Council Deadlocked Over Authority to Override 40-Year Airport Expansion Voter Mandate; Directs Staff to Map Three Governance Pathways

Um what ordinance 3888 protects is the runway extension requires public input. Um it caps the runway at 5700 feet and it sets maximum weight for the air for the airport. None of that changes. Um what it restricts us from doing is pursuing FAA funding for such capital expansion as a runway extension. Um because we don't have a bond election currently. We cannot pursue these projects. Um we are the only city in the state uh with such a requirement.

The normal process is to have it approved through city council and capital projects and then pursue FAA uh approvals and studies. Um I will say that the baseline cost right now our share is $319,000 of the project. If we pursue a bond election, the bond election, I am told, can cost the city as much as $500,000 and then escalation of cost with inflation ensues and every year we wait. Now, the two options side by side are this.

um keep the ordinance as written and move to a bond election and everything stays the same and every current ordinant limit stays in place and a ballot measure plus the federal process process follows. Option two is to amend the ordinance, but council may put other protections in that such as a length cap which again we're only asking for 5,550 ft not 5700 as the current ordinance reads. Um, we can put a footprint limit on the airport, i.e.

the airport cannot expand beyond its current property lines. Um, and all aircraft weight and wingspan limits stay the same. Um, what I will emphasize here tonight, as I emphasized with you last month, this is a four to fiveyear process. Um, with either direction we go. So each um year you see on this timeline is required and mandated by the FAA to extend a runway with the exception of our ordinance action.

And at every stage of this outside of construction, there is required federallymandated public input. Um with that, I'll try and keep it as short as I can. Mayor, um the options before us that we're requesting direction on or keep the ordinance as written and move towards a bond election or enhance and amend the ordinance to move towards runway construction and we await council's pleasure.

So, is there someone that would join council member Ellis in exploring these options and bringing something back to us? Mayor, I have a question. Let me ask a question first. Yes, sir. Well, I I'll join it, but then we'll So, we have two, but what is it? Council [clears throat] member Yeah. Orlando. So, um the bond election to go back in history was just a mechanism to put on the ballot as we spoke about last week.

Council could option three and might be more, but option three was I'm we talked a little bit about was to remove the bond election and just go to a public vote because again this was all based upon a public vote. Um so looking at this and in my mind I'd rather go down that path versus just changing as a council member. We could still get a election. We could still get the votes. the commitment that we had to the voters. Um I mean let's be let's go back a step.

The reason why we had these ordinances in place was based upon a vote of the people in 1989 to 2000 and whatever the other three were you you crossed them. So it's not a question of extending the runway. I even the emails I received where all of us received over the last couple of days and discussion points folks are not against the extension runway. They just want to see a vote. They feel like the council would be usurping, according to their memos, usurping our authority.

So, I don't want to limit ourselves to just one or two. I want to add more value to this by saying, let's go to the voters and let's go uh let's remove the bond aspect of this. So, I already asked that, but go ahead. But I already did ask that we send this to staff to explore and what other options that can come back that we can vote on.

So it may be very clear uh what my intent was tonight uh when I asked for this to come back and then for us to look more closely at uh uh option two which is where I believe that we can actually not only be more efficient but less costly especially very transparent.

This will not be something that we will be doing in the back behind the background in secrecy and also respect the residents and the taxpayers money very much so with this option the fact that we have a 4 years process uh with the FAA overseeing this whole process engaging the community making sure that those who are either for or against have an opportunity to come to the table and let us know is strictly literally tying council's hand in a way letting us know that we are not making this decision to usurp the people's vote.

What we are saying to the people at this point, you have truly elected us in this year in this 2026 to make decision that's going to move the city forward. Not waiting until 1998 for us to continue to make decision with those timeline. But in 2026 realizing the fact that with a 2021 million dollars sitting at the airport to engage with 997 jobs waiting for us to employ people. I have business owners sitting at the airport cannot park their business.

Every six months they have to take people off jobs. literally fire people and rehire them in six months if they're available. These are multi-million dollar businesses who are bringing tax money into the city for us to move the city forward. Now, we are telling them we don't even want to start a process until we get a yes from a of $500,000 that we have to put for an election. Whether it's a bond election or not, election costs money.

And so I'm looking into how can we do this very efficiently, still keep the people very involved because I do not want anything that the people of Chandler does not want. But at this point I'm getting more people telling me they would like to see a process done versus those a few that I have sent. I only received two emails I was against. Two emails that I received and they were addressed personally to me because I was the one who they heard was going to put it on the agenda tonight.

So whether they whoever wanted to, you know, truly say no to this, they could have come here tonight and tell me in front of me or keep sending me email. But the fact is I have two people tonight who would like to move this thing forward and I would like to do that. Mayor. Mayor. All right, we've got our two. I don't want this to be a discussion between two council members.

So again, staff, we're going to ask you to come back to us with options for this and then meet with us and we will at a future council meeting either amend an amendment. Either way, we'll have to amend an amendment, mayor. But whatever that is, I would like to do that. And now I'm going to go on to the next discussion. Excuse me. Point order here. No, we may excuse me. We are not recognized. Well, mayor, I would ask you to recognize me because this is out of character.

No, we had a meeting is out of character. Mayor, I'm going to move on to the next item. We don't know what the rest of the council feels about this issue. What matters asking council member Orlando is two people as required to have staff bring this back. That's the simple ask. Is there enough of a will to bring this to a future item? No. We got that. No, that's that's not the way we did this last time. In fact, we had council member Poston who brought up an issue.

We had three people that said move forward and we didn't move forward because you asked the rest of the council. I'm just going by the precedent set. We asked the rest of the council and there was enough council members that said don't move forward. Go work with staff on this. So, we changed the the matrix here. So I would like to hear my personal opinion.

I would like to hear what other council members have to say so that staff is not spending days, hours and time and come back and say that's not what we wanted. So I would thank you hope that we would hope to have the rest of the council members be recognized what their thoughts are. Point taken. Council member Hopkins, would you support uh further exploration into this and the change of a possible ordinance based upon our last I'm just going to go down the row here.

What would be your your thoughts? Okay, apologies. Technical issues tonight. Um I can see both sides of this issue. Um, I could see going either way in this right now. Um, I 100% support the extension. However, I believe it would make sense to do the vote. However, I do have questions on that. Um, for city attorney, could you please tell me what is the earliest special election date that we could anticipate if it was to go that way?

So, if you were to have a a general election, the earliest date that you could have a a general voter election, not a bond election, but a general voter election would be May of 27. You because the you can have a general voter election on any of the four election dates. Um, but you're too late to get it on the March election. The deadlines to get it on the March election have already passed. So, the earliest would be May of 27th.

And then the first election if it was a bond election would be November because you can only have a bond election in November. So it would be November of 27. Okay. Thank you. Um the other thing that I would request if this was to go to a uh May ballot is what kind of written plan could we expect from our side? How would we be getting our messaging out? What would that look like? I know Ryan touched on a few points that the FAA um has some mandated stuff.

However, is that something that you could provide to us on what the expectation is? What's our standards? And how are we getting this message out?

So, if it was a general voter election, not a bond election, um it would just be um you would be passing an ordinance to amend the code and it would just be a general this uh qualified electors are um asked to amend the code uh pursuant to this ordinance and it would be a general question presented to the borders of the qualified electors of the city of Chandler just like any other code amendment.

Um, if it was a bond election, um, you would present it in the normal course as any bond election question. Um, and I mean it would run the course of any normal bond election. There would be a publicity pamphlet. There would be pros, cons um, and that's how that would run. Okay. Thank you. And city manager, is that something that you guys could put together um, as a plan of action that we could see?

Mayor, council member Hawkins, we could within whatever recommended ordinance that we put forward to you and you guys chosen many safeguards to ensure that the residents are getting exactly what we're talking about here tonight. As far as promoting that ordinance, I have to be careful once it goes to a vote. Then I'm not I'm allowed to give the facts. I'm not allowed to suggest how that vote plays out.

But we could definitely make sure that that ordinance provides all of the aspects of the enhanced community engagement process that we discussed at the last meeting that most of council was supported. Okay. Thank you, Mayor. May I provide information on that May 18 election, please? Because the deadline to notify the county about any ballot measures would be November 19th.

So that comes up very quickly and then the ballot language um is also due to them by that time and then we'd have to publish the call of the election in December. So for the May 18 all those deadlines come up very quickly and and to be clear what I ask for is for them to come back and explore a change of this because anything we do is going to take a change of an ordinance if we if or an ordinance of some kind. whether we go to any election.

It's going to take an ordinance if we move this from a bond to a general. That is what I've asked staff to or what I would like to ask staff to do in this case. Okay. Thank you for clarifying. Um and I got my answer. So I would like to um I guess I do not need staff to bring forward anything right now. So, you do not need staff to bring anything forward? No. Okay. Well, I take that back. Um, I guess help me work through this.

If we were to look at the May ballot, we would still need them to come back Thursday with information. Okay. So, sorry about that. We'll get there eventually. Um, yes. So, that would be my request is to have them move forward with information. So to explore and see is what I hear you saying. The possibility of a general election. Yes, sir. Okay. Thank you. And to do that with haste. Absolutely. Be your request. Okay. Council member Harris. Thank you so much, Mayor.

Um I um I think that there's something I want to clarify here. U when the council makes an ordinance, that's our decision. Um that's not the will of the voters. um it may be influenced by the will of the voters, but it's our decision up here. So, we never really we never went to a vote out in the public to say this is the law of the land. We we never did that.

So, I just kind of wanted to make sure that when we make ordinances up here, that's the will of the council and the people are the advocate of what they heard at that time. I wasn't here during the time that these things was written and and today I have to make a decision um to uh to look at what today looked like and and I would like today I think the airport has a lot of uh opportunity there.

I would like staff to look further into what it can be for the future um and bring back information including the the bond information. Whatever options you want to give us, bring that back to us. We should all sit and look at that um and and and move forward that way because I do think there's some areas of opportunity, but I do think there's a critical conversation that probably needs to have with the community. Not one or two persons should control the outcome. not five or 10.

It should be a robust conversation and with a five-year process um that that creates a conversation and and we're going to have a lot of options. So, I would tell the community whether you are whether you are looking at possibly seeing what the economic opportunity could be for this or whether you see this as a a stopping point. I think at best the council today owe you all the options first. And the only way we're gonna get all the options is by getting staff to go out and do the work.

We've seen the surveys. Go out there and do the work and bring back all the options to us um for another discussion. So, I do support um I do support moving forward with staff um coming back to give us options. So, um, that's where I'm going to lay my claim there. So, thank you, council member. I thought thought you your voice was heard. I would um echo council member Hawkins thought process. Okay. If there's move forward uh to work on getting a a vote of the people.

Uh again, this was the vote of the people. It's always been the vote of the people in my mind for almost 40 years now. Um the ordinances were created because of the vote. Yeah, we sat up here and voted 70, but it was the cudgel that brought that ordinance to respect that it was the people that said we want you to do something and we put that several council members, not just this mind, the ones I was on.

Um the bond was a convenience but it wasn't it was a requirement for the convenience of it because they want to put it in a a bond election which they did twice and twice it failed. Uh I truly believe this would pass but I also truly believe I don't want to lose the trust of the voters. They've been saying this for many many years and it's been more than uh two people or 10 people or 15 people.

So, I rather see council member Hawkins thought process uh which is why mine is to do a general election on this. If it's the value of the airport is [clears throat] $250 million and you want to compare 500,000 to a potential upswing of $250,000, count me in. I'll take that bet. I'll take that ROI anytime. So, that's my thoughts on it. If we're going to move forward, I like to see us move forward with the general election. That's fair. Thank you, mayor.

Uh, council member, I do appreciate you bringing this topic back up. It's a very important um topic that um we've been discussing and I think there's a lot of great economic opportunity and so for me, I would like to see the additional options of amending our our current ordinance. Um, but still keeping the the vote there with our residents.

So see what options we do have available whether it's a general election or sooner or the sooner the better but you know if later works out considering the the time frames and the constraints but I still would like to see a vote of the people on this item so if we can um see what options we have amending this ordinance detaching it from the requirement of the bond I would like to see that council member post council member Ellis okay revisit thank you so much mayor we'd like to thank my colleagues for taking the time to look into this.

It was done in a public way. It was done where every business owner who needed to say something was there. Those who had sent email to us for or against didn't show up that night. And frankly, I don't know how many of them are in this room right now. So the fact of the matter is I not sitting here saying that I want to take the trust of the people and throw it back in their face.

What I'm saying tonight is that we have before us a decision to make which requires that we truly have the courage to make that decision.

The same way at the time I believe that council had the courage to make that decision because they had the people or they had a few people at their throat at the time and at this time what we are saying or what I'm trying to move forward here is this city I am not moving anything forward that will look at my own interest because the interest of the people of Chandler that's what I am trying to move here tonight. I do not want to take them out when you go back with your team.

Please understand that. Make it a priority. I do not want the people to be out of the process. All I'm saying tonight is that we have tied our hand with an ordinance and now we have an opportunity to untie it and bring more people involved in it in 2026 rather than 1998. And those and I live in that pathway of that airport. I've been living there Lord knows for how long. And so the fact of the matter is I'm one of them. I'm one of those constituents. So I'm talking to myself also.

So please understand that I am not asking you to go back Mr. Ryan and try to remove the people from the process. What I'm saying is that put the pros and the con together with the fact that do we want to gamble with this city, continue to gamble with this airport that is sitting right there for us to be able to do something that is progressive, something that is amazing, something that's going to continue to move this city forward. And I'm going to leave us with this and to all of my colleagues.

Elections threat of election should not stop us from making decision to move this city forward. And those who use threats of election to stop people.

I have sat on this D so many times and I've seen them came for me for this seat because I have taken stands that requires me have the courage to make a decision for the greater good and I have done that with every single day for the people of Chandler because every night I live here I'm going to go home and I'm going to have a good night's sleep because I've done it well and I've done it with a clean hand and a pure heart for the people of Chandler. Thank you, Mayor Council member Poston.

Thank you. While I'm asking you this one question, I just kind of want to give you a little heads up. If you could pull up the slide that had that timeline on it, something caught my eye and I'm going to have a second question about that. Thank you.

So, um I guess my first my first question though, um one of the concerns that I had about this was the public input and again the voters kind of similar to some what's already been spoken about up here and that when we were looking at the data that we received, it was from airport days which was kind of a a an audience that probably going to typically lean for an airport anyhow along with our scitec festival and I and I know we did the outreach that we could but I I just really kind of feel like we need to do more.

One of the items that you had said to sort of sude that concern that I had had was that the FAA requires public input.

So one of the things that occurred to me after we had this meeting last time is once they get that input and we have started this process whose decision is it then when we're getting that public input does it then come back to this council does it do the voters get to decide or are we seating that decision to the FAA because at that point you started the process uh through the mayor council member Poston the FAA mandate ated uh public input particularly through the design process as well as the environmental review process that is in the FAA's court.

It is for them to assess, decide, adjust. Now that said, we have seen multiple examples um even locally and lately of the FAA heeding that call to the public and adjusting not only their timelines but quite possibly their ultimate decisions. They gather tremendous amount of public input through particularly the environmental review process. There are in-person meetings, virtual meetings. It takes months. Typically a I would say a thorough NEPA review takes anywhere from 12 to 18 months.

And that's just for the environmental side of this. And then there's two design phases on each side of that environmental review, all of which have public input. Um, okay. I I think this actually kind of leads into my next question because I think you might have answered it. Um, but at that point, you know, that that timeline that you showed, you're getting that input at that 30% design and the output.

So, at that point, our residents are discussing the design, what it looks like, the impact, and those sorts of things. Our residents are not giving you input on whether they want this or not, though. Correct. Okay. That that's that's where I was going with that. So, thank you for the explanation and your answer. Um um just to clarify in terms of if we are asking staff to move forward, we're asking them to move forward with all three possibilities.

Um that whether it's the possibility of a or any possibility of not moving forward, maybe even being one of them if that's the most appropriate. the vote, the potential of a vote and the potential of us adjusting the ordinance somehow. That was my intention. Okay. Yes. Then then I can support that. So, thank you very much and thanks for your input, Ryan. Okay. City manager, do you have a do you have a through the through the fog perhaps?

You have a precient voice of direction of what to investigate and bring back to us. Exploring the possibility of elections if we shifted from a bond to a general, what ordinance would look like? Uh uh the the timelines that are possibly mentioned to bring this back to uh future council or this council or a future council. Mayor, I think the direction is clear that by the November 9th meeting. We need to bring back two new ordinances.

One that would remove the bond election and put a general election in and one that would remove the elections entirely. That third option is stand pack and that doesn't require any changes to the current ordinance. If we do that in November, I think the first meeting is November 9th. That still gives us time to camp. No. Uh I was mayor, I was speaking with the city attorney.

I think with the timeline changing your ordinance, you have an introduction and then a second reading and then it's effective 30 days after. So realistically, you're probably looking at the July 20, 2027 election as the earliest. Yes. Because you'd notify the county by January 21st. Okay. And that I so also put in there the options and and even pros and cons of uh if council wanted to proceed that way what what would be that.

So uh moving beyond an op beyond a vote looking at the the bond option looking at a general I think is the the questions to get input and pre prepare some possibilities. Okay. We will take that input and get it back to council. Thank you, mayor. Just um just for staff just I don't need no comment back, but also special meetings too can can also alleviate issues as well. So I'm sorry I didn't understand. Okay. Okay. All right. Um we have two more discussion points. Discussion and possible Yes.

Thank you, Ron. U to consider reducing full-time hours for employment benefit eligibility. This is requested by council member Harris. Um mayor, I got that question answered. I think we're all set. Okay. And a third discussion in possible direction to consider rolling 410 schedules for employees. Yeah. I wanted to um um city manager, if you can help me.

I spoke with the city manager about bringing this forward and one of the things I wanted to do was look at potential um changing city hours to allow our community to have um for us to have longer days um or 10 hours. That way community can those that work in the morning time can still come and get the benefit of night hours and making sure that um we're able our services are reflective of a community that works 247.

And right now our community hours are only reflective of um our business hours only reflective for most departments is only reflective of a community that during during the daytime. And also I wanted to make sure that employees have the opportunity by having longer days, they can also get mental well-being. They can go to their kids soccer games. They'll be able to have the opportunity to um they'll be able to have the opportunity to actually uh have time away.

So I kind of John, can you help can you help me with this? You know what I'm asking? So we talked about it. So, uh, and then also staff also facility hours because some some of our staff works on Sundays and I I'm not sure if I if I want staff to work um some departments work on Sundays. Uh, obviously law enforcement is probably 247, but there are um adjustments that we could possibly make. Um, in some of our sanitation department as well, they work on Sundays.

unsure if that's needed or not, but I wanted to give staff direction to look at how we can better serve our community, better serve our employees, and making sure that we are being comparable and also look at what other cities are doing so we can get up to date because we're talking about 2026 and I want to make sure. So, city manager, toss that out there to you, mayor and councel. Uh, right now we obviously have a 58 schedule that has normal business hours for the city of Chandler.

Although I say that obviously we have many employees that work uh all seven days of the week, not individually, but the departments that are open seven days a week, 247, I believe, if I'm not mistaken, we already have 25 to 30% of our current employees that work the 410 schedule. So we have some on 410s, we have some on 58s, and then that doesn't begin to account for fire, which I'm not going to try to explain their schedules.

Okay, with that said, what I would say is I believe we have a very strong system as it currently sits. I have not heard from any individual departments whether we need the extended hours. It is something we can definitely take a look to see what the business trends are. Do we have people who are lined up in the morning? Do we have people who miss deadlines in the afternoon? And we can look at that on an individual department basis. Currently, we look at 410 on an individual department basis.

Is there a need within your department for those addition for those types of hours and does your business allow for it? I was uh in Mesa when we went to 410s, believe it or not, it was popular with about 60% of employees. 40% wanted it 58. They wanted that ability for the expanded family time. Child care is always difficult to get as this council knows. Adding longer days makes child care very difficult. So there are many aspects of this problem that goes into it.

While we are more than welcome to go from a departmentto department standpoint, um I do not think and I've never heard from this council the desire to be open only four days out of the week. And so we may we want to continue to maintain our fiveday schedule and we will look for ways to improve that.

I'm happy if this is the will of the council to bring back a more broad plan to show you where we use it, where we do not or if you want us to consider any of those other options as part of this action, we're happy to do that.

But I'm very confident right now that we're really balancing pretty well with the exception of looking at the departments to find out if there's anywhere where enhanced hours would be a benefit apart from like community services which already has expanded hours because they operate the facilities. I was at MS Mosquet Grove Pool this weekend is actually really cool. So I'm just throw that out. So, mayor, so mayor, what I would like to do is, um, have I would like staff to look into it.

Um, see, you know, go survey the department heads, go see exactly where we are, what would be best suited, have that conversation, and then bring it back to council for a later date for a work session for us to look at how we're delivering services, do we need expanded hours, have we surveyed our community to see if this is going to work or not? I just really want staff to go back and look further into it and then bring it back later um for a work session um something later in the future.

Maybe not in 2026, but definitely 2027. That's kind of where I'm at with it. Well, in the spirit of the prior thing, let me start with this end with council member Poston and we started there and share your comments. If there is enough of a will, then we will proceed. Otherwise, we we can always ask city manager to bring back the materials, but would how would you like to proceed with council member Harris's request? I would like not to go first.

Um, actually, I I um I guess, you know, I'm never opposed at looking at serving our community better and our residents better, but I do feel fairly comfortable with the answer that our city manager gave us that they're doing that. So, um, I I don't know if if from what I'm hearing from him, if this needs the full weight of a work session and a and a deeper study.

So, if I'm misreading that, I'd be open to having a further discussion with you about it a little bit, council member, but at at this point, I'm pretty comfortable with what our city manager said that we're doing that. And maybe there's as opposed to a big huge survey, maybe there's something modified he could look into that would meet your needs. I'm respond just lovingly. Um um just want to make sure that we've given them no direction. Um and they haven't really did all that work.

I just kind of want them to kind of look into it. I'm not saying what level of extensive work they should do, but also just go back out there and ask, you know, I trust the city manager. I trust this team, but I just want him to go out there and really ask and and do that type of work. I just want to see it. They don't got to be they don't have to be expanded where it's going to cost a lot of resources, but just go out there and ask.

Um I trust his opinion, but also I want to verify with the with our departments, with our community as well. That's it. I'm going to continue and let's let everyone go without comment. Council member, thank you, Mayor.

when council member Harris discussed this with me uh city manager I the questions because I'm so used to these flexible hours being in the health care and knowing that you have to be the questions that I have asked is that what is the intent behind it and I think his heart behind it what as he explained it to me was the fact that there are a lot of employees that are working for us and they have to take sick time to go to the doctor or if their kids are sick they don't have a day where they can actually schedule all their things that require requires that they go there during the day because things they work from 8 to 5 and there were five days and that's it.

Um doctor's appointment all those things require them to leave work in order to go. So giving employers some kinds of the options to be able to choose those hours might help them to facilitate their daily lives and do planning when they would like to go see their doctors and when they would like to uh actually have other things done during the week that required it between 8 and 5. So um I agree with that um that I think people should have choices.

I'm not saying we are working great and and we do have employees right now that are doing that. But if we look to see where else can we offer it maybe some pe other people would like to do it but their department don't offer it. But if we open it to a discussion and looking into it that might put them in a position where they um their directors or even their supervisor might say, "Hey, you have the flexibility to do that.

Can you do it?" As long as you're productive, you're doing your work, you're doing what you're supposed to do, then you can arrange your schedule that way. So, that's the only reason why I'm saying that. I would like to have more information about it. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Uh, thank you, mayor. Um, this is I I feel like we're very wellrun city already. We know what our foundation is and um I'm not sure if there is an extensive need.

Um, but I again appreciate you bringing this up for this uh discussion, but I I have to think of the um the lifestyle change, the culture change that might possibly impact, but I'm also am curious to see if there's some efficiencies in some departments if there is a department that is better at 410. I am a little bit curious just just to see what that looks like. But at the same time, I will say I'm very um satisfied in the current operations that we are running as a city.

So, I don't know if I made myself super clear there or not. [laughter] I'm curious. There we go. Council member, just a followup. [clears throat] Thanks for bringing this forward. Follow up. City manager, what is the work schedule now for most of the employees roughly? I don't know that I can speak to most of the employees right now because when I think of your two biggest uh employers, the police department I think is predominantly for sworn 410 and they work all varied schedules obviously.

Let me let me rephrase the question. Is it a eight hour workday plus an hour lunch? So you're here nine hours at a bare minimum, right? If [clears throat] you go employees I'm sorry. Yes, for full-time employees at a bare minimum. That is correct. So if I come in at a 10-hour work week, now I'm actually here 11 hours. Uh, generally that is correct. Yeah. So now you're looking at someone coming in at 7:00, potentially working the six. That's 11 hours.

Now you're looking at someone coming in at 8 working to 7:00. I believe that's 11 hours. Um um again um I know when I was in the National Guard, we did a survey of 410s what our guards members and the safety went up dramatically. Issues with safety went up dramatically. Uh particularly wrench turners, folks that handle heavy equipment, folks that drive, that extra hour, that time frame because it's getting dark. It's early early in the morning. It's dark.

we exponentially went up and it was we immediately went back to our original shift. Um so my concern would be with safety and looking at that area and you're looking at 11hour day whether it's you know behind a desk or turning a wrench that is a long day for anyone and I and I get that. Um now I know there's other modifications every other Friday but nine hours things like that.

So, um, we can look at these things, but I I do trust what you're doing and what the city manager is doing that we do have the coverage, uh, Monday through Friday because I hate to be the one person that needs a permit to get the job done on a 4:00 on a Friday afternoon and now, oh, sorry, the door's closed. Uh, and again, that's obviously hope that we could do that. Um, but I don't want to shut down city hall.

So, if there's a, you know, we could look at a lot of hours, but I also agree with your philosophy of let the departments have the discretion of how they want to work their schedule. Um, and some folks may be happy with um regular 9 to 9 to6, 8 to 5, whatever that number is, but 11 hour long 11 hour day is a real long day. So, anyway, those are my thoughts.

Um, I I have no problem what you're doing today allowing the departments to be flexible instead of mandating anything from a council standpoint, which I don't know how the departments are run. I really don't. So, anyway, Council Member Hawkins, thank you. Um, I'm fine if you want to bring back some information just high level of what that kind of looks like today.

Um, I don't know that we need a separate study session or anything like that, but if you could at least provide the information that council member Harris is talking about.

And I'll close um conversation is it I I'd be curious too a lot of the requests how much are we able to meet those with uh expanding AI what are the the kind of requests is there a way that as we are looking at more and more providing services without necessarily talking to a person is there is there ways that how are we expanding services to meet our community I think is the heart of council member Harris's question and is there other ways that we can do that without I mean I'm I'm like vice mayor now I'm a little curious who does what but I do trust your your read on the city but I would have loved to explore uh are there other ways other than changing ours that we can uh meet the needs of our community.

So that's where I would last. I I guess we're asking you to give us some more information with with uh not a not a complete buy in on on saying that we want to jump into a study session or go deep in this without knowing more. I think that's what I heard. So, mayor council, the the city manager's office and my departments would be happy to take this challenge up, not only to look at what we currently do, but are there other opportunities to expand hours while not changing much of what we do?

For example, you can have eight hour shifts that are nine hours, one starts at 6, one starts at 7:00, one starts at 8, and you just expanded the hours the city has available. And it may fit somebody's lifestyle better. It may fit that what they're looking for better. So we will talk across our departments to make sure a what are we doing today and b are there innovations or new ways of looking things that could give people better life home life quality and provide more to our residents.

We are happy to do that. Okay. Thank you mayor. Thank you mayor and council for considering this and I'm looking forward to seeing what the city manager and his team puts together. So thank you. All right council that concludes our meeting tonight. Thank you for the robust conversations and we'll see you on Thursday.