Scottsdale vacates SB 1543 constitutional challenge amid ethics accusations and apartment dispute

Welcome. Thank you for coming this afternoon. Y'all look very colorful and it's good to see you. Uh, I'd like to call the September 9th, 2025 city council special meeting and possible executive session to order. City clerk Ben Lane, can I have a roll call? Thank you, Mayor. Mayor Lisa Barowski present. Vice Mayor Jan Debbasquez here. Council members Barry Graham here. Adam Quasman here. Kathy Littlefield here. Mayan McAllen present. And Solange Whitehead here. City Manager Greg Kaitton here.

Interim City Attorney Luis Santea present. City Treasurer Sonia Andrews here. And the clerk is present. Thank you, mayor. Thank you, Ben Lane. Appreciate it. Uh if it would please the council, I will entertain a motion to adjourn into executive session. Second. All those in favor, please indicate your vote. Thank you. We will now recess into executive session. first. Sorry for the delay. Appreciate your patience. Let's see here.

We have recessed from executive session and uh we now will turn to item two on the special meeting agenda. And item two is uh the request from city staff to adopt resolution number 13506 authorizing the interim city attorney and his respective staff and design to file a complaint for declaratory judgment against the state of Arizona to challenge the legality and constitutionality of Senate Bill 1543. And I note that we've received uh numerous requests to speak.

Madam Mayor, Madame Mayor, should we start with the pledge? Oh, no. Because it's not the regular meeting. Don't throw me off. You're trying to confuse me. All right, that was easy. Apologies. It worked. Um, we've received a lot of requests for public comment, but I'm going to ask for your courtesy and uh holding that until after the next couple of minutes here. Uh, and you can decide if you still want to speak.

So, I'm going to make a motion to vacate this agenda item and uh for the reasons that I personally still have lots of questions about this and I'll entertain a second if there's one. Second and vacating this will do the the equivalent of cancelling this agenda item tonight. So, all those in favor of the motion on the table, I wanted to speak to the motion on the table. I was hitting my request to speak, but it's not working.

Uh, I'll call call for the point of order to go ahead and vote on the motion. Uh, point of order. May I speak? I I'll call the question. Excuse me. All those in favor, please indicate your vote. Hold point of order. We're calling the question now. I called the question. All those in favor? Yeah, there's a point of order. Madame Mayor, um Luis, where where are we at on this? Generally, there would be discussion would be authorized and allowed um before the motion should be voted on.

Um the council as a whole could vote down vote to shut down discussion, but at this point I I I think um Councilman Graham would be entitled to speak. Uh Councilman Graham, let's not debate it. Go right ahead. Thank you, Luis. Do I have the floor? Yes. Okay.

Um well, we um we spent um significant amount of time in executive session um um had a good discussion and um now we are out here and you came to hear from us and there are many people streaming uh from home watching this on TV and we've got an overflow audience with people across the street and the overflow watching this on the television monitor across the street.

Uh, I'm disappointed to say that I we are there's a motion on the table right now to vacate, which means to withdraw or retreat from the motion that you came for us to vote on tonight. I support the motion tonight. I support it for several reasons. One of the most important reasons I support it is because it gives us leverage in moving forward with negotiations. There are so many reasons.

We have gotten hundreds and hundreds of emails from presidents begging us with every kind of argument to hear this item, to hear public speakers, and to vote in the affirmative to protect citizens right to referendum. Fundamentally, a vote to vacate is a vote for 2,000 apartments, 1900 apartments in North Scottsdale. There is no guarantee. There is no promise. This is going to return to the council. This is an this is an epically important item for this city council.

Um I'm stunned right now and speechless that this is where we are. Um there are so many things that I wanted to share with you now and I look forward to hearing from the public uh to give us public comment. I look forward to posing questions in a public open forum of city staff and our legal experts about strategy and what this means.

We have, I would guess, hundreds, if not thousands of residents watching this right now wondering what is going to become of their constitutional rights and what is going to become of their city. Over 27,000 residents signed a referendum to put this on the ballot to give them a say about whether or not they want this apartment complex, which was passed in a lame duck session with five votes, four of which were not returning to the city council, their chance to have a say on it.

Referendum is enshrined in our constitution. It is a basic constitutional right that I agree with everybody who's emailing us that they have a right to exercise. And so I am stunned and I am shocked that we are vacating this motion or withdrawing it. And I see that as a vote for this apartment complex. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Councilman Clausman. Thank you, Madame Mayor. I I think Councilman Graham is the greatest people's champion that this city has ever had.

There are very very few things when it comes to his values that I disagree with.

I think it is incorrect whole cloth to say that adopting a specific strategy is the equivalent of supporting a gigantic apartment complex that many members on this at this rost room is against and a bill that is against that we are against and I as as a as a as a litigator, as somebody who is a civil litigator who boasts government notices of claim is one of their areas of practice and government and government claims.

I want to be very clear to those at home that the black or white story is not correct. And my deep respect toward Councilman Graham in this instance is a difference of strategy, not a difference of policy. And I want to make sure that with the amount of due difference that Councilman Graham deserves, I entirely disagree with his assessment on this and that lawyering is complicated. Lawyering is hard and the right outcome will come from this council that listens to the people.

Thank you, Councilman Quasman. I appreciate that. Okay. Okay. Mayor Councilwoman Whitehead. Okay. Thank you, Mayor. Yeah. I just want to say that this is a vote to protect your tax dollars. This is a vote to make sure that this city government operates in a way that is uh not only protecting your tax dollars but protecting your rights as citizens and your quality of life.

So we don't act uh we always act judiciously and so we're not going to make uh decisions when we don't have full and complete information. And I do want to say that if the referendum was ever about the voice of the people, we would have already had a vote this past March, we had a citizens petition demanding a vote and these council members voted against giving you that chance to vote for against this uh use of land. So, here we are. Um, and we'll just deal with it.

we'll move forward in the best capacity we can, the best way we can, and we're not going to make rash decisions without full and complete information, which is why we're not um making a decision tonight. Thank you. Thank you, Councilwoman Whitehead. And the reason I called the question is because I didn't I I know that Councilman Graham is entitled to his his day. We we know what what it feels like to not be able to speak coming from experience uh on our first meeting.

And so I I sympathize with that and I'm while I'm glad that Councilman Graham said his piece, it couldn't have distorted this situation any further any further. Well, um I'm just going to speak to Councilman Graham. Uh and that couldn't have distorted the scenario any further than he just did. Um, we had a very long executive session discussion which is confidential and shall not be repeated.

As I opened by saying, this is the fact of this my motion and uh I will let Councilwoman Whitehead speak to her fact for seconding it and anyone else that votes for it on their own. There were too many unanswered questions on the next steps steps many options. I was not prepared to say commit to direction and that's it. So this story is not over unfortunately and for now it's a we're not going to make a decision on this agenda item. So with that, I will ask for Vice Mayor Dascus.

Thank you, Madame Mayor. One thing that has been left unsaid so far tonight is that we value Axon. Thank you for coming out. Thank you for conducting business in the city of Scottsdale. We appreciate you. Um we value the tools that you bring to our community and to the world, and we hope to retain your business here in the city of Scottsdale. Um, in my view, this vote is about SB1543. It is not about our relationship with Axon.

And to that point, I stand ready to fight for the citizens of Scottsdale right here, right now, tonight. And I hope my colleagues join me. Thank you. Thank you, Vice Mayor Dvasquez. Excellent point. Uh, however, this isn't a vote either way. Um, at this point, unfortunately, too many unanswered questions and I'll call for a vote. That MA motion passes. And while this is a done issue for this evening, I uh I would like to thank all of you for coming out.

Um and we appreciate your passion and this is a very critical issue for our community and again this was a decision on the uh legislation that will soon become law and we appreciate you all being here. I think that um you know if you have a compelling reason to speak tonight uh please please move forward. If not um this matter will come back around. I'm certain of it. Thank you very much. I am we actually recessed uh briefly before the boards and commissions uh uh appointments.

So I am going to call uh the council back to the dis and proceed with the four o'clock session of the meeting which is the board's commissions and task force interviews and appointments and uh for that as is the protocol I will turn the meeting over to Vice Mayor Dascus. Thank you madame mayor. The city of Scottsdale is responsible for establishing city policies and enacting laws in support of those policies.

The council relies on volunteer citizen-based boards and commissions to research issues and make recommendations in support of the council's mission and goals. The information and recommendations provided by council approved advisory boards is a valuable tool in helping council members in their deliberations. This afternoon, the city council will be appointing Scottsdale residents interested in serving on various boards and commissions.

I want to thank the individuals for their willingness to volunteer their time in service to this community. Following the set of interviews, we'll vote on an appointment for the board or commission. As I call your name, please approach the podium to uh to my right and briefly cover the following. For the record, please state your name, address, and how long you've lived in Scottsdale.

Please tell us how your education, employment, or volunteer experience relates to this board or commission and what is the top issue facing the board or commission. Please limit your comments to two minutes or less. We have a timer by the screen to help you manage your time. Following each nominees response, I will ask council members if they have any follow-up questions for you. Our first commission, the airport advisory commission. There is one opening.

The airport advisory commission advises the city council on policy matters relating to the operation of the airport proposals for development, airport area land use, fees and safety concerns. There is one vacancy and four nominees. Fredion has withdrawn from consideration. The nominees are Craig Bennett, David Gans, David McCartney, and John Sloan. I will now intro Oh, excuse me. So, I will first call up Craig Bennett and then David Gans. There you go. Thank you.

Council members, my name is Craig Bennett. I've been a resident of uh Scottdale for almost 13 years. Originally from Los Angeles area. We escaped that uh area and we're working hard to be sure that uh Scottsdale doesn't end up like Los Angeles. I have firsthand experience of that. you're here. I uh attended University of Southern California. Uh had aerospace uh aspirations for a while in engineering school. I end up graduating in mechanical BS in mechanical engineering.

I went to work for uh we have a family business utility trailer. We manufacture semi-truck trailers. Have six plants around the country, one in Mexico. and we uh so I've I've traveled extensively throughout North America and uh to the to the detriment of your family at some point, but uh I did a lot of time in a lot of places that you don't see when you're touring, if you will.

Uh it's a good industry and it's taught me a lot about uh how to apply manufacturing uh skills in the engineering world and uh the airport commission. I'm I when I moved here, I wanted to get back to California. So, I learned how to fly here in Scottsdale in two different uh flight schools. I got my private pilot license and my instrument rating here. And I've owned like six airplanes. I now have two jets parked at the in hangers at at the Scottdale airport.

And I did that so I could fly back to Southern California because our business is still there. I was the one of the uh members of the family that left. Everybody else seemed to stay there. They love it there. There was a great beach there if you haven't heard. Anyway, um I think the issues of Scottsdale is growth and traffic at the airport level, landings and takeoffs. I'd like to see how the operations work at the airport from the inside.

I've seen it from a user standpoint and there are some issues that we can deal with. uh the the challenges are going to be how to handle the the traffic and what type of traffic we want whe they want uh private training or charter or what type of business we want. So thank you Mr. Bennett. David Gans after David Gans we have David McCartney. David Gans David McCartney and then John Sloan. David McCartney. Good afternoon. Yes, I'm here. I'm online. You hear me? Okay. Yes. Please proceed.

Thank you. All right. Uh my name is David McCartney. I live uh 111235 East Wingspan Way in Scottdale. I've been a part-time resident for about five years and a full-time resident uh just since the beginning of the year. So, it's my first son. It was a little warm. Uh my experience, I have a aviation management degree uh from Florida Institute of Technology and I also learned to fly there. I intended to be a professional pilot. Uh I currently hold a airline transport pilot rating.

I have almost 8,000 flight hours and I have a Cessna citation that I keep at Jet Aviation. So, I'm an active pilot. I retired last year after 42 years as an airline consultant. Uh, I designed baggage systems and security systems for airports throughout the world. Relatively medium-siz engineering firm. I have a lot of general uh airport planning experience and uh very familiar with the Scottsdale airport.

I think that the biggest uh challenge that the airport faces today uh kind of share the view as the previous interviewe is uh is developing a master plan a future a vision for the future. lot of great growth taking place replacing hangers uh and infrastructure but at the same time we need to address capacity and who will be the the uh main users the principal users of the airport and how do we support all the tenants at the airport so thank you very much thank you Mr. McCartney. John Sloan.

Good afternoon. I'm John Sloan. I live at 10359 North 98 Street, Scottsdale, Arizona. And I've been there since 2002. So 22 years that I've lived there. I moved here, like I say, in 2002. And I have 40 years of aviation experience. 26 of it was in the United States Air Force at various sunundry levels of that uh both uh both as a pilot fighter pilot and as a uh as a leader of squadrons and things of that nature for my whole career. Then I moved after that I re I went into uh commercial aviation.

I was an airline pilot for 16 years and uh my last my last job actually was as the vice president general manager of Ross Aviation Incorporated which was over in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Our company was had eight eight airplanes of various types and um I was the vice president and general manager of that company and I had a lot of experience in safety while I was in the Air Force.

I was um I attended the chief of safety school at the University of Southern California before I picked up my job as a chief of safety for an Alice Air Force Base, which is a premier fighter base in the country. And uh it was really interesting because I got to give safety lectures. I got to give safety instruction to the commander of the base. and uh he took my uh advice one time and made a made a uh decision to do what it was and I think we saved an accident because of that.

Uh I think that I can provide some valuable information and some valuable uh input to the safety of the Scottsdale airport. I've flown in there many times with a neighbor and a friend who has a who has an airplane up in northern Arizona and used to fly down here and we used to fly up to breakfast up at northern up in the northern part of the state and he let me fly his airplane and that was it and I thank you very much. Thank you Mr. Sloan. Do we have David Gans? No. Okay.

I will now entertain a vote for the airport advisory commission. Each council member can vote for one nominee. Councilman Graham. Uh, Mr. Bennett. Councilman Littlefield. Mayor Bowski. David McCartney. Craig Bennett. And my vote is for Craig Bennett. And it looks like we have nominated David McCartney. Congratulations, Mr. McCartney. Thank you. I appreciate that. The Board of Adjustments, we have one opening.

The Board of Adjustment is a quasi judicial body that hears variance requests, appeals of the zoning administrators, interpretations, decisions, and decides on administrative decisions or zoning requirements which create unnecessary hardships in the development of property because of exceptional or extraordinary conditions. There is one vacancy and two nominees. The nominees are Kenneth Erller and Martha West. Kenneth Erller uh may be participating this afternoon electronically. Do we have Mr.

Erler? We'll ask Martha West to come speak. Thank you. Good afternoon, Mayor Barroski and members of city council. I'm Martha West and I'm a homeowner at East Chaparel. Since we moved to Arizona in the late 1980s, I've lived in Scottsdale for approximately nine years. My education and professional experience supports my application today. I hold a Bachelor of Applied Arts degree in urban and regional planning.

I served the city of Scottsdale as a long range planner, as the downtown planning manager, and as a redevelopment planner from 1988 through 2001. I served the city as a real estate specialist and as the real estate program manager from 2012 until 2021 when I retired. I also worked in as a planning consultant in the private sector from 2001 to 2012. I have working knowledge of the cities of Scottsdale zoning ordinance.

I have experience in preparing and presenting variance cases before boards of adjustment. I understand Robert's rules of order governing board of adjustment meetings and I have reviewed the Arizona revised statute rules governing the board of adjustment. I believe the top issue facing the board is that it is a quasi judicial entity. Decisions can only be appealed to the superior court. So all board decisions must carefully follow statutory requirements and tests. Thank you for your time today.

Thank you, Miss West. Do we have Mr. Earlier? Okay, I will now entertain a vote for the board of adjustments. Each council uh member can vote for one nominee. Go ahead. Before we vote, I just have a question for uh clerk Ben Lane. Did we hear from the other candidate at all this evening? Thank you, Mayor Barski. Um, mayor and members of the council, uh, Mr. Erler was on earlier.

He had to leave for another meeting and we were hoping he'd be able to come back, but I believe he's still in the other meeting. Okay. And and for the record, we're about an hour behind, I think. No. Yeah. No, I guess we're not, are we? Yeah. An hour behind. Yep. So, that's understandable. Um, okay. Sorry to interrupt. So, Councilwoman Littlefield, Mayor Browski, uh, Martha West. Martha West. Ken Earler. Huh? I said Ken Earler. Oh, Kenneth Earler. Okay. Uh, Councilman Graham. Miss West.

and I'll vote also vote for Martha West. Congratulations, Miss West. You have now been appointed. The building advisory board of appeals, there is one opening. There is currently one opening available on the building advisory uh board of appeals. However, we did not receive any applicants for consideration. The current opening will be included in the next cycle of board and commission appointments. As such, we'll move on to the next commission. Historic Preservation Commission, one opening.

The Historic Preservation Commission oversees the development and management of Scottsdale's Historic Preservation Program. There is one vacancy in one nominee. The nominee is Mark McCertie. Do we have Mr. McCertie today? Honorable city council members, um, my name and address, Mark McCertie. My home address is 8607 East Edward Avenue, Scottdale. Uh, please tell us how your education, employment, or volunteer experience relates to the board or commission.

Um, I have served several years working at Franklidd Wright's Inis. It was the Inennis Brownhouse when I worked there. And I have an appreciation for mid-century modern architecture, including Ralph Haver. Um, and uh, Frank Lidd Wright. He designed up through the just about 1960. And, um, um, just a second. There's the other local architect. The his name is Well, anyway, I can't find it.

So, um I love the mid-century architecture around here and I love the uniquely the unique history of Scottsdale. I think our biggest challenge is preserving the in the uh cultural heritage and the character of Scottsdale. And so, I would say that's a priority.

um what is the top issue facing uh oh the other thing too is uh as far as experience goes I served on a city council and I've seen how outofc control runaway development can destroy the history and integrity of the city um at one time I um the city next door u did a lot of redevelopment and lost its character entirely so including um a lot of historical places that I miss um what is the top issue facing this board or commission?

I would say um being too much development, being overdeveloped, having too much um density, having too much traffic, losing this the character and the history of of the city itself. So that's about it. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. McCertie. Mr. Mccertie, you're the only you're the only applicant. You could have said anything you wanted. You could have even taunted us or said something derisive and we would have had to appoint you. Thank you. All right.

So, Mayor Bowski, uh Mark McCertie, congratulations. Congratulations, Mr. McCertie. You have been appointed. No, we have to all vote. Oh, all right. But we are going to vote for Mr. McCertie. So, thank you. But we each have to do it to suspend. I move to suspend the vote and just to point Mr. My acclamation. All right. Thank you. Good. Uh, library board. We have one opening.

The library board advises the city council on general policy relating to programs, services, and future development of the Scottsdale public libraries. The board oversees the library special revenue fund which is made up of donations and funds generated through the sale of used books and magazines. There is one vacancy and four nominees. Patricia Pellet has withdrawn from consideration. The nominees are John Grossclo, Mary McBride, and Monica Sonnenclar.

I'll ask John and then Mary McBride to come forward. Sorry about that. I sat on the wrong side. My name is John Grossclose. I was born at St. Joseph's Hospital in downtown Phoenix more number of years ago than I'm going to mention here. I've lived in South Scottsdale for coming up on 30 years. I'm one of those vanishingly rare natives that uh people like to talk about us. I went to ASU West for my degree in interdisciplinary arts and sciences. I currently work as a network engineer.

I currently serve on a board for an autism only academy in South Scottsdale. I've previously served on other boards including amateur radio clubs and a few other things. I understand organization. I understand technology. I know Robert's rules. And I think the number one thing that people fail to understand about the library system is exactly what it does and what it's for. It's not just for books. Questions? Any questions? Go for it. Tell us in your opinion what it is for.

It's a place to get out of the heat. It's a place for activities for kids during the summer. It's a place to use a computer to fill out your job applications if you don't have internet at home. It's a place to look up forms that you might need for other parts of your life. There are so many things that a library does other than just loan books. Thank you. Thank you very much, Mary McBride. Good afternoon. My name is Mary McBride. I live at 6841 East Virginia Avenue, Scottsdale, Arizona.

I've been in Scottsdale 35 years. My family has made good use of the Scottsdale Public Library countless times for many varied activities and quests. For over 20 years, I worked at Scottsdale Unified School District teaching and coaching students. I earned an MERS in education with an emphasis in media and technology. I've taught civics, English language arts, media studies, and social studies as well as desktop publishing and other courses.

I facilitated student governments and the National Junior Honor Society right within the schools. I spent 17 wonderful years sponsoring the future city competition at the middle school level. This competition is an international engineering competition that focuses on improving students math, engineering, and science skills.

And the students and I work with volunteers, engineers from the community to bring students into the knowledge about how they would like to live in the future and what they are capable of doing and changing so that we have a sustainable future. This competition opens one's heart and mind to the real world. It is of paramount importance to note that the funding is a prominent aspect that and concern of any organization, especially one that is serving the public.

Our public libraries are no exception. They're vital and necessary parts of the city's daily purpose and serve a significant function in the quality of life here. Our entire community uses our libraries for resources, research, as well as for enjoyment and respit. Citizens need our libraries as they provide value that no other places can provide. Meaning reading materials, wireless communication, kind people who help, quiet study areas with no clutter, and countless other services.

They provide programs for all ages. Every person in Scottsdale is a stakeholder in keeping our libraries vibrant. For this reason, the library board could include people from all walks of life so everyone had a voice and a way to communicate and advocate for their needs. A library board has an outstanding opportunity to find avenues to ensure that our libraries secure the appropriate funding. Thank you. Thank you, Monica Soninclair.

Hello, my name is Monica Sonenclar and I am at 134th in Sha in the beautiful Sonora Vista neighborhood and I've been in Scottsdale now coming up on five years and I'm loving it and my kids love it and we are loving the libraries. So, I'm very passionate about this library system in Scottsdale. When we moved here, we couldn't believe there was a drive-thru library. Oh my gosh, that was amazing. So, we see the library definitely at least three times a month, if not more.

My kids check out the maximum amount of books. We use all of the resources of the library. But one thing we've done is bring our friends to the library. So, um, one of the things I think the library could use is more school kids at the library because it's not a boring place. We don't want to be sterile. We don't want it to be a place where you have to study, be quiet. We want the library to be a place that is alive with the literature of American literature, literature from all over the world.

We want our kids to love literature. And that's what a library is about, but we're competing with technology. We're in a digital age. So, how do we do that? Which applaud the library that they did their website. It is new. I love it. I can see so much. there's so many resources for everything you need to know about Scottsdale and I think that it is really well done.

So that was just a great refreshing thing and to be able to be on the board would be just a way to really cheer on our libraries and really make them come alive. We all have a childhood book that really spoke to us whether it was Curious George or whether it was you know um Caps for Sale and think of your adult books. I talk to adults who are in trilogies of books and oh my gosh, you have to read this and that. Let's make the library a place where it's not just for boring books.

It's a place where you can go and immerse yourself in whether it's work, whether it's a study space, whether it's a maybe a print shop, maybe it's a storyboard workshop, maybe it's a writing workshop for all of our amazing elementary schools here in Scottsdale. Let's bring that to our library. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I will now entertain a vote for the library board. Councilwoman Whitehead, I agree with all three of you. Great presentations.

I really, really, it's exciting to have so many good people. I'm going to go ahead and cast my vote for Mary McBride and encourage everybody to stay in the pool. Agreed. Uh Mary McBride. Proud to cast my vote for Monica Soninclair. Councilman Graham, Miss Sonicair, Miss Sonic, and I will vote for Monica Soniclair. Thank you to all the applicants. Great job. And I'll cast my vote for Monica Sonclar as well. Congratulations, Mrs. Sonclar. You've been appointed.

And thank you to all of our applicants. Tourism Development Commission two hotel year appoint uh openings. The Tourism Development Commission advises the city council on matters concerning the expenditure of revenues from the transaction privilege tax on transient lodging bed tax designated for tourism development. There are two vacancies and two nominees. The nominees are Steven Miller and Alex Shelton. Steven Miller may be participating uh this afternoon electronically.

Do we have Steven Miller? Yes, I'm here. Thank you. Wonderful. Apologies. I'm on a work I apologize. I'm on work on a work trip. So, my name is Stefan Miller. I live at 7215 East Silverstone Drive and I've been in Scottsdale for almost two years. Uh, in my 29 years of hotel world, I've lived in amazing tourism dependent destinations.

Whistler, San Francisco, Sonoma wine country, Hawaii and uh I really feel that uh I have been instrumental in selling the destination and understanding the destination and understanding what get what makes a destination. So the challenge that I see or the biggest the biggest opportunity I see is really creating things or advising the council to create things that touch all stakeholders.

So residents and travelers or tourists you know how do we create things that create longevity you know whether it's an event or a physical or infrastructure uh support and um we also have the issue of Scottsdale obviously being very long. So, how do we target all areas of Scottsdale, not just focusing in one area? And also, not all areas are accessible. So, how do we solve that? So, those are my those are my opportunities that I see for this um council. Thank you very much.

Do we have any questions for Mr. Miller? Thank you, Alex Shelton. Um, hi, my name is Alex Shelton. I'm director of sales of the Adero Scotsdale. We're on the east side of Scottsdale. Um, our property is going to be undergoing about a $30 million renovation, uh, where we're adding more meeting space, restaurants. So, we're pretty significant with the amount of money we're putting into this community. So, we care quite a bit about what goes on moving forward.

Um, my background's been with major hotel properties, uh, first in Las Vegas. Uh, in Las Vegas, we have always been able to be a chameleon. We we change. Um, we change, we change quickly, and we're very dynamic in when we do it. Um, and the fact of the matter is is that right now is we're coming off of the worst summer and probably the worst year we've had in the hotel business uh since about 2008. Um, it is a crucial time for us to make adjustments and changes uh to move into 2026.

Um, markets that are around us are suffering double-digit losses. So, it is a crucial time period for us to plan. My background on besides on the Vegas side of it, I've spent years in the DMO world, vice president of the Albuquerque CVB. Um, I've also been the vice president of meetings and convention sales for the Ecuador Tourism Board, for the Colombia Tourism Board. Um, I'm the director of marketing for United States for the Israel Ministry of Tourism for three years.

Um, and also have worked for Hilton and for Marriott in various parts of the country. The biggest challenge that the Scottsdale faces is a is a unique challenge, but it's also something that could be easily solved. Um, there are many pl people who put Scottsdale into their Expedia or into Hilton or into Marriott. And you'll be surprised to find out how few Scottsdale hotels actually show up in search.

So you're losing tax revenue right off the bat when somebody chooses to stay in Tempee or they're staying in Phoenix because they're perceived to be closer than most hotels in Scottsdale actually are to a center point. So there's a change that can be made that can actually grow tax revenue that's all controlled by Scottsdale. So that's right off the bat a change that I would like to be able to bring to the table.

Um but there's a lot of opportunities I think that Scottsdale can offer and these adjustments I think this bureau and the board can make to make a big difference. Thank you, Mr. Shelton. Any questions? I'll just say thank you for your investment of $30 million in your property. Thank you very much for investing in Scottsdale. Um, we have two openings and we have two applicants. Do we have a vote by acclamation to accept these two applicants? So, move. Second. All right. Thank you.

U, you have been appointed. Congratulations. This concludes our appointment process for today. I would like to thank all our nominees for their interest in serving on a city board or commission. We're fortunate to continue to receive qualified applicants for the positions on our boards and commissions. Even if you were not appointed today, your application will remain on file for consideration at a future date if there are additional vacancies.

City staff will contact the individuals appointed this evening and provide them with information on the next steps regarding their appointment. The city of Scottsdale is very fortunate to have such dedicated and talented individuals who are willing and ready to serve our city. Thank you to each and every one of you for coming out today. We appreciate you. Thank you, Madame Mayor. I'll turn the meeting back over to you. Thank you, Vice Mayor.

At this point, we have concluded our special meeting and I will entertain a motion to adjourn. So move. Second. All those in favor? I. All right, that concludes our special meeting. So, I'm going to roll right into the general or the regular meeting. Uh, I'd like to call the September 9, 2025 city council regular meeting and work study session to order. City clerk Ben Lane, please conduct the roll call. Thank you, Mayor. Mayor Lisa Barowski, present. Vice Mayor Jan Bosquez, here.

Council members Barry Graham, Adam Quasman, Kathy Littlefield, here. Maryann McAllen present. And Solange Whitehead here. City manager Greg Kaitton here. Interimm city attorney Louis Santea here. City treasurer Sonia Andrews here. Acting city auditor LCloff here. And the clerk is present. Thank you, mayor. Thank you. This evening we have Scottsdale police officers Shollock and Leehander as well as firefighter Andy Taylor. If anyone requires any assistance, please let the staff uh know.

And for the pledge of allegiance, I'd like to turn that over to and be led by Vice Mayor Jan Deoscus. Thank you very much. Okay, tonight's invocation will be led by Councilwoman Littlefield. Thank you mayor and thank you all. I am going to do something a little different tonight with the invocation. Uh I would like to speak about one of the people who worked for us for many many years and who recently passed away Raml Cordova.

Tonight, it is my unhappy and solemn duty to formally inform you of the death of Raml Cordova. He worked for many years in the city clerk's office, and we all knew him for the kind and generous person that he was. Raml passed away on September 1st from a massive and unexpected stroke.

I would like to inform the council that I was given the opportunity at the annual Arizona Clerk's Association meeting on July 22nd to personally express our council's mutual thanks to Raml for all that he did to help us over the years. He was there and he heard it from all of us. Thank you, city clerk Ben Lane, for giving me that opportunity.

Raml was a very active person and assisted us all not only at the city of Scottsdale but also at the statewide city clerk's organization and he was recognized at that meeting for that help. I give you one more example of how giving and caring this young man was. Even after death, he still gave of himself quite literally by donating body parts to those in need and whose lives he could still make better. At last count, I believe I heard there were 75 people who received help from Raml in this way.

Raml, know that during your life and after your life, you made a difference. Tonight, I ask you to remember this young man and all that he has done in his short life to help others. I know of no one he turned away who asked for help. Please join with me in a moment of silence in prayer and remembrance for this good man. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Councilwoman Littlefield. And Raml will certainly be missed.

As and for the mayor's report, I uh we're issuing I am issuing a proclamation tonight, but I'm going to ask for vice mayor's help tonight in presenting this because I have a stress fracture in my foot. So, I'd rather not walk down there and take a picture in this big funky boot that I'm wearing. Um, if you would do the honor and would you like to go ahead and read this? Okay. Thank you very much. It's a pleasure. Thank you. City of Scottsdale, Office of the Mayor.

Whereas ovarian cancer is the fifth leading cause of cancer related death among women in the United States. And the American Cancer Society estimates that in 2025 approximately 2,890 women will be diagnosed with ovarian cancer and 12,730 will die from the disease nationwide, including an estimated 470 new cases and 330 deaths in Arizona.

And whereas a woman's lifetime risk of being diagnosed with ovarian cancer is approximately 1 in 91 and her lifetime risk of dying from the disease is approximately 1 in 143. And whereas due to vague non-specific symptoms and the absence of a reliable early detection test, the majority of women are diagnosed at stage three or later when the cancer has already spread beyond the ovaries.

And whereas although the five-year survival rate for stage one ovarian cancer exceeds 90%, only 15% of cases are diagnosed at this early stage. For those diagnosed in later stages, the five-year survival rate drops below 30%. And whereas while screening tools such as mammograms and pap tests exists for breast and cervical cancers, no equivalent screening test exists for ovarian cancer, making awareness of symptoms and risk factors essential for early intervention.

And therefore, our madame mayor Lisa Barowski of the mayor of city of Scottsdale does proclaim September 1 through September 30th, 2025 as ovarian cancer awareness month in Scottsdale. and she encourages everyone to participate in month-long events and activities in our 49 parks. And remember to thank our parks and recreation professionals for the essential services they provide. In witness thereof, she has here on two set her hand and cause to be affixed the seal of the city of Scottsdale.

And it's signed Lisa Barowski, mayor of Scottsdale. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I really appreciate you taking that over. And I understand we have someone here to receive it, but Oh, there she is. and remind us of your name. I'm sorry it's not in my notes. Rachel Pman. Rachel Pman. Thank you very much. [Applause] This evening we have uh two presentations uh and they are boards and commissions.

Uh first we're going to start with the McDowan Conservancy who will provide an overview of the organization organization's key points uh statistics and service areas. Presenting tonight is Mike Roberts, McDow Sonor and Conservancy interim chief executive officer. Welcome, Mike. Thank you, uh, mayor and city council. Good evening. It's great to, uh, that you invited us here to, uh, to talk about the, uh, the Mcdow or Conservancy. And uh I do I have to say next slide or do can I do this here?

I can do it here. Oh, I have full control. Thank you. Um so the McDonald conservancy, we're an independent uh nonprofit and um mostly donor funded. A lot of we of course have do have a very special relationship with the city of Scottsdale, but at the same time we are uh massively donorfunded. We're volunteer driven. So you've probably seen and heard all about our stewards in the preserve and elsewhere. But we do have a small processional staff at the at the heart of that.

We our movement really represents an investment in Scottsdale and its future. Uh our mission uh a thriving Sonoran desert for future generations. We're not here just for today. We like to think we're here to actually ensure that all our descendants and everyone who comes to Scottsdale will enjoy this for years, for decades to come. We lead conservation in the McDall sonor and preserve and enhance community well-being through stewardship, science, and education.

Our home, of course, the McDall sonor and preserve, a very fragile but a very special environment. And uh as as you may know there are 400 there are 400 native plants there. Uh 480 plant species, 122 bird species, uh 30 uh 30 uh uh animal species, 40 reptiles and amphibians and absolutely countless insects and spiders. The um the environment say it's fragile because it is susceptible to heat and uh to drought and also of course to fire.

We uh our history of course goes back uh to 1995 when the Scottsdale voters decided to create the preserve overwhelming approved the uh the sales tax measure. And uh our part of that was to to say really if if if the city buys it, we'll look after it. And we've been doing that ever since with our steward organization alongside the city. Uh 650 volunteer stewards. Uh last year we donated over 72,000 hours of uh of service which the city values at $2.4 million.

We also which people forget is we also talk to 130,000 visitors in the preserve every year. Uh so actually represents probably one in five people who visit the preserve actually talk to us. We offer guided hikes, um, bike rides and, uh, walks with an educational focus and with the face of the city and the conservancy in in the preserve. So, you'll see our experts at the trail heads. Um, the two or three years ago, we started to focus more on the visitor experience.

So, anyone who comes to the trail heads gets an expert to talk to to help them guide them safely and to enjoy and get the most out of their excursion into the preserve. In fact, we were featured recently. Scottsdale Fire Chief said that um if it wasn't for the stewards being at the trail heads advising our uh advising visitors and residents, then we might have more casualties because of heat in the preserve and we were featured on a family family news. At the core of what we do is the science.

So ultimately we have 10 ongoing science projects in the preserve ongoing because we can track year after year any changes. Uh those focus on plants, animals um and uh we uh monitor animal populations. But that's at the heart of what we do. And then uh let's go deeper in one of those. Um for instance, mitigating invasive species. Invasive species is something we talk about a lot these days because of the impact on invasives forcing out our endemic species. Excuse me.

But what we do is map where they are. Our steers around the preserve. We map where they are. We identify ways of removing them and we work with the city to do it ourselves or or bring in contractors to do that. Uh we also publish results for other agencies around the state and other places and we share that information uh which is vital because ultimately fires are actually getting more frequent and invasives more invasives unfortunately bring fire risk.

Um you know you remember in 2023 24 we did have some up close and personal fires which are actually encroached on the preserve. So our activities focused then on restoration a lot as well and we go into burned areas excuse me we harvest seeds from healthy plants. We go into burned areas and we distribute seed balls. Um we throw thousands of in fact into burned areas to re regenerate. And we have 200 saros actually we've grown with the help of Scottsdale Community College.

So this whole restoration effort is not just us. It's a whole volunteer force and involving the community as well. Then we monitor what happens from there. Would you believe we monitor down to the individual sara and the individual cactus. So we make sure that they actually do restore. By the way, one of our science um uh professionals has been with us for six years. She's one of those people who's now become an authority on restoration in the desert.

Animal populations, you'll see, if you're fortunate, you'll see tortoises in the preserve occasionally. There's not many of them, but they're out there. Some of them have telemetry on their back, which looks a bit strange, but we do monitor where they go because they're one of these indicator species. So, if we see them wandering around the preserve, if we know where they've been, we understand that that's a healthy environment. The um uh other long-term species we also monitor.

We have 60 wildlife cameras, by the way, around the preserve. Um you won't see them mostly. They're tucked away in in places where only animals go, but again, they're in the same places year after year. So, we build up a picture of uh the way that the animals actually migrate. And then what we do is recycle that that knowledge into education. So we focus on natural and human history. People are often amazed that there's been humans in the preserve since what 8,000 years ago.

So uh we talk about geology, uh plants, animals, but we also of course go into experiencing the desert safely. And of course we have an active youth education program too. Uh beyond the preserve a few years ago we also realized that a lot of the community can benefit from our education and learning and fortunately that's been wellreceived uh by many HOAs community groups. So we have regular presentations you'll find us at libraries.

We also have a growing um partnership opportunity where we talk to major HOAs about their sustainability if they have if they have that type of program. One of those that does is D Ranch actually where there is a very active sustainability program and we're involved in advising on that. We bring a deeper understanding of the desert outside of the desert as well and we look at enhancing the Scottsdale experience to visitors.

Whether they might be individuals, they might actually be company retreats, we take them all into the preserve safely. The other thing we have is the tour to Scottdale. We were gifted that a few years ago and we're now coming up to our third year of the tour. Uh this brings 3,000 participants and their and their significant others into Scottsdale. Um it's becoming a large uh cycling event.

Uh it's been great to have the support of the city in putting this together and of course for us it is a significant fundraiser. So next year it's going to be on March the 28th and uh we uh we expect we hope that we'll build writership even more overall what therefore uh you we we look at the conservancy is not just protecting preserving the McDall sonor and preserve but also inspiring a healthy lifestyle in Scottsdale.

um with with our interactions on the trails and outside uh you we we can help guide people to get the maximum out of their visit here and also out of living here and uh as you'll notice I'm not from around here uh but uh I have been actually in the USA for 30 years and we had the Scottsdale experience and moved here six years ago just because of that. So that's it. Thank you. Thank you very much.

I've lived here all my life and I know a lot about the preserve, but that was a wonderful illustration. I actually learned quite a bit from you. So, thank you very much. Really appreciate it. And uh Councilwoman Whitehead. Yeah, I'll just say a few remarks. Thank you. Thanks for great presentation. This organization does so much. You you really uh compiled it into a short presentation. I want to call out the organization's first executive director. Carla is here.

Um, so we should all clap for her. And um, thank you also for mentioning the work of Scottsdale Community College. I encourage everybody to go there to see the incredible work they do. But again, thank you. Great presentation. Love. We should all be supporting McDow Conservancy. Thank you. And and one more thing, Mike, are you going to stick around? Uh, yes. For the meeting. Uh, it's interesting.

And I don't know that this was planned, but we have a pres work study on uh wildfire mitigation and you touched on that and I think there's a lot of opportunity for your group, you know, the conservancy to work with uh Scottsdale Fire. So, it'd be great to have you stick around. Oh, sure. Happy. Okay. Terrific. Thank you. Hopefully you don't have big dinner planned. Okay, good. All right, moving right along.

Uh second presentation is regarding our employee recognition program which we're just launching. Is that correct Mr. Corset? This is the first uh madame mayor this is the first um of this particular component of that program. Yes. Yeah. Excellent. And uh where city count this council will recognize employees uh who have dedicated 20 or more years of service uh to the city of Scottsdale. And presenting tonight is our very own Kelly Corsett. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mayor Barowski, members of the city council. Um, this is the first of what will be a monthly occurrence, a new addition to our employee years of service recognition program through which we thank our staff who are achieving those milestone anniversaries every five years working with the city of Scottsdale. Um, on those anniversary dates, employees receive a token of the city's appreciation at five years. It's a an anniversary coin.

In fact, you receive an anniversary coin every 5 years as you move up the chain. Uh but you get more gifts the more senior you become. So at 20 years, for example, uh each employee receives a salary bell, not quite as large as the ones hanging in the back corner um of the KA, but a wonderful uh yet smaller uh representation of the salary bell as an example. So those are the sorts of things that we do to honor our staff. um until now that's all been contained within our uh organization.

And so tonight we're very pleased to honor employees who have dedicated 20 or more years of service to the city of Scottsdale publicly. Um to my colleagues who are achieving those anniversary dates, I I'd like to say that your service represents more than time and reflects commitment, leadership, and an enduring impact to our community. Um so Sam, if you could put on the screen um this month, this is the full list of staff achieving 20 or 25 years of service with the city of Scottsdale.

Uh tonight, three of our colleagues are able to join us and so I will ask them uh to come down for a special moment of public recognition. That's Michael Andrews with the Scottsdale Police Department uh celebrating 25 years of service with the city. Craig Taylor from facilities management also celebrating 25 years of service to the city and Chris Watson also from the Scottsdale Police Department celebrating 20 years of service. Hold your applause for one more moment please.

Uh because of you Scottsdale is not only a great place to live and to visit but also a great place to work. We thank you for your decades of service, your loyalty uh and the difference you continue to make every day. And I also see Michael Kieran, who I didn't get on my RSVP list, but we're very pleased to see you here as well. Michael, celebrating 20 years of service to the city of Scottsdale. So, uh, mayor, I know you're plain injured tonight.

So, if you can't make it down for the photo, we understand, but I would ask the those of you who are able to come down and stand with our colleagues here for a photograph, uh, to do so now while the public showers them with applause. Thank you guys. [Applause] All right. Uh, first public comment announcement. Well, I'll give the p the executive session uh announcement.

Also, during tonight's meeting, as is always the case, council may make a motion to recess into executive session to obtain legal advice on any applicable item on the agenda. If authorized by the council, the executive session will be held immediately and will be closed to the public. The public meeting would resume following that executive session if one was to be had. Uh, I don't think there's one coming up here, so we'll move on to public comment announcement.

This round of public comment is reserved for Scottsdale citizens, business owners, and/or property owners to comment on non-aggendaized items that are within the council's jurisdiction. No official council action can be taken on the items that are discussed or speakers discuss in this section of the program and are limited to three minutes to address the council. If you wish to speak on a non-aggendaized or an agendaized topic, please see the city clerk because there's still room.

Uh, and I'm going to call off names. Uh, all of the names. We have four speakers on non-aggendaized items. Steve Sutton will kick us off. Jason Alexander, Dan Isek, Isac, and John Conweiser. I hope I said that right. So, Steve Sutton, please. Steve Sutton, address on record. Good evening, Honorable Lisa Barowski, Mayor of Scottsdale, and other council members.

It's been over 40 years since the first time I took an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic. the first time. All Scottsdale Council members take a similar oath that requires them to support, bear true faith and allegiance, and defend the Constitutions of the United States and Arizona, and faithfully and impartially discharge the duties of their office. Taking that oath is not just a ceremonial procedure for council members.

It is also an acknowledgement that they must comply with Scottsdale Ordinance 3675, otherwise known as the ethics code. At the July 2nd, 2025 council meeting, the city attorney gave the opinion that the Next Door social media site is quote probably not within the jurisdiction of the city of Scottsdale end quote. My attorney and I disagree with the city attorney.

When next door is used by a council member to post misinformation on public matters within the city council's jurisdiction or when a council member the next door post is used by a council member in what appears to be an attempt to justify using police or city staff for political retaliation. Those next door posts and any consequences definitely are within the city council's jurisdiction.

This is an email dated Wednesday, June 18, 2025 from SC a Scottsdale police sergeant reporting to Assistant Chief of Police Watson about Nextdoor Posts. The sergeant writes, quote, "Councilman Graham wants us to talk to Mr. Sutton about continuously commenting on his posts. We advised Councilman Graham legally we can't do that as it is his first amendment right and there is no crime." end quote.

Councilman Barry Graham, in an act of political retaliation, attempted to suppress my First Amendment right to protest his actions by using the Scottsdale police to intimidate me. Councilman Barry Graham has a history of unethical behavior. I believe Councilman Graham knew what he was asking the police to do violated his oath of office.

Please remember, it's only been after I began opposing Councilman Barry Graham on the building of a garage extension in historic Oldtown that Barry Graham and his proxies began attacking me on social media with derision name calling such as skin head hatemonger and an attempt to intimidate me by using the Scottsdale Police Department. Councilman Graham is not, I repeat, is not faithfully and impartially discharging his duties of office.

I ask the city council to make a statement of disapproval of Councilman Barry Graham's actions. Thank you, Mayor Baroski. Thank you, Steve. Next, we have Jason Alexander. Jason Alexander. Address on record. At the uh last city council meeting I attended on July 2nd, I was shocked and frankly really disgusted as a citizen of Scottsdale by the unprofessional and intimidating behavior of Councilman Barry Graham.

Mayor Barowski had made a ruling on an issue and rather than accepting the ruling like a professional, Mr. Graham proceeded to glare and glower at Mayor Barowski for 14 seconds. Uh, I have a video I'd like to play. If the team would play that now for me, please. Look at Mr. Graham. 14 seconds of staring down Mayor Barowski. This is a clip zoomed in. I apologize for the quality, but you can see the intimidating glare and the attempt, I believe, to bully. This went on for 14 seconds.

It was incredibly unprofessional. It would absolutely never be tolerated in the workplace. And I'd like to know why it is tolerated here. I dare say that I do not believe Mr. Graham, And if I could have the overhead for a moment, please. I do not believe Mr. Graham would give that look to David Ortega. I do not believe Mr. Graham would give that look to Jim Lane. I believe Mr.

Graham is taking advantage of the fact that he is a head taller and a 100 pounds heavier than Mayor Barowski to attempt to intimidate her. in a chauvinistic and obnoxious manner. I believe if one was out in public and Mr. Graham was looking at one's wife, one's girlfriend, one's daughter that way, there would be a very negative reaction on behalf of the person who was receiving this look.

But the more important note is that once again, this is another example of toxic and unprofessional behavior by Barry Graham. He has been found guilty of violating the city's ethics code. He has four open meeting law complaints against him. He has been found to have filed a false criminal complaint with the county attorney against Mayor Barowski. Mr. Graham has rejected multiple citizen petitions.

He has constantly interrupted his colleagues by going point of order, point of order, point of order, point of order. And not just once, not waiting to be recognized, but in attempts to shout them down. And finally, of course, Mr. Instagram shows complete disrespect for the people in the audience and for his colleagues by constantly using his electronic devices during meetings, communicating with his adviser, Rod Pritchette, up there, the older gentleman with blue hair.

There's a reason our council has become known for toxic and dysfunctional behavior. Thank you, Jason. Uh, next we have Wait, where's my list? Where's my list? Oh, here we go. Uh, you're already up there. Oh, sure. Dan Isaac was next. Let's go. Let's go with John. Thank you, John Cornweiser. Conweiser, excuse me. What is this for? Oh, all of us. I am indeed John Conweiser. lives at 7423 A Royo Hondo which is in the Boulders community in North Scottsdale and we live there about 34 years.

That's our primary and only home and I am my purpose in addressing you is to try to preserve Scottsdale Road as a scenic corridor which was designated.

The city has spent lots of money very properly landscaping it and taking care of Scottsdale Road which is overrun on the weekends with these paper signs especially the red and white one for barber shop and when one fellow comes in then lo and behold this comes in for Christmas lights and this comes in for whatever it says there you can read it and on and on.

There used to be a committee in the city of which I was a member as a volunteer for many years that had the authority to remove these paper signs and deposit them in a certain place down by the waterworks. And for whatever reason that committee was dissolved and uh I have kind of taken it on myself in North Scottsdale to patrol Scottsdale Road and work with the people that are violating the law.

I've also spent considerable time with Ken Ross who is an employee of the city in the code department and Ken does not work on Saturday and Sunday and these folks realize that there's no uh excuse me uh what policing if you will on the weekend so the signs go up. I talked to Rick Vanisoa who is head of your department I believe and he does not have the funds, manpower, whatever to monitor Scottsdale Road on the weekend.

I suggested you get in touch with your police department and maybe they could afford to send one patrol car up Scottsdale Road, let's say to Carefree Highway, make a U-turn and go about his business after that because they then will take the policeman's word that these signs were out. I volunteered to do it, but Rick said that my words to you and himself and so forth can't be taken at full value and so on and so forth, which I can understand. No personal in insult intended.

So, I would hope that you could get some program in mind that would tell the community that these ugly, distracting, what insulting signs are interrupting the Sonoron Desert, which is the main reason we all moved here, not to see these signs and do yourself, the community a great deal of harm of good. I'm willing to work with you. I think you have my phone number. The city clerk does. And if we can accomplish that, it would be wonderful. Thank you very much. Thank you, John.

If you wouldn't mind staying there for one minute. Um, city clerk Ben Lane, I wanted to point out that so you could put it under the Elmo so we can see what he's referring to on the streets. Sorry, I was trying to do sign language across the room. It didn't really work out. And this John, this is an example you you gave to us. I'm sorry. I can't I'm totally deaf. He he put the sign up here. Here you you can stay there. That's an example of what you're talking about.

The tent signs on Scottsdale Road. Okay. Thank you for bringing that to our attention. Thanks for being here. Thank you, Ben. Next, we have Dan Isaac. Dan Isaac, address on record. I stand before you mildly jet-lagged and also facing the wrath of delaying my spouse's birthday dinner for a few days so I could speak about more bad behavior by our city council and a couple staff members.

So I was out of town for five weeks, but I was shocked and dismayed by the fiasco around the proposed amendment to our general plan. The general plan that was voted on by a majority of Scottsdale residents. It appeared on the agenda last month because it was claimed that it needed to be amended for state law which subsequently was found not to be correct and more importantly it amended hundreds of change it made hundreds of changes to things not related to state law changes.

Thankfully that was removed from the agenda um by and the city attorney said we don't need to do anything. I ask for a public records request of all of the um communication on this matter. Despite hundreds of pages, there's not a single document that explains the genesis of this project. Dozens of staff and hundreds of hours of time were spent on a matter and we can't find what the genesis was. So there's two possible hypotheses.

The first is that I was correct that our city manager lacks the experience to take the job that he had and wasted lots of time and made false statements. I actually don't think that's the reason. The second possibility is that the general manager, the city manager was acting at the direction of one or more city council members and for whatever reason he is protecting them.

So, I don't understand why the city manager would choose to potentially look incompetent or protect somebody that was doing something incorrectly. Second topic, one council member sent an email blast claiming that she is the victim of lawfare. She also spoke at the LD LD3 GOP meeting claiming that lawfare has come to the city of of Scottsdale.

Jan Debasquez is claiming to be a victim when she herself started the lawfare by filing a false criminal complaint joined by Barry and Adam against our mayor. By the way, filing a false criminal complaint is against the law. More importantly, Jan, it is a violation of section 8.4 four of the professional conduct code of the Arizona State Bar, which is why I referred your behavior to them.

So, it is audacious and hypocritical for Jan to play victim claiming lawfare when she was the one who started it. Thank you. Thank you, Dan. All right, that concludes uh public comment on non-aggendaized items and I'll turn next to the minute meeting minutes approvals and uh I will entertain a motion to approve the special meeting minutes of July 1st, 2025, executive session meeting minutes of July 1st, 2025, regular meeting minutes of July 1, 2025. So moved. Seconded.

All those in favor, please indicate your vote. Thank you. Moving on to the consent agenda. We have consent agenda items 1 through 13. Uh does anyone on the council have any questions or wish to remove an item at this point? Seeing none, I will entertain a motion to approve consent agenda items 1 through 13. So moved. Thank you. All those in favor, please indicate your vote. All right, that concludes the consent agenda and we have no regular agenda items this evening.

So, we will move on to citizens petitions, which I see none. And moving right along, the next item on our on our regular agenda is boards and commissions and committees 2024 annual report presentations, which we've done over the last several council meetings. And tonight we have three, let's see, one, two, three, four presentations.

Uh and we have presentations and possible direction regarding key accomplishments, major actions taken, upcoming opportunities, challenges, andor outcomes of the following public bodies. Starting with the historic preservation commission, I would like to invite Jay Panzer, chair, Adam Yeron, and Adam Yuron. Yeron, and am I saying that right? Uh who's our staff liaison for this group. Thank you. Welcome gentlemen. Good evening, Mayor Browski, Vice Mayor Dascis, and members of city council.

My name is Adam, commission leazison of the Historic Preservation Commission. Joining me this evening is uh Jay Panzer, chair of the commission who has served uh since May of 2023. Together, we're pleased to present highlights from the commission. from the commission's 2024 annual report, which was approved earlier this year. Uh, the Historic Preservation Commission consists of seven members appointed by city council.

The commission's mission is to protect and preserve Scottsdale's historic and archaeological resources.

Key responsibilities include maintaining the Scottsdale historic register, reviewing proposed changes uh to historic properties, recommending uh historic property district resonings to the planning commission, and then ultimately to city council, overseeing incentive programs such as uh the city's historic residential exterior rehabilitation or HRE program funding, which supports the upkeep of historic properties.

A recent example is the Titus House, Scottsdale's oldest single family uh residence, which uh received funding to support uh the roof maintenance this last year. Uh and finally, advising on broader preservation matters as well as uh other topics directed by city council. Thank you. Uh in 2024, the commission advanced several initiatives to strengthen Scottsdale's preservation efforts.

We reviewed and acted on multiple certificates of appropriateness applications, ensuring that alterations to historic preservation zone properties remain consistent with adopted preservation standards. The commission developed and adopted a new historic plaque guideline to create a uniform and respectful approach for recognizing and promoting designated properties across the city.

To expand community engagement, we created an historic preservation outreach plan that lays the groundwork for sustained awareness and participation in preservation initiatives. The commission extended availability to participate in the city's annual gain getting Arizona involved in neighborhoods event.

Lastly, we facilitated a coordination meeting with the Arizona Historic Preservation Office, better known as Shipo, to reinforce intra agency collaboration and support for local preservation pro, pardon me, programs. The commission remains committed to promoting public awareness of Scottsdale's heritage and identifying, recognizing, and protecting sites that reflect the city's past. Looking ahead, our focus will center on three key areas. program administration.

We will continue efforts to streamline and improve the historic residential exterior rehabilitation. These names are crazy. HRE program, ensuring it remains accessible and impactful. Advocacy. The commission will work closely with local and state partners to support preservation policies, tools, and incentives that reinforce Scottsdale's historic character. outreach. Expanding communication and engagement with residents, community groups, and property owners remains a priority.

We aim to foster a broader understanding of the value of historic preservation in shaping Scottsdale's unique identity. It would be calm down. It would be remiss of me, this is something that was not in the early in the printed remarks. It would be remiss of me to conclude without remarking on the support our commission receives from Adam Yaron here to my left, Jesus Mario, and the entire planning and development staff.

I've seen commissions and sat on commissions with support ranging from totally absent to excellent, and I'm happy to say the Scottsdale HPC falls squarely in the latter car category. Our community is well served by this dedicated team. Thank you for the opportunity to present this evening. We welcome your questions, comments, or feedback as we continue our work to protect and celebrate Scottsdale's heritage. Thank you, Jay. Appreciate that. And congratulations, Adam.

Great accolades and keep up the good work. Thank you. Thank you. We appreciate the report. Turning next to the Oh, sorry. Pardon me. Councilwoman Mallen has something. Pardon? Thank Thank you, Mayor. Um I was well thank you for your service first of all to the city and thank you Adam uh welldeserved accolades. Uh question just for the general knowledge of uh our citizens watching from home and that are here.

How many um historic neighborhoods do we have in Scottsdale or approximately and what is basically the definition year-wise for a historic neighborhood in Scottsdale? Thank you Councilwoman McAllen. Uh, Mayor Bowski, members of council, uh, we have about six residential districts, uh, give or take, and we have about another dozen or so, uh, commercial districts that are designated HP in our city's Oldtown or downtown area.

Um, and generally the requirements are that they be 50 years and show some significance in terms of their uh, architectural presence and history to Scottsdale's cultural past. Excellent. Thank you. I know that there are homes in my neighborhood that um have specific peaks on them. And when the storm and hail happened about 10 years ago, uh roofers came through and wanted to take all these peaks off to expedite the roofing. And the neighbors pretty much all lost it and said, "No, no, no, no.

Those are the way they're supposed to look. That's, you know, historic preservation." So, thank you for all you do to preserve um the history and all that makes Scottsdale so special. Appreciate it. Thank you. Next, we turn to the Parks and Recreation Commission. And for this, I will invite I'm going to botch this one. Eric Mashupat. No, that's not right, I'm sure. But, uh Eric, how do you pronounce your last name? Say it again. Oh, that was easy. Who is the chair? Thank you for that.

And Kevin McKe, staff representative. Welcome, mayor. Uh, council members, thank you so much for having us out this evening. Um, as mentioned, uh, I am Kevin McKe. I am a deputy director for Scottsdale's parks and recreation division and I'm joined by our commission chair Eric to my right. So we'll tell you a little bit more about uh our commission and kind of what we've been up to lately. So the commission historically has had two main um functions.

The first one is to advise the city council on the acquisition of lands and facilities for use as parks or recreation centers. The um the second purpose there is to advise the city council on the operation, use, care, and maintenance of these parks and recreation areas. As of July 1st, this commission also has a new um uh a new purpose. So, they are the citizens oversight committee for our newly voterenacted 2025 0.15 parks and preserve sales tax.

So they are providing us um very valuable input on our capital planning and our master planning as it relates to those new tax funds. As for our makeup, we are uh made up of seven commissioners who are appointed by the city council at large. And um side note, we did just celebrate 65 years. Yes, I said that right. 65 years as a commission, which is just so awesome.

And I think um it's really important for us, I know, as as staff members, as stewards of our public spaces to uh really take a step back every now and then and appreciate our rich history here in Scottsdale and the innovators that came before us to give us the amazing um public spaces that we have like the beautiful Indian Benwash um park system and um our McDall sonor and preserve.

So, with that, I will pass things over to our commission chair, Eric, to uh talk a little bit more about some accomplishments from the calendar year 2024 and some things we're working on next. Thanks, Kevin. So, our 2024 accomplishments included the approval of our parks and recreation master plan. This is an important document. It's a systemwide uh guiding document for the next 10 years. Um, this was approved in late summer and the council approved it in December as well.

So, we're looking forward to the next steps uh with that in 2025 and beyond. We've also uh approved the Indian School Park site master plan. Um, this is a 40-year-old park and right now we have um uh this process running concurrently for our systemwide master plan. Um the final park concept um is going to address our top community needs for play area sports fields, courts, and multi-generational center as well.

Um in addition, in 2024, we have our approved pilot fees for Scottsdale Stadium's first base patio. This is an important patio in our ballpark uh that allows for rental of private parties and special events. And it's another um unique uh item that we have on offer for both citizens and visitors. Uh upcoming opportunities, challenges or outcomes. We will be looking uh as you mentioned for the park and preserve sales tax improvements, capital improvements.

The commission is the uh citizens oversight committee and of course this is going to be a top priority for each of our next meetings. We'll also be uh as part of that recommending the annual tax budget uh for capital improvements that'll be uh coming up next year. And then as part of that we have already begun um the improvements at Rotary Park as well as Puma Park and uh those are going quite well and on schedule.

Um the bond 2019 projects I would say are coming towards the tail end of bond 2019 and the activities there. Uh for this year they include the cactus aquatic center um and potential replacement. Um the Indian Ben Wash Lakes and Thompson Peak Dog Park will be completed as well. And then um recently completed were Ashler Hills Park and Riata Sports Complex. uh we'll be monitoring those throughout the year and helping advise on uh next steps as part of that.

Finally, the master plan goals and visionary projects really incorporate the top two that I just mentioned. The feasibility study is taking place now for the Cactus Aquatic Center potential replacement, which is extremely important. And then we'll also include Elorado and Vista Del Camino improvements. And then finally, future Indian School Park improvements. Uh we're also focusing on a little bit more prep and planning.

Uh a little bit more forward look looking for transparency purposes so the commissioners can be more prepared as well as the citizenry and of course our parks and recck division. And with that, thank you very much for allowing us to share. Thank you, Eric, and thanks for your service and thank you Kevin. Excellent. Uh we really appreciate your report. Any questions? Oh, yes. Councilman Graham, 65 years. Congratulations. You're eligible for Medicare. Be applying soon. Yeah.

Is the commission applying? You'll be visiting a senior center near us. That's for sure. Does uh parks and recck familiar with any senior centers that you can talk to? Um Kevin, you uh become a little bit of a personality or a public figure. You're always in those videos the parks and recck are playing. Can you say a little more about those?

Uh yeah, Councilman Graham, Mayor Barowski, um we really over the last uh two and a half, three years have focused more on um getting our messaging out to the community. You know, one of the most I think uh frustrating things that that I hear is, gosh, I didn't even know you guys were here. I didn't know you did this. I've lived in this neighborhood for 50 years. And um we've really taken uh hands-on ownership of our communications and I think people are taking note really.

And so um you know we want people to know that we have amazing parks programs, people behind the scenes that are doing fantastic things. And I'm happy to hear that you're seeing some of the messaging that we're Yeah. I mean you're Yeah, you're doing a good job, you know, being featured in those videos. And really, I think it's good for the city because it's, you know, I'm sure you're getting lots of views. And what it's doing is it's exposing the amenities that people can access.

Like we don't know everything that is that we paid for and that is there for us to use. And so I mean it's like I can't tell you. I mean like people don't know they can use Club SAR. You know, people don't know about I mean you just name it. It's like oh I didn't know that. Like you said I didn't know that park was there.

I was on the transportation commission for almost seven years and it's like we that kind of interfaced a lot with you know paths and trails going through the green belt and things like that and it's just over and over people didn't know. So I want to thank you for promoting getting social media uh presence out there so people know um the things they can do places they can go our amenities of the city. Um, I'm really interested in the master plan for Parks and Recre 2 going forward.

Uh, voters gave us more money to spend on parks and really what that was was that was voters telling us you better spend this money on parks and so we need to respect that and um it's the master plan is um that to me is like I said it's a big deal because we've got I mean we've all talked about it. I mean we got these brand new parks all across North Scottsdale. newer developments, newer area, and you know, some of the parks in the southern section are, you know, a little dated.

And so it's, you know, these funds are going to be starting down in the south and moving northward and that master plan is going to interface and integrate with those dollars. Would you agree with that, Councilman Graham? Absolutely. And I I will note that um that was that master planning effort was an a almost two-year effort that we went through and we saw unprecedented community engagement throughout that process.

In fact, we were just recognized last week by the um Arizona uh planning association for planning excellence for that plan. So, um, we, uh, hit the ground running and we're in a point now where with funding in place, we know what the community's priorities are. And exactly, like you said, we're starting down south and um, reinvesting in some of our most aged parks and uh, breathing some new life into those. You guys plan excellence, don't you? And uh, award-winning, too.

Our parks are award-winning, nationally recognized parks. So, that's something to be proud of. So, thank you for uh talking with us. I know my colleagues have more questions, but Mr. Chair, uh Mr. McKe, thank you very much. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Councilwoman Mckllen. Thank you, Mayor. Uh thank you for your service, Eric. Uh thank you, Kevin. When you were saying how long the parks were and you're saying old 65, I saw you gazed right up at me. Just saying. I did grow up in the parks.

I love the parks. Everyone knows I'm a huge uh proponent of the parks. Uh I worked for parks and wreck and human services for over a decade and a half. Um I'm very proud. Uh but I what I wanted to say is that you guys won awards this year through planning through AP. You guys are very modest with um all that you've accomplished. The master plan, I know how much work that was. But you didn't talk about what's happening this Saturday. Okay. Uh, Councilwoman Mallen, shameless plug here.

We are having our parks and wreck rewind 90s night. Okay. It's going to be an incredible events from 6:00 to 9:00 p.m. We'll be playing all the oldies. I guess we're calling them oldies now. Yeah. Um, so we'll have live music, nostalgia. We'll have um some really awesome kind of old uh movie displays and so much fun fun for all ages and arcade. Um this will be our third year running this event and we are so excited. So it's a free community event.

Um part of our focus we talk about our master plan is activating this awesome new newly um renovated civic center here. And um I I think it's going to be a really special night. I'm going to be there. Thank you. Thank you very much. So, we are Thank you for being here and thank you again for your service. We're moving on to the Scottsdale Environmental Advisory Commission and uh Chair Andrew Sheek will address us along with staff representative Tim Connor. Welcome, gentlemen.

I I think your microphone is remains off. So, okay, there we go. I'll start over. Good evening, Madame Mayor, and uh Vice Mayor Debakus has left the scene, but at the same time, I would say thank you to all the members of the city council that are here tonight. Uh my name is Tim Connor and I'm the commission lelayison for the Scottsdale Environmental Advisory Commission. Uh joining me this evening is Andrew Sheekch.

He is our current chair of the commission and he has been on the commission for since 2021. Uh together we're pleased to present highlights of the commission's 2024 annual report which is was approved later or excuse me earlier this year. Next slide please. Okay.

The commission is charged with advising the city council on matters related to the preservation and enhancement of Scottsdale's environment and supporting the city's broader commitment to the environment, economic and social sustainability.

The commission's core responsibilities include recommending policies and programs and ordinances that promote environmental quality, supporting education and outreach on key environmental issues, identifying opportunities for innovation and collaboration, selecting recipients for the city's sustainability or excuse me, the sustainable Scottsdale award.

And finally, receiving public comments on topics with the commission's responsibilities and use that input for the information to provide input to the city council. Next slide, please. SEEK has seven members all appointed by the council. The membership is designed to reflect both scientific and non-scientific perspectives. This includes professionals with backgrounds of environmental fields as well as representatives from the businesses and the community at large.

It's important to note that there is no requirement for a specific number of members to be have environmental expertise. This ensures the boards the broad range of perspective coming into the commission as they work together. Next slide, please. And I'm going to turn this over to Chair Sheek. You bet. In 2024, the commission carried out have this on. Okay, thanks.

In 2024, the commission carried out responsibilities by offering input and recommendations to city council as part of the community sustainability plan development. We also redesigned the sustainable Scottsdale awards program and selected our city as the 2024 honore recognizing their leadership in advancing environmental initiatives in the community.

Through these efforts, the commission continued to build awareness, deepen our understanding of complex issues and establish a foundation for future recommendations for city council to consider. Next slide, please. Um, the upcoming challenge is great. Looking ahead, uh, while the 2024 seek annual report reflected priorities based on the sustainability plan in effect at the time, some of those items are no longer part of the commission's active work plan due to changes in city priorities.

With the repeal of that plan, seek has adjusted its focus and is now concentrating on current initiatives that best serve Scottsdale's environmental goals. Looking ahead, the commission will focus on community engagement, education, and environmental leadership.

Key priorities include pro uh providing recommendations on water conservation, supporting reuse and recycling initiatives like Goodwill's donation pilot program and identifying funding opportunities for conservation, heat mitigation, and energy efficiency projects. We'll also support the shade and tree plan and work to expand solar and alternative energy used in civic facilities.

Through these efforts, we will continue advocating for renewable energy, improved air quality, waste reduction, and overall climate resilience in Scottsdale. Next, please. um closing. So, basically, I appreciate the time uh and presentation and any questions you have. I'm all good. Thank you very much. Thank you very much, Councilwoman Whitehead. Thank you, Mayor. Uh make sure my mic's on. Uh have you re received the treat and shay plan?

I wonder if that's been being reviewed at this present time. I'll answer I'll take that question. Uh essentially we have not brought that forward other than just an early concept with the commission. We are currently steam steam streamlining excuse me the plan so that we can bring it back um to them for additional adjustments in the future. When do you expect to have the plan? We expect the plan to be completed by the end of this year calendar year. Okay. That's what I thought.

So we're still on schedule for that. Yes, that's correct. Okay. Um, when is the So, you're doing these environmental awards every year. I think that's pretty cool. When is the next I I somehow missed the last one. When is the next one? I'm sorry, I missed that. The this environmental award, our city received the art environment. Oh, the awards uh coming up um in uh we're going to start it actually now to uh do the awards again for prepare for it for next year. Yes.

So, do people residents submit uh residents submit uh companies sometimes themselves? They consider uh submit businesses or um organizations in Scottsdale. That makes a difference. Okay. Thank you. Sure. And thanks for the presentation. Thank you. Thank you very much. We appreciate your service, Andrew. Thanks. And of course your hard work. Thank you very much. Next and last we have the Tourism Development Commission and uh for that we have chair Anna Maner Maner. I should know that.

Uh and uh staff representatives Rachel Santana and Steve Gigma. Welcome. Thanks for being here. Thank you mayor, members of council. Thank you for having us. We are happy to be here to present our annual report and also delighted to tell you that uh we'll be coming back before you on October 7th to speak longer and more in depth during a work study about events and events funding. Um but tonight, please let me just introduce our commission.

Um the purpose of the tourism development commission probably needs no introduction. They oversee recommendations or decline uh requests for tourism development funding to the city council. They also oversee um any application or funding program or process um and our five-year strategic plan. So, our commission is also made up of seven um citizens of Scottsdale, residents of Scottsdale. Four of them must be hotelers.

They and it is getting increasingly difficult to find a hotel year that hasn't already served that also lives in Scottsdale. But tonight you found two more. Thank you very much. And thank you to Experience Scottsdale who also helps us fill those vacancies. The other three members of the commission must also have some sort of tie to the tourism industry. And with that, I will turn it over to Chair Anna Maner. Thank you very much, Madame Mayor, Madame Vice Mayor, Council members.

Uh, I am honored to be the chair of this commission. It is such a great commission to be a part of. It's always exciting to see what's coming into Scottsdale. Um, I want to thank our vice chair who's here in the audience. Chris Montgomery is here with Fiesta Sports, formerly Fiesta Bowl. Uh, so I want to thank him for joining us. Uh, and welcome to the new commission members. I didn't get a chance to say hello yet, but we're very excited to be complete.

Um, we've been missing those empty seats for a little while. Uh, our first bullet point here is the tourism development fund budget review. Uh I wanted to bring to the attention of the council that we did uh recommend $600,000 less than the initial proposed budget. What this shows is we really took the time to go through and look at these numbers. There were some items in there that we didn't find to be necessarily tourism related.

Uh we then sent those back to the general fund um where we thought those funds should be coming from. Um, we also have a uh strategic business plan with Experience Scottsdale. Uh, they come to us and they do a wonderful job. They report to us at least every quarter. More often than that, we see them. They're at every meeting. Uh, so they're very involved with the commission and uh, we're all making sure we're staying on the right page um, with our goals.

Uh, one of the things we started this year and it kind of started with Jeannie Alpa who was the chair prior. Uh we have added a section I guess to our applications asking if a nonprofit is benefiting from your event. Uh this is something we thought is important. It is not required. Uh but we wanted it to be top of mind for people to maybe give back to the Scottsdale community if they are receiving Scottsdale funds.

Um another thing we've really taken, you know, into consideration with a lot of our presentations is how are these events going to be sustained for the long term without city funding? Uh so I personally have a big background in sponsorship dollars. Uh I do encourage these producers to find them um once they're ready, once the um development fund has been used with the city to build them up.

Um please, you know, look outside the city for maybe some sponsorships that are, you know, on the private sector. Uh so I'm really proud of those last two things that we've really kind of changed and brought to the forefront um of our applications. Oh, sorry. I thought you thought you mentioned something. Um, opportunities. Um, so we're super excited to start getting council feedback. As Rachel mentioned, we are going to be having the, um, work study and I'm really looking forward to that.

I hope to be there as well. Um, so we can all work together and see exactly, you know, what is everyone's goal. We haven't had the opportunity to do that so far. Uh, looking forward to that very much. um and considering you know the budget review commission to be to give their input on our budget review process. Um the more ideas, the more voices, the better, right? Uh some challenges we have, um requests are on the rise. We have a lot of people coming wanting to do events in Scottsdale.

We have a great program. Uh they see, you know, some of the amazing events we are funding. So with that, I give all the credit to city staff um for initially going through those requests, making sure they meet those goals, the restrictions, um all of those things. They work very, very hard. And I want people to understand that by the time it comes to the commission, they've done so much work already. And uh it does not go unnoticed by us, but I hope other people acknowledge that as well.

Uh Rachel mentioned our commission membership. Uh it has been difficult. We sat for a few months with two seats open. Uh with it being required for hotel years to be four of those seats, it's difficult to find ones that live in Scottsdale and have the time. Um unfortunately, that does not allow for someone who's retired to sit with us because they have to have that current position. Uh so it's it's been a challenge but we're up for it and now we are full and hope to stay there for a while.

Um commissioners are also encouraged to attend events and I want you guys to understand and for the public to understand that we do follow up and go to as many as we can. Um obviously we can't go to all of them. Um and we do get postevent reports. Um also something I don't think everyone may understand that we the staff I don't say we but the staff does take a lot of time in reviewing the deliverables and making sure they're there. if they're not, those funds can be adjusted.

Um, so I want that to be known, um, to everyone that knows we are using their tax dollars wisely. So, uh, with that, I think I am finished. If there's any questions, please let us know. Madame Mayor, may I am I was remissed to not introduce my colleague, Steve Gagamont, a 18-year employee of the SC city of Scottsdale in tourism, and I brought him in case you have any really hard questions. Excellent. Uh, I want to start by saying thank you.

That's an excellent um review of what you're working on and great job as the chair bringing those items forward. Uh, question uh or at least a suggestion for the box. Um, should we open? I know Scottsdale residents are typically reserved or they must be Scottsdale residents to be on the boards and commissions, but there are a few I'll have to fact check this, but that don't require that, I believe.

Uh, and should we be opening the this particular commission up to uh people that don't live in Scottsdale but work in Scottsdale in tourism? That's just a question. I don't have an answer for that, but I think there's a there's room for discussion because if we candidly are running out of people, that would not be a good thing. So maybe there's a a reorg on that. Uh we're blessed to have hotel years that um stay in Scottsdale for a really long time.

So there's probably not a lot of turnover and a new pool of eligibles. I know the Adaro gentleman said that he was relatively new. So that's a tough challenge. Uh, and then I really like the rules uh change. Oh, no, no. Second point I want to make before I move on to a couple things you said. Um, I've heard uh from some people that are involved in in uh event planning that the the rules that apply to uh funding these events are somewhat fluid or have been somewhat fluid in the last few years.

And I would love to when we do our work study kind of do a a deep dive into you know making sure the rules are applicable and really don't change from over time or depending on what the event is. So that's I think that's a really big priority uh for me. Um, I love what you're doing with encouraging nonprofit uh participation and I think that's a great idea and I would love to see a consideration for a higher priority um on those events that are doing that.

Maybe a bump up you know in the in the process of getting approved and also um of course private sector dollars is wonderful. So thanks for all that. Uh Councilwoman Mckllen, thank you Mayor. Uh, thank you uh for your service, Miss Manire and Steve and Rachel. Uh, I love the update that you guys do, the Oldtown update. Also, I know that's part of um Rachel's position and Steve's position that they do the Oldtown quarterly update.

Uh, but I I noticed that you had commissioners there and I tend to go to everything. Like I was just at the rodeo and I was saying how great it was and then I get a text the next morning from Anna saying, "How was the rodeo? I'm going today." They really put the time and effort into it and it's they're walking the walk, you know, and I love that. Um it's it's great to go to city events that city funds and invests in and see city staff and see city volunteers there.

Um so people can recognize that. Um, I just you're really living what you say and doing it. So, I appreciate that. That's my comment. Thank you. And I see there's no other questions or comments. So, with that, thank you very much. I appreciate your service and your hard work. That concludes the boards and commissions updates. So, we will move on to our work study session. And this work study session.

Work study sessions generally provide a less formal setting for the mayor and council to discuss specific topics with each other and city staff and provide staff an opportunity to receive direction from council in order to provide an opportunity. Oh, there is no let's see public there is public comment. Yes, we have public comments.

Uh and in order to maximize the amount of time the council has available to focus on these discussions, spoken comments will be limited to five speakers at three minutes a piece. So I'd like to start with the public comment with uh I'm going to read a list of names. There are five people tonight. Carlos Artga, French Thompson, Jane Brena, John Truit, and Sasha Weller of the Firefighters Association. So, starting with Carlos Artigga, and I hope I'm pronouncing that correctly. Is Carlos here?

All right. If he comes, we can let him speak later. French Thompson. You're You're gonna Okay, withdraw that. Uh Jane Brena. Okay. Not here. All right. John Truit. Welcome. All right. Good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor, and council members. My name is John Truit. I'm the state fire management officer for the Department of Forestry and Fire Management. And I'm here to to show support and recognize uh Scottsdale Fire Department. I'll share a little bit of my background with you.

Uh, I've been a wildland firefighter for 46 years now. I did 36 years of the Forest Service over in California. I've been here in Arizona for the last 10 years. Uh, currently a type one incident commander on one of the national incident management teams. So, why I share that with you is it it kind of gives you the background of of how I can recognize a very professional and very aggressive fire department. And that's what Scottsdale Fire Department is.

Uh they're one of the most reliable departments in the valley when it comes to response and mitigation. Uh we work very closely with them, partner with them uh as far as our fuels mitigation, prevention programs, uh firewise, um and all other, you know, cooperations that that we that we have. Um, Chief Shannon has really brought this this the the wildfire mitigation to the to the pinnacle of of what a good department does, a good aggressive department does.

You all know that you live in a high fire environment area and catastrophic fire can happen here any day. You get a little bit of wind behind it and it's a it's a challenge. It's going to be chaos. But what what the leadership of Chief Shannon has provided with hiring a a wildland coordinator, what that has done is it's brought all the other city departments together, stakeholders together, and they do tabletop exercises.

So the importance of that is that we can we can basically exercise that fire on a on a controlled area, go over the values at risk that everybody has. That's the last thing you want to do is be at the hood of a truck with a big column coming up and trying to figure all this stuff out. So, they're very proactive in that in that arena of doing what we call the pre-season. The other thing is is the fire mitigation. Um, just working with all the other partners.

Uh, they've come up with a very strategic plan out there, very strategic ground that they're grabbing for right now. And that'll that'll go a long way when it comes to that response that we have that we have some defensible space. We have some area to go to to be able to help the residents and the citizens and provide that public safety. So again, uh just to recognize the the quality that the Scottsdale Fire Department brings.

We also send uh the Scottsdale Fire Department out through the west and I have nothing but compliments from all the other folks that I've worked with out there. Uh I have been around a long time. I have a lot of connections and I do get positive feedback anytime Scottsdale's out there and how professional and and how much of a difference they make when they're out on on the on the fire line.

So again, just wanted to show my support and recognize the department and Chief Shannon and just an outstanding job that they've been doing. Thank you, John. I couldn't agree with you more and I'm sure I speak on behalf of everyone sitting up here. So, thank you so much. Appreciate that. Uh Sasha Weller. Good evening, Mayor Bowski, Vice Mayor DBosquez, members of council, Sasha Weller, Scottdale Firefighters Association. Uh I just wanted to share with you how fortunate we are.

Scottsdale is the uh very best protected city in this valley when it comes to our wildland prevention, suppression, urban interface, uh training. Our members are the most dedicated firefighters you're going to find.

Um, as an example of some of the things that that we take advantage of is, uh, yesterday, Texas Governor, Greg Abbott, took a real step forward in wildland fire prevention by adopting the International Association of Firefighters, wildland urban interface uh, responding uh, to interface curriculum for the state of Arizona. And that sounds really, really impressive that he did that yesterday. And it's a big huge thing. What I want to share with you is that we did that six years ago.

We're the very first department in the country to do it. Uh that te program was beta tested in Boseman, Montana. We adopted it. We tried to be the beta test city, but because we weren't a mountain town, we didn't have that ability to. So uh uh when you hear the programs that we're involved in, we are always on the front front of those. We're on a cutting edge fire department.

Um, recently in the newspaper and and many different publications have heard us refer to or compared to Los Angeles and the fires that were happening in Los Angeles. Uh, I'm a Scottsdaleian. I don't want to be compared to Los Angeles. The last place we should be compared to is Scottsdale or is Los Angeles. We're better than that. We do a better job. We're better prepared. We're far more aggressive in our in our uh proactive approach. Uh, we are out there every single day doing a far better job.

to compare us to Los Angeles. Really an apples to oranges comparison. Their different fuel models, their prevention methods are are are not as advanced as ours and far less aggressive. Um the presenter that talked about the preserve touched a little bit about it. Uh presented three fires and I think the term that he used was fires that encroached upon the preserve. Um encroach is an important word. The encroachment upon the preserve is not by accident.

uh they encroached upon the preserve and didn't get on into the preserve. Not by accident. Um there's no such thing as a as a coincidence in our world. Um you ask any of these gentlemen standing here behind you, uh they've heard of coincidence, they just never seen one. Um the reason why they encroach upon the preserve and those fires don't get in to the preserve is because of the hard work of these people and the the gritty, rugged, uh aggressive fire attack.

um the leadership that we have in the fire service, the uh aggressive nature of our prevention methods. Uh so none of that comes by mistake. Uh we've got an excellent excellent leadership team at Scottsdale Fire Department. Um Chief Shannon and his executive staff are just phenomenal. They give us the tools that we need to get our job done. Um and uh we we couldn't be blessed with a better chief. Um, there is lots of talk about volunteerism, volunteer firefighters, etc.

So, I just want to set the record straight of where we stand on it. There's a place for volunteerism in the Scottsdale Fire Department. Uh, we have several, I think we have well over a hundred volunteers. Um, there's just not really a place for us, if you allow me just 30 seconds, mayor, there's just not really a place for us uh to support volunteerism and putting those people in a hazard in a hazard zone.

makes our life much more complicated and it detracts from our ability to actually go do the work that we need to do. Um, I'll just leave it with that. Thank you very much. Thank you very much uh Sasha. Appreciate your input and uh congratulations on getting ahead of the program that uh Governor Abbott just uh announced. Um, that's wonderful and you are fire our fire department head and shoulders above the rest in my opinion. So, thank you very much. Okay, moving right along.

I'm going to start by before uh Tom Shannon, Chief Shannon will be speaking on behalf of Scottsdale Fire Department and as the chief I should say and presenting tonight on fire mitigation prevention efforts utilizing fire retardant products approved and in use by the US Forest Service and expansion or status uh and input on volunteer efforts at the Scottsdale Fire Department.

Um, and Chief Shannon, if I may, before I turn this over to you, I want to start by saying this was um, my request to put this on the agenda. I appreciate all the firefighters that you brought. That's a great crowd. Um, really, really appreciate it. And it's great to see you all here. Thank you for spending your Tuesday night with us. And, uh, before we get started, I just want to say I met with Chief Shannon and, uh, City Manager Greg Kaitton, must be four months ago now.

And uh it was based on a um resident input on how we can potentially um mitigate uh in a stronger fashion. Not to say that we weren't already doing everything possible to do that, but um how could we think outside the box and uh enlist volunteers in our community, residents to participate uh in mitigating uh wildfires in North Scottsdale in and around the preserve and throughout those communities.

And I the words didn't even get out of my mouth before the narrative was taken over about the fact that I wanted to supplement or my idea was to replace or add volunteers to the firefighting division of your department. And I want to go on record and say that's absolutely false.

And uh my idea and my was and still is to um to really give Scottsdale Fire the support and the the room uh to see how if you know if there's a way to use our residents that are so involved in Scottsdale to enhance our ability to protect ourselves and our community from wildfires. And it's easy to say Sasha um you raised a good point. No one would ever dare compare us to LA.

However, what we saw in devastation in the Pacific Palisades certainly seems like a very big risk to me in North Scottsdale. So, um, while there's no comparison in most cases, I do think that we have a lot of wildfire risk out there. And I don't think anyone including you know you can disagree with me but that seems like to me as a as a lay person that doesn't know your job as a big huge risk. So the narrative that took spread like wildfire, pardon the pun, um was not mine.

It was that of people trying to say no and just say no and let's just keep saying no. So big ideas are what Scottsdale was made of. And I uh if anyone is going to tell me that we don't have room to add uh a strong resident group to help with things that firefighters don't do and will not be doing uh to enhance our protection. I am ready to hear it, but um I know this is your presentation and we'll open it for questions after you you do that. Thank you very much.

Oh, I do want to show a little video. I'm sorry, Tom. I know that's keyed up and ready to go. I was into my comments and forgot about that. Ben, do you have that by chance? And again, not to compare us to LA, I think Sasha to took a preview of the video. Firefighters battling this blaze from the air and from the ground. And among all of those wonderful firefighters doing what they can, there are volunteers on the front lines of this battle as well. I live in the Pacific Palisades.

I'm a mechanical engineer. I live in Tinga Canyon and I'm an artist agent, photo shoots and commercials, a landscape contractor and I'm an actor, the director of retail. I built a naval scientist, private equity, then a venture capital, a marketer. I'm an electrical and low voltage contractor. What you're seeing here is something that's not anywhere else in the country. It's a collaborative partnership between dedicated community members.

I had lost my family home in 1993, but when I had heard about an opportunity to join the brigade, I was all in 100%. Over the last two months, we've seen their mission in action. Those guys saved our community. To be able to get trained as a firefighter to get my hands dirty and then help people evacuate has just been like so fulfilling. The sense of fellowship in service that I think is really powerful. do something to help in the community I live in and with this amazing group of people.

It's the connection between people as they're working the healing in their community. They're finding a lot of healing in themselves. [Music] It's really showing and caring for your community and giving back to your community.

And when we came around the corner and walked under her property and she saw us and she just broke down and was crying and just like fell into my arms and was like hugging me and just being able to reassure her like that like felt really good and that's something that will definitely stick with me. So who best to really create a resilient community than the community members themselves? Wildfires are inevitable. Community destruction doesn't have to be.

It is so much stronger when we work together for this this end result. The bottom line is it will minimize loss. It will accelerate recovery and it will strengthen the community. The women and the men standing behind me of the community brigade represent the best of LA County coming together in times of need to protect other residents and the communities that they live in.

I guess it's kind of obvious, but to see it in practice and we're hearing that reflected from a lot of people that this was was really an important thing for them and there's a lot of connection that's um very strong that's developing. Yeah, it's it it's a lot more than just putting out fire. Protecting your loved ones, protecting your schools and your homes and so forth is a noble thing to do. There's nothing wrong with it. And this program is designed for us to do it together.

For us to bring together government and community. You will never regret doing this. There there is no negative about doing this. [Music] Thank you. Thank you for indulging that video. And with that, Chief Tom Shannon. Well, good evening, Mayor, members of the council. Uh, my staff members going to pass out something that we may or may not get to.

It it isn't relevant to my presentation, but if if we going down a rabbit hole in terms of some of the programming that we do provide, we may find ourselves in that world. So, thank you for inviting me to speak to the fire mitigation prevention efforts utilizing fire products approved and in use by the United States Forest Service and then the expansion or status of volunteer efforts specific to proactive wildfire fuel mitigation. Next slide, please. Thank you.

So, uh the use of ground applied retardants is a a new innovation um and and quite honestly has a lot of promise. Most of us are familiar with aerial applications.

It is exactly what we've seen in Scottsdale over the last several years where uh thanks to the uh relationship uh with the Department of Fire and Forestry Management, our our state agencies and our federal partners, we have seen the availability of air resources to create uh good strong borders between our houses and the areas of our open spaces that have been burning. And so that is what is in our all of our minds right now as we think of what's been happening happening in Scottsdale.

Let me just tell you a little bit about the uses of that product. So you can have some context. They certainly are applied to vegetation in advance uh of uh spreading or fires that are are anticipated. They can be used across uh control lines, roads or natural barriers to strengthen them. They're applied to vegetation or flammable materials near structures within the WOOI. So, uh, WOOI refers to the wildland urban interface, and I'll I'll say that, uh, term a lot tonight.

And it helps reduce reignition by coating the vegetation with, uh, not combustible, uh, material. The benefits of it are obvious. It reduces the, uh, flammability of the fuel. It creates wider windows for control and escape uh which were huge uh and critical issues in the California fires and certainly requires less water uh in the application of the firefight. Um some of the nice uh features of the product can be it has some stick to itness.

It has a gel feature that uh can provide for some days uh and and even months of uh application uh even in the uh in the face of rain. And so that's an interesting feature. Um, some of the cautions include some environmental sensitivity where uh these retardants can be harmful to uh aquatic species or water uh areas of of a community. The application method has to be reliable and applied in a way that requires technical expertise to get that done.

It's can't it isn't necessarily something we can go down to a local market and apply with any real reliability. it needs to be done in a way that um has has some science behind it. Um it can leave uh some exposure to human and animal uh u uh species with uh inhalation and those sorts of things being a concern. And then there are certainly uh the considerations of the fact that they include uh elements that uh in in fact will fertilize and perhaps uh germinate um the vegetation even further.

uh in the absence of fire, you could actually see increased growth in the area of application over time. And so it's something to consider as you uh uh uh consider this product. And so the the the efforts being uh undertaken in the use of groundapplied uh fire retardants include private property owners who seek to uh increase their protections even after doing and making great defendable space uh efforts. uh certainly uh the protection of public infrastructure and important technology.

Uh APS is probably the best example of what's happening in the preserve. They are very very good at wildland fuel mitigation because obviously they've got enormous infrastructure to protect. Another example might be our radio systems up on the towers inside the preserve would be another great application for that. And so there is a place for fire retardant uh in in our community and uh it it certainly should be a tool and a tactic in our toolbox.

And so we would we would entertain any opportunity uh to to engage in that area uh over time. It just has to be uh in the formula that we're going to use for overall uh fire prevention and fuel mitigation. So that include that that that concludes my discussion of fire retardant. If you want me, I can continue on with the volunteerism and we can get to questions afterwards or I can stop here. We can talk about retardant. Completely up to you.

This is your presentation and well then why don't I continue and then we'll just get to it. Okay. Next slide. Thank you. So great news in the volunteer uh core. Uh as uh Captain Weller uh indicated, we have a robust volunteer core. Um we have over 90 volunteers that are rostered in our organization. CO kind of hurt us a little bit. that we lost. We had well over a hundred before uh but CO has reduced that amount. Um about 30% of those include our cadetses.

Uh many of the blue shirt firefighters uh that are here in support of this conversation uh probably were cadets at one time and so they came into the organization uh in a way that was an introductory way uh to the fire service. Um most of our volunteers are in our prevention or community risk reduction efforts. So our it wouldn't surprise you to know that our most common call are falls. And so we do a lot to reduce falls in the community.

We we engage with our senior community and and encounter them in their homes or in their congregate carriers congregate care areas and we literally do home assessments to make sure that their spaces are safe for them to operate in. And so those two fittofall programs are critical to that. Uh we're in we're involved in daily activity. We partner with our parks and reccks uh collaborators in trail uh um uh engagement and safety uh in the trails.

Uh we apply smoke alarms and lock boxes and and and do hazardous vegetation uh assessments. Uh if you'll go to the next slide, please. Thank you. This is an example of some of our hazardous vegetation assessments that we use uh not only our frontline members. And what this slide is showing you is the area in the in the NAOS where uh some of those vegetation assessments uh have occurred. And those are done by windshield surveys by the firefighters.

And they go out and they're out in what we call our first due area. And they provide the eyes on uh observation of what's really out there in terms of fuels. And then they report that back through a very uh uh tech-savvy uh IT group uh in an iPad form to uh either follow up or check off that the defendable space that's in the NAOS or in the adjacent uh preserve areas or in the roadways either meets or does not meet the standard for defendable space. And so if you'll go to the next slide.

Thank you. Uh this is an example. over 34,000 uh residents were were assessed and I think this was probably an old slide. I think Carrie, we're probably north of 40,000 were 44,000. So 44,000 residents this last season. So that's not that's not in total. That's each season. And so that gives you a sense of the activity.

Um we we upstaff brush trucks uh usually in the March April timeline because of the the likelihood that temperatures are and humidity and heat index are going to provide for uh fire conditions that are uh you know afford opportunity for things to happen and we get them out there doing these assessments and they they don't wait for fires to break out. They're out there making sure that they don't they do construction site surveys and all of that.

One of the one of the greatest things about our volunteerism in this area is that the gentleman that does the followup and helps us identify this through our our GIS stuff is a volunteer. It's not one of our uh uh paid uh members and but yet we collaborate with our IT and GIS uh partners and particularly Mela Kenoy who who if you haven't met him, you need to. He's brilliant and he does all of our mapping.

And so this is a this is a village kind of mentality between our volunteers, our our very skilled firefighters and our current city staff in order to make sure that what we are seeing out there in terms of potentiality is really is really being addressed. And we don't do that necessarily uh in in a reactive way. We try to be very very very proactive as um Chief Truit identified.

uh we try to get to the region together early in the season to talk about what's going to happen to us and we know that it's not just that Scottsdale has the single largest municipal preserve in the country but we are the crown jewel of the valley and we need to be super aggressive about what our wooi looks like and so uh our I would say almost a little bit um arrogantly here that our that our partners around the valley are happy to participate in the conversation as it applies to Scottdale because we know it it affects Buckeye it affects affects North Phoenix, it affects South Phoenix.

And so anywhere where there's fuel that can burn up against residential communities or commercial properties, this is where we where we will find ourselves. And so volunteerism is alive and well in Scottsdale. And I it the use of volunteers is is not a is is is not something that um is an easy endeavor.

And so before I take comments, I I just want to kind of discuss that a little And so it's a bit of an awkward conversation for me because I I I'm uncomfortable in having to appear to be um diminishing the value of volunteerism in our city in order to contrast the prominent space and place that the Scottsdale Fire Department now holds in the public safety region and our national standing. So innovation is not foreign to Scottsdale. We have been known for innovation for decades quite literally.

From its earliest roots, the department has focused its energy and resources towards stopping bad things from happening to our residents, neighbors, and visitors. But risk deference, profit, and special interests can kill innovation. And I want to talk just a little bit about that. In 2004, a company that was started on the premise of helping one's neighbors had become a profit-driven uh uh over public safety entity.

They informed the city that there wasn't enough money in Scottsdale to continue to perform. And so they left and that is that it's not necessarily meant to be a criticism of the company. It's just that it was their business model and it just didn't work for for them in Scotsdale. What had included innovative approaches to EMS services, special event management, and fire prevention systems like our residential sprinkler requirement no longer served corporate interest of improving the bottom line.

So they were abandoned. Those services were delivered with firefighters and EMS providers and the public bearing the risk entirely of those bad things happening by minimizing the emergency resources available to respond. While all around Scottsdale and I and at that time I was in Glendale, the Phoenix metropolitan area had become the largest single allhazards fire response system in the world. And I mean in the world, second only to FDNY in terms of resources.

If if the if this building started burning today, right now, over 600 pieces of equipment would keep coming until we told them to stop. And that is a significant uh uh uh thought. And prior to 2005, that didn't exist. Scottsdale was literally on their own. It created an environment where these firefighters were ferocious, and I mean ferocious in the ability to to manage more with less.

And it it created innovation like sprinkler ordinances that's that essentially added stops in northern Scottsdale uh and anywhere frankly north of probably gosh huh uh uh at that time all new builds included that and so that is true innovation. We are now categorized as a metroized department that offers comprehensive highly technical services to our citizens and visitors.

Most notably, we are a metrosized department where the expansive WOOI or wildland urban interface where residency and recreation coexist with the largest municipal preserve in the nation. That innovation in the preserve and the surrounding natural area open spaces has been pioneered for decades by many people in this room and is now the crown jewel of Scottsdale and the valley. Citizen volunteers created that western flare through strict vision of quality and standards for wildland urban living.

Professional municipal developers and planners and activists and public safety service providers have ensured that our citizens and visitors are safe as they enjoy that experience. Collaboration with state agencies, conservies, park systems, and citizen commissions have been the cornerstone of this success. So my obligation as your fire chief is to ensure that the services provided by these by the city are the safest and most resilient possible.

There is a continuing role for the community, the businesses and other governmental agencies in that process. Volunteers will continue to be a key player in the role and support of those positions in our mission. We honor them always today and they help us connect to those services who benefit from them. The there's some important distinctions about our volunteers that need to be probably contrasted with the the video that we saw. I know Chief Moroni. He is a true hero of mine.

What he faced in Los Angeles was um almost unimaginable. But it's different. We don't face the winds that they face as frequently as they face them. We certainly are subject to uh western outflows during the monsoon seasons. And if we're not good at fuel management, as Chief Truit has indicated, we we're we are uh we are vulnerable and we could be at risk. And so uh I don't want to minimize the the importance of staying the course of what we're doing.

But the reality is is that our our volunteer demographic is my age and older. And it is it is a dangerous proposition to use them in anything other than the areas of expertise that they bring from their private lives and in areas of support that can help us move the ball forward. And I'm telling you, there is a place for them.

Right now, we have an abundance of volunteers and I and I'm quite sure that as I work with the city manager to provide additional um programming and with the resolution of Proposition 490, we're going to find some new opportunities in that in that space that we're going to see a robust uh re-engagement of some of the sleepy 90 folks that are out there who want to come out and really engage uh the community. And so um that's I know it's a brief presentation on what is really an expansive topic.

I'll I'll finish with this. The we have burned less than 24 acres this year. That's extraordinary. And um I want to say it's it's you know God has helped us for sure but the reality is is that all the things that we have focused on with fuel mitigation with uh sight inspections with windshield surveys with professional firefighters being on the job have helped us reduce the amount of vulnerability that we've had this year.

And I'm not going to rest on those laurels because I know uh uh dry spells can come and we could be in a different place uh next week. But the reality is is that uh hard work has paid off this year. Um we when we last spoke early in the spring, we talked about the things we intended to do and we did them. And so I'm hoping that you'll support us in the future.

And my promise to you, mayor, is that we're going to continue to look at at ways to engage our community in this effort because every one of us uniformly uh agrees that our wildland and open spaces are something we need to protect. I know you do and I appreciate that support. So, I'm happy to answer any questions if you have them. Thank you. I just want to uh touch on a couple of things. You didn't talk about the NAOS uh updated ordinance that amended.

I think that's important if I don't want to catch you off guard, but I know you know a lot about it. I have an update if you wouldn't mind and let us know how that's uh practice. Mayor Barowski, members of the council. So, great news. Um, great planning folks in our city. Um, great work on uh deconlicting the narrative between existing NAOS and ESL uh language has has been done. We believe we're we're almost ready to bring something to the city manager for his review.

Uh I have met with the significant voices in the community uh to uh assure them that what my interest is is to either offer and provide our citizens with the ability to do more when when necessary in their NAOS uh private property obligated areas or perhaps compel them to do so when perhaps they're they're impacting their neighbors. And so that's that's the part I understand quite honestly has got everybody nervous is is what is the fire chief likely to ask us to do?

But we're being very thoughtful. We're working with our significant voices in the community. We we will meet with them again here shortly. I'm working with the city manager to come up with uh some language for you to see hopefully by midfall and then we will have a solution that can be coupled with technology so we can make sure that where slope fuel type and load change inside the NOS we can ask folks to do a little bit more and when it's not required we can minimize that.

So that's that's the update on NOS. Thank you. And on that note, you're definitely the expert on all of that. And you know, for for me, I would support you being the boss of that, right? Really, I mean, it may be one thing not to want to clear your property, but it's a whole other, you know, position to take when it's presenting a danger, right, to everybody around you. So, uh, there was two other questions I have before I move on to the council questions.

How I I do have a question because an alarm went off outside of my house and I didn't want to call the fire department and have a truck show up, but the things you let uh you listed that the volunteers and the cadets do. I think that's highly valuable. How does one a homeowner get in touch with them? Call 911 and just take your chances and the fire truck shows up. When in doubt, call 911. We don't want any guesswork.

Uh we have our great partner in the PD that helps us kind of uh route calls appropriately, but when in doubt, certainly call 911. But we do have uh planned assessments in homes of not only your fire protection systems, but if you have residential sprinklers, we'll come out and take a look at those. Uh so we have a lot of community services we can offer. And uh that when when technical expertise is required, we have staff who will do that.

But when it's not, we can have volunteers go out there and help there. And that's an opportunity for volunteerism in the fire department. And by by the way, great work. My neighbor was trying to convince me to call 911, get the fire department out there because she said, "You came out and changed all the batteries in our fire sprinklers." So, excellent work. But I I and I think that's great, you know, um and hopefully you can use cadetses and the others that you list. Okay, perfect.

Uh, and lastly, I asked the interim chair of the conservancy to stay because I know we've had conversations about kind of the, you know, pushpull about the, uh, NaOS or the, you know, protecting and preserving what's natural out there. And I for one would love to see you, Mike, uh, and Chief Shannon, uh, pow-wow and come up with, you know, a strategy as to how to best do that moving forward. Uh, and so, thank you for sticking around to hear this today. And that's all I have. Thank you, Tom.

You're welcome. And moving on to Councilwoman McCallen. Thank you, Mayor. Uh, thank you for your presentation, Chief. My question is a little off topic, uh, but what is the most pressing issue or need that the Scottsdale Fire Department has currently that we can assist you with? Well, um, not to steal my brother in the room, uh, who just turned 20 in the city, but we have over 200 firefighters that turned 20 as well just this last month.

And so uh the attrition of our senior members, those who have aged into the pension system and are now eligible to retire provides for an opportunity for us to re reboot that generation and invest in the next generation uh uh who is going to lead us in into the upcoming years. And so I'm working very closely with the city manager on a a a progressive and aggressive program on that.

Uh I never thought I'd be happy to get an audit, but I have recently been audited uh by the city auditor on this issue and and a lot of great recommendations have come from that. And so at the end of the day, what we need is a commitment to keep focused on highlevel service delivery by investing in these men and women. Thank you. Um I serve as the chair of the audit committee.

So, I that was kind of a softball toss because I I see it as a huge issue and I want the city to be prepared and thank you all for your service who are here. Appreciate it. Thank you, Coun Vice Mayor Dascus. Thank you, Madame Mayor. Thank you heroes for coming out today. Thank you for choosing to serve Scottsdale, for taking care of us every day, for putting your lives on the line. We appreciate you. We think about you. We pray for you.

Um, and I think every single one of us would say that we are here to support you and provide everything that you need. So, uh, thank you sincerely. Uh, Chief Shannon, um, thank you very much for this presentation. I was having a conversation with our mutual friend Carla today and she was singing your praises and she said that, uh, we have not had a major fire because of the hard work that you're doing.

So, um, please know that we appreciate you and value you and we see the work that you do and and that it's effective. Um, so what I would ask is, um, how how are you doing as far as resources? Do you have the resources that you need? Is there anything else that we could provide for you? This I'm not going to look at the city manager while I answer this. Uh, uh, so mayor, members of the council, so thank you for the question. Yeah, we're a well-resourced organization.

We participate in the budget process. We're very happy. We have state-of-the-art equipment. As Captain Weller pointed out, we are we're doing what we think we need to do from the training and education perspective. What I what I would ask is just hold my feet to the fire to ensure that um uh operationally we we maintain the standards of service that the citizens expect from us by investing uh through the city manager's um strategy that I am working with him on.

uh in order to make sure that that these young men and women are prepared to take the mantle and keep our innovation moving forward. And so attrition is not abnormal in in all of the workplace now, but the pace and the concentration of our potential loss is enormous. And so uh this is a predictable surprise. We've been working on it and so just I would say uh hold me accountable. We'll do. Um do you have any need for any more volunteers at this time? I don't. Um, we have 90 over 90 volunteers.

Um, some of them are inactive. I'm quite sure that as we continue to develop our programming, uh, we're going to light some folks up. Um, but here's the thing about our volunteer program. It is open. You can volunteer tomorrow and we will process you. Uh, we are hiring all the time. So, if you want to be a firefighter, come test. We're we're ready to uh bring you into the organization. There's no age limit. So, uh, if you're if you are my age, uh, and you want to, uh, give it a go.

Don't attempt me to attempt. Yeah. So, uh, so no, I don't. If I if if I was concerned about areas of program management that we couldn't get to, you would hear from me and I I assure you that you will in the future. Thank you, Chief Shannon. You have our confidence. Thank you, Councilman Graham. Thank you, Mayor. Uh Chief, thank you for your presentation. Thank you for coming out tonight and uh appreciate all the firefighters being here.

Like, uh Vice Mayor Dowski said, um this was um we always like having you come out here. We like um you know, educating the public about what you guys do. Uh, we like showing you off your competence. Um, we um, you know, I I tend to agree. You said Scottsdale Fire is the crown jewel. I I tend to agree with that.

And, uh, I think that because we set the standard in the valley, perhaps nationally, if not regionally, if not nationally, uh, the better we get, the more we push other fire departments across the state and across the country. Would you agree with that? Well, you're mayor, members of the council, council member Graham, you're not going to ever uh hear me uh downgrade the what what the value of the firefighters in in our organization can offer.

Um I do believe we have the finest firefighters in in this nation. Um and some of that is that DNA where they had to do more with less. And so the strength of their tenacity in providing services to let's face it, we we serve presidents, princes, and and the general public. And so we have to be operationally very tight. And I'm always proud of the men and women here. Um so what did the auditor find? She says we're doing a great job. No.

Uh no, there's a lot of I trust you, but I'm going to verify. Yeah. Uh there's a lot of room for improvement. uh we have succession planning in place uh but it's in it's it's scattered because we're kind of we're kind of dealing with the crises in front of us at any given time and so we're going to we're going to coagulate that together into a good co program and so I agree you know we can almost bypass the audit committee because I agree with the findings. Oh sure. Yeah. Yeah.

We'll think about that. Um you said no age limit. My sons are four years old. What do you mean by no age limit? Yeah. Yeah. We'll see him in 16. Um the How many volunteers did you say we have? 90 or 100? Well over 90. Yes. Okay. Um if we wanted to add volunteers, do you have the authority to do that? Sure. Uh mayor, members of council, yes. They need only need to come to the Scottsdale Fire Department and pull a card and ask to be a volunteer.

I guess what I'm saying is do you need city council approval or do you have the authority to do to incorporate or expand volunteers? I don't think I do. Uh it might be a a question for the city attorney, but it's it's a policy decision, but I I believe our our volunteer program does not have limits. I'm happy to join that conversation. Uh, Madame Mayor, Council Member Graham, I believe once council sets the policy policy question is really volunteers in general.

Uh, we lean into volunteers here of course uh for our organization and after that I really see it as uh implementation which we assign to uh city manager and in this instance uh my support uh to the chief as the subject matter expert to deploy and support uh to the level that we have capacity quite frankly. Um because when you have let's just say for sake of discussion 90 volunteers uh that's a different management level than if you have 190 volunteers.

Uh and does that take resources away from the front lines of professional firefighters that we have within our organization. So I believe it's an operational item between uh the chief of fire and the city manager. Yeah. So that okay I I hear what you're said if I'm understanding you correctly. you have the authority, you and the fire chief, to expand or incorporate or to do more if if you so chose.

Um, I like the idea, just to kind of wrap my comments up for the time being, I do like the idea of uh, you know, hauling the fire chief down here on occasion and just educating the public. I als I always like the opportunity to um, you know, brag about our heroes and kind of show them off a little bit. And um you know, we're going to do what we're going to trust our professionals. And so um what you say we take very seriously.

Um and um and uh I'm pleased to hear about uh your authority to expand or modify or do what you need to do to serve like you called it the crown jewel um in the valley. So with that, thank you, Madame Mayor. Thank you. I note the city attorney would like to say something. Mayor, members of the council, I just want to add to the discussion.

City manager and the fire chief are absolutely correct that they can um sign up uh volunteers, but I do want to point out that volunteers are covered by workers compensation and that does require an act of the um city council. Uh currently there are city ordinances that provide for volunteers. Um, so we're covered there.

But if we added different categories of volunteers that perhaps were in a more hazardous type of um role, we would have to uh probably change that and and cover that and and increase our workers compensation insurance. So, I have a question about that because not you said they're covered by worker workers comp currently, but it would be different if Chief Shannon decided to add volunteers and understanding that he's directing traffic on what the volunteers do. So, I didn't I didn't follow that.

Mayor and members of the council, sorry for the confusion. Um, in terms of the types of volunteers he's comp contemplating, it would not require any sort of council action on the workers comp. But if there were volunteer firefighters, for example, it it would, but currently he's trusted with directing traffic on volunteers. Correct. Correct. So that would be up to him if he changed anything dramatically. Correct. But he'd have to he'd have to bring it back to the council. The council. Okay.

Got it. All right. Councilwoman Whitehead, can I just give a plug for volunteering at the food bank? You don't quite have the hero glow, but we need volunteers. So, and I've been there for I don't know, six years. Um, so I do want to um, you know, my biggest concern is what you mentioned answering Councilwoman Macallen's question, and I really I guess I want to thank the voters for the bonds for giving us a a fire training facility.

I think that's Are we seeing an increase in trainees that then can fill the ranks? Mayor, members of the council, yes. I will tell you that our recruitment numbers are frankly leading the valley. It's it's it's much leaner than uh certainly a decade ago in terms of the number of folks who are interested in being firefighters, but even our city of Phoenix partners are seeing uh numbers that are lower than ours.

So, um, I got to believe that we, it's because they see Scottsdale as a place where firefighters are supported. It's a great place to work. You get to do a lot of interesting things and we are investing in our infrastructure and so I do think we're in a good place. Well, that's that's great.

And I guess I also want to thank the voters and also uh Sasha's group for Prop 490 because this is the first time you guys were applying for grants to protect the largest urban preserve from wildfire in the nation. That's just not how Scottdale rolls. So I just really want to point out that Sasha's group that a lot of you guys really helped pass that give us the funding we need.

So it seems to me like the NAOS, the changes to the NAOS, and I'm saying this more for the public's point of view or the public's education, that is probably one of the most dramatic changes that we have made and has the most potential to reduce wildfires. So I think you have said, correct me if I'm wrong, I'm sure you will, we have as much NaOS acorage as we do preserve acreage. Mayor, members of the council, Luis is not here, but I think we have in excess of that acreage.

So that means that the border open space exceeds the interior of the preserve. That's that's stark. It is stark. And I think what I've learned is that these every now and then there's a lightning strike, but what we're having is that human caused fires and those happen in areas where there's more humans. And so this NaOS is um often in neighborhoods and whatnot or along roads or different areas.

we've had this unbelievable growth of uh invasive plants and up till now uh the neighborhoods, the HOAs and residents were told they couldn't touch that. So that's I just want you to stress that we're not only giving neighborhoods what they wanted, the right to keep those NaOS actually natural and actually native, but and I really like the part where we're also giving authority to the fire chief to compel neighborhoods or private properties to do what is necessary to prevent the fires.

So, I just I you're very understated, but I just want to stress that yes, we may be the um top um nationwide of the urban wild land urban interface, wooi, I think you call it, but there's so much more we can do with this updated ordinance and I'm I'm really excited about that. And also the other thing I just really want to stress to people who have contacted me is that um you know fighting fires is that's great but I mean that's exciting.

It gets great news coverage but the jobs that to prevent the wildfires is more boring and actually harder work and more requires more thought and that's where we need those resources. And I'm just so pleased with all of you for doing that because Lord knows we just don't want the fires and we want to catch them early. And so thank you. You're welcome. Councilman Clausman. There's no uh participation right now um from the audience. No problem. Thank you, Councilman Clausman.

First, thank you, Madam Mayor. I want to really express the strength of the mustache game I am seeing in this room right now. Just outstanding. Now, thank you guys for all you I really appreciate it. Uh my only comment was the following.

Um it it it's that just uh we didn't really get any a lot of questions about the ground uh groundbased retardant and I just want to express the general I'm sure you're on it concern of any potential long r long um long-term environmental impact that it might have especially if sprayed in the preserve making sure that our critters are taken care of and if there's any we want to make sure that there's an environmental impact study on long-term ground contamination. because you hit the ground.

Now you're hitting the bugs and if you hit the bugs, you hit the birds. If you hit the birds, you hit you hit predators and and so on and so forth. I know it has a lot more of a dilitterious effect on aquatic systems and that's not an issue in the in the preserve. Uh but just want to throw that out there to make sure that we're always taking care of the critters. Thanks, Councilwoman Littlefield. Thank you, Mayor. Uh I just would like to say thank you to all of you for all that you do.

Um long long ago and far away uh I was on the outside part of the people who put this fire department together and made it happen for the city of Scottsdale. And I know what they were thinking. I know they were planning. My husband was one of them. David Ortega was one. and you have so far surpassed what they thought we could do that you have really really made a difference here in Scottsdale. And I know my husband's very proud of that and I imagine David is too.

But you should be proud of yourselves for what you have accomplished in a relatively short amount of time in creating one of the best fire departments I think in the state of Arizona. So, thank you from all of us for all you do for us and for our city. Thank you. Thank you, Chief. Welcome, Councilman Graham. Nothing to comment, but I was just going to move to adjourn. Uh, I just have a couple more points, but thank you for that.

Um, the Trune, I want to give a shout out to Trune, big golf company here, as we all know. they had uh offered as I believe the case is um to use their golf courses or their parking lots as a as a docking station. I don't know what the right term is um in the event of wildfires. Is there an update on on your work with them? Uh mayor, members of the council, uh no, I don't have an update except to say we absolutely want to continue to engage them and it's an interesting uh um collaborative.

I believe APS uh Intergov representation is assisting in that conversation. And it's not only it me of our golf communities occupy space that either can contribute to the hazard or help deter the hazard. And so we absolutely are engaging in them uh in those conversations. Um perhaps uh my uh firewise captain Steve Hunter who's up here. Do you have any updates on Trune at all? No. We'll get that back to you, Mayor. Thanks.

Because I think that's a wonderful opportunity for us to get organized in that respect. Uh, and then lastly, uh, Councilman Quasman asked about the retardants, and I believe APS is already using them, the this, uh, product in the preserve, which is what got my attention focused on it, and I know you're aware of it. You had your assistant chief out of out at a presentation, I think, that was out in Rio.

Um, and I I was surprised to hear you say that there's some toxicity that could be of concern, but are you still looking into that? Is that or is that mayor, members of the council? Absolutely. Um, with every uh chemical product, there's always uh some environmental sensitivities that have to be taken into. I am certainly not the expert in that. And so, it has been approved by the US Forest Service. it will be used if we had a fire tomorrow from an aerial tactics perspective.

And so what what the I think the paradigm shift would be is if residents or businesses or public entities started to use those uh either preventatively or uh proactively during a firefight and the frequency of that use increased, what would that have in terms of environmental impact? And so I'm certainly not the expert on that, but we are going to continue to stay on top of it from a tactics perspective and we'll engage the city stakeholders to make sure that they're looking at that as well.

Okay. And then my final question has to do, I didn't cover this earlier, but I understand from conversations with you and others that uh a lot of sparks or potential fires are created by construction sites that have permits that last 24 hours for um you know, grinding or whatever the case is um out on sites. And I know you've shared with me that you you have volunteers that go and and sit those.

And I think we talked about um maybe tightening that ordinance to allow for only a shorter period of time whereby you would be able to have volunteers out there because I'm thinking or question for you. Do you have volunteers at every site that's approved for these permits right now? Mayor, members of the council, we do not.

And so, uh, the the multi-pronged attack that that, uh, to, if you recall, we had in your office that the city manager referred to includes making sure that our code enforcement matches our intentions of potential changes to the NAOS language and and and is sensitive to um, making sure that we have uh, good knowledge of what's about to happen before it happens so that we can do appropriate site visits. And we're absolutely on that.

Um the reality is that is that um it's kind of like chicken or the egg. We've got to get good NAOS language to you. We've got to then couple that with good code enforcement language. We've got to work with our legal department on enforcement um strategies. And so it's a bit of a process, but we're on it. Now, I will say to finish that um we were dogged this year about getting in front of those construction sites with those uh the brush patrols.

So the brush patrols, they don't arrive on on duty and just sit in the station. They are out along the WOOI looking at those and many stops uh occurred because of that. But the good news is is the contractors got it. Uh my PIO did a great job of dramatically saying, "Please don't burn down our preserve." And uh I think we got their attention.

And then that coupled with uh good site visits kind of got everybody thinking about, "Hey, we're going to be watching." And so, um, I I can't put my finger on which one has made the difference, but less than 24 acres I'll take. Great. And this for the suggestion box, uh, I think it was a builder that shared this with me. the current fines.

I guess this is a a Louise potentially a Louise city manager um thought uh the fines are really not um proportionate to what the potential damages and uh the suggestion this from a builder was to take a look at increasing fines for violations. Um, and I really don't even know what the violations look like, but they can be catastrophic if someone gets starts a fire and lets it go, uh, or does, you know, just starts a fire.

So, that was just a suggestion that I heard um, we might want to consider looking at. Thank you. All right. Thank you. I have nothing further. Thank you, Tom. Appreciate it. And for the gentleman that asked to speak, you may not have been here earlier. Uh there is a public comment period during uh agendaized items and non-aggendaized items and that would require you to sign up to speak and I'm sorry you missed that opportunity but please come back and talk to us again. Thank you.

I'll entertain a motion to adjourn because we have no other business. Without objection. All right. Thank you so much. Thanks for coming everybody.