Flagstaff Advances $100M+ Federal RAD Housing Conversion; CHAP Program Reports 380 Lifetime Homeowners as Council Allocates $5.5K in Community Initiatives

The Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. The City council meeting, Arizona. Proper nouns. Thank you Thank you. All right, we are ready to get started. Today is Tuesday, October 27, 2026. This is the city council's work session. I am calling it to order and giving notice to the public and to city council that we may vote to go into executive session, which will not be open to the public for discussion.

and consultation with the city's attorneys for legal advice on any item listed on the following agenda. Can we have roll call? Mayor Daggett? Here. Vice Mayor Sweet? Here. Council member House? Here. Council member Matthews? Council member Malazo? Council member Spence? Councilmember Matthews, would you lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance? It would be my pleasure. Please stand if you're able.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, in the republic of which it stands, of one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Council member Malazzo, do you have our mission statement up? I do. Could you read it, please? The mission of the city of Flagstaff is to protect and enhance the quality of life for all. Thank you. And Council member Spence, our land acknowledgement.

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 as home. Thank you.

I don't have open call to the, oh, I do have open call to the public after the number four and number five. My apologies. So Water Services Citizens Academy graduates. Thank you.

Thank you I just want to thank Mayor and Council and everybody here for giving us a minute to recognize the first Citizens Academy graduates We have a group of citizens here who have spent the last eight weeks coming to classes at our plants and at our facilities and learning everything there is that we have to do We know about water so they can share it with their community members. I'd also like to thank staff members who gave up their evenings to show up and teach the classes.

We have a couple out there, John, Jolene, Ed, Elijah. Thank you very much. Andrea, you're hiding back there. So just a big thank you. First Annual Citizens Academy. That's all I have to say. Just want to give them some recognition. Can we take a picture of the council? Yes. We were all asking. Also, is there someone from your group who would like to share the biggest thing that you've And you don't have to, no pressure, but if something comes to mind, would you like to add your flow? Okay.

All right, everybody? Put me on the spot. You are totally on the spot. Okay, I guess you can put it at me. I don't know what to say. I'll introduce you. This is Robinson Arita, science teacher at Sanaguela Elementary School. And there's a taller microphone. Okay, thank you. I would say the biggest takeaway from this academy is learning. I didn't know a lot of stuff about how you process waste and also how we purify water.

And I think learning how to conserve water, especially for the future generations as a science teacher, it just sparked my curiosity because also I learned how you guys also treat the water for surface water and groundwater. So that was great. Should we do it again next year? Every year. I think we need to reach out to, I mean, everyone, so we can conserve water. I think it's a build trip for your class. Oh, yeah. Thank you, Robinson. I saw your reception and it was better than you said.

I think it's really special that members of our community would take so much of their time to come and learn all of the facets about water. So thank you. All right, moving down to number five, October work anniversary. Thank you, Mayor. I will pull up our presentation and we can dive right in. So looking at our first year anniversaries, we've got Andrew as a project manager, some Equipment operators.

We've got Freddie upstairs in our office, fleet services staff, library staff from economic vitality, as well as again a few more equipment operators. For our five year anniversaries we have Gabriel. He works in public works as one of our solid waste lead workers. We also have Nancy. She's our payroll coordinator, part of management services division, celebrating five years. For 10 years, we have Sasha. She works in our municipal court as a court judicial specialist.

And then we got 20 year anniversary I know Chief Gaylord excited to talk about Katie so I going to turn it over to him Good evening Mayor and Council It my privilege to present Katie Brown Captain Paramedic Katie Brown who online and appreciate her being here Tell you a little bit about Katie. Katie leaves by example. She mentors and trains and she builds team first cultures. If you stop by her station, there's a good chance they're going to be brought in and invited for a coffee or a tea.

And it's crew tradition that she started and its purpose is to get people talking and to build relationships, which builds community. The impact beyond her station and her assignment in operations is vast for us at the Flagstaff Fire Department and for the community. And I'll talk a little bit about some of those contributions as well. She's worked on GIS enhancement projects, wildland fire operations.

Katie is a plans chief at the highest level and in demand in her role as plans chief for wildland fire operations. response and multi-hazard responses as well. Um she's earned multiple instructor certifications and she's presented on key operational topics and mentored firefighters at every level and I'll just talk a little bit about that.

Um Katie is widely respected and she is a mentor for women in the fire service and for those that want to be in the fire service and she's very much involved in showing them a path towards our profession and And then once they get into profession, that continuous improvement. I will tell you another contribution that I wanted to share. We were at her fire station with her crew this past week where we honored her, which we do.

We'll go out to the firehouse and we'll recognize them for achieving these milestones as well. But Katie came from a wildland fire out of state and she was tasked to develop a tool that would assist the population in and around that fire that was threatened by fire with GIS web-based tools that they could use to determine the risk. Were they ready, were they set, or were they in go? She came back and said, we should have this for our citizens.

And she built that program for the city of Flagstaff, which has now been used across Coconino County. So it's kind of the a tremendous example of the commitment to community and sometimes some of the best leadership comes outside your normal world. And so she's certainly been that for us. We're very proud of her and congratulations, Katie. A twenty year anniversary, we also have Jennifer Shaver that's here with us. She's a creative services specialist, part of our economic vitality division.

Throughout her twenty years with Discover Flagstaff, Jennifer has played an instrumental role in shaping and elevating the Discover Flagstaff brand. Her exceptional design talent has produced innovative, high-quality advertising campaigns that rival those of the nation's top advertising agencies.

Her contributions extend throughout the community from countless interpretive signage design projects and public art map designs to the design of the annual official Flagstaff visitor guide, just to name a few. Jennifer brings creativity, professionalism, and a genuine passion for showcasing Flagstaff through everything that she does.

Her talent, dedication, and attention to detail have helped tell Flagstaff's story, celebrate what makes our community unique, and create a lasting impression on visitors and residents alike. I'd like to invite Jennifer up to say a few words. Thank you so much, council. I am not used to speaking in front of council, but I do want to thank you. This is an honor. This is the second half of my 40 year career and it's been the best.

I've met the most amazing people and I can't think of better people to continue to collaborate with and grow old with. So thank you very much. Thank you. All right, for 25 year anniversary we have Christine Cameron. I'm going to tell you a little about a little bit about Christine and then both Trevor and Christine are going to join as well. So Christine began working for the city of Flagstaff in October 2001.

She started in public She began working as a project manager for the capital improvement section in 2005 and worked through many promotions within the division and is now the most tenured and valued senior project manager. Christine's been recognized for her hard work and commitment through two city manager awards for the Southside Streetscape Improvement Project in 2010 and the Dorothea to Cedar Avenue Stormwater Project in 2014.

She's been directly involved and responsible for several of the city's highest and most public facing projects such as the Rio de Flag flood control, downtown mile safety and connectivity, and the Lone Tree overpass projects and the new city courts building. She has secured several significant federal grants to deliver community improvements and has focused her career on agency coordination with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and BNSF Railway.

Christine is always ready and willing to step in and offer her help. She definitely aims to make the city and our community a better place to live. So I'll invite Trevor and Christine to come up next. Good afternoon, council, mayor. Yeah, but I'll say a few things before Christine comes up and finishes this, but it's been a real pleasure and honor to work with Christine, and she's been really helpful.

She's been a really team player, helpful to step in and take care of things that we work on in Capitol, and we both started in We did capital improvements kind of in the early 2000s, so I would say we grew up together in capital. But it's been a real pleasure getting to know her and just being able to work alongside her.

Again, the projects that we work on for the city, she's been able to step in and help out and really value and I appreciate everything she's done for what the city has to move forward for. Thanks, Trevor. Thanks, Mayor and Council. I really appreciate the opportunity to work for the city and for the community all these years on some fantastic projects. I've really been blessed. So it's been fun. It's been a challenge. It's been a lot of things, but it has been very rewarding.

So thank you very much for your support, and it's been an honor. Thank you. All right, 25 year anniversary Ben James. I don't believe Ben is able to join us today, but he works in Public Works, part of our Solid Waste team. His extensive knowledge, skills, and commitment have made him a valuable asset to our team, an important contributor to the success of Public Works. His years of experience and dedication to serving our community are greatly appreciated.

His efforts have made a lasting difference and the team looks forward to continuing to work alongside him in the years ahead. We'd love to congratulate Ben on his impressive milestone and thank him for the 25 years of making a difference here in the city of Flagstaff and for our community. Congratulations, Ben. And we have 30 year anniversary and we'll invite Chief Gaylord up.

Mayor and Council again, uh, just a tremendous honor to recognize, um, one of our staff members and, In this case, Battalion Chief Eric Caputo, who's marking 30 years of public safety service to our community. Eric started out as a police officer and joined the police department in 1996. He started out as a police officer. He was a detective, he was a corporal. His work covered accident investigation, excuse me, reconstruction, SWAT operations, and leadership and officer training and fitness.

He also coordinated the law enforcement torch run for the Special Olympics He started his career with the fire department in 2001 He has served every rank to his current rank of battalion chief firefighter engineer fire captain and now he is a battalion chief in our leadership Of interest is he also stayed on as a reserve police officer, so essentially serving this community with two badges for over 20 years.

The range of his contributions, arson investigation, academy and firefighter instruction. He was the honor guard leader for a portion of the time, physical fitness, terrorism preparedness, and coordination with our dispatch center. I tell you he also currently serves as the co-chair of our health and wellness committee within the fire department. He's received two city manager awards, one for lifesaving actions and one for his honor guard service.

He's taught at community college in the fire science program, coached little league, served as a league safety officer, and supported Flagstaff High School through his work with the PTA. One thing you should know about Eric is he is quite a master around the Traeger smoker. And one of the treats that you get if he's feeling so inclined, you get to try his smoke jam, for which he's quite well known.

But just on a personal note, it's really a pleasure to have Eric on the leadership and in the leadership of our group. His contributions as a shift commander battalion chief are just so important to our overall success. We're grateful to Eric for his community service and really appreciate it for the opportunity to recognize him here today. Thank you. I thought I was going to get out of this part.

You know, growing up here in Flagstaff, I never knew what I was going to do, and I really appreciate the opportunity to be here right now, 30 years later, and a couple of years later, serving in public service for this city and being able to give back to the community that raised me. So thank you guys. Appreciate the opportunity. Appreciate all the support from everybody, including my wife sitting back there. So that's it. Thank you. All right, we've got another 30 year anniversary.

Um, this is police Lieutenant Ryan Dar. Um, so I'm gonna say a few words and then, uh, Deputy Chief C, um, is gonna come up and join, um, along with Lieutenant Dar. Uh, so the Flagstaff Police Department again is celebrating Lieutenant Dar's He has 30 years of service. He was hired on October 13th of 1996. He is the most senior member of the department and wears badge number one. He has received many accommodations for community policing and community engagement over his career.

His personnel file includes typewritten accommodations from his earliest years. At least it didn't say carbon copy, right? For his earliest years and that recognition continues all the way to today. A clear reflection of his lasting commitment to the Flagstaff Police Department and its mission. Former police chiefs Madden, McCann and Cooper credited a young generation of leaders, including Ryan, with helping the department adopt community policing, data driven policing and the comp stat model.

Ryan has served in nearly every role within the department. He spent many years in the patrol division where his leadership and vision quickly led to promotion. As a patrol corporal and later a detective, he helped train and shape many of the department's senior members and current leaders. Shortly before he passed away, Chief Coop told Ryan it was time to put stripes on him, and Ryan was soon promoted to patrol sergeant.

On his squad, he built a culture where everyone felt valued, was well trained, and enjoyed coming to work. Ryan then moved to the detective division, where he spent 14 years leading criminal investigations and metro narcotics. He was promoted to lieutenant in 2021 and now serves in the patrol division.

He has also served several times as acting deputy chief over these years His knowledge and leadership are invaluable to the Flagstaff Police Department He still leads from the front He responds to calls mentors the agency young officers and holds people accountable Very proud to have Ryan on our team and look forward to his continued service So I invite Colin and Ryan to come up As Ryan makes his way up, this isn't how this equation started back in 1996.

Uh, battalion chief and lieutenant were actually both Flagstaff police officer employees and went to class 291 down in Phoenix. It's amazing to see both of them here after 30 years. Uh, we have a retirement board and LT is not retiring yet. He's still got a year and a half, But there's probably approximately 84 people who've retired from the agency going back to the 70s, which probably goes in employees back in the 50s. Very few of those 84 hit 30 years.

It's an amazing mark to get to 30 years of service. I remember being a young officer out of the academy and getting assigned LT DARS squad and he was the patrol supervisor and he taught us how to do the job right, how to be professional, how to hold ourselves accountable. And so I was really when I was a young supervisor, I got assigned to his squad and he taught me how to do my job. So I'm very thankful for all you've taught me. It's not how well you start, it's how you finish.

It was amazing to see LT last week. We had a supervisor academy where we're teaching new officers, or new supervisors how to supervisors, how to lead, and to watch Lieutenant really just put all of his heart and soul on that train. He just really speaks to his character and who he is as an employee. So congratulations on 30 years and I'm really looking forward to the last year and a half. Mayor and council, 30 years in police work doesn't happen with one person.

I have to thank my wife, Sarah, my son, Quinn, my daughter, Claire, my mother and father. Being a member of this community, growing up, going to high school and college here, I stayed here because the community had taken care of me. They basically paid for my college. I had local business scholarships that paid me to go to college here and I wanted to give back to them. 30 years feels like sometimes it feels longer and sometimes it doesn't.

One thing that they never said up there is I gave long flowery speeches and that's going to remain the same today. Thank you. Well, thank you, Mayor and Council, for allowing us to share some information about our amazing team and we will see you again in November. Congratulations and thank you for years and years of service to all of our employees. We are down to open call to the public. This is where the public can address counsel about anything that is not on the prepared agenda.

And we have Steven Knudsen. Can you hear me? Once again I come before you to participate in our democracy. That's why I'm here. And also to ask the citizens of Flagstaff to vote down Proposition 404 and 405. Something is apparent to me coming to these meetings is that their staff is capable and talented and handsome people. Sometimes, in my perspective, we can't identify a dot because it is so big, it's so unusual. We can't line up the dots because we can't recognize that as a dot.

And I think one of our problems is that we tend to go along with business as usual And my perception is that it is not working out for us That we have to do a rethink on the way we do business And that why I come before you and ask the citizens not to vote for Proposition 404 and 405 Because I think there are much better ways to address what these propositions mean to address Thank you Thank you. All right, we are down to item number seven, the RAD program.

The rental assistance Good afternoon, Mayor and Council. I'd like you to notice that all my family left. No, they had permission to. And I want you to know that while I opened this presentation, I was the one who picked out the picture of my husband with the dogs. And that he didn't know that that was what was going up there. So occasionally I'm in a position to have a small moment of victory. He's a very serious person and would not have chosen that photo himself.

Mayor, Council, I am thrilled to be in front of you this afternoon with an overview of and an update on our rental assistance demonstration effort. I want to express my sympathies to those of you that have heard this presentation once, twice, three, or six times from staff. So I do figure that as you hear things, new questions may occur to you and that works out just fine. On today's agenda, what is RAD and why do it? I promise I'm going to define it. What's happened to date?

We're bringing a resolution to you on November 17th for consideration. So we're going to go over what the resolution does, what redevelopment efforts are being discussed, how things get built, the implementation authorities contained within that resolution, and our next steps. This slide is directly out of minus the from the resident engagement presentation tag tag from the resident engagement meetings we had two weeks ago.

And first things to know now of course this is directed at residents so the word is you, but you are not losing your housing. First and foremost, you do not need to move or make plans to move right now. And there are multiple opportunities for you to be involved in this process. We hit this message. You'll notice at the end the slide looks very similar because we really mean it.

I shared with our residents during the resident meetings that we didn't want anybody with a sour tummy or laying awake at night wondering about their housing security that you may need to relocate temporarily or move temporarily. but that no one will be losing their home through this process. So what is RAD? Housing Authority is applying, asking for permission to apply, to work with HUD to preserve affordable housing long term. HUD calls it the Rental Assistance Demonstration Project or RAD.

We're just going to call it this effort or the RAD effort. One of the reasons you're going to hear us calling an effort instead of a project is because project can come with negative connotations, when attached to public housing. And while it is a project, we're going to be undertaking it. We have a project manager. It's something that a lot of folks in the public don't understand differences of words. So it will eventually have a name that will not be RAD.

But as you hear me talk about it, RAD effort, I do believe there is a slide in here that says project that's left over from before we changed our vernacular. We're being very intentional about how we talk about some of these things to work to to alleviate misunderstandings or rumors within the community. As I know you are aware, public housing funding becomes a long-term rental assistance contract under a different program through the RAD effort.

And this can fund repairs, improvements, rebuilding, everything from minor repairs all the way to full redevelopment. So federal funding for public housing repairs has been shrinking for years and years, while our needs, especially underfunded as they are, keep growing. Flagstaff is in a declared housing emergencies. Our properties are aging and need reinvestment. And this This project is also supported by the city's 10-year housing plan by protecting and expanding long-term affordable housing.

We were talking about creating this project, implementing this project when we were writing the 10-year plan. Even before that, we were having some visioning conversations. This isn't new, we just finally jumped off the cliff. So, what is this different contract program? So this is another point that I want to share in certain venues, people who can share messages out in public. Public housing funding becomes a long-term rental assistance contract under the Section 8 program.

This is really important. Funding shifts from a public housing contract to a long-term Section 8 contract. This contract makes funding easier for us to obtain and improve the property. Section 8 has multiple areas of programs underneath it. One of them is vouchers, and that is the one the public is most familiar with. So if you say Section 8, the automatic thought process is vouchers. These will not be vouchers. The subsidy will remain attached to the unit.

Just like with public housing today, that housing subsidy is attached to the unit. So we will have a Section 8 contract for the units instead of a public housing contract. So when we say we're shifting program platforms, we're going to use language like that. We're not trying to hide anything. We're trying to simplify things so that in casual conversation people understand what we're saying and do not believe that we are shifting to all vouchers. We've already had that misunderstanding.

Um, and so we're working to utilize language that will work to avoid I've avoided that in the past or in the past. I'd like to avoid it in the past. Let's also avoid it in the future.

Goals of this effort is to keep the property affordable long term and then primary is to protect current residents and their rights, minimize the impacts on both the residents and our nonprofit partners, improve the property and address our building needs, maintain public or nonprofit ownership or control and what we've been talking about in talking about Rad and talking about Housing bond, etc. is, and the 10-year plan, is increased the number of units.

We have very low units on very large properties, and we have an opportunity through this effort to change that. Key resident protections. This is really, really important, and we spent quite a bit of time with this with residents. Again, right at the top, rent remains affordable. The rent stays an income-based equation with the exception of less than 10 households. And those 10 households have an income that shifts them to another structure called flat rent.

Their rent will still stay affordable. If there's an increase, it's a 24-month phase-in. So there really is, rent will stay affordable and for the vast majority, it will stay an income-based calculation. There's no re-screening because of this effort. It's not as if someone is coming in to us as a new resident and going through the full process again. Folks are income qualified every year at their recertification, but they're not re-screened. This is the same thing.

Residents have the right to remain in the development after any rehab or redevelopment, not during, but after, and right to return if temporary relocation is needed. They have the right to organize and participate. In the past, we have had resident organizations. We make that well known, we chat with folks about it, and we have not seen a willingness, not a willingness, but a need or a want to from our residents to organize and participate in an organized way.

In the resident presentation, we have additional information about that, that should they choose to organize and participate as a resident organization, we are able to provide technical assistance. We have a small amount of funding set aside, etc. in order to help with that effort, should they choose to go down that road. And they also have the continued right to grievance and hearing procedures. That's always a right, but it stays within, stays their right under these activities as well.

And then they have an option to request a tenant-based voucher after a required waiting period of returning to the development. And here's one of the fun parts about working with HUD.

So I started researching this and I like over here it says this and over here it says this So I finally went to my friend Claude and went what is the waiting period And it came back with this is an unclear area within federal regulations It depends on the funding source it depends on a couple of different efforts and it is one to two years and my pledge to the residents was this is years down the road and by the time we get there I will know more about it But at this point in time our focus has been in a different area However the overall concept is if the resident moves back into the development and it doesn work for them it doesn work for their family perhaps it someone with PTSD and there more people around and it doesn work they have the right to request a tenant voucher and move out into the community and we are obligated to provide it to them And so that's really the punch line for that and why there's an ambiguous after the required waiting period.

So what's happened to date? I put at the top instead of a full summary, discussion and planning for a long time. In the last year or so, we've hired and worked with a consultant who has provided the capacity for us, for them to do on our behalf, a portfolio analysis of what our current public housing portfolio looks like, household sizes, who's living in it, income sizes, etc. We've had a third-party capital needs assessment performed.

We've done a bunch of required background work that is, it's a lot, but it's really not worth mentioning. And the consultant also put together the first draft of the RFP to obtain a development partner with which to embark on this journey with. It's my understanding from purchasing and staff that this RFP is on the verge of being published, if not today, then tomorrow. We engaged an architect. Well, why isn't that a little early?

Well, we engaged an architect so we could have a full site analysis conducted. And so that we could have very, very preliminary drawings done. So that when we embark on the public participation process, our residents, you, other members of the community, etc., have something to respond to when you come into a community charrette. This is what it looks like now. This is what it looks like if we maximize the density. This is what it looks like if we put these things here.

Focused on Seiler Homes for the first one so that people, when coming in, can knock it down like a straw man or circle in something and put a star. So that there is something to have discussion around and about, but they are in no means. We have not embarked on planning processes and drawings, etc. without the ever so important community input. Resident engagement. We had two meetings on October 14th at Cogdill at noon in the Aquaplex at 530. We have met with three of the key stakeholders.

These are folks that are located on Housing Authority City property. Tinkertopia today, Boys and Girls Club recently had NACOG Head Start last week. All three entities are interested in remaining part of our developments, passionately want to remain part of our developments.

You have an example of, I know you can't read it, but it's a fun flyer made by staff as well as that pop-up box is if you went to the housing page on the day of the hearing of the public meetings and were looking for where to watch it because they were hybrid, this box assaulted you. I mean popped up right as you came onto the page. You couldn't miss it so if it was something somebody wanted they were looking for, staff arranged that to have that right there.

We did have people online at the Brandon Homes meeting. We had 10 in person, four online, and six staff. At the AquaPlex meeting, we had six in person, two online, and five staff. And that feels like a lot of staff to resident ratio, but what that also allowed us to do was be available for one-on-one questions and conversations, mainly a lot of conversations after the presentations and questions. Our residents are not shy about asking questions.

Sometimes I present in public and people just kind of stare and not you guys, but other groups stare and like, okay, no questions. Our residents are not shy about asking questions. We're actually required to create a record of all of those questions and the answers provided and submit it with our application. Um, and what that lets HUD do also is see if there are things that we're working with that need additional technical assistance, etc. It also helps us keep track of it. It was fun.

It was fun to engage with residents that way and answer questions. And we had some very, very meaningful conversations with some of our residents. One woman who actually came to both suffers from some disabilities. She has a very cute little emotional support dog named Peanut who likes to wear jammies.

But she shared with me that one of the, and I have permission to share this, I'm not using her name, but one of the reasons that she still is with us here and has chosen to not take her own life is because one of our staff members and their patience with her her anxiety her repeatedly asking questions and the kindness of our staff helping her move into her unit not helping her move in but getting her set up to move into a unit about nine years ago We have since thrown that staff person a breakfast party and she a quiet individual But what we wanted to emphasize to her as staff is you never know the person that you touch that you think is It's a casual encounter or she asked me the same question again.

Our staff doesn't do that. She said this individual knowing who they are, they are exactly that way. You can ask her the same question 22 times and she's going to answer you each time as if it's the first time. And so we learned things, some things about our staff too, as well as what the residents are interested in seeing in their community as it's redeveloped. Um, two Thursdays ago, Housing Authority Board voted to forward the resolution to you with a It is a recommendation for approval.

Again, that body is a recommending body. They are not an approval body. So that resolution that they approved comes with a recommendation for your approval. What the council resolution does that will be presented for your consideration? It recommends that City Council authorized staff to apply to HUD for this wonderfully named RAD program.

It acknowledges that RAD does convert public housing assistance into a long-term Section 8 rental assistance contract, and it recommends that the Housing Authority serve as a developer or co-developer on the redevelopment resulting from that application. Redevelopment efforts cover Seiler Homes, Brannan Homes, and all of our scattered sites across Flagstaff. We are planning, and when I say planning, we are visioning a mix of housing types, including family and senior housing.

And of course, we are working to significantly increase the number of affordable homes available at these sites. How it gets built? It is staff's recommendation that a new nonprofit corporation be formed to help with various elements of the development.

Financing in order to do this will combine tax credit financing, grants, loans, city general obligation bond funding from prop 442, not city general funds, and a qualified development partner will be selected to help design, finance, and build the projects. You know how I like to do my slides. I like to anticipate your questions. Hang on now. What do you mean a new nonprofit? Yes.

But at the request of you, if you accept the staff recommendation, this would call for no new staff, no new funding to start with, or for the first multiple, multiple years to be determined perhaps in very long term.

The language within the resolution is on the screen here, is to form a new nonprofit corporation with the housing division director working with legal counsel on incorporation, governance and submission, As directed by the city manager or their designee, of course we're coming to council for feedback and input and direction on that as this would come to us through the city manager and we know where she gets her direction. This is identified as a best practice for several reasons.

It satisfies HUD's control requirements. It allows us to structure our LIHTC partnerships correctly and keeps project risk and guarantee funds separate from the rest of the housing authority in the city. Let me give you an example. We generally cannot contract with ourselves. So when the property converts and gets project-based vouchers, we'll be getting a housing assistance payment contract from HUD.

While we also need to be able to administer those housing assistance payments and we can't contract with ourselves. So another example is if we transfer subsidy from a scattered site unit to one of the main sites, HUD's rules require that the public housing asset transfer to a separate entity recognized under state law.

The bigger driver, of course, is usually financing, and LIHTC deals need to be held by a single asset ownership entity, Structured with a general partner who runs the project and a limited partner who typically supplies the tax credit equity. Federal regulations require that the Housing Authority slash the city remain in majority partnership role in every partnership made. And I have some more information on even further control being required.

A non affiliate gives us a clean vehicle to hold controlling interest in those properties while insulating both the Housing Authority into the realm of our community We have very great effective nonprofits who are sitting behind me We not structured like the sharks and the jets on either side of the room It just how it happened This is more or less being considered for the city council for the reason of a legal tool, a legal vehicle that will allow us to accomplish what we need to do with lower risk, greater ability to move.

Implementation authority within the resolution directs the city manager or their designee to take actions as needed to carry out the resolution, including signing applications and agreements, and we will of course keep the FHA board and the city council informed as the project progresses. I foreshadowed this a moment ago. I did have a question come out of the community, not at the resident meetings, but someone else to say, how smart is it to embark on a federal program at this point in time?

Well, actually, we're in a pretty decent place. The 21st Century Road to Housing Act enacted just this past summer makes this program permanent. It's been a demonstration program. Demonstration is usually we're going to demonstrate it works and then we're going to move on. It's been a demonstration program for more than a decade. Maybe they'll change the name. Maybe that's where it comes from. But it makes the program permanent by removing the sunset provision associated with it.

The cap increases. They're not near the cap. We were safe and applying now, but it raises that cap. As a demonstration program, they said we're only going to do this many, and then they raised it, and now they raised it. Um, uh, conversion limit to 550,000 units. If you're wondering what the cap is now, I'd be happy to email that to you at another time. I do not have it off the top of my head.

And it further takes the affordability mandate even further than it has been in the past, which requires that converted public housing authority properties be strictly used for affordable housing, rather than commercial for profit or athletic facilities. Not that this was within our intent. However, it further locks down the property the federal government invested in when creating public housing so many years ago.

In the very, very first iterations of the RAD program, there was no restriction on housing authorities remaining a majority partner and those very first conversions were lost to the market. Now that was 10, 12 years ago. Since then, a lot of lessons have been And I think we're seeing further implementation of those lessons here.

This does not prohibit us from continuing to provide community beneficial services within and on the properties, such as Head Start and Tinkertopia and Boys and Girls Club. Unless Boys and Girls Club turns pro with their basketball teams, we're probably safe. So our next steps, Council, we are planning to be back in front of you on November 17th.

And then gather all the pieces and parts and things together and submit the application to HUD and publish a code developer RFP, which is in the coming days. This slide is also directly from the resident engagement presentation. There's a lot of work to be done before any changes to buildings or land are made. It will likely look like nothing is happening for at least a year.

I didn't want to start this process, be talking to everybody about it, and then be like, well, I haven't seen them do anything. Well, we're going to be working very hard, but it's on the paperwork side. It's a federal program. There's a ton of paperwork and permissions and contracts and negotiations. Community planning charrettes, additional resident input, I don't anticipate until next summer. Dirt and buildings, I think we're easily 24 months away from.

And so I did not want people Seeing something and being like, oh, they talked about it and didn't implement it. It's going to look like nothing is happening. So we wanted to put that out right out in front. And then this is from our resident engagement presentation. We have a monthly newsletter that goes to every public housing household.

And Aiden Rutledge, Aiden Wave from staff has taken on the task of making sure we have a monthly update called the Rad Corner right now in the newsletter where we have pledged to write an update, even if there is no update.

Such as the RFP was published and we're waiting for the deadline to pass for responses so that folks can get used to seeing that there's information there and we don't ever want to leave it blank because with a lack of information often comes a vacuum and that's where we get rumors and that's where we have ideas come out and float around. Our goal is to be as absolutely transparent as possible, to be open and honest with residents what things look like. Do we have to relocate folks?

I don't know. It's likely. Do I know where? No. We're going to have these community planning processes around us. One of the intentional things that we are working on, and I noticed I used it wrong this evening, is we're working not to use the word our plans, because they're not our plans yet. We have not worked with the community. We have not worked with our residents to create a joint plan. We have some ideas. We have things for the community to respond to, but they are not our plans.

They are some visioning from staff. I think there'll be a point in the future when it's logical to shift from the plans to our plans when we've worked with the community and honestly, truly have our plans designed and developed with our co-development partner, Our residents, our surrounding community, and our stakeholders. This slide's gonna look really familiar. I told you it would look similar to the front. Folks are not losing their housing.

They do not need to move or make plans to move right now. And there are multiple opportunities to be involved in the process. And with that, I would be happy to answer any questions. Councilmember Malazzo. I have so many, Mayor, that I'm happy to let others go first and then if my questions are already answered by those then I don't need to ask them a second time. Go ahead, because it works the other way around too. All right. Thank you, Sarah. You're welcome.

I remember when this first came to us on the Housing Authority Board and it has been a long time coming and I know you all are very excited about it and I am incredibly excited about it as well. So I'm really looking forward to what you have coming down the pike in the next year. So this is fantastic. As I promised, I will have lots and lots of questions for you. I think this is your third shot at questions from this presentation. Just saying.

The last time I didn't ask any questions because I did not want to create a conflict of interest since I was- Should you be chosen? Very fair. On the board. Thank you, councilmember Melaza. having those conversations. You use the term long-term several slides. Do you have a number of years? Is it indefinite? Is it 50 years? Is it 100 years? Mayor Councilmember Lazo, long-term in terms of development or in terms of how long the developments will last?

In terms of the contract between the City of Flagstaff and HUD. Thank you. Thank you for the context. It'll be indefinite contract. Right now we have a contract for our public housing dollars that it's renewed every year. The beauty of the RAD program is that right now under public housing we receive two funding sources. We receive an operating fund and a capital fund.

This program doesn't mean more money, but it means those two funding sources will be combined into one, which gives us greater flexibility, and the contract that we have right now for public housing is annual with no escalation, no guarantee of funding. So sometimes given federal budgeting we can be four or five six months into a fiscal year and not know what our budget is. That's really hard to do from an implementation standpoint. What this does, it's called a CHAP.

So this is going to be fun because we have a community homebuyer assistance program that is next on the application but the CHAP is the agreed to, it's a rad term, it's rad, that contract have an escalation amount in it. So we will be able to plan more than a single year at a time for addressing needs within the developments. And so that long-term contract is indefinite, should the federal government continue to have a Section 8 program and fund it. Great, thank you.

My next question is, what is the time frame for when, if someone who is currently a tenant under the public housing requests a voucher, what is the time frame you have to provide that voucher to them? And how does that impact the waiting list and et cetera for those vouchers? Mayor, Councilmember Malazo, a tenant protection voucher is one issued directly for this purpose from HUD and will not impact the current flow of our waiting list when we get there. Mayor Mrakas- Great, thank you.

The next question I have is, I think you answered that one. I think I mostly Oh I have two more First is the I assume that the plan is for that this new non purview to be very very restricted so that it doesn impact other non within our community Is that accurate Mayor, Councilmember Mbolozzo, that is staff's vision.

We will of course come and accept direction from city council, but what we have realized in talking to our partners around the state, and to some HUD staff that is popping into our office once in a while lately, is that it's a best practice to do so, and it helps us move through a development process without having to come back and have city council form all of these different corporations necessary in order to go into development.

When we discussed this with staff, when I spoke with some of our community partners and said, what are your thoughts? What are your worries? I think the worries are what you think they would be. And I think you will see a recommendation coming out of staff that takes those into consideration and narrows what we're doing to our properties. Now, does that mean that we can't partner with other community nonprofits in the future? I don't think so. But we are still very new in this.

We are taking our first steps in this direction. I'm learning a lot. It's kind of like drinking from a fire hose. I've always told some of my nonprofit partners, I'm like, I'm so glad I don't have a nonprofit. This would be different because it's really under the city umbrella. So it's not truly going out and trying to make budget, that type of thing. So yes, it's not intended to go out and compete for limited local dollars, any of those things. Great, thank you.

The last question is probably two or three years early, but I'm going to ask it anyway. Do you have plans for all electric and or solar on this new development to reduce costs to the city as well as to residents for the long term? Thank you for the question. It's a tiny bit early.

We're going to be doing some community visioning surettes, And what we have always discussed with sustainability, especially in reference to public buildings, is that we will work to incorporate everything sustainable that makes financial logical sense. We understand the importance of controlled utility bills, especially because the bulk of those utility bills are paid by us.

In this case, we understand those principles, but when it comes down to providing an additional unit or an additional sustainability feature, what I've told sustainability is we are going to be very, very apt to err on the side of providing an additional sustainability unit rather than another sustainability feature. Now there are a lot of funding sources out there for us to be able to go knock on doors to identify additional funding to incorporate sustainability features.

So I would say it's more than on the table. I would say it's a lovely centerpiece around what we're doing. But as your housing director, our recommendations will be based on maximizing number of units while still satisfying as many of the sustainability goals as we can. Thank you so much for that answer. You know I am a wild advocate for both housing and sustainability, and I don't find another low income housing, how a unit or affordable unit to be non-sustainable.

I think that is part of sustainability. So I do encourage the language to shift a little bit to a different type of sustainability, which is more affordable housing units, which is a sustainability goal. Thank you. And thank you, council and mayor. I'm done. Vice mayor. Thank you, and thank you for the presentation. I have seen this a few times now. I feel like I could almost give it. You are welcome to do this.

So I really appreciate that you are so open and communicative with the residents, and I know throughout this process you will continue to be. I'm just wondering, given the sessions you had with them for feedback, was there anything that was kind of a surprise or an occurring theme that maybe isn't in the presentation that they're concerned about? The only reoccurring theme that was concerning was a rumor that has absolutely no bearing on it.

And a member of Tinkertopia's board also happens to be on the board of regents. They asked a similar question, so I can now say I've confirmed with the board of regents.

It came up three times was that NAU has plans to purchase Brennan homes for million It came from three different people at three times It is not true NAU is not interested We have not discussed it with them That was the most reoccurring question that we had And so I want to put that out there So we talked to the residents about it I stopped and talked with them individually And then there was, happened to have an over-crossing meeting with us this morning and got confirmation.

This is, it is not a thing. And so I think the other questions that we heard from residents were more about if we have to move where there'll be, will there be financial help? Yes, as part of residents' rights and protections, those types of things. We had a question about services on site. We had questions about... anything popping in anybody's head? Mix of units.

What we did talk about, I defined middle housing in the resident presentation because it's something they're going to start to hear and everyone should have the same baseline of operating and understanding of what things meant. So we talked about not rows and rows and rows and rows of apartments, but rather a neighborhood and a community and with connectivity within it. And so when you hear the term middle housing, it means smaller groups of attached housing. It means X, Y, and Z.

Perhaps we have some townhome style units. Perhaps we have X, Y, and Z. And I have a vision in my head of what the charrette looks like and I don't know if that's what it's going to look like or not, but monopoly houses aren't realistic. But, you know, some manila folder cut out pieces will get more fancy than that. But where people can say, I would like to see these. We meeting with Tinkertopia this morning was an interesting conversation about Dr. Alice loves where they are in the development.

Some board members have some other thoughts about, well, maybe easier for the rest of the community to get to because they serve more than just Seiler Homes, that type of thing. Which is why I've been really happy with our conversations with our stakeholders and how engaged they are to stay within the developments and continue to serve who they serve. So I think that was the flavor of it. The other questions that came were very individualized.

We can't, oh, came up twice with do we plan on renting to NAU students? And I explained that we rent to non-traditional NAU students who are not attached to their parents' household. However, no, we are not. That was the other Brandon Holmes' massive rumor was that when we brought in more units, we would be renting to traditional college students, and we worked to dispel that one as well. And so I'm happy to provide you the question answer transcripts if you'd like. Thank you so much.

That was a lot of great information and I'm glad that I asked the question. I just want to state that I'm very excited about this update and I think that working on our existing affordable housing is just as important as creating new housing. So I appreciate all of your work. Thank you. Councilmember Matthews. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Sarah, for the presentation and all the work.

One of my questions did get answered already, but the newsletter, how is it distributed to ensure that all the residents are receiving it? Mayor, Councilmember Matthews, the newsletter is sent via snail mail to every household. There are some notices that we do attach to doors, but we know what happens with those. They get taken off by the first kid home and it goes on the counter. So when we do those, we try to use neon colored paper.

But the newsletters, it's a cost, but it's something that we budget for and feel like it's very important to continue to do. Thank you. And then my real question, my bigger question is, you know, I always talk about the speed of government and the processes. That's probably our first conversation we ever had when I got on council. So you talked about setting expectations and a ways before we see shovels in the ground.

Can that be expedited through additional staffing or is it just because we're doing one government applying to a bigger government and that's just how it is?

or can we do something about that Thank you for the question Councilmember Matthews The speed of this could be impacted by additional staffing at HUD not staffing that we control I have been fortunate enough to meet with twice now two individuals who are actually line workers in the Chicago office where the RAD applications go when you turn them in. And I have gotten some excellent tips on make sure you X, Y, and Z, you know, cross this T, dot this I.

This can speed us up, but they're down to pretty bare bones staffing. The joke I made in the resident presentations was I don't control HUD and the speed of which they're able to do. The pieces on our side that we can control are our responses in negotiating the CHAP and what that looks like on our part. There's not a lot of room to give, but it's a data-based exercise. And so those are really the pieces that we control within this.

We are ahead of the game in putting out our RFP for a co-developer at this point in time, rather than waiting until we are closer to a negotiated CHAP with HUD. And so, other than council's support as we move into this, I'm not sure there's a whole lot we can do to move up this phase. As we get into community planning and charrettes, we'll be asking you to share the message in the community of when those are.

While we did not have that many people at the meetings in comparison to how many people live in the development, I told you they weren't shy about questions, and in talking with our housing services specialists for each development, what was shared with me is there were some very key people that are message carriers that were at that meeting, and so were also depending on some of that word of mouth. So sharing the message as we move forward, etc.

We have had fantastic support, of course, from city manager's office on down and embarking on this. I told you a couple weeks ago it felt like we were about ready to jump off a cliff and I feel like I didn't jump by myself. I'm surrounded by a fantastic team, not only within housing but within the organization. Thank you and thank you to the whole team because I know it is a collective effort and I appreciate everybody's support and focus on this. Thank you. Thank you.

It is mind-numbing at times. We've never done this. And so I think legal has a little tracker on me that when I get near their offices, it goes off because here I come with a, why can't we do this question? And so I make their brain, I know, I make brains hurt occasionally, but I haven't yet been grounded from their offices. So I'm just going to keep going. I'm always, see, I'm always welcome. No, it's a great partnership and usually it's not a, no way, it's a, we can probably figure that out.

Give us some time, we'll work on it. And so far we have figured it out. So we're just going to keep going. Thank you. Thank you for the great presentation and thank you to staff. This is a huge undertaking in addition to everything that you're already doing. and has the potential to be monumental for the residents of Flagstaff. So we appreciate all this work. Thank you. Thank you.

Speaking of housing, number eight is bond-funded community homebuyer assistance program An employer assisted housing program annual update that we are all looking forward to. Sorry, one moment. Where's the play button? There we go. No, I wish. Sorry. Thank you so much. Good afternoon, Mayor, Council, staff, and community members.

I'm Christine Pavlik, Housing and Grants Administrator for the Housing Division, and I'm so happy to be here tonight to introduce our partners at Housing Solutions of Northern Arizona. The City of Flagstaff has partnered with Housing Solutions for over 27 years now, and they've been an incredible partner in helping Flagstaff residents achieve home ownership.

Together, we've provided more than $6 million in homebuyer assistance, in addition to millions of dollars in CDBG funding that has supported some of Flagstaff's most vulnerable residents, including survivors of domestic violence, children and families experiencing homelessness, and low and moderate income households working towards greater housing stability. Having worked at Housing Solutions myself, This partnership is especially meaningful to me.

I was lucky enough to have Devana as a mentor all those years ago. I don't want to age us. And I have seen firsthand the care and dedication that the Housing Solutions team brings to their work. One thing that has never changed is their commitment to their clients. They are thoughtful, compassionate, and persistent advocates in a good way. Not just for the families they serve, but for the programs and policies that make home ownership possible in our community.

They bring tremendous expertise to this work and they genuinely care about getting it right. So today's presentation is also a great opportunity for us to share with council and our community how the voter approved proposition 442 affordable housing bond dollars are being put to work. Flagstaff voters made a significant investment in affordable housing back in 2022 and that included $7 million dedicated to homebuyer assistance.

And we're now seeing those dollars help local families educators, healthcare workers, first responders, and other members of our workforce be able to put down roots and purchase homes in our community where homeownership can often feel out of reach. I think it's so important that we share not just how these public dollars are being spent, but also the real impact they're having in our neighbors lives. So we're so lucky to have housing solutions as partners.

I'm really excited for you, council and our community, to hear about the impact of these down payment assistance programs and the families they've helped over the past year. And with that, I'll turn I'm excited to be here this afternoon. Thanks to Christine and the housing department for setting the tone. I really think it's going to be a presentation I hope that you feel good about and can see the success and the impact in our community. So batten down the hatches because we're ready to start.

celebrate and continue the hard work. So it's a pause of happiness. So I do want to start a little bit about CHAP, the background. As Christine mentioned, the current CHAP program is funded by the housing bond that was passed by our voters, which dedicated seven million dollars towards down payment and closing cost assistance to help eligible first time home buyers in our community with the upfront cost of homeownership. The city of Flagstaff contracted with Housing Solutions last August.

August 2025. So the report that you'll see today is the first 14 months of implementation of those funds. And of course, the little background on housing solutions. So as a reminder, we are a HUD-approved housing counseling agency. We've been serving Flagstaff in northern Arizona since 1990. We've partnered with the City of Flagstaff since 1999 to administer various financial assistance programs, helping first-time homebuyers.

The city of Flagstaff was one of the first to get on board with investment and home ownership through a down payment assistance program. And I have to tell you, I talked to a lot of elected officials, community leaders, folks across the state and northern Arizona who constantly say, how do we do what Flagstaff's doing?

So they see the work, they see the impact, and they very much want it replicated in their communities because of the trends that you've set, the investment that you've made, which has resulted in some significant impact. Since 1995, we've worked with you guys, we've worked with other partner funders, whether it's the Federal Home Loan Bank of San Francisco, the state of Arizona, Coconino County, Cottonwoods, you name it, to assist.

522 families is what it says on here with direct financial assistance. But as of yesterday, it was 527. And 526, tomorrow's 527. So we continue to see program utilization even after the presentation had to be submitted for y'all. So we continue to have fun with that. And I do want to take a second to recognize a couple of staff members in the audience. Angela and Brandon.

Angela and Brandon are the frontline folks who work with clients on a daily basis to understand program details, to do the housing counseling, to talk about barriers to home ownership. I get to stand up and talk, but they are the true champions of this program on a day-to-day basis, and I just want to thank them for all that they do.

Okay, so I do go through a little bit about the programs just to situate the community, if this is the first time you're ever hearing about CHAP or permanent affordability or employer-assisted housing, before we get into the impacts. So if you've heard it before, sorry about that, but I'll get through it quickly.

So as a reminder CHAP stands for Community Homebuyer Assistance Program As I just told a new board member this morning the acronyms in this field are immense We love them So if I say something that you like what the heck does that mean Please let me know But for this presentation CHAP does not mean HUD or RAD it means Community Home Buyer Assistance Program and that program provides up to fifty thousand dollars in matching loan funds we underscore matching and loan intentionally in that sentence to buyers who are mortgage eligible so you have to be able to get a first mortgage right people have decent credit they can make a payment to their mortgage lender on a So we're helping people who can otherwise purchase, but with the discrepancy between home prices and incomes in our community, have trouble with those upfront costs of homeownership.

CHAP could be used for down payment, it could be used to cover closing costs, or an interest rate buy down, kind of whichever makes the most sense, bang for your buck when the lender's putting the package together. Funds are a 10 to 1 match, so up to $5,000 of buyer funds are matched with up to $50,000 of CHAP funds. If you come in with $4,000 of your own funds, you get $40,000. So we certainly find that most people get that $5,000. It's a really good thing for your buck.

CHAP is a loan, it's never forgiven. We'll talk about repayment here and how that works in the future, but it is secured against the property in second position behind your first mortgage. And in order to be eligible, so we do not claim that CHAP helps everybody. It does not. It was intentionally targeted to specific potential buyers in our community. The first criteria is that you have to be a first time Flagstaff home buyer. So that means you've not owned a home in the last three years.

There's some carve out. So if you were an owner with a spouse and you lost that home during a divorce or whatever, there's some specific ways HUD likes to define homeownership with some nuance. But for the most part, if you haven't owned a home in the last three years, you're a first time home buyer. The house you buy have to be has to be located in city limits. Makes sense. Taxpayer dollars aren't going to help you go by in Cottonwood or Camp Birdie, for example.

And then at least one home buyer in the household and on the primary mortgage must have lived or worked within the Flagstaff Metropolitan Planning Organization boundary for the 12 months consecutive prior to purchase. So we're trying to help folks who live and work in our community be able to stay here. And then you have to go through some hoops. You have to meet with us. We have to determine your eligibility and you have to do home buyer education.

And then we look at household income and we look at income from all adult members of the household to see if the household combined income does not exceed the limits that were set by the council and are based on area meeting income guidelines that are published annually by HUD and then given to us by the city housing department staff. Typically that process happens in the spring when exactly is dependent on when HUD gets it out. So right now we're dealing with 2026 income limits.

So for example, a three-person household's total income cannot exceed more than $151,200 a year. Not bad income ranges. We're certainly not always serving the lowest of low-income folks with this program. It takes a little bit of money to be able to afford enough of a mortgage to be able to purchase. So this is filling that workforce housing need gap. And then repayment, never forgiven, always repaid, always in capitals. Repayment occurs when something happens with that owner.

They trigger repayment. So they could sell their home, they could refinance for cash out, or if they don't own or occupy it anymore. If they want to keep ownership but maybe move to Phoenix for a job and then rent the home out, that's going to trigger repayment to y'all to replenish the fund. And then if you buy a house that has a different resale formula, like a land trust home or a deed restricted home, it's just dollar for dollar, you get $50,000 and you pay back $50,000.

But if you purchase a home on the market that does not have other resale restrictions, there is an appreciation share formula for repayment. And I like, so how this works is that, I think I do an example. No, I don't. Okay. So how this works is that it's a percentage of the assistance to the home purchase price. So let's say you buy a $100,000 house, which does not exist, and you get $10,000 of assistance, that's 10% of the purchase price.

When you go to sell your home down the road, it's appreciated to $150,000. You're still going to pay back 10%, which is now $15,000. It's a pay it forward model that helps to recoup more funds in the future to help a similar buyer buy a higher priced house. And when explained to folks, people are really on board with that. In that simple example I gave, you made $45,000 of appreciation even if you paid back $15,000 instead of the $10,000 you borrowed.

So it gives you an opportunity to enter into that market. If you decide to repay CHAP assistance within seven years that appreciation share is reduced by half So it gives incentive to repay because if we can get the money back into the fund we can help more families cycle it through So there is an incentive to repay within the first seven years of ownership In addition to normal CHAP, which I just explained to you, you all created a pilot program that is CHAP Permanent Affordability.

It has two goals. One is, of course, to help people buy a first home. But the second goal is to increase the city's inventory of permanently affordable homes that are either in your land trust or restricted through a deed restriction document. So a portion of that money is now going into this permanent affordability program, which is new this year. The program lowers the buyer's acquisition costs through strategic city investments in exchange for that permanent affordability.

Similar eligibility criteria, first-time home buyer, the house has to be within Flagstaff city limits. There's a couple of different additions. The first one is that the home sales price cannot exceed $600,000. That's because you're going to get a percentage of the home purchase price as assistance, not a flat $50,000. So the city needs to put a cap on it. Otherwise, that percentage gets to be a lot of money.

Still have to work or live within the area and you have to complete our home buyer education and counseling. Another difference for the permanent affordability program is the income limits. So instead of 150% of the area median income, household income cannot exceed 125% of the area median income, so a little less. So for that three person household, again, the income cannot exceed 126,000. And then the permanent affordability assistance is not a loan.

It's instead funding that comes into the home purchase in exchange for either a deed restriction or the home entering into the city's community land trust program. So the buyer would get up to 30% of the purchase price. So if you're buying a $500,000 house, 30% is $150,000. So then they are responsible for the $350,000. That is the net of that. They have to own or occupy the primary residence, and then it's going to be a restricted resale in the future.

In this case, the buyer can refinance for cash out, but only up to that lower limit. So they can't refinance up to $500,000, they could refinance up to $350,000 as the max value of the home. And then there is a resale that comes with this and future eligibility criteria for the next buyer. The resale formula is an appraisal based formula.

So you take the appraisal at sale minus the appraisal when you bought it, look at that appreciation and the owner who is now the seller gets 25% of the appreciation. I do give an example of this because that's a lot of words and numbers just make it make more sense for me. So if in this situation a buyer is using permanent affordability CHAP assistance to buy a $400,000 house, they can get 30% of that purchase price in assistance, which is $120,000.

That makes their initial affordable purchase price $280,000 instead of the $400,000. That's a lot more manageable for folks. And if we assume they own it for a period of time while they own it, the home market valuation goes from $400,000 to $500,000. It's appreciated, $100,000. They would get 25% of that appreciation. Easy math. I did that intentionally.

So they get $25,000 in appreciation, which gets added to that original affordable purchase price so the home would sell for $305,000 in the future. That buyer walks with the $25,000 of appreciation under this situation as well as 100% of whatever they've paid down in their primary mortgage and whatever down payment they put to the home. So they're only sharing the appreciation, not all of the equity in the home. And then the third program I'm here to talk about is employer assisted housing.

So this is not bond funded. This is y'all putting general funds towards an employee benefit through an annual general fund allocation. It's contingent on the city budget allocation for the fiscal year and program demand. EAH provides up to $20,000 of matching loan funds to buyers who are eligible. The funds are matched two to one, so up to $20,000 of home buyer money, their contribution could be matched with $20,000 in employer assisted housing funds.

EAH is a loan Everything a loan Well the first one a loan this one a loan And it has partial forgiveness So it also recorded in second position behind your primary mortgage In order to be eligible at least one buyer on the mortgage has to meet employment requirements with y And so a City of Flagstaff employee must not have owned a home within the Flagstaff MPO boundary within the last three years, first time Flagstaff buyer. They have to do housing counseling and homebuyer education.

They have to occupy the home as their principal residence. And because this is an employee benefit program, there's no income restrictions for the household. The home has to be located within the FMPO boundary though. So because this is a loan, there is no payment and no interest. Up to $10,000 of the loan is forgiven on a pro rata basis over 10 years if the home is owner occupied and if the employee continues to work with you guys.

When funds are forgiven, the IRS does consider that forgiveness of debt income, so it does add to their W-2 income amount at the end of the year for tax purposes, which we disclose to buyers when they buy or before they buy. And then funds are repaid immediately to the City of Flagstaff if the home sells, if somebody wants to refinance to get equity out of their house, totally fine, but they have to pay it back.

And then employment with the city is terminated or they no longer own or occupy the home. So in addition to determining eligibility, working with lenders to explain the program, getting loans funded, all of the fun things that we do, one of our tasks is outreach and education. So we list in here some of our efforts over the last 14 months to share information about these programs with the community.

Very soon after the program launched, I got to stand here on the other side of the podium and talk to a group of community members who were interested in learning more about the launch of the new program. We had a really robust turnout, which was lovely. It was in partnership with the Association of Realtors and the City of Flagstaff advertised and hosted it, which was great. So that was a nice launch.

We've done podcasts, we've had newspaper articles, we've gone to realtor meetings and talked about the program to realtors. We give information out to our volunteer HAP committee, which is comprised of local lenders and title officers. We participate in city-sponsored housing events.

In fact, we're here in, I will not here, we're at the library next week for rental to home ownership tabling event, and we're working to create a virtual realtor lender training that can be accessed at any time for those partners. So here's the fun part. What's happened? In the last 14 months, 25 households, 52 people have utilized the vanilla CHAP, the normal CHAP assistance to purchase a first home. That's a total of $1,137,000 that has been administered out into the community.

Average assistance a little under that $50,000 cap, $45,492. The average home buyer contribution is $21,000. So people are coming in with some money in here and they still need help in order to get that home purchase over the finish line, which means really in any other market they could have probably bought a house and been totally fine. Average mortgage $334,000. Average purchase price $393,000.

So folks are not buying million dollar homes, they're finding townhomes or condos or manufactured homes that are within their price range, which is awesome. We are serving an average household income of just under $100,000 and an average household AMI, area meeting income, of 110%. I do want to point out five of those 25 buyers purchased permanently affordable homes.

So three of those buyers layered CHAP with the city's FAP, once again we love acronyms, Flagstaff Affordable Home Ownership Program, to purchase a developer-built affordable home. So those are negotiated between the city and the developer to reduce price and put it into either land trust or deed restriction, depending on the mechanism used. And then two buyers use CHAP to buy housing solutions, community land trust home, because we've started our own community land trust program.

28% of buyers are female headed households and the average length of time people have lived in Flagstaff prior to purchases 12.3 years. So these are not folks who are coming here and buying a house in a year. They are folks that are typically here for quite some time, wanting to put down roots in the community that they love. Employers. Six employees of Northern Arizona University have purchased with the CHAT program.

Six employees are in government, broadly speaking, So these are robust community employers that are having a benefit because of your investment in their employment. always homebuyer success. At the time that we did this report, we had three additional households under contract. As I mentioned, two have already bought, one will buy tomorrow. For the CHAP permanently affordable program, we've had two households buy.

We launched this in the spring, so we launched regular CHAP first and then launched the permanently affordable one a few months later. So two households have purchased. Total assistance is 292,000. So the per household assistance is of course much greater because this is resulting in permanent affordability. Average assistance, 146,000. Average buyer contribution, still nothing to sneeze at. People are coming in with money to buy a permanently affordable house.

The mortgage is a little lower, but the average purchase price is a little higher because they got 30% assistance to buy that house. 510,000 is the average purchase price. And then the average household income is a little higher, and the average household AMI is about 114% of the area median income. Two buyers purchased, the average length of time they've lived in Flagstaff prior to purchase was 10 and a half years, and actually both of these buyers work at NAU.

I don't know why that happened, but there you go. Maybe they're talking about it at NAU. And then your employer assisted housing program. So these are employees that work for the city of Flagstaff. You have seven households purchased with your investment. A total of $134,000 was loaned out. Average assistance just shy of that $20,000 cap at $19,143. Average homebuyer contribution much greater. You'll see also incomes are higher because once again there's no income cap on this program.

It's an employee benefit. Average monthly mortgage is higher, average purchase price is a little higher, and the average income is 150% of the area median income. Average length of time living in Flagstaff prior to purchase for your employees was 14.7 years. Been here a while. Eight city of Flagstaff employees benefited from the program. You might question that because there's seven households, but one household had two Flagstaff employees. So you got double bang for your buck on that one.

And then three of those Flagstaff employee co-borrowers are employed in the medical field. So we just kind of popped that in too, because it was the highest amount of industry leverage. The other three buyers were in other scattered fields. I do want to share with you some impact. So I love data, but you know, your heart is like, whew, okay, numbers only can do so much.

So we do share some quotes from some first time homebuyers who've received assistance through your funded programs this fiscal year. This one's a longer one. I will read this one because it's a little shorter. So purchasing our first home was a major milestone for our family and the beginning of a new chapter. We are grateful to have a place we can We can call our own where we can build memories, create stability, and grow together for years to come.

So that impact is very much appreciated from the clients that we serve. We get lots of thank you letters telling us that folks get to paint their house, get the dog, plan for the future, plant a garden, all of that kind of fun stuff that I think a lot of us take for granted. Before I get to my last slide, I do want to share one thing that's not on the program. So this is data, this is direct impact, these are direct quotes.

All of that I hope is impactful and meaningful for you guys and for the community. But we struggle sometimes to quantify the indirect impacts of programs, CHAP specifically. And so one of the things that came up at the housing conference that we went to in August, an economist was talking about the hermit crab effect. And so essentially that philosophy is that when one hermit crab moves from a decent shell into a bigger or fancier shell, they leave their old shell behind.

And then another hermit crab can come and take that shell, right, and kind of move up into a bigger or better shell. And the same thing happens with housing, and I know there's some things personally where I'm like, we can't always track it or it doesn't quite work the way we want it to. But with CHAP this time around one of those 25 home buyers we have a hermit crab story that I want to share with you guys. So one of our buyers was a tenant at Housing Solutions prior to purchase.

And I'm going to use pseudonyms for everyone to protect confidentiality, but the details are very real. So Elena and her son Marcus moved into a two-bedroom townhome in Sunnyside in 2016. I know that was 10 years ago and you're like what the heck. But that townhouse was part of a triplex built by Housing Solutions that utilized CDBG funding from y'all and private sector grant support.

It provided permanent housing to low households under 80 of the area meeting income And I should say it provides permanent housing because it still does just not for Elena and Marcus Elena was a single mom living on a fixed income She and Marcus moved in after experiencing homelessness and they were in a local hotel prior to move in Ten years later, her son is now an adult with a decent stable income at a local employer.

Their combined income then put them near our maximum income guidelines for that rental unit, so we started talking to them about where they can move to and how they They can move out of this rent-restricted, income-restricted unit. And so they decided they wanted to talk to Angela about home ownership options, having increased their household income as opposed to finding another rental.

In June, Elena and Marcus made their dream of home ownership a reality when they purchased their first home in the Presidio neighborhood. They layered CHAP assistance with the city's Flagstaff Affordable Home Ownership Program, that FAP one again, purchasing a new construction deed-restricted condo. When they purchased their first home that freed up their two bedroom rental in Sunnyside to benefit another low income household.

At the beginning of August, so a month later, John and Amanda found their permanent affordable rental home, calling Elena and Marcus's past townhome their very own. They had lived at JoJo's Place transitional housing program for nearly two years and were struggling to find where they were going to move out to. At JoJo's place, they escaped homelessness, they found stability and support, they were employed in town, but high rents made it a challenge for them to find permanent housing.

When they did move into their very own townhouse in Sunnyside with Housing Solutions, they found a stable and beautiful place where their adult children can visit, share a meal, spend time together, and create memories. They found their home, and when they moved forward, another door opened. So when John and Amanda moved out of Jojo's place, their apartment opened for someone else.

Soon after, David, who had been experiencing homelessness, was able to move into his Jojo's Place studio apartment and begin his own path towards stability. Marcus and Elena became homeowners because of the city's investment and the community support. John and Amanda moved into permanent affordable housing because of the CDBG investment 10 years ago. And David found a safe place to begin again at JoJo's place because our community came together to invest in transitional housing.

One opportunity opened the door to the next, and that was made possible because of the vision and the investment and the impact that this council and this community has with respect to housing investment. So I just want to thank you on behalf of those three families. And then I'll end with this. We talk about 25 households or two households or seven households this fiscal year and that is a snapshot and we should all pause and celebrate. I hope you think we should celebrate this impact.

But historically, looking at City of Flagstaff investment and homeownership, you all have helped 380 households buy a home. Prior to CHAP bond investment, there was the CHAP program, there was CDBG investment, you've done employer assisted housing for many, many years. And so we did some dated crunching. to be able to share with you that historic impact as well. So 380 households, 966 people, 4 million dollars in CHAP assistance, 520,000 in EAH assistance.

CHAP B is 1.13 million, CHAP PA is 2.9, 2.92, 292,000. Sorry, I don't want to get my numbers wrong. It's leveraged for nearly 4.5 million $1.9 million in home buyer contributions, $1.9 million in other assistance we've brought to the table through WISH or State of Arizona funds or whoever gives us money, we layer it, and it's leveraged $69 million in mortgage financing. 37% of all of our buyers are female-headed households, and historically the average household AMI is 89%. So thank you.

And then one last thing before I turn it over, we have a gift for you all. So if I can get some Vanna White help. And then I'll be quiet. I swear I've talked a lot. So we wanted to visually represent these 380 households for your impact. And so we have these boards to give to you. Each of the little keys on there represents a family that has been impacted and opened the door to homeownership through the city of Flagstaff program investment.

So there's the blue keys, those are historic CHAP investment. There's the white keys, those are your employer assisted housing households. And then the yellow keys are your CHAP B program and the two over there on the side that are a little different color yellow are your permanent affordability.

So we hope that you guys will put this up wherever you want to We have additional keys so you can add to it over time On the little key itself it gives a brief description of the family and then on the downward part it tells the year that they purchased so you can kind of see what happened over time But, I mean, it's fun to be a part of this program, so thank you for your vision, insight and impact. And I'm happy to answer any questions, but that's all she wrote from my perspective.

So thank you for everything. Thank you. Could... Oh, yes. So here, where do you want it? Just right behind you. Oh, behind me. Okay. She's coming. Behind me. I guess I'm on camera, so then they want... See? I'm on the side. Yeah, there you go. Yay. So yeah. Cool. And we'll give these to your housing department. They can decide, or you can decide, or whoever can decide. or whoever can decide where they want to put them. So yeah, happy to answer any questions. Is that my next?

Okay, that's my next thing. Councilmember House. Councilmember House. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you so much, Devana, and the whole Housing Solutions team. This is, it was an amazing presentation, and that gift is so meaningful for, I know, us and the rest of the community. So I hope we can put it somewhere where not only we can see it, but also the rest of the community has just awareness of the impact that this programming and partnership has had over the past several years.

And that will continue for our community well into the future. The only question I had for you was actually just to give you an opportunity to share more about the upcoming program that you mentioned on Sunday at the library. If you could just share more details on what that program is, and I'm stretching out the question because I see someone else is probably coming up, but more information on what that program is, what services will be offered, and And yeah, just what all is included in that.

Thank you, Mayor, Vice Mayor, Council Member House. So the event is actually, thank you for the opportunity to speak about it, but it'll be happening on Thursday, November 5th from 4 to 6 at the Downtown Library. This specific event has been planned with assistance from Calvin. I think he was here at the Housing America Month proclamation. He's one of our NAU students that we've been working with and he's done a phenomenal job.

The theme this year for a resource, it's going to be a tabling event so people can come to the community room at the downtown library from 4 to 6 again on Thursday of next week and they can get resources for renters that are interested in homeownership. So Devon is going to be there. We have a lot of other partner organizations coming also. So, yeah, I think that pretty much covers it. Come and get your swag, your free swag. Thank you very much. And apologies for getting that date wrong.

So Thursday, November 4th. Thank you. The 5th. Yeah, the 5th. Dates don't matter. Thank you. Come hang out at the library. We'll be there. It'll be great. Exactly. Councilmember Malazzo. Thank you, Mary. Hi, Devana. How are you? I'm okay. I'm wondering what questions you're going to throw at me, but I'm good. Oh, you know I love questions. I've got two that I know of at the moment. You mentioned 600,000 as the cap on the permanent affordability.

Is that a fixed number or is that subject to change by year or council direction or something? Yeah, thank you for the question, Councilmember Molazo. So it's fixed right now at $600,000. We, from time to time, will bring back program guidelines to you all for adjustment. So that's something that can adjust over time, given utilization or what the market's doing. Right now we feel like it's a decent number.

So it kind of limits the amount of money the city has to invest per household, but also gives enough of a range that people can find homes in that range. Great, thank you. The other is kind of a comment but also a question.

When you talk about the calculation for when someone receives assistance with a community land trust, for example, rider on it, one of the things that I would like to see more of is the return on investment for someone who is receiving that assistance versus someone who would have to come to the purchase with their own their own cash For example the house you were talking about if you assume it a 10 year if they wait for 10 years before they sell it they end up paying something like 506,000.

And if it only appreciated the 500,000, they're actually somewhat underwater if they came to buy it with their own cash, that 80,000, 20% down. Whereas with support and help, Even though the resale is reduced because of the program, they actually end up walking away with a much greater return on their investment. And I think it's really valuable for us to distribute that kind of knowledge to the community. I would agree. Thank you, Council Member Mollazo. I would agree.

So we can certainly do some calculations and we talk in more detail with potential buyers, right? So like, here's the pros and cons. Here's what you're getting into. to. There's a whole permanent affordability orientation that the city does. So I do think that happens on that end. But for the community in general, I agree with you. We'll kind of create some more scenarios.

The other interesting piece, I think, is if you had to borrow that extra money, what did you pay in interest on that extra borrowed sum over the 10 years of ownership? And how does that, how does that change where you're like, yeah, I got an extra $80,000, but I paid 70,000 in interest. And I think that's the I think there's some additional calculations that provide context that we can add. Great. Thank you.

And I also think it's important to recognize that the assistance that the city provides through you stays within the city. Whereas if you take out a loan for your down payment, it's probably going to be a national bank and your interest payments are going out of the city. Your payments on the bigger part of the loan are also leaving the city. So it's also a reinvestment in our community in that way. Yeah, absolutely.

And I think the other nice part about the design of CHAP, which has been a similar design before CHAP bond existed, it was CHAP general fund, is that loan feature, right? So that one-time investment of taxpayer dollars cycles over and over and over again. So yay, we've helped 25 households with regular CHAP, but that money will come back.

And it might not come back next year or the year after, but when it does, it could then be reinvested to help more families, which is just the magic of the program is that that one-time investment just has unlimited opportunity to help in perpetuity. So I love that part of the design and thank you for asking the question so that I could say that out loud. Thank you, Mayor. Well, thank you very much and thank you for the visual.

That is really beautiful and what a lovely I think that's a great way to display the impact that the program has had. Once again, thank you to all of you. Thank you to staff. You all have a great partnership and are able to get a lot of stuff done. So thanks for the presentation. Thank you so much. We appreciate our partnership and you. So you guys make it happen. Thanks. All right. We've gone through rad chap. I see no public comment.

So announcements and updates too from council and city manager. Let's start with Councilmember Spence. Thank you, Mayor. Just to follow up, I mentioned a couple weeks ago that a field trip up to Observatory Mesa and Natural Preserve was scheduled but had to be last Thursday, but was canceled because of the rain and muddy roads.

So, it is going to be rescheduled at a future date when the roads dry out, and any council members that want to go on that trip, the guided trip to Observatory Mesa, should contact Robert Wallace to make a reservation. The second thing is the PROS master plan open house which was scheduled for last week, got cancelled because of the severe weather warning and that has been rescheduled for day after tomorrow, this Thursday at the AquaPlex from 5 to 7.

So this is an open house for the public to learn about the master plan process and the public is invited. Thank you. Council member House. Apologies, Mayor. I couldn't find my unmute button there for a second. Yeah, the only thing I have tonight is just reminding the community that the open house scheduled by the Flagstaff Police Department was also rescheduled from last week, and it was rescheduled for Thursday, October 29th from 3 to 6 at the police station on Sawmill. Mill.

So I hope to see other community members there. Thank you, Mayor. Vice Mayor. Thank you. I have something for city manager. I would like to look into a conversation surrounding an ethics policy for council and commissioners. Thank you, Vice Mayor. We'll definitely do that. We've had some internal discussions and we'll start working that and bring it back to council. Thank you. Councilmember Aslan. Nothing tonight, Mayor. Councilmember Malazo. Nothing tonight, thank you. Councilmember Matthews.

Thank you, Mayor. Just a few things. I came in on the second half of the Mexican consulate mobile event, which was well attended. I think they had 185 people that they served. I met the Several people there and of course we had county representative there and I know that you guys were there as well. But I was happy to see so many people get serviced and just all the services that they provide. Thank you, Vice Mayor for bringing up the ethics policy. I look forward to that as well. That's it.

I want to remind the public that the Flagstaff Fire Department is having an open house on Friday from 1 to 3 p.m. and this is at station number three which is on Nestle Purina. And the Northern Arizona Alzheimer's and Dementia Alliance held a luncheon last week, and I encourage people who are caregivers of a loved one in our community to reach out to this organization because they can provide some resources and some help.

And I just want to thank the Flagstaff Dark Skies Coalition for a spectacular year worth of dark skies celebrations.

The Amber Moon Concert last Sunday was really beautiful and they have just put in such an extraordinary effort to highlight Flagstaff's role as the world's first international dark sky city and they deserve A lot of thanks from the community City manager Mayor and council just one thing to add Thursday is the United Way breakfast and the city of Flagstaff is actually a pace setter this go around So we have a poster with our current total And I believe many of you are attending that event on Thursday If not contact Tiffany So thank you And what our total right now We are So our goal is 22 and I believe we are close to 16 And we have a lot of amazing raffle items for those who haven donated yet Thank you Thank you All right, so I am adjourning this meeting and we are moving into a special meeting and I am calling it to order and giving notice to the public and members of the city council that at this work session the city council may vote to go into executive session which will not be open to the public for discussion and consultation with the city's attorneys for legal advice on any item listed on the following agenda.

12b, consideration and possible action regarding the executive session of October 27, 2026. Can I get a motion? I'll move. And the motion is to direct and authorize the city attorney and or designated city representative to proceed as discussed in the executive session of October 27, 2026 for items 5A, I and 5B, I. I'll second. Discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Any opposed? All right, thank you very much. And... Possible action in it.

Okay, 12C, consideration and approval, use of the council initiative fund. And I believe that this came from Councilmember House. Yes, Mayor, it did. Good afternoon, Stacey Salzberg. I'm your communication and civic engagement director. So yes, as you just explained, Councilmember House did bring forward a request to utilize our council initiative fund to make a contribution to the Paul Weston Ultrogi Memorial Fund for first responders. So we're here to have that discussion.

I'm looking for council direction and action on that request. We also can discuss any other requests that you might have at this time for the use of that fund. Currently, we have $24,000 available to be used before the end of this fiscal year. Thank you. Councilmember House, did you want to say anything about this? Yes, thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Stacey, for getting this on the agenda so quickly. And thank you, Mayor and City Manager, for being supportive of bringing this forward.

As we all know, we were all very much impacted and rocked by the news of Paula Troge's passing. And in seeing the quick response from the fire department and team to pull together this memorial fund to support ongoing support services for our public service teams, this felt like a very appropriate use of this fund.

So I would ask the rest of council for your level of support I like to match at least what we I don remember the total that we did for the prior community incident where we lost first responders in the incident up in the neighborhood but I like to at least match that contribution if not a greater amount. Stacey, do you remember how much that was? If you can give me a moment, I can go grab my computer and I believe that I can find that. Wonderful, thank you.

And then vice mayor, I believe that you had something you wanted to burn up. I do, and thank you for giving me the opportunity. And certainly thank you, Council member house for bringing forward your thoughts on where we can use some of our fund and I thank you for that. I am asking council to sponsor two events that are coming up totaling $500. It's the stone soup event on December 10th and the cookie festival happening the following week. This involves the Sunnyside Neighborhood Association.

And I'm requesting this because Sunnyside has been working on a couple of extra major plans right now. One is their neighborhood plan, the other is the business association that they are trying to help form. And both are taking a lot of time and resources that weren't necessarily planned for SNA. And I think that these two community events, they are annual. And I've spoken to the organizer saying, you know, this would not be something that council could do year after year.

But I think with this year and knowing how much they are spending on other events right now, it sure would help. And talking with the organizer, it would be the $500 that would be used for plates, napkins, cups, advertising. They do a lot of kids activities at both events, staff time, decorations. These wonderful events that we all enjoy don't happen by accident. It takes a lot of work, energy, and money. And so I would be asking for $500 for the two events. All right.

And council member Matthews. Thank you. One is just a technical clarification. I just wanted to ask you a question. Why wasn't this at the to and from? Like why are we doing this in executive session? I'm just curious. Go ahead. So this actually isn't in executive session. So we called this as a special meeting. The first item was to authorize Mr. Solomon and his team to do as you directed in executive session.

the funding, the memorial funding, I was just curious why it wasn't in a regular agenda.

Because today a work session day so we have to have a special meeting in order to take action That why I was confused So I guess first of all Stacy if you share with us what the match fund because I was curious about that Our fiscal year ends in July 1st and I have one too that coming up that has to do with the Indigenous Commission but I not prepared to present it tonight But I just want to make sure we remember that we have seven, eight months left to go.

So the contribution that we made that was referenced by Councilmember House, we did a contribution of $1,000 per First responder that lost their lives, so it was a total of $2,000 for that contribution. I might suggest recognizing that we do have other things that we want to fund, that we take that to, I'd say, $5,000, but we can talk about that. I was just going to suggest that number. Thank you, Mayor. I feel really good about that, Mayor. Thank you for bringing that up.

And Council Member House. Yes, thank you. I support that number as well and thank the rest of Council for the I also just wanted to express support for the item brought forward by vice mayor Sweet. I am contributing a donation of the bread, I believe, is what I committed to for the stone soup dinner because I am not able to be there in person. But it's not going to cost $500. So I'm going to be able to do that. I support doing this contribution for those two events as well.

And thank you, Vice Mayor, for bringing those forward. Thank you. I agree. I support both of those as well. Do we have nods? I almost said Councilmember Solomon. Far from. Happy to be where I'm at. Thank you. I do want to mention that even though the initiative fund was put on the agenda here for the memorial fund, it's in general as well, use of council initiative fund and the additional item brought up by the vice mayor can be included. However, the motion would need to include both.

You can do it in one motion, but we do need to vote on it. Thank you. All right. So I am looking for a motion that we contribute $5,000 to the Paul Weston-Otroge Memorial Fund for first responders and $500 to the Sunnyside Neighborhood Association for their cookie festival and their stone soup event. So moved. I'll second. Discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? All right. We are adjourned.