internally even by staff or by the leadership team.

Uh but we want to drill you know and it's we're about um a little over 15 minutes away from lunch but want to definitely get through this list. Want to drill and make sure there's something that you know we're saying financial forecasting is okay. That's what I heard yesterday. Yes. I would advocate for leaving this on. I think it's uh I know we talked about it yesterday, but I think having that having on is good. Okay. So, you want to enhance um who's responsible for that?

I would the financial planning team. Financial planning team. Okay. And um and we are doing this the the ways that I know that we're doing this and I bet we're doing it in ways that I'm not even aware of is um like bonding for projects. We've talked about many times big projects that are coming down the pike and about when we're going to have to consider going to the voters. And what comes to mind is wastewater treatment.

Um but there are other big projects um that we have been planning for for a long time. Um but I I think you can never not have this top of mind because it is so critical. And I know you use the word strategic forecasting, but I wouldn't strategic planning, what we're doing now, be part of that, too. And that's we're just starting this, right? But isn't wouldn't strategic planning doing a strategic plan be part of the forecasting? Would it go somewhere else?

This is this is strictly I understand you're like a lot of cities will forecast out five years 10 years and it's really really important because if you as a council if you make a decision now what's the long-term financial implications? So this is this is aligned directly with your budget the decisions that you make and and but some of it could include strategic plan items. Well I guess why I was tying it together in my mind was because um they have to align right strategic plan to get there.

So we can forecast has to say we, you know, we're our strategic plan is to implement this or have this by FY 28 or that they just kind of went together. But I could be No, I I I don't think you're you're wrong because like let's say the ERP I tell you when the your esteemed IT team director brings that there's going to be a cost associated with all of that. So that's going to have to be put into your your financial forecast, but it's driven by what I said earlier about the strategic plan.

Some items are just some items are going to involve you you the staff just work times. Some of them are going to involve financial. Yeah. Can I suggest potentially retitling um the category is uh long-term planning and financial forecasting other than forecasting improvements? Yes, improvements could be part of it, but I think the overall goal is really kind of the long-term mindset forecast. I think that works.

Maybe what we really need is the outwardfacing communication about that we already do this and um and helping the public to see the ways that we do this. I think that will be part of it mayor because I mean I I don't want to financial it's on the website. You're that's one of the first questions I ask is trust me a lot of some public organizations don't they just make a decision and well we'll see how it goes when I'm on the council. Yeah, just I thought I would blow that in.

Given that um would we want to treat this one similar to the wellness where it's really more of an ongoing or do we want a date associated with I think ongoing sounds. Yeah, you want this ongoing. Okay. Okay. Um that's important. So the the next one is this the cultural improvement uh strengthen organizational culture by promoting collaboration, accountability, innovation and employee engagement. Um that's that's culture.

I give you my speech on culture, but I I I'll save you just can I just get some Yeah. Yeah. We need some Yeah. Hold on. We're trying to understand. Isn't this elsewhere throughout? It is embedded throughout. I mean, there's, you know, there's the projects and stuff to address. I think the that we'll get to, but but this was just it was on there as a potential, but it doesn't look like there's I think what Oh, sorry. Go ahead, Council.

Just one thing that could be added would be um whistleblower protection uh encourage people to come forward without fear of retribution. Not suggesting there's a need for whistleblowers in our organization, but if something comes up, I would hope that we would protect somebody that says, "Hey, there's a problem. a lot. So yeah, there's there are legal protections for that already. Legal protections that are in place and yeah, we adhere to those on those title employee picnic. Pick back, right?

Yeah, when we mentioned cultural improvements earlier, I I stated inclusion, but I think that it might be more important to have established here as well. I think maybe one thing that I would like to suggest is um when we take back the discussion on the internal core values of the leadership team, you know, I I think I feel good about our culture. Um but I mean I always believe that you can strengthen a culture. I think I think the entire leadership team would agree with that as well.

Um, can we bring this back with the discussion on the internal core values, take it out of the strategic plan project because it's a constant project or we're continually working on this. I mean, for me, uh, to get back to being serious, um, I don't know what I don't know on this topic. I mean, where is culture right now on a scale of 1 to 10? Would you get a different answer from everybody? We do regular employee surveys. I think we and we present those to council during the the meetings.

So, um that's something that we can bring back then. But yeah, I mean I I think I mean our responses are always good on a scale of one to 10. I'm not sure that. So um is it a 10 there's 10 in his department. So a lot of these words were used in the the core values for the internal employees like this is what we want our organization to provide. So that's the only thing I'm thinking about when I look at this culture improvement. We've already put it into the into the institutions.

So does it need to be here also? It's more of a technical question about the strategic plan document itself. Like a lot of those accountability, collaboration innovation employee engagement, um inclusion, equity, those were maybe not inclusion, equity, but those were in the core values of the company the added here. Okay. So, it sounds like we're going to discuss that as part of core values. Okay. take out the rest.

The next one because moving moving in because we've we've got a lot of ground to cover the rest of the day on these projects and the public were okay. Next one. Okay. Public involvement and code enforcement. We have a a number or just let me make go back to my notes here.

Um on let's see when we get to I think there is a first of all we're going to have a whole public involvement and engagement outreach we've already talked about uh but there's also a um as part of the the the public communication plan but then when we get into the latter after lunch there's a component that deals with looking at the overall community, not just the code enforcement, but every aspect of it that I think will cover cover this that's um this project.

But I'll pause there and ask the council, what were your thoughts on this? Public involvement in the code, improving code enforcement needs to be um in the plan somewhere. Um and that includes education with the We've made some improvements. I think we've been understaffed for a long time and um that's management is is working on that. I don't know. I guess I I'm unclear about whether this is the place for it to be or if there's another place that's more appropriate for it.

Um but to me code enforcement is is one area where they need to be really um and and Mike go ahead and jump in because I there was on page 11 of your of the council you have in front of you what there was a long discussion on this yesterday is we wanted that as opposed to throwing the the you know a narrow net on this is a wide net is there's a thing called the neighborhood employee initiatives. That's implement programs and this is how it reads. Um oops that's actually been used.

Yeah, that's one of the council items is a implement programs and enhance neighborhood of parents livability safety and community pride. And that's one of your that's when we get to page when we get to the focus area. What's it called? Stre um uh livable communities which is on page nine. So, we're going to talk about that strategies to address. But I definitely want an exclamation point on this side too. So, we're going to highlight that, but it's Yeah, but it is a it's definitely Yeah, it is.

Yeah. When we get to page 11, we'll get that. Um, okay. We we have we have lunch, guys. Oh, council members, honorable mayor, council, we have lunch. And what I want to do is this. This is really critically uh important is uh because we've got a lot to cover. We we have a lot of projects to get through and we want to get you out of here. yesterday. We got out around 3:30, but we want to get you out of here before midnight. Please grab lunch and we're going to start up right at 12:30. Okay.

Right at 12:30, we're going to start. Four minutes from now. Yeah, I'm giving you four minutes. Start writing again. Wait, wait, wait. We had a we had an issue with the delivery. They didn't bring everything. Could we maybe go for another Oh, go for another 15 20 minutes. Yeah, let's go.

move to we can move and get at least start on so I think we let's move to this is under so there's two other two focus areas the safety safe and healthy community there's also livable community those are on pages projects. We're going to start, we're going to come back to your projects. We're going to start on page 12 with the leadership team project. Right. Okay.

So, one of the things and we're going to come back to yours leadership team was uh one is um evaluate opportunities to strengthen housing authority to address housing affordability and availability. And this goes back again to a major priority of your community priorities, but also I know the council's values in terms of affordable housing and that's going to be housing and the city manager and the idea is to buy 28. Any do you need any additional information on that? Staff's here to address it.

Sarah Dar is online. Um, but this is the discussion that we're currently having right now to look at uh the creation of a nonprofit to support our um our RAD redevelopment and other uh potential housing projects that we're looking at as well. Question. Okay. Um so the description is evaluate opportunities. Does it take to FY28? I mean, you just stated what your guys are considering. I would hope not. I just the speed of government just I'll never get over it.

But but hopefully it'll be could there Sarah? I knew I'd wake you up. Is there any way we could do that to FY27? I mean, this has been a a priority for the city for decades. We have a housing crisis, as you know. I'm not telling you anything Sarah, but just this is the thing that gets me and the community is ex evaluating talking about what is what opportunities we have and it's going to take us two years to figure that out just seems excessive. Like can we put more urgency in there?

Mayor, Vice Mayor, Council Member Matthews, um yes we can. In my head that was when we were finishing a piece of it, not the evaluation piece. So, I would be happy to put FY27 on that. I put a FY28 because that was the date in my head we would be finishing a piece of it, not just the evaluation. So, happy to move that up. We then just so that we're clear months from now when we're reviewing this to say evaluate and complete.

If we can say evaluate and complete, I would like to leave it at 28 because there are a lot of different pieces that will have to um fall into place in order to complete and I don't see having that done in 27. Um if we can we will um but if we leave it at evaluation then um 27 is great. So 27 is July this of next year. Yes.

end of June of this of 27 end of June of 27 some of the pieces may be budget dependent that we won't have answers to until that point in time so the evaluation piece yes absolutely being completed with the other pieces um there could be some budget dependent decisions to be made there which makes me hesitant to um say we could be done by the end of June. Thank you. Okay.

So um these next three are already under as I understand them are already being um done by the the city partnerships, substance obviously substance abuse partnerships and the wildfire protection programs.

And so and again all of these were generated from uh the leadership team and then it was just you know are we the kind of as as part of their surveys but then we uh drilled down into it yesterday there's they're already being done and so the question becomes if they're being done uh it it's actually become a routine part of what you do uh and do they should they be in the strategic plan? No.

That was the the discussion from yesterday, but wanted to be sure that if you had any questions on these, there are folks here to address that. Next one is flood flood mitigation. Yes, we're going to continue to plan, implement infrastructure projects. Uh yes, and um that's going to it's going to be long surges and it's ongoing. That's a big deal. So would that also be considered something that is just baked into what we do and it doesn't need to be in the strategic plan?

Mayor, um we had a we had a good conversation about this yesterday because we were talking about specific flood control mitigation projects like the Rio to flag for examp is is how significant Rio is and how close we are to really pushing that through that we might not want to take this off just yet because we don't want our community to think that that commitment to that significant project that we've been working on for over 20 years is going away.

So I think that was the crux as to it a little bit longer while we have this major Rio project out there. Um that we had done a lot with Spruce, you know, 180. Um and we continue and we will continue to have flood projects on go and we might um as a team we're going to go back and look at some of these projects. We may come back and specificity in there. Okay. Um park development bond that's just to evaluate and look determine if you need to pursue it.

That evaluation again it doesn't say you're going to do it. It's that evaluation will be done by fiscal year 28 parks that was a a big theme I think there council and leadership priorities and uh the the next one's just same it's um your your airport is going to be doing a master plan but the um that is to support and enhance improvements at the airport And that will be done in in 28.

And on this one as well, just also making sure that a part of this is looking at um the financial sustainability of the airport as well as part of that uh planning process. And so again, we might tweak that language a little bit. Um the park impact fees are going to we get the fiscal sustainability. We have a whole impact fee study. So that'll be that's on the last towards the last page of this document that you have.

Uh the next one is really really important is CIP uh program review and that's to look at regularly evaluate um priority CIP uh program projects. And just on this one, the discussion is that um we we need a kind of a better way to look at our CIP projects and um evaluate, you know, whether they should move forward, not move forward, and and putting a process in place for that. And um this came up in I think it may have been um I hope I'm not misspeaking, it's council member Matthews.

I asked some others if you mentioned this is explore expanding current programs to include development opportunities for employee housing.

So when you're talking to a developer um and this may be changed to more workforce housing but I I know work why is it just let's get along you know buzz word how how work workforce housing next to me uh I you know I remember when I was in college I could fit everything I owned into my 64 Ford station wagon so give me a break we were all there one time um but any This I think addresses what some you know some of you have brought up but that's where we're going to focus on making sure if every when we talk to developers that that yes let's see if you can add some some housing in for us.

Um the next one is just we're going to have to do a a park this is implement a park recreation open space whole master plan. Um, you guys have incredibly beautiful environment up here and recreation opportunities and the idea is to have this uh planned done by 28 that will actually help inform if you're going to have to go and obviously the you know engagement, citizen engagement, education, but then we'll set the kind of set table full on issue or um And the plan already exists, right?

It was fairly recently done. Rebecca had to step away, but they're actually in the process of doing it right now. Um, accepting public feedback. All right. I was just going to say we're actively in the master development plan process. We've hired a consultant. They're reaching out to the public. They'll have a master plan within a year. So, it it it hasn't been done yet, but it's actively going. Um, next two and then is lunch here.

Okay, we're almost Can we We've got three projects here and we'll I think that ends the list for and then when we come back, we'll start with I think make sure Yes, it does. So, this is the end of the leadership team. And then we'll come when we come back we'll focus on your projects at 12:40. Is that right? Yes. Um renewable energy and battery storage uh waste prevention and community volunteerism are three projects uh from the sustainability department all to be done by 2018.

questions for that on the waste prevention. You know, we've had conversations just ongoing about um things that are not cost effective. Um so would it be helpful to put in there um something about weighing because we could do a lot of things for waste prevention that costs the city a whole bunch of money and is not really the deal. Do we put that in there about, you know, weighing the cost or evaluating the financial impact or just leave it like that?

because we talk about recycling and maybe changing the recycle pickup and yeah, thank you. Scott may have a comment too. Thank you. Good afternoon with sustainability. Dr. Thank you for this question. The waste prevention element here is specifically on outreach and education. Okay. um and informing our community members as well as well as our visitors on proper recycling and waste reduction opportunities. So we really just want to increase the resources in the community and to our visitors.

So things like um and I've note we've noted in here for example collaborate across divisions and event organizers. So really trying to minimize waste during special events and things like that from the operational standpoint. I'll hand that off to Scott. Council, excellent question. I actually think we will capture your sentiment and your questions in our solid waste rate study. Okay. And that is underway beginning now, but it is about a year's long process.

It'll take a while, but I think that's where we're going to capture that analysis of service delivery expectations and cost. Thank you. Scott and I had a brief conversation today that we don't have that in our projects. We need to add the solid waste. I I would assume. Yeah. And and selfishly, I did not list it as it's an action item. We're working on it. It's ongoing until it's completed.

There's a number of of rate studies in the organization that probably aren't specifically called out, but maybe we do need more of a in the business practices categories, you know, rate study evaluations. That might be a thought. Yeah, it's more global since there's more than just solid waste. questions. And we just changed resources to outreach. Other other questions? Just here. Just here. Okay. 12:40. We come back. Peace. We just lost five minutes. Five minutes. I only have to say Right. Yep.

We are think we're on council. We we're going to go back to your projects and again um I want to kind of pull this one. You have stronger code enforcement but in a few projects down you have also something about code enforcement. I think that's more global. Uh if we go to the next project, a bike bike bike and pedestrian uh if you go to this it says expand and improve bicycle pedestrian infrastructure support safe and active community that is on page um focus area strategy.

It's a major multimodal plan because you know as a strategy and that's that's something you'll do every single you know it's it's a major focus when a pri a specific project comes up then that's when it's actually goes from here's how we're going to do it to this is actually what's going to be done. So, not sure exactly, you know, here if if that's if there was a specific project in mind or if that's enough to be covered in your focus areas. Yeah. Can we um Yes, please.

I think yesterday um you know we had a little bit of back and forth and afterwards and Paul Mood I'm calling out your name of you talk about the the safe streets master plan and then incorporating this into that Paul. Do you see as an opportunity to to have the safe streets master plan as a project and then incorporating the bike and ped? Yeah. Um Paul Moody engineer.

Yeah, we're currently working I mean every project that we do that's road or like pad related we try to implement you know active transportation master plan and then we're currently working on the safe streets master plan which is looking at all of our different documents including the active transportation master plan. But yeah, we could we could definitely have the safe streets master plan as a project. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We're currently working on safe streets master plan.

You'll see some um media outreach here pretty soon. So Paul, can you talk talk a little bit about the active transportation plan? I mean that's already in place. Yeah, active transportation, active transportation master plan's already in place and and you know, it really talks about just different areas we can focus on to help with bike and ped improvements.

Um like all of our our projects, if you notice the Lone Tree project, um the piece that we're doing on Lone Tree south of Butler that has the really wide bike and pedities, it's going to have a protected intersection. Um, we're working on the Butler Streets, which is going to get the bikes off the street. So, we're going to have bike ahead pass. We're doing it all for um the Butler Street project. The John Wesley Powell improvement project includes a foots trail. Um, yeah.

So, every, you know, we're trying to do the the protected exactly where we can. Everything we do, we we try to incorporate the active transportation master plan. I think Mary has a suggestion on language. I wonder if we could add shapes street master plan street master plan. I'm sorry I just could find street master plan is a project and include language that says that will an improved bicycle and pedestrian improvements.

It both gets at the interest but also gives a concrete thing for staff to work on and complete that. Yeah, we're we're we're always looking for those opportunities. Council recently approved the IGA with ADA six. And that of course is ongoing as a engineer. So is this the place this needs to be or um beyond this language where this appears later. I actually don't know that we have um later. Yeah, it wasn't it wasn't that we felt like we missed yesterday.

Yeah, it wasn't what we were doing yesterday. Okay, great.

Um the next one is this is where I I language there's you know a couple of places where the council said code and look at this which is it's a little bit broader but covers not only in the appearance but the livability the safety if I'm not mistaken on page there is the one that staff that some of the proactive strategies in the red line sorry my no page numbers are a little bit different in these red lines This one you search the word proactive. You should be able to grab it there.

Oh, was it there? I guess we didn't grab it in the project. Maybe we need to revise some of the project language to address the And one of the things we were discussing on break is maybe taking this one offline specific strategies just what that I think some of the projects that were already implementing like the um I think the median work is going to be um we're going to see a big difference when we when we take that on in in you know in a big way. Um and code enforcement.

Um, I think those are the those are two of the things that we hear the most from the community about is just that we need more code enforcement and medians like takes care of the medians. And then long-term strategy for when in neighborhoods if defining who takes care of that median. So when a a developer develops a community has a median, who's responsible for that? Does the city take that on or the developer?

then we need to keep track of that so that we know who to call when it's not being done. I think what we would like to do is kind of pull this together with the code items that we've seen and come back and bring bring back probably a couple of projects on this. Who would do this? CMO government development services when I would want to talk with the team before I would I think because I hear a couple different components.

I think I heard from the mayor some clear standards for developers and understanding where the maintenance obligations lie thereafter. But then I also think I heard the potential of exploring the code itself for opportunities for some um ways to proactively address issues as they come up.

I think there's probably also a resource component to that that we need to understand um just from a staff perspective what our options are which is why I think it's good to have that conversation and bring back some options and are there different approaches we can take within our current code. Okay, but we're going to wait on the fiscal year for that one.

I think what I heard them say though is that we're going to bring back some specific projects and so that would roll out with council as we finalize this document. Right. Yeah. Okay. But knowing what those specific projects are and what years they fall in, I feel like it's a little premature. Yeah. Council okay with Okay. So this fire preparedness education the council just approved a major that Stacy's going to undertake. Assume that it'll include this. Noation. Yeah.

Should this be small component I think of this but fires got a pretty good umational campaign. This was Hey, Madam Council, is there do we need where do we go with this? I guess is there a feeling that we should be doing more when it comes to public education? I think there's always the opportunity to do more or to hone in on what's really um effective, but it is baked in again to what fire does and to our overall community engagement.

So, I don't know that it needs to appear again because I'm sure that it appears later in um we're talking about fire preparedness. I'm thinking this is something that people heavily focusing on this year. So, I wonder if we leave this as a this year strategic priority.

And we are in the midst of completion of the community wildfire protection planning process and that is going to provide tools for us to um not just education but what we can do to help park owners become more safe resilient at their homes. And we are actively, you know, working on identifying potential state and federal revenues of private homes because it's very expensive in a building to carry out these homeing acts.

And then in parallel to that um we want to see soon uh the new body of codes that are coming forward and there are some pretty creative and innovative ways uh that we would like to see the community regulate additional development that by its neighborhood design will make the rest of the community safer as well. So we have a lot of projects in the wind right now.

We're engaging in a regular effort and the prop 204 kind of measures in there that give us more resources to carry out this where it lives. I'm not sure the correct answer of where it is in a strategic plan, but I will tell you that it is going to be departmentally a part of our planning process and then aligned with this plan. So it looks like we present that at 27. Next one is water resource management. This is mentioned actually by you by you twice.

There's another H20 also talks about water resources. So I want to hear a little bit more about this. Where does Flagstaff What do you No, that's what I thought. No. So what are you and surface? Yeah, Williams, water sources director. Um, I looked at this yesterday and I think if we were to make a change, I would like to add uh protect and manage water resources and continue to develop our water portfolio or continue to enlarge our water portfolio to ensure reliable, sustainable water supply.

And I think I might be confusing myself as to whether things need to be spelled out here or are they included later in the projects. So later in the projects match comes up. But I still don't believe there's anything about local. Yes. So th these are going to be strategic uh yes these are the projects projects.

Oh, you're these are your pro the council raised if I can honorable mayor the council raised these and and what now you know like we we said before this is a collective effort we want to make sure we we did not have staff work on these yesterday we wanted to make sure you were here so they could work on them and you could hear what they had to say okay thank you welcome What department? Uh, this is water water services. I'm going Yeah, definitely. Water's huge. Okay. Uh, libraries.

This is one of your library facilities. We do have a facilities improvement project that we're going to get into or maintenance and upgrades and all that, but this looked like you wanted to enhance libraries and there what what we Sure. Yeah. Heidi, can I before you um uh comment on this specifically, I think it would be one of the items that I thought about last night is that we don't have East Flagstaff Library on the on the uh on the project list.

So that the temporary space, I'm wondering if we can just kind of incorporate I didn't save my name and my title for the recording. We apologize last time. Heidi Hansen, economic vitality director. Um, as you know, we are uh you just approved on Tuesday us relocating our East Flagstaff library that needs to be relocated because of the CCC $100 million bond.

Um, we'll be doing that and then we are currently working with a contractor for cosmetic changes only to the place that we are moving and then we think we'll probably be in that location about 3 to four years um hopefully just three and then uh while we're making discussions on the new library um for Fourth Street and then uh we just did some major things with the main library which you all agreed two years ago to do a windows project which is now completed.

Thanks to Adam Mali and our library team um for seeing that through sure if there's anything else I can help you with on this but we are continuing to do a lot of things for serving libraries here. Yes.

Since we're in a strategic plan frame of mind, I think we need to ask ourselves looking a decade down the line, are we satisfied with our main library and our east side library knowing that the east side library is going to be doubled in floor space compared to the existing east side library the you know the the new construction approximately twice as much area to to work within.

So strategically are we happy and I personally am happy with two locations but we need to be asking ourselves strategically long term to the right number. So, I just bring it up a question. Mayor, Council Member Spence, uh, we're still uh, in negotiation with CCC on the size of that library at East Flag. And, um, Duran Keane would probably know more about that than me. She's working with Dr. Heiser. Um, but there are other solutions to libraries and there's things called pop-up libraries.

And so even if we don't want to have another library, which you realize would mean another library to maintain and operate and staff with full-time and temporary staff can be very costly and we already uh do rely on the general fund quite a bit for for serving these libraries.

Um, but there are other solutions doing some pop-up libraries, things like that that could actually be rotated throughout the community that would be um something that could possibly be maintained through with very little staff, but also opening up the library resources to areas of town that really don't come to the main or the east five location.

So, I've spoken to several library directors over the years about those types of options that I think we probably want to look into first before going to a third location. And council member, I think this um will allow us to look at um items like that. Yeah. Did we specify it? Yeah. I mean, put that in there and I'll follow I'll add that to my goals against Joanne and we'll continue to update you on how those would work in a community, maybe even create a plan.

Um but the rotation of that normally is really fun and um I've seen it. I worked with Linda Tilson, our previous library director. She worked on those and set the planted the seed to me and I'll work with Jennifer, our new library director, on something like that and see what we the possibilities could be. But I think that'd be a lot more uh feasible financially for us to look at something like that. Thank you. Yes, Council Member Garcia, did you Yeah, I did.

And I'm trying to stay as uh zoomed out as possible and not getting into the weeds here. So I don't know if this is appropriate, but when I look at the libraries, I'm looking at things that libraries tend to to work on. And that's, you know, abilities, the programs, the services. Now, within those programs and services, are we baking in um staff training for for um see what did I write down here?

That training for like trauma response and mental health because as we all know, the the libraries here um are are used for educational purposes, books, computers, and all those type of things, but they're also a second home to the unhoused in a lot of situations. So, I don't know if we need to put anything here that signifies that so we can keep on track with it. And if not, then I'm happy with keeping it inside of the services and the support.

Council Garcia, we just had that training on August 10th. We closed all the libraries for a Monday. Um, and we had all of the employees as well as even our county affiliates come to Flax Staff and we did that training. We did active shooter training. We did um I forget exactly what they called it, mental wellness training, and it was a full day. And so they all um received all of that. They went through breakouts. Um we actually even did a press release.

You might have seen it uh where we let people know that you might hear would be gunshots outside of the main library, but they weren't real gunshots. So yes, we are committed to doing that at least once a year with staff. Thank you. Okay. What year? Oh, we already put it in 29. So, the next one is public gathering spaces to improve plazas community interaction point. Okay. You also have this prose and I'm not sure if this incorporates. I just want to hear from the council your thoughts on that.

Mayor, I wonder if we should include here our our brief considerations up to this point of should we include a arts and culture district in this category? We've talked about it. We don't know exactly where to go. The Orpheium has been part of that discussion. Indigenous culture centers part of that discussion. Um at the Mountain Rose Theater, you know, the Flagstaff Shakespeare Theater come before us with their master plan.

Um, in today's newspaper, there's an article about a former teacher at FALA who wants to buy the FAA property and have it be an arts center for our community. She's not asking for city money on it, but these types of facilities might fit under this category. So if they are if they're done by other entities. Oh, but that's just an example of what could be considered.

So you're saying an overall category about arts and culture district or and and and maybe this needs to be put in the same category that we put child care that it's there are other agencies in our community, nonprofits know how to do child care. There are other people that know how to do arts and entertainment. So, we don't have to get involved. Just support those organizations in our community that are um doing the public engagement and public gathering spaces.

Council member, can I ask a question? So, when when you say support, do you mean financially support? Do you mean just staff being a part of those discussions? more is it more explore partnership? Yes, the Oreium is a a good casing point. We all know the historic significance and importance of the Oreium Theater in our community. Should the city I don't have an answer for your question.

I mean it could be yes we put money into it or no we step back and just support the other organizations in our community that are forward you know the Mountain Rose Theater. Don Tucker came before us with her plan for a theater complex. Wonderful idea. um she wasn't specifically asking for city money and she's now fundraising to make it happen. So, I don't have the answer to this.

I'm just wondering if we should include it under public gathering spaces, this kind of um amenity in our in our community. I don't know. I kind of want to leave it open because I don't think we know that. I mean, the word is coming back to council. We don't know if it will be where that will go. And I would hate for us to say no, absolutely, we're not going to help financial.

So, I like kind of it vague where it's exploring opportunities for partnerships and support or partnerships, but something to allow it to be a little more open. And I'm I'm using the Oreium as an example, but who knows what will come. It's probably our office, city manager's office. ongoing. I will tell you that these do take a lot of time of staff. Just going to put that out there.

I do support what David is saying only because like we how are we going to become a hub of arts and culture if we don't have a priority? Thank you, David. Oh, yeah. This this one we've already taken care of so we can strike it that child curious. Sorry, could we could we go back? I would just like to address the other comments. What? Yeah, because that what's in here seems a little different to me.

Um I'm sorry manager to interrupt, but it seems like a different So we we do have a lack of event space for the events we have now. Polaloo, Cornicopia. Um, you know, we kind of shoehorn them into the fields that we have, but those were built to be athletic fields, not event spaces. So, our event producers are able to make them work, but at high cost to them. They have to bring in restrooms electricity um, fencing in a lot of cases, uh, can be very expensive.

So in our master plan that we are doing um that has already come up as a a topic and conversation for the e part of pros. Um we know that we're lacking event space. So I don't know if you want to combine them or keep or make the arts and culture district a little separate. Um, I did want you to know that we are addressing at least the idea of a lack of internet space in our master plan. Pros on here too then. Yeah. Thank you.

The next one is we have force health, you know, support force restoration, fuel reduction, etc. Um and on this is definitely one of your uh under one of your uh strategies on page 18, but the question became is there a specific project that you're looking at to implement If on page 18, it says when we under under the focus here, environmental stewardship, it says safeguard Black Flagstaff's natural resources.

system by advancing sciencebased policies and practices that restore a healthy and sustainable environment which is essentially making sure that those practices related to science-based resultoriented. So it's it's definitely a focus for once you approve these strategies at a at a future meeting is that everyone in this room is going to focus on. Uh we we we just wanted to know if there was something in particular that you wanted us you wanted staff to do mass been under here.

So I think that's sort of a low simmering goal but it's definitely something that keeps coming up and um ultimately I think we want it as part of our energy portfolio. Oh, can maybe add something about keeping tab with how that's developing. Sounds good. What would be how would you describe that? I just I think it all falls into fuel reduction and I there are discussions happening on biomass to keep us on our priority list. NEU is a huge partner in that conversation. Sure. Water services.

I'm going Don't put it as for our landfill. Thank you. Actually, Scott has been involved in this discussion. Yeah. Before we move on to the next, I wanted to go back to the high performing governance and a comment that you made, council member Alen, about the um privacy task force. So, I think we have a suggestion to add that as a project in there.

I'm wondering about adding a project specific to um the university principal something that's planned to be an upcoming dialogue as a result of some of the dialogue task force has been having that uh that's an umbrella surveillance policy you would fall under that it's broader to address some of the principles and then kind of how we've tested against those principles but I think that would get potentially add that interest and is something we're planning to bring back in this current fiscal year in FY27.

We'll add that to the list as well. Am I scrolling? Wait, we already put in the language for data. They wanted it under um high performing governance. Got it.

Um okay we we're going to move to roads and uh resilient economy and that starts the projects for that for the leadership team and then we're going to come back to the council starts on 16 page 16 uh first one is housing authority we've already taken care of that development review process staff talked about that yesterday that I'm going to nail this down by Yeah. So, I just want to offer some context here.

The discussion we had yesterday was uh we are actively reviewing and are going to be spending some time this fall looking at the development process both on planning development service society and and um what we talked about is that realistically if there are changes proposed some of those might not finish rolling out until it's clear. So, I just want to be clear that we listed that as a conservative date, but that that conversation is actually occurring this as well.

And I would imagine that the last cap as that's been um a priority for some time. There's a lot of staff focus on that. It gets presented. We prioritize which codes need to be updated um or amended and I would imagine that that discussions about this also have come up when you're talking about tab. Correct.

So is that there's the safe streets master plan number efforts that are underway that overall the presentation seek to address repeatable processes and underfeeding um standards developing typologies.

So, we want to make sure that as we're exploring both of those processes, we don't do something here that then messes up something else there to look at all those different pieces as well as you'll see later on looking at understanding things like an opportunity to review our impact fees and what that process looks like. So, this this was kind of a marrying of all of those efforts. Oh, um, vice mayor and then council member M.

Um, is there a way instead of it saying having it say FY28 but in there saying this has started like we are doing this now so that public facing would it be continuing to streamline is that I like continue with us again. This is under u council member. This is under economic Let's go back here. Um we have access to this. Yeah, I emailed it to you yesterday at about five. This this is under your robust and resilient economy. It start it's on page 14 of the document.

It starts the what you're going to discuss later the focus areas and this is what obviously we're going to go back to your project but this was one of the projects that came on the staff is on page starts on page 16 unless the documents 15. Yeah. For the I think Alex has something additional to offer. Hi. Hi, Alexandra Puchelli. Um, I'm here filling the place barely of Michelle McNelte, um, our director. Um, you will be seeing stuff pretty quickly coming to council even this fall.

Tiffany has some code amendments um, dealing with our resoning process and trying to streamline that. And that'll go hand in hand um with my team working on uh updating applications so that those happen together for applicants. Yes, council member Matthew. So, um I appreciate Vice Mayor um having us add 27 to 28, but where's my concern in just being in that management space for most of my career? Um, human nature tends to push to the deadline, right?

And this is a conversation that this is not a new conversation. This has been a problem identified for years. Um, so I appreciate that some's coming to us now and I appreciate that, you know, we've got nine 10 months to the end of, you know, this fiscal year end. Um, but I just want to say it out loud that this should not take another two years to be fully implemented. Um, this is a crisis in our our housing issue.

Um, I hear weekly from developers and builders and everybody else about the bottleneck in some of our processes. hearing it since I've been on council. So I I understand, you know, we got to do it right and in government work a lot more steps. But I I and I get it and I I guess I'll accept that like this 2728 but I predict human nature it'll be because that's just how we flow. I mean is a human nature, right?

I I would like if it was a private business it would be 27 and that would push the urgency to keep that top of mind and it's not going to be top of mind and this is top of mind in our community and I I think that um Tiffany has kind of a a working calendar that she's been working as part of the last cap and working with sustainability and housing to bring these code amendments ments pretty consistently in the next months.

Um, you can only handle so many code amendments at a time, but it's they're coming and I think they'll be coming pretty pretty quickly to you. Um, and then like I said, then it's me running along making sure that I have all those updated processes and procedures in place so that when the code becomes active, we can immediately be utilizing those. And just one last question, um, because mine was more of a statement. I get it. Um, does this also include in development review uh, traffic? Yes.

So that's um when I mentioned Safe Street's master plan, there's a pretty robust public outreach component and stakeholder component that we'd like to gather all of what you're describing and make sure that we can build some standards typologies based around that feedback and what we're seeing through the development process that we need to work on. I look forward to updates. I Yeah, I trust me, I understand the urgency, but I have a question.

So with this process, my assumption is our because we had this same problem, but we had the code hadn't been updated forever and the council was all over us. Get it done. So our solution was there. There's there's components of the code that are most important to development and the the development community.

So the question becomes we put a focus I just was asking as the folks that live with this looked at it and said what we did is that we had them look at it and go oh these are the 15 things we need done right now and that's what we did and you guys are doing that I assume yes that was part of that last cap project was looking at prioritizing all our priorities based upon what you're hearing from so so if that helps helps council member what they're and it sounds like you're going to be implementing this over time.

It's going to be done by 28. But if you're doing that, that's soft. That's smart. The most important things will be brought to you. Correct. They're coming to you. They're coming. Those are the ones that they want to hear because we had the same problem. Didn't have, you know, didn't have the staff to get it done. But once we did that, it was incredible the result from the development community.

In fact, we were at a building event and one of the developers that just got a project completed praised our department. I almost fell out of my seat. Um, so yeah, I know I was shocked because this guy was And can I just make a comment? I just want to make a comment that that it is not all. Some of the things that we get from developers, we have to send back for a reason. So I just I I wanted I hear you hear from five or seven developers the same thing.

There's some legitimacy to what they're saying. I just would also offer in addition to the things that council will see, I just want council to know that administratively Scott is also looking at in process and things that need to streamline for applicants. But I have to give kudos to the team that the conversations that I've been in thus far clearly indicated that staff has a laser focus on this issue and are looking at ways that both through code and through process we can make.

It looks like I'm going to change this to 2728. Okay, are we okay? Uh, next one is regional housing partnerships. Again, this is the focus definitely on it just reads as it is. Uh, and we're going to work with those and that's going to be ongoing. Make sure you're okay with that. We have a rail crossing improvement And that's going to be 2829. Any questions on that one? Staff's here to address it. Okay.

Um they eliminated the the freight mobility reduced these again were from the leadership team reduced tourism dependency. The Yeah, it's your tourist community. In fact, I'm going to be up here as a tourist spending money um incentive program for business. Um thinking about that, but these so these were these were eliminated. Any question on those eliminations? Yes. Just curious if that second one is a zero sum game on diversifying local economy. Are we divesting tourism?

I hope that's not the goal. No, it's not. No, it's not the goal. Yeah, we're definitely focus. We took we we took this one off because part of it is um just, you know, we're going to be looking at revenue diversification. Anyway, just being a moment there for my tourism. The next next one is redevelopment in member Spence. Thank you, Mayor. Sorry. Sorry. on freight mobility projects. Are we going to come back to railspur? I think rail spur is one of the projects that are in here.

I think have that somewhere. Yeah, but it's I think it's later in infrastructure. If we're coming back to it, that's fine. I want to include it here. Yeah, it is. It's on page 21 and it's under sustainable and innovative infrastructure. We'll talk about rail spur. Okay. So, as your project infill project okay with this one we're going to it's going to be ongoing. It's a no-brainer. We all want to see redevelopment and infill.

We We've got urban growth boundaries that have been defined on the maps and if we're going to grow as a community within our urban growth boundary, we have to do infill. of not sure how to how to u implement this on the ground but it's an ongoing I would say it's an ongoing imperative that we have strategic plan that supports infield development and redevelopment I obviously we're going to keep it ongoing Um, I like it the way it is. Yes.

A place to put some sort of vision around uh acquiring county islands, city limits. Exploring annexation opportunities. I'll hear us talk about that a lot and oftentimes that's because they are not meeting our standards and so then we would be bring something into our system that we would have to invest a lot of money into. Um so I I don't know that that's been a priority just because we struggle to have money to take care of what's already in existence within the city boundaries.

Status quo seems to be working fine for all parties involved. But ultimately, I think if we have a vision as a city down the road, we kind of want to incorporate all those little bubbles. I would I mean I mean I feel like we've got um potential annexation fire station. I mean there are other annexation items that I think we can we can look at. Make signature collecting easier.

And also um al alongside our previous um affordable housing strategy, we talked about partnerships and Mountain Line and FUSD were mentioned and um we don't have to put this in there, but I count um Cookanino County as also a potential partner for um helping to provide workforce housing. Okay. Uh the next two were obviously projects that were that were recommended by Leicia U were also and the last one except faster. This one. Yeah. Trying is it this one here? Sorry.

This one I think was moved to we'll see it later in under financial sustainability. Yeah. Um cost of service. We put it under there because that's what cost of services. So that's where now I want to go back to the councils on had a number of projects or initiatives you wanted us to take a look at.

Uh one was u there was statement regarding parity over growth philosophy and this was um more of a an emphasis on policies uh that emphasize economic prosperity quality of life or anything than just growth more of a a policy direction for the council but I wasn't I know we have some there's going to be some discussion on the next two here and maybe even three. Uh but let's start with this one. Help us save. What would be an example of a policy that could be amended?

Or or or where would a policy um land within the city infrastructure? Or would it be more of a a resolution? I don't know what the policy would look like, but I think that's a really great question. Um, I I guess I use things in more simple terms. So when I So hopefully by bringing up the point, I could have greater minds in the room think of the policy. But we often talk about if we're not growing dying.

I think if we could kind of change that narrative through a policy that helps us understand that we can be sustainable without adding more costs or more and more and more and more and doing things more sustainably that would help me at least when it comes to this topic. I'm not a just want to echo that. Um thank you council member Garcia. I think that's exactly where I was coming from in discussing this.

uh uh economic growth is a determinant of itself that rubs me and and a lot of folks in the community the wrong way. Um I think a better way to frame it and really this is just about the how we word it. I think uh it creates a different way of thinking about what the actual objective is. So going with e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e economic well-being or community well building um or a couple of terms I suggested.

I think prosperity is being uh treated as the same thing as that but I think those two terms might be a bit more descriptive and community wealth building. This puts the focus where I think we want it instead of just growth for growth sake. Yeah. Okay. Give an example. Uh well, one example is is uh partially the conversation around the hospital move. Um that being a a trigger for growth.

Um where I would have rather seen the conversation focus around what kind of community what kind of health outcomes our community needs and regional. Uh so not to open a can of worms there but I think I think that hints at sort of the philosophical difference between the word growth and the word and economic well-being.

Um so one of the things that um just mentioned the manager did you put a note over here um council member mayor and council that this would become under econom that robust economic this becomes strategy focus so that when you are looking at economic development issues you can refer back to this something there may be an opportunity in the future say, "Wait, we agreed to this as one of our our strategies.

We should make sure that we dig a little bit deeper into this as opposed to being a a project." It becomes because it does Yeah. If you want to go in that direction and we stick it in under strategy and it becomes a strategy that it goes back to four focuses for me really um sort of an umbrella term community building building. Okay. Thank you. I was like, "This doesn't look right." Vice Mayor Pastor Matthews.

So, um I just Well, I know uh Sunnyside is working on their community um vision plan, whatever the title is. And I know we talked about I think uh the EPA has recently did be mistaken or want a vision for downtown. So, it's smart growth. Um, makes me think of this topic right here that we're being uh making sure it's the community well-being. I don't know about the office building, but um would that go in? I mean, we've got Southside already has their neighborhood plan.

Um, and if the downhouse ha downtown has their um plan and when sunny side has their plan, wouldn't that be the policies? I mean, they're not our policies, but we clearly to hear or consider their development plans that they set for their own neighborhoods, right? for my two. I also think we have the regional plan as well, right? I personally I think Council Member Garcia has a comment. I think this comment.

Yeah, I think this probably warrants a bigger conversation when we do the strategic focus areas and how that and if it turns into an actual project. The comment was was really just to kind of contextualize the idea of growth. Um, and I'm not speaking specifically to the Sunnyside neighborhood plan, but since you brought that up, in some ways that plan is there to curtail growth.

So that's my point that the community that it impacts has a say and um whatever we're doing we're mindful of their priorities for their neighborhood which then is economic or no depending on what the plan but their neighborhood plan has outlined. Correct. Thank you. I I do think that maybe this will require more conversation and I agree with the philosophy and the sentiment expressed here.

Um I've never I I think that all of our economic development um our plans and our workforce development plan follow this this line of thinking. I've never heard anyone within the city say if we're not growing we're dying. I've heard people in the community say it. Um which we can't you know control. But I think our philosophy um as I've understood it for some time is that that economic vitality is very much aware of this and very much aware of the community's priorities.

And so that feeds into all economic development that's done. But but maybe there needs to be something um stated elsewhere outside of economic vitality plans that reinforce that we want community-based um community- based uh economic development.

uh rather than you know we're not looking to bring intel in here to build a big plant and we have the the strategies we have the sectors Heidi I think we're good think I think on this will be this will be embedded in in the future and with with you and manager and leadership team and as a strategy mayor and it's something that you will definitely I think it'll be good because it'll give an optic to the community. This is something the council's looking at.

So every project you look at, every policy review, all of those things be this will be used as a metric for and that's I think the appropriate place for it. So I think we've got this covered now. This is this was an interesting one. I uh is the it it came out as a human needs in metric and established a well-being metrics to measure but it was human need um and I want to have a little discussion on that. Yes council. Yeah.

One thing that I see when I first read read over this was that um it gives a kind of a quotient or an outcome to the quality of life which I appreciate. So wherever the philosophy that came that this idea came from, I think having those measurements and um having an understanding or or a metric that we can devise our plans off of help a lot. So I'm just supporting it. Yeah, you may show it. What am I thinking of? Don't we have an index that comes to council index report?

Well, that's like that our housing prices are this much above that average. And no, this was a different um it has to do with uh gender inclusion, gender. It's it's nationwide based survey. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, there. Yeah, this was uh if the council doesn't seem like anyone is jumping on board. Even know how we would really do that and if we had the resources to do that and if we need to do that. Struggle a little over. Yeah, struggle. Might be more of a county.

Yeah, it seems like it's I I see the sign. Okay, this one we're gonna Okay, middle housing. Let's go to middle housing.

An issue is it is this going to be a standalone or a lot of the other things that are being done but we want to ask because this was one of your pro projects that one of you mentioned was middle the middle which I think it's covered in multiple places might be too all housing continue so um the next one as we scroll up we'll take a we'll take A quick break at two quick is um high wage job recruitment. Oh, you missed the top. Oh, did I miss one? Oh, Eevee. Sorry, Eevee. Right. Yeah, this one.

Yeah, this one we needed some clarification on. Is it economic vitality or electric vehicle? Electric vehicle. I didn't put this count. I think they're saying Oh, they're saying implementation. Yeah, we This was a tough one. We have that already. We have an isn't it in our policy that every time we do a fleet uh replacement, we go through a process to evaluate if this is where we could plug in an EV or hybrid or something, but we have an electric vehicle strategic plan.

We have um we did um we did do a formal assessment with APS. The council may or may not recall uh probably about a year and a half ago, two years ago, TA Presler sat in front of the council and walked through a plan uh for the city organization's fleet transition. and I'd be happy to send that back out. But that aligned with the goals established in the carbon neutrality plan and then the fleet policy really should be in theory our proverbial roadmap.

Um moving forward um one of the elements of a past priority that was listed in terms of renewable energy development and battery storage. We are also trying to incorporate additional EV infrastructure. We don't know if it will pencil out, so I I can't make any promises, but we are definitely going to look at that. And we have to keep in mind that we need the infrastructure to support the vehicles.

Um, and that's something Jen Brown uh has been really strategic and and incredibly helpful as we try to make this transition. We have to have both aligned. Nicole, we think um we have a addresses carbon neutrality plan shifting towards the climate action plan. that that kind of would address some of these interests or we sure that's a great idea. We can really pull that in um and have some more specific again that road map. I had to do the pun. Everyone's all tired after lunch.

But yeah, that's a great place. We could definitely study that. we can strike that out. If if we truly are thinking of a strategic plan that is looking 10, 20 years in the future, I think we need to include hydrogen as a fuel source because their uh hydrogen fuel cell vehicles are on the road now. They're expensive, but they work.

And if you have a hydrogen fuel hydrogen distribution system to refuel these vehicles, it bypasses the energy losses you some of the energy losses that you uh endure creating electricity. So um it's not today's technology, but it will be I promise you tomorrow's technology.

both for industry and for transportation and I think we should include it in our strategic plan if we're look if we're looking 10 20 years in the future think that electrifying her fleet is something that we're interested in in you know realizing possible for us to get under a different category. Want to be careful in that it's not something. Yeah. Well, absolutely.

And and frankly from a the strategic plan, this is has to be in concert with public works um and the fleet manager and section director Jen Brown. um blend that technical expertise if you will um but that actual day-to-day and the infrastructure development and procurement is all over in public works. So I just want to make sure there's there's clear distinction there.

So, I don't know, Scott, if this has been talked about at all with the public works case at all, but I don't think it's full with any of the or anything. Council member Spenc would not build at this time.

It's pretty far out in terms of itation from but so can we kind of move this I mean not you know keep it in but move it over to the climate action make sure it's that's the right idea that's coming up so it won't be a standalone but it will be embedded in the the strategies I think that would be easier to see Yeah, it all. Thank you for testing. I want to just I'm gonna and then we're going to get to this one.

These two are already excuse me, these high wage jobs, local support in your focus or your strategies. I mean, they're already and these are saying, you know, although this one says evaluate best practice, this one is definitely, you know, a focus. Um, I do want to get to these two because this is looks like a project, but this is uh a minimum wage discussions. This one's in the the focus area already. Uh, this one on the minimum wage discussion.

Um, we need some insight from the council on that one. Thank you, mayor. I can I can sort of speak to both of these at once. Um, in terms of high wage job recruitment, something the mayor just said, um, I think is pertinent here. You know, we're not looking for intel to come in. Um, and so maybe qualify that statement a little bit.

uh you know something you know high wage shops that fit Flagstaff so specific I guess about medical or you know clean technology or stuff like that audible to Flagstaff public and it's often referred to as high wage low impact Yeah, you know the centers and stuff. Uh, so just for the outward facing part of it, we might want to qualifier there. Yeah, I like high wage low income.

This is what your current your I like that your draft focus area says about attracting high wage attracting high quality employers and jobs. target employers that provide quality employment opportunities while minimizing impacts on infrastructure, water, energy, and other natural resources. That could include intel, too. Just as long as it's a you know, a mini I think that's fine. Keeping you'll find you'll find a solution to that.

And then said that she'd like to add longterm to this as well, strengthen the local economy in the long term, I guess. I think you create long term. I mean, I don't know how that we could do that. Um because you can't guarantee that that they're going to stay stay can't we can't guarantee the frequency of a local visitor to a shop. You know that vice mayor owning your own shop for 25 years. So, if she could clarify that, that might make sense.

But I think long-term is really hard for us to be able to say we can do that. I don't know. We can't guarantee long-term jobs either. No, I mean long-term jobs. Yeah. And and that's what Go ahead.

Uh just to to clarify there, I think one of the challenges that we've seen, especially as we've been engaging in the discussion about um the potentiality of data centers and things like that, is that a lot of these uh opportunities for employment come, but they're very short-term for bringing longlasting jobs to our economy. So I I think we can't guarantee them, sure, but we need to consider that what we're looking to bring are jobs that are sustainable and lasting, not temporary.

It sounds like we're going to have to work on that as part of our as part of our when the staff comes back, leadership team and manager of that. But I want to There's this these two look like projects. Uh minimum wage discussion. Help me hear. Council member Garcia, council member Matthews.

I I would almost rather go after members of Matthews, but I'll just throw out what I had to have to say about it is um I I think that it's important to have the discussion from time to time, but since we can't do much about it at council, I wonder um how relevant these discussions are and how much of a a burden on time it is for our community to continue to listen to something that we can do nothing about. I agree with that. And what I was going to say is NAU just did an evaluation.

Unfortunately, they were commissioned to do the whole county. So, it really didn't highlight as much as it would have been more helpful to highlight just Flag Staff. So unless we want to consider commissioning NA to do another study flag specific um I know that they uh they pointed out there's been a loss of 12 or 1300 jobs because of the minimum wage and stuff but they the whole report was countywide and so everything got diluted but there has been an evaluation is my point.

So unless we want to go back and commission them just for Flagstaff specific, the evaluation's been done and it was diluted because it was a countywide thing. Any mayor, any traction on this one? Vice Mayor, as somebody who has a locallyowned small business, I I don't want to shy away from having this discussion. And to me, it's almost like minimum wage and local business support had go hand in hand.

Uh I think as a community we've been a little shy to talk about what's really happening in our small business community and even if we can't change it I think giving the small business owners a voice and to talk about you know the struggles we are facing and why it is so important to support local business and you you may buy it or not but minimum wage really does play a part. So, I used to have two people on all the time.

Now, I I I work a lot myself when I can in between everything and I have one person on. And even for my anniversary that's coming up, should have three people on because it's going to be busy. It's parents weekend. I've got my anniversary. Guess what? I'm going to be working it. So, these are these are real things going on. And I think if we don't talk about it, we're not really servicing our community as a whole. Um Heidi and then Council Member Matthews. May I have a suggestion?

Um I look at the two categories, minimum wage discussion and local business support. If we combine them at local business health and well-being or something to that effect, then you could have minimum wage as a line item underneath that with other items. Um there's there's issues with benefits, there's issues with just staffing and training, things like that.

If you want to have an emphasis on, of course, the well-being of our local businesses and how they function in the community, that's something my team and I with retention expansion can work on, but I I think when we get specific onto a voter ballot initiative, it's a little bit wonky. So maybe we could do something like that. It's a suggestion. Uh, Council Member Matthews, Council Member Alen, thank you. I was just going to add to Vice Mayor's point.

Um, and then it goes back to how do we evaluate it? So, maybe we do want to talk about having um, a consultant, whether it's NAU or whomever, um, talk about it because I don't think the community really understands, um, the consequence to the local businesses on the minimum wage. they just see one side of it and um you know the the perception out there is that if their doors are open they're flourishing.

Um so you know my point earlier was just that we've had the evaluation and fortunately it wasn't just too Flagstaff specific. I would be in favor of having a evaluation just Flagstaff specific. we could have a public document that people could actually see factual information and and impacts to uh businesses um especially uh low margin businesses, hospitality, restaurants and stuff um because we are going to see more and more uh businesses close down.

They're struggling to stay uh open and you know vice mayor's having to work too many hours. So, but I I think it it when vice mayor said that, it just made me think, yeah, you know, it'd be great for the community to see the real impact that this is having. Council member Alen, thank you, mayor. Um, just to swing back a little bit on that, I fully recommend going with Heidi's um suggestion rather than emphasizing the minimum wage as a boogeyman.

Um, I don't think that's going to be helpful at all. And I will tell you, many of us in this room remember uh an attempt to evaluate the minimum wage several years ago. It did not well um it was completely rejected and I don't know that we want to backslide into uh that kind of back and forth with the community. I think the much more appropriate, healthy way to approach this is to find out how we can help local businesses in uh navigate various obstacles.

Um that's going to be just a cleaner approach that's going to create less burn uh and less agitation. Garcia, thank you. And this supports of Boston's statement. It's a little bit anecdotal, but I just went through a major exercise for my former employer with middle manufacturing being established in this town and being successful in this town.

And I can tell you from the inside out, it had everything to do with um with affordability and housing and had very little to do with their ambition to be here, the location of Flagstaff, or the wanting of people to actually have jobs. um there was just no way to be able to connect the cost of living here um on with a national business um when you're competing with you know Louisville, Kentucky and places where have they have a much more low barrier of entry for their employee.

So sounds like we're going to this one who I think that sounds good. Put I will put it under EV. Um and I I also like Heidi's suggestion. I mean, I do worry if we have something specific to minimum wage that we may kind of veer into the election, the ballot base and that concerns me. So, I think keeping it under and maybe specifically stating that also looking at city processes that may negatively impact local businesses because we would have something that we could do about that perhaps. Okay.

Um, and what year? Timeline. Do you think December is still a year? Um, well, I think it's always ongoing, but if you want us to do a study, sorry, month.

I think it's ongoing, but I think if you want us to do a study that includes um getting some information on the middle minimum wage and how it's affecting everyone, we could always include some other questions um as well because a lot of people we might want to ask the question, do you have a new starting wage and what does that starting wage look like? I think we always want to know that data for ourselves as well. We could probably do that within the next fiscal.

we would go to the budget process and ask for that and try to do. So, so I think it's FY28 and ongoing if you're okay with that. Okay. So, thank you. 10 minutes. Uh 2:15. We'll start up again. We only have a couple more minutes to go through and we're done. We got Yeah. 215 Moving to uh under environmental stewardship and sustainable and innovative infrastructure. Um we're going to start with the um leadership team projects from yesterday and then we'll come back like we we council.

First one, air force sustainability to deal with as technology infrastructure is ERP. No need to do that. This is the one that city facility maintenance uh develop. Yeah, you can read it. This this really comprehensive plan for your facilities. You know, you build them. I like this is, you know, I love these. I used to be in charge of in one community I was working in building maintenance. These are so great because you just pop them out and pop them back in. Love them.

Sorry to deviate there, but but yeah, this is really important stuff. Oh, are you okay with that one? Okay. uh infrastructure assessment uh comprehensive assessment of city infrastructure current conditions and future conditions. Um this one the 28 we're going to have the this is going to be ongoing and those are the departments that are responsible. Yes. So I'm sorry for facility maintenance plans. Um is it inferred in here that this is in um compliance with the climate action? objectives.

I'm talking you know appropriate weather weatherization adherence strict adherence to the robust code. My guess is that that's kind of assumed at it. I think um we're talking two things.

one in this we have done a much better job of starting to track the asset understand the asset and then cycle excuse me um implement life cycle costing so flooring replacements windows roofs things that need big ticket capital we're doing better on it I think what we've noticed is we don't have this comprehensive maybe like a 10-year CIP plan that is real robust to really be able to forecast and help finance out to say, you know, we're going to anticipate a roof on new core maintenance facility that was built in 2018, but it might come up in 2038.

So, we're trying to figure out a way to make it a little more predictable for financial planning. Um, the implementation piece that you're speaking of then clearly would require our responsible implementation of all codes, um, policies, directives of the city. So, Yeah, every time we go change whether all this know all those codes and requirements. So lead standards stuff like that.

Um if you want to speak to lead standards we we don't have to subscribe to those but I mean I think we meet what is just an example. Correct. Correct. Exactly. Um mayor and council uh the city does have a sustainable building resolution. Uh the first one was adopted formally in 2008. It was revised in 2014 and then revised again in 201 me on that maybe 22. Um but we've tried to uh incorporate advancements and technologies and so forth.

But within the context of the current resolution, there are options for lead silver green globe, which is a Canadianbased version of the US green building council's um design and and energy efficiency. And um then there's also an opportunity for discussion about the actual formal certification from these entities because there's additional costs associated with it. We are looking at all the best recommendations for the city organization moving forward and through that cost-effective lens.

Nicole, is that for um existing and new or focused more on that's going to be new construction, but it's also for additions um over 10,000 square feet. I I would I would think we want to sort of articulate that out loud just because this is a strategic plan. Um, I get that it's inherent in some resolutions that we've been involved in passing, but just having a laser focus on uh, you know, meeting and exceeding the best standards. Absolutely.

And we are um, is one type of uh, um, what do you call it? Standard protocol. There's others. So, I'm not just picking on leads specifically but yeah, absolutely. Um we are Jennvie Pier3 is our senior sustainability planner and she is currently assessing the cost analysis associated let's just say with US green building council's lead silver versus the green globes for leaves um and a net zero um code policy.

So what we're trying to do is actually do an analysis of the costs associated with that. We want to make sure that we're keeping costs um for the city and the tax, you know, our community members at the forefront, but also in that performance for the long term because we want our buildings, we don't want to save money up front at the cost of higher because there's a cost premium. It we should be sure to be intentional about that. Thank you.

probably and not to that not to that point but in terms of um maintenance plan I would hope that as we are um building a new road, installing a new sidewalk, whatever it is that we are including the maintenance cost of that in our financial planning for the next 10, 20, 30 years so that we know that we could pay for maintenance what we build. Are you asking for us to expand the city facilities to something else because this item is specific to our city facilities?

Well, the infrastructure um the infrastructure assessment study. Oh, you're on I would see Yeah. And there that I mean we just need to be doing that, right? When we're building something, um we need to know when we're going to need to put money into maintaining it. got that. Um, okay. So, the rest of these um system replacement. Um, we deleted that because um and then this red gap pipeline. Um, this is we're going to do that as project. Just want to make sure you're okay with that. the changes.

Oh, I like the change. Okay, good. And yes, uh the bridge, this is ADOT's responsibility, payment management. Um we are definitely going to be focused on that as an ongoing something came up yesterday. Public Wi-Fi. Uh we when you get down here, I think we we're going to focus more on fiber instead, which is more valuable. a municipal service expansion to the uh corridor. Um this was a project. Make sure you're okay with that one. These are all staff projects.

Entertainment district, we said no fiber expansion, we're definitely going to focus on uh it and that'll be 29. C facility improvement. Um I is look really looking at improving our overall uh a plan for um start out storage and we've improved planning and we have some major sports. This includes that as well. And the next one is um and again uh develop a long-term plan uh plan strategy for bonding.

We're looking at your bonding and how how again how that is going to be maintained and we've got that'll be in 28. Um this is a great one. Utilize city owned land to support housing goals. Adopt. Yeah. So, if you've got some opportunity for city own land uh to uh housing, great project. Uh and that'll be that'll be ongoing. Uh storm detention bases, big deal. U we're going to make sure we focus on that ongoing advance uh climate action commitments and we're going to update.

Yeah, you can read 27 by 27. Make sure you are. And Cece, one of the notes that I wrote from the conversation earlier is we were going to add information about electrifying the fleet to this one. Okay. So, I think that's now we go back to So, now we're going to go back to um the council projects uh water supply planning member asyno um what I don't see on here is the virtual power purchase agreement. I didn't add it for you. Where do you want to add it? I don't know.

Well, I just didn't want to interrupt you. You want it in the uh climate action plan item or separate? It had um I keep going for pardon me. Um, frankly, we just really put it under that overarching umbrella, but happy to pull it out if that makes sense. Okay. So, improve maintenance planning. I think we've We got buildings road in there. Is there anything we've missed? This is what you were just referring to, Mayor Council. Yeah. Long-term costs. I think we're kind of okay there.

This one, council member, back to you. The point that I'd like to bring up for discussion in terms of a long-term strategic plan is we have certain zones set aside for light industry and heavy industry. You happy with zoning for heavy industry? And if so, do these indust heavy industrial zones have rail spur access? If not, what is our plan to work with DNSF to put in rail spurs when it's appropriate?

It's my understanding that there's a third rail as part of downtown downtown Mile also inf's long-term plan they're talking at least long term about a third rail all the way from from Winsow to Williams will so in the context of railroad improvements we at a place where We know where any additional rail spurs would be warranted and would the would the the cost of that be uh warranted by attracting heavy industries? Do we want heavy industries? I mean, that's all part of strategic planning.

So, that's why I brought it up. Again, Paul Moon City, the engineer. As you know, we're doing the downtown mile project. And when we're doing the downtown mile project, BNSF is going to be doing the third the third line.

Um, and I just I checked with um Christine Cameron, our project manager, when you asked the question before, and she said between Ponderosa and San Francisco, um they are going to be adding two SP BNSF is going to be adding two spurs to the north of the railroad and three to the south. I don't have the exact locations, but we can get them and then, you know, get them to our our um planning and development services to see where the zoning shut is.

But yeah, um they they could that's just within our downtown mile project limit. So, they could be doing some stuff outside of that that we don't know, but we could we could check on it. Definitely. Thank you. I I appreciate that update and and I think it's critical that we keep it on our strategic plan. if I may. Um, they're doing that for their own processes, right? Like if they need to take a a car to off the track for whatever reason, the spurs. Yes. Yeah.

I I think it's it's for that and it's all it's also for um some deliveries and business purposes as well. Jack, thanks. But council member, I think um we also want to I think add in here the downtown mile project. So are you okay if we incorporate that but keep the spirit of the of Absolutely. Sorry with you guys. Okay.

Um these the it's interesting the next three here um which are the last I think the last three from the council these been incorporated in other discussions I I know multimodal is in a focus area and these two I think aren't they part of what we've already done? I think the one that we did, Mike, was related to waste diversion education. I think what this one is getting at is kind of the overall future recycling. Is that correct, council?

I don't know who and I wonder if this is happening in the school will be evaluated there. Yeah, this one. somewhat complicated and I think it'd be interesting if council even had some input here. Um we are going to bring forward in the rate study the recycling program the cost of recycling it'll be broken out just like every program we will have. That would probably be the best place to put it. I would start thinking when you say enhance I would like to learn more what that means.

So currently we're shipping it for example does that mean we now take different products or are we looking at maybe doing it differently logistically so I just want to understand more are we trying to take on more products just do more education what is the goal of enhanced recycling programs um are we going to try to sort again I would not advocate for that but I mean I think we want to learn more probably at a work session through the rate study but it's worth thinking about be a the topic of the study.

How would you how would we reward this but keep keep it on the evaluate recycling programs and infrastructure increase waste diversion and environmental sustainability through the rate study. So I would just make this a subset of the rate study. I think this was one program.

I don't know that we have the rate study anywhere and so this would not yet I think we're gonna you want to make a note that this would be a subset of the rape study that'd be my recommendation but I understand otherwise we're pulling this only as one program as a standalone what about the HBC what about bulky trash what about all the other things we do are they of similar interest so that's where it's a little more difficult waste aversion might be a better title nothing formal, but there's also been discussion of the environment management fee.

So there's a little blurred lines with the waste pre the waste diversion education piece. So that's in sustainability. And so I just wanted to that we do assess that it may also be part of that environmental management fee site as well for clarification to be discussed there. Okay, we're okay. We've got these last two and they're elsewhere and they're elsewhere. So I think we're okay. So we're on to the last area. not least fiscal sustainability and responsible stewardship.

Um we're going to start with our leadership team projects first council um honorable mayor council vice mayor and then we'll come back to the councils the uh yeah there was a lot of repet we just this has all been handled uh so we the the leadership team revenue diversification study they're going to we're definitely going to focus on that u would hope to have something back to you by 28 on that um but That's really important.

We're also going to do an inf infrastructure replacement plan, a planning um and develop a um reserve fund for future infrastructure uh to make sure that it's uh that we can fund that and that's that'll be in 2018. And that's the financial planning team with the hope of that being during the next budget process. These were already the dashboards we've already talked about. Um that's going to be handled through process improvements. Uh alternative funding for public safety. Sorry chiefs.

Um we we decided that's going to be handled under the divers looking at divers diversify funding sources. Adding it back. Yeah. because it's going to because it's something we're working on now. That one we were going to add back and then back in. Yeah. And then say fiscal year 27 because it's a current project. So I think about thinking we're already doing it based on the conversation today. So okay well it is something's going to be done. Oh good. Um that is good.

We're going to do a development impact B update. That's uh we've got the years for that. Um all these were you know it's just making what what we have the capability to do and how uh all this has been handled. This is going to be part of a we're the lean processes we're doing process improvement. So all these others have been things that were already in incor and uh we are going to do a land use plan cost of service uh study. Um, not sure when that's gonna We didn't put a date on that yet.

We moved it. Yeah, I think maybe have some offlines on that one. I know the city of Chandler yesterday, Mike. I think they just put out an RFP this past summer from what they're doing. I think that may be a big effort and I'd like to actually better understand how we're going to approach that. So, can we just maybe not have this on the list for now, but keep are we yet? They evaluate maybe to evaluate a study. So we've been evaluated to figure out then we have to do aation.

Okay, that's the staff. Now let's go back to council. Yeah. And this is it. When we get done with these we and uh get home for whatever is happening for dinner. So, coordinate budgeting with uh the county NA. And this was when aligned budget. So, help us with this one. Um this was one of your suggestions as something you wanted staff to work on. Yes, sir.

So when I read this, I think I think it I'm not imparting any new wisdom on the line that's there, but it's important for uh I think the outcomes of the community that exist within this jurisdiction rely on all of us to have a synergy. And it's not to say that we don't currently have a synergy, but honestly, my first uh 16 or 18 months on council, I'm still searching for that. And that could be um on my own behalf. I'm not seeing it yet.

I see I see opportunities there where we can align um in more ways. I just don't know exactly how to get to that. So, we have the um the alliance group and many many years ago that group actually used to um have an opportunity for each of us to present um what's happening with our budget plans for uh ballot initiatives. So, try to kind of coordinate the timing of that. Um, and I don't know when that stopped, but they we don't seem to do that anymore.

Um, so maybe there's a, you know, just an opportunity to, um, you know, work with our alliance partners on um, of communicating what is being discussed in the alliance. Like we used to I mean I don't know if we still do but we had like shared purchasing discussions. I know Shannon was the alliance group did a lot more than it does now. So, Council Member Garcia, I think your point is I'll take again. Yeah.

Nesting just the connectivity points, you know, where the county and the city meet, you know, even if it's simple as like a trail or whatever. And you as well, u just smoothing those those uh those transition points out to where there's a seamless transition between the two entities. That's all I have. Great. So, Lucy, you'll add the dates when we come back.

I I think this was actually yeah is a great idea because there may be opportunities for partnership collectively to handle a community issue with all of the budgets they have all moving in the same direction. Great idea. Uh expand use of AI one of your projects. You want to increase artificial intelligence. Thank you. Oh yeah. No. I intelligence. Yes. This is part of help us with that one. It has been working on something. Yeah. And yes very officer.

um we want to know uh we are uh we're working on a bunch of things right now. Nothing uh we don't have a whole lot that uh show today talk about the directive and when that's going to come back. Sure. So you know we've been working on some uh some of the stuff that we've been working on inhouse. Um we a we've been working on a lot of training for staff. So I've been doing a lot of workshops. I know of um council lead came to one of the workshops.

So been working on that from a training perspective helping staff not only know how to use AI but also how to use it safely, how to use it appropriately and that sort of thing. We are working on a directive that um expands upon that gives uh staff a lot more um understanding as far as what the best practices are, where it's you again where it's safe to use, the things to avoid, the things to watch out for um those types of things.

So, we're working on a lot of that kind of from a a skill development um perspective. And then we've got a a bunch of like um proof of concepts um as far as kind of utilizing it in a little bit more of a automation type sense. But again, I don't have a whole lot to show today because they're all in kind of proof of concept. Nothing's in production or anything like that.

the directives are comfortable see the information on work that's being done to establish the AI directive the acceptable use which helps employees know how we can use different types of tools hardware technology that type of thing so that's coming this fall and there was also something with public works right or or there was something being discussed about how to um better navigate trash and recycling pickup and so I would say in relation to a lot of the specific you know division initiatives all our energy directors are always looking at what kind of the latest technology is out there I can't speak specifically to um branches uh in that that area not necessarily the ones that I've been involved with haven't necessarily been on the AI front it's been just a little bit more of streamlining some of the drugging processes of that.

Um, but yeah, there are there's quite a bit. I know there's a lot of staff and a lot of of divisions that are exploring a little bit more of like what that what does the off-the-shelf software bring because a lot of software companies now are integrating AI into their technologies. Um, and so we're, you know, as part of as we go through the application modernization effort and all of that stuff, we're also kind of exploring what their job, what capabilities they have.

So council please is there any direction you got for me on what you would like to see in that regard? Are we okay kind of tweaking that title a little bit if council wants to keep that on there? just expand use of AI just about like um isn't it kind of part of of it's work around efficiency? I mean does it need to be specifically called out? I think I think there's going to be a little bit of overlap into a few of the other from that exact perspective.

Um that kind of where we're kind of incorporating I would say strategic plan right now. Um so that's in a kind of a draft draft form. Um, but AI is obviously a significant part of it. Actually, one of the comments one of my staff gave me was it sounds like an AI strategic strategic kind of it's a big deal. So, it's a huge change. So, we're trying to wrap our heads around to modify that into an IT strategic plan. So, that could be an aspect of this um from that perspective as well.

Yeah, I was going to maybe recommend if we do keep that separate to have something like artificial intelligent exploration so that it's clear that we're still in the kind of nent stages of developing the guard rails, the PC's, where, when, and how, the efficiencies. So, it allows a little bit of a carve out there and then as we work on those plans and PC's, we'll be able to come back and share some more and make it specific for city operations. Yeah. Yeah. And that's good.

Like for example, I've got a meeting tomorrow with a bunch of CIOS from the rest of the state and we have one of our how are you using AI and is it working as well? That's it. And and it's ongoing or is it a year 27 you'll be back? uh I think it's appropriate to insert a little bit of a joke since you never hear any humor from me here and that is expand the use of AI without bringing a data center there. Okay, next one is uh climate resilient bond resilience.

So on this one, um we have a couple of different bond items this one and then we also have the parks bond. We have um one of our strategy or one of our uh projects is to develop a long-term plan strategy for bonding. So I think we would like to include this one in the parks one in that item. Sound good? I agree. Sorry about that. Okay. I don't know how you my watch rings when it's on silent night. My family talk me into this stuff.

I used to have a nice old phone and they were like, "Well, you can't FaceTime with us." Well, maybe I have. So, any case, so we're okay with this. Uh oh. Permanent affordable H. We We've got a lot on a lot on affordable housing. This one we go which is uh one of you mentioned reward employees for innovation. Uh need to talk about that a little bit. I mean we do have I mean Ryan I'm going to turn it over to you to talk about what we have.

I mean certainly certainly we have employee recognition programs. I read this as yeah I mean I guess that's fair. Um so yeah we have a wonderful outstanding worker is opportunity to earn um some cash. It's preo post tax up to uh annually that can go uh heads others can submit this um for employees for a myriad of different reasons. um not just recognizing ideas that improve services and operations. It can be something beyond that, right? Food, customer service, something. Uh what else we have?

Our 7K with the city manager awards which includes you know uh time off andor money as well, modest amounts. Um we have a lot we have a lot and I I anticipate that many divisions themselves have their own internal recognition programs. You know police and fire and public works do that. Um but I I guess where I'm going to maybe pause is on the improving services and operations that you know we have a lot of employee recognition. I'm not sure that there's something specific in that space.

Um, our current programs include that innovation specific to my know specific innovation award type thing if that's what we this was trying to get to. Yes, it sounds like we're doing it. What do you think, Mike? I think there were several in here that had the the shark tank. There was a there were several different items. Um, and I think I would like to take it back to the team and see if we can come up with a project. Clearly, something that's going to go back to be evaluated. We'll just Okay.

Another one. Um, I would I would like to this might be of a of parking lot item. Maybe it's not 27 28. Maybe it's 28 29. Uh, I I think we need to start strategizing around Snowball and the water contract renewal well before 2032. Does that look like uh it looks like us trying to have these conversations and reaching an an agreement or whatever uh well before a deadline, well before anyone's caught with their pants down on it, so to speak, complain that this is pretty quickly.

trying to anticipate potential um roadblocks and obstacles to a robust um conversation that gets everybody somewhere. Council member Spence, one Thank you, mayor. One way to um put this on the agenda so to speak would be to look at the reclaim water uses broadly range of uses of our reclaim water parks golf courses but portable reuse and if we include if we include portable reuse in that broad range use of reclaimed We could look at the big picture and the Korean snowball.

Disagree with the logic behind that. But I I do want to highlight and lift up snowball specifically. I think the city can take leadership on that in the next several years. Edit the game. So you've got that on the radar screen. That's fine. Confused. So, um, and you did mention, uh, Council Member Alen, that maybe it's future because I I feel like that contract is coming up in what, seven years, five years. August 8th, 2034. And how many days? Counting down. I'm retiring.

So, if we go too soon, are we not creating the framework for future council? I will it look will it read or look like we're deciding for them? This is a conversation that is not going to happen for a while. Um and so should we be the ones not knowing who's going to be on council when that's really you know a two-year out conversation potentially and I think this is yeah this warrants a bigger conversation and the timing of it.

I I definitely agree that we don't wait until a month before it renews, but I don't want to get too far ahead to where we're making some amendments or some decisions and in, you know, eight years or seven years, you know, none of us are even on here. There there is chatter and concern in the community around um surveillance trying to shortcut all of us and come in ahead of time.

So, I do think some strategic planning uh to be nimble and to be ready um when this comes to us might not be on the timeline that we're all anticipating. I just want to be strategic about it. I agree. I know. Um I'm assuming that some form of looking at all the uses for water is already ongoing. I like council member Spence's points about looking at it broadly. Um, but I'm just I'm wondering what's already underway in terms of looking at our long-term use of reclaimed water.

So before Lee jumps in, I mean I we've we've had some um discussions in our office um Lee and Shannon and I about um your point, Council Member Spence, and I I think we are going to need to bring that to council and we're looking at potentially we're potentially going to do a January strategic retreat where we talk about items such as these that are you Um yeah, we're that's a bit of an inflection point with reclaimed water. Um to date we have had a bit of a surplus.

Um but due to various factors, warmer, drier summers, lack of monsoons, and um I'd say there's a lot of data on this, but I think there's a lot more second homes in Flagstaff. So there aren't people who are flushing their toilets seven days a week. They're here on the weekends. We don't have the volume of reclaimed water that we used to. Um, so I I agree there does need to be a discussion in the summer. Yes, just in the summer. Thank you for that clarification. Uh, peak months.

So I think there does need to be a discussion on how we allocate reclaimed water, how we define who um who gets priority. Currently it's defined as it offsets portable demand. Um, but we're to get kind of sidetrack. We're going through right now what's called a large volume water user or sort of craft portable water. and we're looking at a dollars per gallon generated from that water. So, how does the water contribute to the economy?

And uh if that's a direction that we'd like to go, um we will bring them to council. After we bring the portable one to council, we can discuss whether they want to reclaim water or set up some other kind of prioritization on who gets the water when there's a shortage. So, it's it's I agree it's a discussion that needs to have. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. And minutes ahead of time. Whoa. Well, I've got a couple of things I'd like to say then. Thank you.

Thank you for Thank you for your Thank Seriously, thank you for your attention and thank you for engagement all of you including the leadership team. and Stacy being without you always a rock star. Um any closing comments or thoughts member Garcia? So we are talking about moving community priorities to focus areas. Correct. Correct. Strategic focus areas. So, so the community understands that they're part of this. How are we going to highlight that? Because before it was in the name. Yeah.

Um, so the plan is, um, we're going to go back. Well, actually, first of all, I'd like you to all kind of look at what was, um, the work that was done by the leadership team. And then we're going to come back as a group and actually get your thoughts on those changes to the focus focus areas. And then um we haven't quite kind of talked those through, but um getting some community feedback as well. So I mean just because they're not called community focus areas.

Um there's still our community priorities. Okay. I just I I I just want you to know that u my current uncomfortability without having community in the name because it points to the community so easily. just something just to think about. Yeah. And council member, I mean, just if I could push back just a little bit.

I mean, I think maybe um like I said, that was kind of an epiphany yesterday where I do feel like our um our leadership team saw these as community priorities, not organizational priorities. So, I think it's a just kind of a good Yeah. So, so but I think there's a way we can communicate it and definitely anyone else manager. I just want to say thank you to all of you to council and to all the leadership team. Um I think it's been a really great effort.

We we're going to go back and kind of work through everything that we went through um and then send it back outship team. I think there's a couple things we probably feel really good for this but also being able to what we're doing as an artification. So, thank you. I appreciate the thoughtfulness. It's amazing that seven of you with my but some things All right. Well, um then we are