Flagstaff Adopts $627M Budget, Clears Public Safety Ballot Measures for November Vote

Hello. Oh, I pulled up the wrong I pulled up the Open Spaces Commission agenda and I don't think that that is what we're looking for here. All right. Today is Tuesday, June 16th, 2026 and this is the City Council's regular meeting.

I'm calling this to order and giving notice to the public and to members of the council that at this meeting the City Council may vote to go into executive session, which will not be open to the public for discussion and consultation with the city's attorneys for legal advice on any item listed on the following agenda. Can we have roll call? Mayor Daggett. Here. Vice Mayor Sweet. Here. Council Member Aslan. Here. Council Member Garcia. I am present. Council Member House. I'm here.

Council Member Matthews. Here. Council Member Spence. Here. Council Member Spence, would you lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance? I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for Council Member Garcia, would you do our mission statement? The Flagstaff City Council a hump Oh, I apologize.

The mission of the Flag City of Flagstaff is to protect and enhance the quality of life for all. The Flagstaff City Council humbly acknowledges the ancestral homelands of this area's indigenous nations and original stewards. These lands, still inhabited by native descendants, border mountains sacred to indigenous peoples. We honor them, their legacies, their traditions, and their continued contributions.

We celebrate their past, present, and future generations who will forever know this place as home. Thank you. Next up is open call to the public, and I see we have one member of the public who would like to speak. Colleen Mearing. Good afternoon, Mayor, Vice Mayor, Council. My name is Colleen Mearing.

I'm the Chief People Officer at Northern Arizona Healthcare, and really excited to be here with news that's really important to the health and wellness and economic vitality of Flagstaff and our region. Two recent external validations confirming that the quality of care at our hospitals at Northern Arizona Healthcare, including here in Flagstaff at FMC, is among the safest and highest quality in the state and the country.

The first is from an independent watchdog organization called Leapfrog Group. They evaluate hospitals across the United States on their quality of care. I think there's something like 59 measures preventing infections, helping ensure people don't fall and aren't injured inside the hospital, outcomes of patients who come in predicted versus when they leave. They've just awarded FMC and our hospital in Cottonwood, Verde Valley Medical Center, A grades for hospital safety.

So, Verde has four A's in a row, and FMC is now an official straight A hospital, having received seven A's in a row um based on our the quality of care we provide. We are so pleased to consistently be providing this level of care and work every day to not only keep our standards high, but continue to improve them to serve our community and our visitors um and make sure that we provide the highest quality of care um in our region.

Um to that end uh um comparatively, the Leapfrog Group graded 53 hospitals in the state of Arizona, only 12 received A's, including FMC and VVMC as two of those. The second validation I measured would be CMS Hospital Stars. That's the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services. That's one of the most widely recognized national measures of hospital quality and patient outcomes.

It's a scale of one to five stars across mortality, safety of care, readmissions, patient experience, and timely and effective care. I'm very proud to say that FMC's maintained its four-star rating and VVMC has improved from three stars to four stars. The national average is four stars, so four um places uh us well above the norm nationally as well as in the state.

The improvement's important to us at VVMC um and it also gives us something to continue to aim for, maintaining that straight A status and ultimately one day achieving five-star status um at FMC and VVMC. And we're really proud of the staff that provides the care every day um and again proud to be a part of our region's health and economic vitality, ensuring we have high-quality health care. Thank you. Thank you.

All right, next up is proclamations and recognitions, and we will do these in order on the agenda. And when we read a proclamation that you were here for, we'll ask you to come and join us on the dais. So, the first is for Juneteenth National Independence Day, and the second is Flagstaff Robotics. Are you ready? Yes. The city of Flagstaff office of mayor proclamation Juneteenth.

Whereas Juneteenth, also known as Juneteenth National Independence Day, Jubilee Day, Freedom Day, and Emancipation Day, recognizes the anniversary of the events of June 19th, 1865, when Union Major General Gordon Granger led some 2,000 Union troops into Galveston Bay, Texas, to read the order announced that more than 250,000 enslaved persons in the state and another states in rebellion against the United States were free to ex- were free by executive decree.

And whereas Juneteenth is the oldest known public celebration of the end of slavery in the United States and celebrates and commemorates both the legacies of black liberation, endurance, and joy, and the broader legacy of American freedom. And whereas Juneteenth marks both the end of most black American enslavement and the start of an era of great hope, resilience, uncertainty, and continued struggles for those newly freed black persons in America.

With it comes the call to reflect, remember, and never repeat the historic dehuman- dehumanizing impacts of slavery, segregation, racial violence, voter disenfranchisement, or the other historic and persistent examples of injustice witnessed through African-American history.

And whereas collectively, Juneteenth reminds us of all the invaluable, inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, as well as the precious promise of freedom, equity, and the opportunity core to so much of what our nation holds dear.

And whereas, we take up and extend the call to action to celebrate and ensure true freedom for all, doing our part to collectively strike strive to close gaps of immeasurable distance between us, affirm the promise of the Declaration of Independence that all people have the right to to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, reject acts of violence and expand opportunity to understand and learn from our frank, yet compassionate, challenging, yet courageous conversations.

Therefore, I, Council Member Garcia, on behalf of Mayor Becky Daggett, Mayor of the City of Flagstaff, Arizona, do hereby proclaim June 19th, 2026, as Juneteenth National Independence Day. [applause] Okay. [laughter] Miss Kim is insane and yes, there are more than two black people in this city. [laughter] As a local um born and raised Flagstaff girl, um this is an honor and so I am so grateful and thank you thankful to our community and our council members and our mayor um for the support.

I remember being a very young woman um not too long ago. Um and there being like small parades and people would like black folks that had come here to do like lumber work or work on the railroad. They began these Juneteenth celebrations kind of in their backyard.

So, people would gather and people would bring different foods and um cultural foods, fried fish and collard greens and yams or whatever they and so they got together and just to see um how it is growing and how so many other non-black folk are just embracing it or maybe not embracing it, but they're okay with it. I'm I'm good with that as well. Um it just makes me proud. It makes me feel um safe. It makes me feel seen and um I appreciate you. [applause] Thank you, Crystal.

Um and I I definitely want Crystal to speak as a daughter of Flagstaff, as a native someone born and and raised here. I'm a transplant and uh being from the South, I'm used to Juneteenth celebrations. So, I am very proud of this city of marching boldly into history, unadulterated, non-watered-down history. So, I thank the city of Flagstaff for doing that, whether you brace it or embrace it, it's here, and it's something that should be celebrated. The lack of oppression is good for everyone.

You uplift the minority, you uplift everyone. And remember, the Constitution is for everyone. Your culture is important. So, with that, I want to invite everyone to our Juneteenth celebration on Sunday, June 21st, noon to 5:00 at Heritage Square. And then, there is also an OG Juneteenth celebration on Friday. It's on Facebook. I don't remember where where it is, but it's on Friday night. That's where the original people that put together Juneteenth will be celebrating.

And all of our celebrations are free and open to everyone. You uplift us, you uplift yourselves. Thank you so much. [applause] All right, if I can have all the robotics people join me us down here. All right. The members of the Flagstaff Coconino Coconuts, Flagstaff Christian School Warrior Bots, Flagstaff Christian School Quantum Warriors have demonstrated exceptional dedication, ingenuity, and teamwork in the field of robotics.

Through their participation in competitive robotics and STEM programming, these students have advanced the principles of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics within our community. Their commitment to learning, problem-solving, and collaboration reflects the very best of Flagstaff spirit of innovation and curiosity.

The teams have served as an inspiration to fellow students as ambassadors for STEM outreach, encouraging the next generation of young people to pursue education and careers in technology and engineering. The achievements of the Coconino Coconuts, Flagstaff Christian School Warrior Bots, and Flagstaff Christian School Quantum Warriors bring great pride and distinction to their families, their mentors, their coaches, and the entire Flagstaff community.

Now, therefore, be it resolved that Mayor and City Council of the City of Flagstaff do hereby recognize and commend the Coconino Coconuts, Flagstaff Christian School Warrior Bots, and the Flagstaff Christian School Quantum Warriors for their outstanding accomplishments in robotics and their valuable contributions to STEM outreach within the Flagstaff community, and extend best wishes for their continued success. [applause] CJ, are you speaking? Oh, that's great.

Hello Vice Mayor, Mayor, and City Council. My name is Carter Perry of the Warriors at Flagstaff Christian School, and this year we won first place in the qualifier at Coconino High School and made it to state where we won an international invitational to Atlanta, Georgia where we faced 46 different teams and 20 other countries. Um, and we won the Breakthrough Award which shows how our impact on our community, archaeologists, and non-archaeologists alike.

Um, and we wanted to thank Paul Rosevear from the city GIS department and for his support and feedback to our team. We also wanted to thank Tim Kinney for office space that all of our FLL teams and our FTC team used. Thank you. [applause] Good afternoon Mayor, Council members, and members of the public.

My name is Miles Pearson and I'm speaking on behalf of the First Tech Challenge team 26100 the Warrior Bots from Flagstaff Christian School and in recognition of the other First Tech Challenge robotics teams in our city. We have had an exciting and busy season since we visited Council last summer and I would like to give you an update of our activities this past year.

As you may recall last year we outlined the need shared by the First Tech Challenge teams in Flagstaff for a dedicated STEM workspace in which we could hold practices and share resources for First Tech Challenge teams in our city. Thanks to that presentation before council, we were able to hold a joint event with three other First Tech Challenge teams from our area at the Moonshot campus in September, which was also made possible through generous sponsorship from Choose Flagstaff.

Awareness of our need from uh on the part of City of Flagstaff employees made possible an opportunity for practice space at an unused commercial property thanks to the generous support of Genterra and Kinney Construction. Our team also joined an initiative started by the BASIS Flagstaff Tech Challenge team to form a robotics alliance in which members work to share resources and efforts in order to benefit everyone. That alliance resulted in additional scrimmage opportunities for our area teams.

At the end of the regular season in January, all three of our Flagstaff teams, which included those from Flagstaff Christian School, BASIS Charter School, and Sinagua Middle School, advanced to the Arizona State Championship held at Northern Arizona University. At this competition, the WarriorBots took first place by winning both aspects of the competition. Our team was one of the three teams in the state that advanced to the world comp championship held in Houston, Texas at the end of April.

We were honored to represent Flagstaff amongst the top 338 teams hailing from 27 countries at the event. We are very excited to carry forward the momentum from this past year into the upcoming 2026-2027 First Tech Challenge season. We hope to see the number of teams in our city grow and more students gain access to the exciting STEM opportunities provided by competing in robotics events. The need for dedicated for a dedicated space for teams such as our our team remains a challenge.

We are excited about the recent groundbreaking of the upcoming Joel Montalvo STEM Center. The WarriorBots stand ready and willing to support the City of Flagstaff's efforts to provide STEM opportunities for students through the center and would like to offer the sharing of ideas and volunteer time to that end. Thank you for your time and recognition. [applause] Hello, we are the Coconuts from Coconino High School robotics team and recently we have gone to the World Championship in Houston.

And there we competed against uh 76 teams in our division. And yeah. Hello, my name is Kaylee Tortice and um we are the Coconuts. We are a Hall of Fame team, which is where we win something called the Impact Award. It is the highly most highest um honor a robotics team can get um in the first world um which is where our impact that we had made is that we created a program called Red Robotics.

Um here we were able to start about 18 to 19 um FTC teams on the reservation and it was a huge honor because we were able to bring STEM and educa- STEM and technology to the reservation, especially to um our indigenous children to understand that they have a brighter future in STEM. Hello, my name is Haley Lummen and I am from Coconuts team 2486. So, the mission of the Coconuts was to bring STEM education to the lack and the rural Arizona of the Navajo Nation.

We were able to make it its own division its second year and it's it going on its third year. We have 18 teams in total. We do outreach events that go all over the reservation. Some in Window Rock and then we do one locally near the reservation so it's easier to get access on the reservation because many kids in the reservation don't have what I would say like they don't have the creativity to build things because they are discriminated against.

And so, what we do is we want to like bring STEM to them so that they are able to have a bigger and brighter future and they can see themselves in better places. [applause] Thank you all. Thank you. Thank you. Great job. Great job. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you. Thank you, yes. Next up, we have council liaison reports. Uh Council member Spence. [clears throat] Thank you, Mayor.

I have nothing to report today in part because uh the pedestrian advisory committee is meeting every other month alternating with the bicycle advisory committee. These are two committees that advise the transportation commission on bicycle and pedestrian interests. So, um I'll have a full report in a month. Thank you. Councilmember House. Nothing this evening. Thank you, Mayor. Vice Mayor. There's a water commission meeting um this Thursday at 4:00 here in Council Chambers. Councilmember Aslan.

No liaison reports this week. Uh just wanted to mention you may see my seat empty at some point this evening. That just means I've gotten up to walk around and get some blood flowing in my legs. Um but I'll still be paying attention to whatever presentation's going on. Councilmember Garcia. Thank you.

I'm happy to report that this month at the Parks and Recreation Commission um meeting, uh we all went on a field trip to Hal Jensen Recreation Center to see firsthand what the commission's work has done for this community center located in the Sunnyside neighborhood. We toured the temp We tour toured the temporary community garden space, which is thriving with new budding herbs, fruits, vegetables, and flowers. Y'all should check it out.

We checked out the new and improved computer and gaming room, where the City of Flagstaff has invested in top-quality computer equipment. And it was cool to see all the folks of all ages in the computer room building, expanding, and perfecting their grasp on modern technology. Then, we had the chance to literally cool down in the new HVAC system with the new HVAC system in the uh gymnasium, where the basketball courts are housed.

As a lifelong East Sider myself, I remember many hot, sweltering, and dry summer days playing dodgeball, and basketball, and handball drenched with sweat in that gymnasium. So, I'm very grateful for this improvement. Now folks can play ball year-round safely. Uh for those community members that are less familiar with the Hal Jensen Recreation Center located right next to Coconino High School, please stop in. You will not be disappointed.

They have a complete weight room and fitness center for the low low cost of $6.50 per month with all the latest equipment and more free weights than I see at my uh other gym that I pay for. Racquetball, tennis, playground, indoor and outdoor basketball, state-of-the-art computer room, air hockey, a full locker room, and many other games and opportunities are housed there. Please feel free to drop in. They are open Monday through Friday 10:00 a.m. through 6:00 p.m.

And speaking of Sunnyside and Parks and Recreation, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the Ponderosa Park Spruce Wash flood mitigation pro- improvements are complete. And now it's time for the neighborhood to team up with the city and design a new park amenities. As Park and Rec staff have um uh pressed this process will be led by our have um have professed that this process will be led by the Sunnyside neighbor- hood itself and the community.

Um so listening dates in July are uh getting worked on now and there will be some finalization of those dates and I'll be reporting those dates in the very near future. We are very excited that uh this amenity is coming back to the Sunnyside, but we're going to need the community's help. That's it for today. Council Member Matthews. Thank you, Mayor.

I'll keep it short cuz we have a long agenda, but I did want to highlight that uh last week was uh Maria Zavala, our co-chair of the Indigenous Commission's last uh meeting with us. She'll be moving back down to Tucson at the end of the month. So, I just wanted to say publicly how much I've appreciated her hard work and her enthusiasm on the on the commission as well as other activities in the city. Thank you.

The Flagstaff Housing Authority meets this Thursday at 9:00 and then the Commission on Inclusion and Adaptive Living meets next Wednesday at 11:00 and the first one is always online and the Commission on Inclusion and Adaptive Living meets in the room right next to us. So, moving down to the consent agenda.

All matters under the consent agenda are considered by the City Council to be routine unless a member of the City Council expresses a desire to remove an item from the consent agenda for discussion, the consent agenda will be enacted by one motion approving the recommendations listed on the agenda. Unless otherwise indicated, expenditures approved by Council are budgeted items.

Now, we have two, I believe Council Member Spence wants to pull one item and we are also going to pull Let's Which one was it, Kevin? Um item I. Which is why it goes to H. Okay. So, item I is the is the consideration and approval of a an agreement with C bar 19 C bar 19 for the city's proportional share of the construction costs on Kitty Hawk Lane, but the two sides need to work out some additional details and it will be coming back on a future agenda. July 7th, correct? That's correct.

All right, thank you. So, Council Member Spence, which item did you want to pull and discuss? Thank you, Mayor. I would like to pull 7G, as in gopher, about the purchase of five patrol vehicles. Okay, so let's go ahead and vote on the consent agenda items A, B, C, D, E, F, and H. I'm looking for a motion to approve. So moved. I'll second. Any discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? All right, Council Member Spence. Thank you.

Um my reason for asking this to be pulled from the consent agenda is because of the importance, in my view, of our Council priority for carbon neutrality by 2030.

And the um purchase of [clears throat] five uh patrol vehicles that are hybrid, uh gasoline-electric hybrid, is certainly commendable, but it falls short of the uh fully electric patrol vehicles that have proven themselves in other communities to be effective, uh cost-effective as well as uh effective law enforcement vehicles, um in other communities. I appreciate that there is a need to establish rapid charging so that a vehicle can be turned over in an hour's time from one shift to the next.

I um would like to ask, by way of clarification, what is the schedule of purchasing vehicles for us to buy five this year? Uh do we buy five more next year? Where do we stand on the routine replacement of vehicles when they're aging out of their useful life? Good evening, Mayor and council members. Spence, uh my name is Jennifer Brown. I'm the uh director for public works on fleet and facilities. Um so, let me give you a little background.

Um we are obviously actively looking at electric vehicles. Um to be quite honest with you, the police department is always going to kind of take the backseat. So, any other vehicles that we replace is going to be we're always going to be looking at the electric vehicles um as those as a first option. And we make sure that the um departments are going to be able to continue their operations with electric vehicle.

If it's not, then we go to the hybrid and we move down to the ice vehicles, correct, right? Um but in saying so, I also want to assure you that we are constantly looking at solutions for the police department. Um so, one of the things that we have done is I've worked with a couple of the OEMs, so the manufacturers, to bring in some vehicles so that we can test them. Um so, we are working with the police department.

We've done um a day I I went on a ride-along with the law enforcement officer in an electric vehicle. Um that was a really fun day, but uh you know, so it performed really well. We need to make sure that that vehicle is going to meet the needs of the police department, that they're going to be able to have the equipment that they need, that they're going to be able to um go out into rural areas if they need to, and then also that there's going to be availability.

So, that's where the charging part comes in. So, I So, fleet is working closely with the police department, but we're also working closely with sustainability. And where sustainability comes in is we are making sure that we have the proper infrastructure. So, the infrastructure at the police department, they currently have four chargers there. It is obviously not enough, but we need to make sure that we have the the adequate infrastructure there.

So, they are working well, we are kind of working together to make sure that we can get the infrastructure there. One good step that we have made is we've worked with Coconino County. They actually own the land at the police department, so the Leaf facility, they own that. We've already gotten the approval to go ahead and add the infrastructure. We're just working on funding and making sure that we have the right solution.

We need to make sure that we don't move fast on the police department because I want to make sure that I'm setting up the fleet police department and sustainability up for success. If If I may ask, the the four char- chargers that you do have now, are they level two or level three? Level one. Level one. So, it takes if a if a vehicle police vehicle is down to below 50% on its propulsion battery, it's going to take 6 to 8 hours to recharge. That is correct.

And my goal is to make sure that the police department and the police officers, if there's an incident or there's extra people that are getting called, I need to make sure that they have a vehicle to operate. And have you As I understand it, a level three charging station, such as when you pull into a Tesla or an EV America, um you have a rapid charging opportunity. A level three fast charger could put in um a a 50% charge in under an hour.

Do you have have you been able to get an estimate of the installation charge for a level three char- or one or more level three chargers at the uh current police uh station? We have not. We've looked at the level two and um that it's it's an approximate estimate, so don't quote me on it, but it's going to be roughly around 55 to 60,000 dollars for just one charger. For for one level three? Yes, not a level two. Okay.

And can you give us here on the council an idea um of the number of vehicles that need to be replaced each year if we're replacing five uh vehicles, buying five hybrids this year, how many are we going to buy next year? We're going to buy five. And um and so so how that works it works on a matrix schedule and it depends on how many miles they have, how many how the age of the vehicle.

Um sometimes it's because a vehicle has um been involved in a collision and has since been totaled, so we'll kind of push that in and um keep the other one in for longer. Uh but it does have to go through the fleet management committee to get approved. It does go through sustainability. Sustainability looks at it and then the fleet management committee approves that and then we go to the budget team for approval as well. So there's a there's there's quite of an intense process for it. Thank you.

I appreciate that background. No problem. Thank you. Mayor, I would like to move to approve 7G to purchase uh five Ford Police Interceptor Utility Hybrid Patrol Vehicles from Peoria Ford for 200 and uh 49,936 dollars and 80 cents including all applicable taxes. I'll second. Any discussion? All those in favor? I. Any opposed? All right. Thank you, Jen. Now we're moving down to routine items. First up is consideration and adoption of ordinance number 2026-12. Hello.

Good evening, Mayor and Council. Um Bethan Heng, senior planner. Um the applicant, Alex, and I are here for any questions for the second read for this project. Council, do you have any questions? All right, then I'm looking for a motion to read the ordinance for the final time. I move that we read ordinance number 2026-12 by title only for the final time. I'll second. Any discussion? All those in favor? I. City Clerk.

An ordinance of the City Council of the City of Flagstaff amending the Flagstaff zoning map to rezone approximately 18.2 acres of real property generally located at 6500 East Route 66 APN 113-07-003S to modify the conditions of the previous rezone of this real property to incorporate a new site plan and allow a concrete batch plant providing for severability, authority for clerical corrections, and establishing an effective date. I move that we adopt ordinance number 2026-12. I'll second.

Any discussion? All those in favor? I. Any opposed? All right. Moving down to nine, Public hearing. I am opening the public hearing for the fiscal year 2026-27 budget, the property tax levy, and truth in taxation. And we will have a presentation slash z's. Thank you, Mayor. Good Good afternoon, Mayor, Vice Mayor, and Council. Heidi Berry-Berry, the city's budget director.

My presentation this afternoon will cover agenda items 9A, 10A, and 11A, which are all related to the adoption of the city's fiscal year 2027 budget, as well as property taxes. 2 weeks ago, on June 2nd, we were here and we had the pleasure of adopting the tentative budget adoption. This evening, the process we will begin with is a public hearing related to the budget, tax levy, and truth in taxation. This will be followed by a special meeting for the final budget adoption via resolution.

And then finally, we will continue with the first read of the property tax ordinance to set the property tax rates. Then, on July 7th, we will be back for the second read and adoption of the property property tax ordinance. As you may recall from 2 weeks ago, I shared the legal schedule A or total budget for fiscal year 2027 included on this slide. For 27, the budget is approximately $627 million. This is an increase of $104 million or 20% over the prior year's budget.

Much of this increase, as stated previously, is related to capital projects, primarily in the transportation funds, capital project funds, and water service funds. The city's budget is broken down into five major fund types, which includes the general fund, special revenue funds, debt service funds, capital project funds, and enterprise funds. General fund makes up 122 million or approximately 19% of the total budget.

Special revenue funds, such as HERF, transportation, and BBB, make up an additional 215 million or 34% of total budget. Debt service funds, such as general obligation bond funds and pension debt service, make up 22 million or only 4% of the total budget. Capital project funds, such as prop 441, 442, and the downtown mile projects, as well as others, make up 69 million or approximately 11% of fiscal year 27 budget.

And finally, our enterprise funds, such as water services, solid waste, airport, and SAMs, make up an additional 200 million or 32% of the total budget presented this evening. As I mentioned in the previous slide, much of this increase over prior year is related to our capital outlay. The 348 million in capital outlay includes operating capital, such as fleet purchases, as well as our capital improvement program. The year-over-year increase of 90 million or 35%.

Major projects planned in the coming year include projects such as John Wesley Powell, Lone Tree Overpass, Downtown Mile, Lake Mary Sed Basins, Rio Salado Treatment, as well as many more. The remaining increase is mainly due to operations, which increased 12.9 million or 5.7% over the prior year. Operating increases again include things such as pay for performance and merits, benefit increases, and other operating needs.

Many of the operational increases included in this year's budget are the result of recent rate increases approved by council or the community, such as the parking the parking rate increases for downtown enhancements as well as operating needs for water services. Additionally, a number of operating grants are included in the operating increase. So, next I just like would take would like to take a minute to talk about um the proposed primary property tax shift.

As part of the city manager's recommended budget for 2027, cat staff presented to council in April a recommendation of shifting 0.0400 from our secondary property tax rate to our primary property tax rate. After receiving council's direction, the budget presented this evening includes this shift, which results in a primary property tax levy increase of approximately $537,000.

This entire increase, including new construction, has been designated to support fire and police operations as part of this budget. The rate shift results in a decrease in the secondary property tax rate from 0.80000 to 0.7600. And an increase in the primary property tax rate from 0.5807 to 0.620 6207. Included in the city's budget are the proposed primary and secondary property taxes. Based on council's direction, the proposed primary tax levy is increasing over the prior year.

The total proposed primary property tax levy is approximately $7.8 million. This levy includes new construction of approximately 34,503,000 resulting from the property tax rate shift mentioned on the previous slide. Part of primary property taxes, the assessed values did increase an average of 4.1% over the prior year. The proposed rates before you this evening will be 0.6207 per hundred dollars in assessed value, which is a rate increase of 0.0162 over the prior year rate of 0.6045.

The levy is $581,939 below the actual maximum allowable rate levy, excuse me, by state statute allowed by state statute. The primary property taxes are unrestricted are and are included in the general fund. As mentioned, however, all of the property tax increase related to new construction as well as the property tax rate shift are designated for police and fire operations in the new year.

As for the proposed secondary property tax, this levy is based on the reduced rate from 0.8000 to 0.7600 per hundred dollars in assessed value and will be approximately $9.6 million. This is actually a 0.6% decrease over the prior year's levy. Per state statute, this levy cannot exceed the general estimated general obligation debt service payments which are required for fiscal year 2027.

I would just like to briefly talk about our property tax rate increase and the impacts that you'll see with the property tax rate shift. So, So, provide this slide provides a five-year history of our primary as well as secondary property tax rates. As you can see in this chart, even with the proposed tax rate shift, the overall property tax rate has continued to decrease year-over-year. For fiscal year 2027, the maximum allowable rate for primary property tax is .6670 per $100 in assessed value.

And the proposed rate this evening is .6207, which includes the .0400 tax rate shift as mentioned. Year-over-year, the city's primary property Excuse me, property assessed values continue to increase. The city's limited net assessed value increased 4.6 % over the prior year, which includes new construction of $5.9 million. And the full cash value increased 2.2%. The county assessor's office determines these values, which are based on valuations complete in late 2024 for tax year 2026.

Per state statute, limited assessed value is used to calculate primary and secondary property tax and is limited to a 5% increase year-over-year. I would like to just take a minute to show an example of the impact of the proposed primary property tax, um as well as secondary property tax. So, how does the primary property tax rates and our and secondary rates impact our community property taxpayers?

For residential customers or taxpayers, a property with an assessed value of $100,000 and assuming no increase to the assessed valuation from the prior year, would see an overall decrease of approximately $2.38. However, as I just mentioned, we do have usually an increase to our assessed value, so I'd like to just share an example that's a little bit, I think, easier to understand.

Based on the proposed tax rates, the average impact to a residential customer with a property assessed at approximately $350,000 is approximately $15 per year. This example does include the allowable 5% growth in assessed values. For commercial taxpayers, a property with an assessed value of a million dollars, and again, assuming no increase to the assessed valuation from the prior year, would expect to see an overall decrease of $107.11.

Based on the proposed tax tax rates, the average income impact to a commercial customer with approximately 1.05 million in assessed valuation is approximately flat compared to the prior year, which does include the 5% growth in assessed value calculation. This is due to a change in the assessment ratio from 16% down to 15.5. That is all I have this evening for a presentation, and I'm available for any questions. Council, questions?

I have a question, um really to to illustrate something because I think that, um, the public has the sense that that, um, we collect a ton in property taxes, and property taxes go into the general fund. Primary property taxes. Primary property taxes. The general fund makes up 19% of our budget. Mhm. Do you know offhand the percentage of the general fund which is um primary property tax? Of the total general fund revenues? I'm looking to Rick to see if he has it.

It's really unfair of me to ask a question like that without giving you a heads-up. Heidi, is it 5.4%? I don't know off the top of my head. I asked the same question putting Rick on the spot. [laughter] I asked that question last week and I was told 5.4%. Okay. All right. And And the dollar figure of that? Okay. 7.8 million is the proposed. Okay, 7.8 million of the city's entire budget Revenue budget, yes.

general fund budget comes from property tax out of a out of an overall um 600 million um budget. Okay, I just wanted to I just wanted to point that out because I I think that there is a misunderstanding that um property taxes are making up the bulk of um of revenue that the city brings in. And Mayor, just to kind of on that um and I just want to say thank you to the to Heidi, the budget director, Rick, um the budget section, and all the team that worked on on the budget.

Um but that the primary the property tax shift that was talked about, so um that that brought in about 550,000 dollars for the city of Flagstaff. So, that's not a lot of revenue. Thank you. Councilmember Matthews. Thank you, Mayor. Um so, this gets approved tonight, then when does this go into effect? In August? In August, yes.

And so, I don't know the timing, but I and and maybe I need to do a fair item later, but because, you know, this whole conversation came up to help us fund the future needs and the the gaps that we have in in public safety, um I would like to have a discussion about making it a policy that this additional money is going into uh the general fund is um I know we can't make it a a permanent change, um but some type of policy that it's recognized that it goes towards our public safety.

I know it is now, but future council. Yeah. Thank you, Heidi, and um you handled you and Rick both handled my question very gracefully. Thank you. And just can I just jump in, um Councilmember Matthews, to address your question? That will be done as part of the budget process. So, um and I appreciate you bringing that up. Okay, do we have um So, there are no additional questions from council? Do we have a um any public comment? All right.

So, I'm going to close the public hearing and convene a special meeting. And I'm looking for a motion. No. Yes. I'm looking for a motion on 10A. Mayor, I'd like to move that we read resolution number 2026-32 by title only. I'll second. Any discussion? All those in favor? I. Any Oh, was this the one that we wanted the roll call vote? Okay. Um all those in favor Wait a minute. No one in Okay, we got it. All right. All right. I'm I'm messing myself up here.

Okay, so now I am leaving the special No, I don't think you got a I don't think you got a vote there, Mayor. You You got to say all those in favor one more time. Thank you. You're welcome. All those in favor? I. Any opposed? Okay. Thank you. And now I am down to item Mayor. But it's We have to read I always forget that, don't I? Uh City Clerk, you have a part in this.

A resolution of the council of the city of Flagstaff, Arizona, adopting the budget for the city of Flagstaff for fiscal year 2026-27. Mayor, I move to adopt resolution 2026-32. I second. Any discussion? All those in favor? I. Any opposed? All right, now I'm reconvening the regular meeting. And we are moving down to item 11A, consideration and approval of the primary property tax levy. But I I'm need to close the public hearing. You already closed the public hearing earlier. Oh. Okay. All right.

So, Council, I'm looking for a motion to read the resolution by title only. Oops. Nope. I am down to At this meeting, we're going to go roll call vote to approve the proposed increase in the primary property taxes by roll call vote as required by truth and taxation legislation. Madam Mayor, I move to read ordinance number 2026-13. We have to do the roll call vote first. So, the the clerk will do the roll call vote.

So, the way that it's listed on here, we're looking for a motion to approve the primary property tax levy of $7,801,497 in fiscal year 2026-27 by roll call vote. Madam Mayor, I move to approve the primary property tax levy of $7,801,497 in FY 2026-27 by roll call vote. And I second. I'll second. Any discussion? All right. All those in favor by roll call? And I will start I can start anywhere. I'll I'll I'll run the roll call. Let's go. Great. Councilmember Garcia? Yes. Councilmember House? Yes.

Councilmember Azlin? I. Councilmember Spence? Yes. Mayor Daggett? I. Councilmember Matthews? Yes. Vice Mayor Sweet. I. All right. Thank you for your patience, everyone. Now, I need a motion to read ordinance 2026-13 for the first time. Mayor, I'd like to move that we read ordinance number 2026-13 by title only for the first time. I'll second. Any discussion? All those in favor? I. Any opposed? City Clerk.

An ordinance of the City Council of the City of Flagstaff levying upon the assessed valuation of the property within the City of Flagstaff, Arizona, subject to taxation a certain sum upon each $100 of valuation sufficient to raise the amount estimated to be required in the annual budget, less the amount estimated to be received from other sources of revenue, providing funds for various bond redemptions for the purpose of paying interest upon bonded indebtedness, and providing funds for general municipal expenses, all for the fiscal year ending the 30th day of June 2027.

Thank you. And at the July 7th At the July 7th meeting, we are going to read the ordinance by title only for the final time. True. Thank you. Okay, and we're down to 11B, consideration and adoption of resolution number 2026-30. Let's see. Good afternoon, Mayor and Council. My name is Jessica Figuerido. I'm the Fire Administration Manager for the Flagstaff Fire Department.

I stand before you today proposing an IGA between Coconino County and the City of Flagstaff for fire and EMS services to the area of Fort Tuthill. We offer um many of these contracts and agreements to areas either within city limits but are within county islands, or they may fall right outside of city limits but they're within the fire department's response area. We originally had an agreement with Fort Tuthill in 2012.

That agreement did pause in 2018, and since then we have re-engaged in the conversation for to continue picking up those services. The area of Fort Tuthill comprises of three parcels, and um that rate will be $22,471.26. That rate does increase by 2% each year. We currently have a 5-year agreement proposed with an option for a 5-year extension option should both parties agree. And I am available for any questions. That's all I have for you. Councilmember Matthews. Thank you, Mayor.

Um just for clarification, is this like this do we send out a team when there's an event out at Fort Tuthill? No. Uh thank you, Councilmember Matthews, for the question. This is for EMS and fire response only, so when 911 is called through the through the dispatch center, they still have all of their um uh events staffed with the appropriate security separately. Okay. Um and is this uh it seemed really low. Is this a market rate that normally covers three parcels for a year?

Yes, we determine the rate by the city ordinance, which is based on the primary assessed value for the property. Um the three three parcels in that area um and that's the rate we use to to determine. We do add an 18% multiplier um to ensure that we're recouping the cost to provide that service to that area. Okay, thank you. Yeah. Other questions or comments? All right. So, I am looking for a motion. Mayor, I move to read resolution number 2026-30 by title only. I'll second.

We got all confused with the roll call stuff up here. Um is there a second? I'll second. Any discussion? All those in favor? I. Any opposed? City Clerk? A resolution of the Flagstaff City Council approving an intergovernmental agreement between Coconino County and the City of Flagstaff on behalf of the Flagstaff Fire Department for fire service. Any motion to adopt? Mayor, I I move that we adopt resolution 2026-30. I'll second. Any discussion? All those in favor? I. Any opposed? All right.

Thank you, Jessica. Thank you. Next up, we have consideration and adoption of resolution number 2026-33 regarding West Route 66 and Woody Mountain Road. [clears throat] Good afternoon, mayor, vice mayor, council members. Dave Nixon with capital improvements and I'm here tonight to uh present on the West Route 60 Route 66 Woody Mountain traffic signal and specifically the ADOT IGA that is associated with it.

[clears throat] Brief history on uh council activity uh that we've had already on this project. On uh last October of 2015, we accepted the funding from ADOT in the amount of 1.9 million. And February of this year, we uh approved a contract council approved a contract with our signal contractor CS Construction.

[cough and clears throat] And this specific resolution request is for the ADA uh or the IGA for ADOT rather uh for design, procurement, construction, inspection, and operation and maintenance of the new signal.

[clears throat] And I'm also taking the opportunity to sneak in a quick progress uh report on the on the project, so um as of today, we've got all the poles stood and we're running the signal heads and uh CS's uh by the end of the week, we're going to have uh we won't be operational, we'll still have the signals bagged, but we'll have all the um all the uh aerial work done and it's come along very nice.

So, um couple shots here of that and again on the project schedule, our target is the end of June and at this point we're definitely going to be there with our construction crew and we have we are at the mercy of APS who we've been partnering with all along and right now we're on the schedule for the 29th which is a Monday for them to get us lit up. So, fingers crossed. Yeah. [snorts] Are there any questions that I can entertain this this afternoon? There certainly are. Council member Spence.

Thank you, Mayor. Thank you for that photographic evidence of the poles having arrived and I appreciate that those [clears throat] had to be special ordered. My hope is that those expensive poles can be utilized when the eventual Route 66 improvements are done and the and there's a finalized design of the intersection, can those poles be utilized in the ultimate construction? That is a thank you for the question, Council member Spence.

The you know, as a as the builder or the constructor, it's already on my mind of like I just can't imagine pulling these out. They got 22-ft deep foundations, they're pretty and they're you know, it's temporary but they're they're very it's a solid construction.

So, I'm certainly, you know, at this time I can't give you a great answer or even one that is concrete, but you know, I'm sure hoping that it either somehow they could get repurposed or be reused, but it's just too far in the future for me to speak with any kind of intelligence. Thank you. I I I just appreciate your taking the comment and the hope uh into consideration. Absolutely. My pleasure. Any other questions? Councilmember Matthews. Um you kind of touched on a little bit um in the future.

And you know, we still have people, you know, questioning um improvements in that corridor. But what is your guess-timation, nothing to hold you to, before we have a temp a permanent fix and solution for that corridor? Decade? Five years? Yeah, you know, that's uh thank you for the question, Councilmember. I know that we have we're starting to program the numbers and we're starting to see them, I think, on the budget that was just approved.

The project's now on paper, which to me is like a reasonable first step that we're putting some money's toward it, so um a 30% feasibility or designs uh would would help us to get, you know, I'm thinking if we can get to that level in a year or two, then we could start getting the comment and start getting the pieces together. So, I don't know if that answers it. Uh answers your question. Uh I would hope that we would be less than 10 years, but it's it's really hard to say.

Thank you for that, and that's kind of what I guess-timated, but it's important when people say, "Why are you wasting money on temporary lights?" But when you're talking a decade from now, um it's a great solution for us to do on a temporary basis. So, thank you. Yeah, the word temporary is kind of tricky, right? It's not on wheels. It's not going anywhere, but it's temporary in the sense that grander plans are, you know, being programmed, so yeah. Council, any additional questions or comments?

Okay. Uh seeing none, Councilmember Matthews? Thank you, Mayor. It's with great pleasure, not only to read this um but to also know that we're finally going to be done by the end of June, knock on wood. Mayor, I'd like to move that we read resolution number 2026-33 by title only. Second the motion. Any discussion? All those in favor? I. Any opposed? All right, City Clerk.

A resolution of the Flagstaff City Council approving an intergovernmental agreement between the state of Arizona and the city of Flagstaff for the operation and maintenance of a traffic signal at the intersection of Woody Mountain Road and US Route 66. Mayor, I move that we adopt resolution number 2026-33. I second that motion. Any discussion? All those in favor? I. Any opposed? All right. Thank you. Mayor, can I just before we leave this item?

Um I did just want to um just make a quick statement that we do still have some funds that are available um of those A-dot funds that were transferred to the city and the plan is to bring that back to council um and I think one of the thought is to potentially use it for this um design process that that David uh discussed. So. Excellent. And that's a a process that um that A-dot and the city and Metro plan will jointly be um Great. Correct. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. All right.

Item D, consideration and adoption of resolution number 2026-35. Let's instead move down to E, consideration and approval of Oh, wait. Was I correct? Oh, we do have two items. Sorry about that. We do have two items on um Oh, this is Fort Valley. Be here now. D, consideration and adoption of resolution number 2026-35. Good afternoon, Mayor and Council. My name's Ben Marker. I'm a project manager with capital improvements in the city engineering division.

Uh today I would like to uh uh request your approval to enter into an IGA with ADOT for preliminary design scoping on Fort Valley Road stretching from Navajo Road to Sechrist Elementary School. Uh the location is uh just north of where we're at now in town hall, sort of center of uh Flagstaff going a bit northwest uh of Humphreys and Fort Valley Road. Uh it's approximately a 1.1 mile stretch of Fort Valley. So, the intent is to enter into an IGA for with ADOT for uh preliminary scoping design.

Uh that would include uh uh essentially sidewalk improvements as well as roadway widening. Uh do you have any questions for me? Council, do you have any questions? I just like to note that um Metro Plan and the city um city of Flagstaff have been advocating to keep this particular project on ADOT's priority list and um it's going to take some extra work to keep it there, but it's good that we're um entering into an IGA so we can start some scoping. Yes, agreed.

It this is a this is a top priority for um I think all of us and probably one of the corridors that we get the most complaints about um safety-wise, so I'm looking forward to this. Is there a motion to read the resolution? Madam Mayor, I motion to read resolution 2026-35 by title only. I'll second. Any discussion? All those in favor? I. City Clerk.

A resolution of the Flagstaff City Council approving an intergovernmental agreement between the state of Arizona and the city of Flagstaff for preliminarily for preliminary design scoping for Fort Valley Road. And a motion to adopt? I move that we adopt resolution number 2026-35. I'll second. Any discussion? All those in favor? I. Any opposed? All right. Thank you. Thank you. Next up, consideration and approval of contract for renewable energy credits. Good afternoon, Mayor and Council.

Nicole Antonopoulos, Sustainability Director. I'm thrilled to be here this afternoon bringing a proposal forward for council's consideration to purchase renewable energy credits from the Navajo Tribal Utility Authority. This would be a shift away from our previous contract with APS and would have the potential to yield over $20,000 worth of savings. This purchase would allow the city to continue on its commitments for offsetting our electric use here in municipal operations.

That was first identified by the council back in 2017 and we're proud of the past relationship with APS and those purchase of renewable energy credits. As we discussed last April, it is my responsibility to look for the most cost-effective opportunities for the city as well as developing new working relationships with our tribal neighbors. So I'm here to answer any questions and of course we have Anthony who you met last April to answer any questions.

In Kuniko, Council, are there any questions or comments? All right, then I'm looking for a motion to approve the agreement. I move to approve the agreement for purchase of renewable energy tax credits with the Navajo Tribal Utility Authority for up to 5 years and authorize the city manager to execute the contract. I'll second. And one question No, no, that's good. One question. He said tax credits. Do we need to purchase of renewable energy credits? Does that Yeah, we can you can correct that.

It's not tax credits. It's just renewable energy credits. Okay. So we have a motion for purchase of renewable energy credits and we have a second. Is there any discussion? All those in favor? I. Any opposed? All right. Next up. Thank you. We have consideration and adoption of resolution number 2026-38 and ordinance number 2026-17. Okay, good afternoon Mayor, Vice Mayor, members of Council. I'm Ryan Saxby, your HR and Risk Management Director.

And I'm here today to talk about some proposed policy changes to both code and the employee handbook. Um this these changes are related to the Employee Advisory Council, so the EAC is what we call it. That is a representative group of employees across the city representing the divisions here in the city uh who make recommendations to leadership, city manager's office, myself on work conditions, policies, etc.

And they have their own policy that Mayor and Council approves and it actually exists in two locations. And so this is kind of a a storied history and I was curious when I got here why it was why it existed verbatim in both code and in the employee handbook. My understanding is at one point the employee handbook used to be a literal PDF or a file.

And so to make it accessible to employees in a single location the code was copied and mirrored over into the handbook and has now been part of whenever we make amendments, this body's requirement to make amendments to both locations. So I'm looking to partially along with EAC to clean this up. We now use code publishing which is an online repository of our charter, our code, and our employee handbook. And it's all found on the same page.

And so, if you review the documents on the agenda item under staff summary, you'll see that um we're making change to the code, and then the handbook will have a link to the code, a hyperlink that will take you right to that language. So, if you had questions on the uh on why there's there's two sections, uh city code chapter 1-14-001-006 uh and the employee handbook article 1-10-070, it's because that language is um in both locations.

[snorts] Um so, the EAC meets about every 2 weeks to discuss those items, as I mentioned. Um they came forward in one of their meetings, and they had asked for a review uh requesting that the term limits uh for members be increased from uh 2 years to 3 years. Um no great concern from the EAC itself, nor myself.

And so, we started uh down a track of reviewing the policy, um taking this opportunity to make additional changes that might be necessary to modernize how the words uh read in code and in the handbook here. [snorts] Um if you again, if you read through the documents, the the changes appear significant, but I can summarize them here on this single slide. They really aren't terribly significant.

Uh the first is um the EAC for each each division, depending on the number of employees within that division, has has representatives. So, the larger divisions have three members, we'll say the medium divisions have two, and the smaller divisions have one. Um within that, there's a regular member elected and an alternate member elected.

That alternate alternate member essentially play serves as proxy for the regular member in order to meet quorum in the event the regular member is unable to attend attend a meeting. Um What we're proposing here is within the definitions is in the event of a a long-term or permanent vacancy vacancy in the regular member um position that the alternate member would just assume that role. They go through the same election process um as the regular member. They're just effectively the runner-up.

Um so they would assume that role in the in the remainder of that term. Um right now the policy reads uh defines each division we that's called groups within this policy. Um and the policy is not very nimble. So recently uh community development split and became two separate divisions, housing and planning and development services. And then now we're stuck with a policy doesn't that does not reflect that. Um and so we're cleaning taking this opportunity to clean that up.

Um assume that it's by division and then every year my team we run the elections we'll review the division and organizational structure. Um and then you know we we do a count of numbers to determine how many representatives each division gets and then we can continue to move forward uh with with through elections for the EAC members uh without having to like for example stick planning and um housing together forever because that's what the policy says.

[snorts] Um as mentioned previously uh the change from two to three years for member terms uh we got that written in here at EAC's request. Additionally, and all these requests I'll I'll talk about the process we went for review in a moment. Um but they they elect two co-chairs. Well, that's redundant. They elect co-chairs um to serve and lead the EAC.

Um as it currently reads there's the potential and the the reality that their regular term as a regular member cannot doesn't align with their co-chair term. So we're using language to align that that the co-chair term will align with their regular term. Um and then elections and vacancies again remembering that the alternative member will assume the regular members role in the event of a long-term or permanent vacancy.

Um special elections now will be called when myself and the co-chairs agree that it's necessary to address um too many vacancies across the EAC as a body um as a whole. Uh there was also language in here related to the the budget process. So, the term the team formerly known as the budget team was written into this policy. That has since changed, of course.

Um so, it's much more um long-lasting, I suppose, the language that EAC will have the opportunity to present to the city manager's office and the budget section on their recommendations annually as part of the city's process for adopting a budget, as well as yourselves. Uh and then they'll they have the ability to attend extended leadership meetings. So, our review process in this was lengthy. Um started with EAC. We had multiple meetings between my team and the co-chairs.

Uh we went through changes, sought feedback. Uh the co-chairs of EAC really led this this initial effort uh with it the EAC as a as an entire body um to solicit feedback, go through the recommended changes, went back um we'll say created draft six. I don't know. It was it was many drafts.

Um took this to the leadership team, so that's the city division head's and city manager's office, went through the proposals, uh solicited some feedback, made some changes based on that that meeting, sent it then out back by email, had legal review it. Um so, it's gone through a number of revisions. Um many of them are just clean up, clarity, uh removing redundancies. Um but EAC ultimately has voted to to support this unanimously, um and that's the request here today. Thank you. Any questions?

Council, any questions? Then I will ask for a motion to read the resolution. Mayor, I I would I move [clears throat] to read resolution 2026-38 by title only. I'll second. Any discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? City Clerk? A resolution of the Flagstaff City Council declaring as a public record that certain document filed with the City Clerk and entitled 2026 City Code and Employee Handbook Amendments-Employee Advisory Committee.

A motion to read the ordinance by title only for the first time. Mayor, I move to read ordinance by title by title only. 2026- 2026-17 Yes, 17 by title only for the first time. I'll second. Any discussion? All those in favor? Aye. City Clerk?

An ordinance of the City Council of the City of Flagstaff amending the Flagstaff City Code Chapter 1-14 Personnel System Section 1-14-001-0006 Employee Advisory Committee and the Employee Handbook of Regulations Section 1-10-070 Employee Advisory Committee by adopting by reference that certain document entitled 2026 City Code and Employee Handbook Amendments-Employee Advisory Committee providing for repeal of conflicting ordinances, severability, authority for clerical corrections, and establishing an effective date.

Thank you. All right, so this will be back on the July 7th agenda. Thank you, Ryan. Thank you. All right, we are down to G. Consideration and adoption of resolution number 2026-34. Good evening. My name is Amelia Mason with the public library. Also with me today is Jennifer Sestakopolis, our library director.

[clears throat] For this particular resolution, we are bringing before you an intergovernmental agreement between the city, the Coconino County, and the County Free Library District for the administration, operation, and maintenance of the Tuba City Public Library. The way this um agreement is set up in our current uh the way we currently have it set up with regards to this library, this library is a branch of the City of Flagstaff.

Coconino County performs the maintenance and handles the janitorial contract for the library building, and then the light bills the library district, run by the City of Flagstaff, um every quarterly. So, this IGA allows us to do that, and my apologies for not having slides for you today. And I'm open for any questions. Council, do you have any um questions or comments? Then, I am looking for a motion to read the resolution by title only. May I?

I move to read resolution number 2026-34 by title only. I'll second. Any discussion? All those in favor? I. Any opposed? City Clerk? A resolution of the Flagstaff City Council approving an intergovernmental agreement between Coconino County, the Coconino County Free Library District, and the City of Flagstaff for the administration, operation, maintenance, and capital improvements at the Tuples Tuples City Library. And a motion to adopt? I move to adopt resolution number 2026-34. I'll second.

Any discussion? Others in favor? I. Any opposed? All right, down to H. Consideration and adoption of resolution number 2026-39. And this one is also a library one. Um so this is for the IGA between the city, um Coconino Community College for the rent uh rental space of the East Flagstaff Community Library. Council, any questions, comments? Council member Spence. Thank you, Mayor.

Um I read this um contract carefully and it does uh briefly recognize that a [clears throat] temporary uh facility will need to be uh located um during the construction [clears throat] Excuse me, the construction of the new um Fourth Street uh building for the CCC and the library. I would just like to ask if we could get an update on the planning for um that relocation of the Eastside Library.

Yes, um so I'm happy to share that we do have a potential site um identified and we hope to be bringing a lease before you at the July 7th meeting. Thank you, that's very encouraging. Thank you. All right, I'm looking for a motion. Mayor, I move to read resolution 2026-39 by title only. I'll second. Any discussion? All those in favor? I. Any opposed? City Clerk?

A resolution of the Flagstaff City Council approving an intergovernmental agreement between the Coconino County Community College District and the City of Flagstaff for the lease of 3000 North 4th Street for operation of the East Flagstaff Community Library. Thank you. And a motion to adopt? I move that we adopt resolution number 2026-39. I second. Any discussion? All those in favor? I. Any opposed? Thank you so much. Thank you.

Moving down to I, consideration and adoption of ordinance number 2026-15. Good afternoon, Mayor and Council. Bryce Todea, real estate manager. Today, um for consideration, I have a very simple exchange where we are proposing to abandon a portion of an alley and exchange it with some real property and turn that piece into an alley. So, let me get into it and I'll show you where we're at in the world. So, right now, we are talking about downtown. This is block 19 of Townsite.

So, on the west is Beaver Street, on the east is Leroux, north is Birch, and south is Aspen. That little green piece, that is what we are proposing to exchange. Um here's some fun little history. There's a piece of the plat. Um for some reason, it was always that little L-shaped um odd kind of reverse L alley. I don't know why. Um but here's what we're proposing to do.

So, to try to create more um facilitate better flow through and align the existing alley grid with the rest of the the grid downtown, um we're proposing that we exchange the red and we receive the green. Um this opportunity kind of started as staff discussions for the adjacent development.

So, the adjacent developer came in and council or city kind of staff recognized an opportunity, kind of suggested this um to help better facilitate their development, but also because it's something that we would want. Um this doesn't happen without their kind of being on board. So, this if this is something council wants to approve and consider, the mechanics of this will be first to approve the exchange agreement and then a later item is actually going to abandon it.

And so, we'll approve that we have a deal in place and then after we got a deal in place, then we'll go ahead and formally abandon the right-of-way. Um the franchise utilities are on board. Planning and Zoning Commission, they met um a few weeks ago and there was no concerns with it. Uh they recommended abandoning it provided we could do the exchange. And uh city staff is on board as well. So, that concludes my presentation. I'm happy to address any questions you may have about it.

Council, any questions? Comments? All right, seeing none, I am looking for a motion. Mayor, I move that we read ordinance number 2026-15 by title only for the first time. Can I get a second? I'll second. Any discussion? All those in favor? I. Any opposed? City Clerk?

An ordinance of the City Council of the City of Flagstaff authorizing the exchange of real property of substantially equal value with Leroux Retail LLC providing for delegation of authority, repeal of conflicting ordinances, severability, authority for clerical corrections, and establishing an effective date. Thank you. And we will consider this again July 7th. Correct. Thank you. And you're the next one, too. Consideration and adoption of ordinance number 2026-16.

Good afternoon, Mayor and Council. Bryce Doughty. So, I don't have a formal presentation for this one, but it has a long Council history, so I'll give you the background on that. And if there's any additional information you need after that, we're happy to provide it in a second read. So, back in September of 2024, Council approved a direction to apply some conditions to consider amending an existing right-of-way on Observatory Mesa.

And so, this item today, so that was back in September '24, this item today is an amended right-of-way which incorporates all of those conditions to say to consider amending it. So, that's what's in front of you today. Um a little background about that real quick. So, section six right here, this used to be Arizona State Land. This is now Observatory Mesa. It had an existing right-of-way on it prior to us purchasing it.

So, we purchased it subject to the existing easement for access to a private landholder. Um we also purchased it using grant money from um Arizona Parks and Wildlife, which then attached a conservation easement on it. And so, what we have here is that that conservation easement is very strict of what you can and can't do with these lands. Um we're also very strict with what you can and can't do with open space.

Um what we have is a a right-of-way that these this entity holds that is impractical to build on using the to meet our current standards of how we want a road built for fire access and things like that.

And so, through the many public meetings that Pros and Open Space and City Council have had about this, um, they developed all of these different conditions to say, "Yes, we will consider doing amending this so that you've got a right-of-way that can actually be built to the standards that we want, provided that the right-of-way plans were approved by the Parks Parks and Wildlife, they're approved by State Historic Society, um, that and they include extensive restoration guidelines.

So, really this right-of-way amended right-of-way that is before you incorporates everything in there that was asked of them and the the entity that will be um, accepting the amended right-of-way, they've done everything that we've asked of them to date and so we're at the stage of amending the right-of-way and then they will go and seek construction plan approval through Parks and Wildlife.

So, we have other staff available for any additional questions beyond this, but that is the background on this one and we are happy to address any questions. Thank you, Bryce. Any questions or comments? Council? All right, I'm looking for a motion to read the ordinance. Mayor. I'm sorry, we had public comment. Oh. I'm sorry, we've been breezing through everything and I Yes, thank you. Uh, taking public comment, we have Cody Routson.

And my apologies, she wouldn't have let me get away with with not calling you up here. Um, thank you, Mayor, Vice Mayor, and members of Council. I'm one of the property owners that this easements will serve. I just mostly wanted to present that we're real people and and to thank everyone who have put a considerable amount of effort into guiding us along this path.

Members of city staff, Kevin Fincel, Robert Wallace, Rebecca Sayers, most recently Matthew Mansfield have all put a lot of time and effort into um shepherding us and so I appreciate all of them. So I just wanted to acknowledge everyone and I'm here to answer any questions that you may have. Thank you. Council, do you have any questions? All right. Thank you. Our next is Alexis Stack. Hello. My name is Alexis Stack and just like last time I'm nervous. This wasn't on my bingo card.

I'm one of the owners of the smaller parcels up there. I would like to thank the city employees, the open space commission, city council, the other land owners, especially Cody um for all the work and time that's been spent on this. Although I do appreciate the amount of work this has been, I would be remiss if I didn't express my frustration with how this has been handled along the way.

We bought this property that is zoned rural residential two and has three recorded easements that date back to 1986. It seemed simple. It has not been simple.

From what I can count looking back on my notes, it has been nine official city meetings, one state parks meeting, countless emails and calls, and dates back to July 17th, 2023 when we met in a little conference room with city staff and were told things like hire a lawyer and we were outside of our legal rights before an actual conversation even started.

Then we spent from December of 2023 to April of 2024 in open space commission, where it seemed where legalities were being ignored in place of feelings and we were being asked to adhere to conditions that were completely ridiculous or that already exist within city code uh and also being told buyer beware.

We have been the can kicked down the road over and over even as recently as last month with self-imposed deadlines passing and palpable irritation when the missed deadlines were followed up on. Uh I can tell you in the last 3 years we have uh been attempting to remind everyone we are not asking for a new easement, one already exists.

It predates the conservation easement and we have spent these 3 years working with engineers, city staff, studying traffic, and working closely with each other to amend the existing easement to both be soundly engineered to meet city of Flagstaff requirements while doing our due diligence of reducing the amount of disturbance to the open space area. I think we have a good plan at this point.

I [snorts] pulled the original deed for the Growing Smarter property and I have quoted this in a meeting before, but I think it's an important reminder. It's on the very first page. Quote, "The property is subject to existing reservation, easements, or rights-of-way heretofore legally obtained and now in full force and effect." And then again on the fourth page it speaks on the conservation piece.

"Notwithstanding any other provision of this article, the reclassification of trust lands as suitable for conservation purposes shall not restrict or unreasonably limit access to use or use or enjoyment of private lands. Any lease or sale of land pursuant to this article shall include a condition requiring that permanent access to and use and enjoyment of private land be allowed." End quote. I'm really hoping that this is the end. Thank you.

All right, seeing no other uh public comment, I'm looking for a motion to read the ordinance. Madam Mayor, I will move to read ordinance number 2026- 16 by title only for the first time. I'll second. Any discussion? All those in favor? I. Any opposed? City Clerk.

An ordinance of the City Council of the City of Flagstaff approving amended and restated easements on Observatory Mesa with the Hidden Bluff Homeowners Association, providing for delegation of authority, severability, and establishing an effective date. Thank you. And July 7th is the next meeting for this one. Item K, consideration and adoption of ordinance number 2026-14. Good afternoon. So, we've already approved the exchange agreement.

This ordinance is going to formally abandon the red piece of alley so that we can convey it to the party um to receive the green. Any questions, comments? I'm looking for a mo- Yeah, sure. Thank you, Bryce, for the presentation. And I just wanted to since there's no graphic of color that shows the alley extension, um and and I'm not necessarily I'm kind of I didn't go visit the alley. That's what I'm trying to say.

Is the other part of the alley that's not in green that extends east to west is uh does that need any improvements or any development? So, right now at that is existing alleyway right away, so it can't be built on or anything like that. So, um I can't speak to the existing condition of it. I think it's, you know, a lot of those alleys downtown are a little rough. Um that might be that.

But, uh you know, with this exchange, um if that development does happen, um you know, this is an exchange we'd want to do regardless, but part of the um off-site improvements would be to bring the green piece into uh a standard that you know, basically build it. Yeah. It would run concurrent with the current alleyway. Correct. Sounds great. Thank you, madam. All right. I am looking for a motion to read the ordinance.

Mayor, I move that we read ordinance number 2026-14 by title only for the sign Oh, for the first time. Can I get a second? Second. Any discussion? All those in favor? I. Any Any opposed? City clerk? An ordinance of the city council of the city of Flagstaff abandoning approximately 2,400 square feet of right of way in block of town site, providing for delegation of authority, repeal of conflicting ordinances, severability, and establishing an effective date. Thank you. Thank you, Bryce.

All right, we're moving down to L, consideration and adoption of resolution number 2026-27. Good evening, Mayor and Council. Um Michelle McNulty, playing in planning and [laughter and clears throat] development services director. Um Rob Faus is going to be giving this presentation tonight, but I just wanted to take a moment to introduce him. He's our new Dark Skies compliance officer. He's been in the position for 6 months.

And it is with a great honor to welcome him to the PDS team and to team Flagstaff in this role. He's just so aware of the precious resource um and the high value that we place on our um Dark Skies. And so, the 6 months that he's been here, the fresh perspective and the energy he's put into the program have been astounding to watch. And he's going to give a brief overview on the IGA and then talk a little bit about where they're taking the program and just really honored to present Rob tonight.

Welcome, Rob. Thank you very much. Uh Thank you, Madam Mayor, and Vice Mayor, council members. I'm going to start with talking a little bit about the IGA. Um got some notes here um provided by Mark Stanton, who as you know, this is a collective endeavor between the City of Flagstaff and Coconino County. Um I think this is in your um information as well.

Um the new IGA expressly ties the position to the 2019 uh joint land use study um regional land use compatibility enforcement objectives and adds uh stand-alone objectives uh section uh addressing sensitive installations, consistency across the jurisdictions, education and outreach, and intergovernmental coordination. Uh the employee and work plan language streamlined um in this uh new agreement.

Both versions excuse me [clears throat] keep the specialist as a city employee with shared city and county management. Uh new draft removes the old requirements that each party provide workspace and simplifies training professional development language. Um so, uh report is simplified. Um the old IGA required daily activity reports um and jurisdictional time allocated um records and semi-annual reports due on uh specific April October work days.

Uh the new draft only requires tracking per city procedures and semi-annual summary reports on a mutually agreed schedule. Right now, we're doing it monthly. Um funding, uh the old IGA contemplated a $10,000 Lowell Observatory contribution and then a 50/50 county uh city split uh with remaining uh salary costs after third-party contributions.

Uh the new draft removes Lowell third-party contributions uh language and states that the county pays 50% of the specialist base salary only, excluding overtime, acting pay, specialty pay, leave payouts, and um other one-time compensation unless otherwise agreed in writing. Uh does clarify that the city pays benefits, retirement, work retirement, workers compensation, and payroll taxes. Um I think that's a pretty good overview.

Um most of the boilerplate remains the same um and I'm sure it's available for you. So, I'd take you through a quick presentation again um as Michelle mentioned, I've been on the job for 6 months for officially. I'm kind of walked into this role a little bit early, um which was really uh helpful in me kind of getting up to speed as far as what the uh role required. And let's see here.

And I'd just like to note that the signed IGA renewal from 2021 is linked to the agenda as is uh the current renewal. That's correct. Thank you, Mayor. Okay, so. Where is this? Okay, so um this is the basics of the dark sky uh designation that we received.

Um the city of Flagstaff was recognized as the first uh international dark sky city um in October 24th, 2001 for its pioneering development and implementation of lighting codes that balance the need for uh preservation of the Flagstaff dark sky resource with the need of safe outdoor lighting practices.

This division is to help ensure that dark skies remain a resource to be enjoyed by the Flagstaff community and its visitors, minimize light pollution and light trespass across property lines, maintain an environment that the city's astronomical industry it depends on, reduce energy consumption, minimize the potential disruption to nocturnal ecosystems, and to allow safe and efficient outdoor lighting.

I want to talk a little bit about residential and commercial challenges that um I've discovered within the last 6-4 months, um 6-4 months. Um There are countless violations citywide without a doubt. Um I spend three nights a week out and about, and um I was astounded with how much I came across that um I would need to tackle potentially. Um we've got limited resources to address complaints while still generating staff-driven cases.

Um we do use a number of platforms that uh residents can use to um communicate with us as far as stuff that they're finding. Um a lot of this is um common with neighbor-to-neighbor um complaints. Um primarily decorative and landscape lighting are the biggest ones I'm seeing out there. Um a lot of string lights, bright LED lighting, um uplighting, um and then misconceptions of brighter is better. Um and this I'll talk about a little bit later in safety.

Um prioritizing resid- residential complaints versus commercial complaints is definitely something I've learned to uh to do. Um and then um what What also finding is uh new builds um are changing their fixtures after CFO. So, while something might be compliant um immediately when they get CFO in some of these um bigger developments, uh folks will come in afterwards and decide to change the lights out and uh create a violation. Uh commercial.

Um compliance timelines are definitely lengthy and include electrical engineers, consultants, and other specialists. I'm commonly talking to people all across the country when uh commercial entities are um hit with a violation. Um lack of financial resources for smaller entities uh for work to be performed. And then a lot of uh education, I'll say, lack of prior knowledge regarding what our outdoor lighting standards are. So, big educational component there for commercial entities.

Um contractors are commonly bypassing uh the permitting process. I've dealt with that quite a bit, too. And then unshielded string lights and um uh floodlights, as well. And then misconcept misconceptions about safety. And I think the next slide is going to talk a little bit about that. Um You'll notice on security um the Wells Fargo, that's on Fourth Street. Um they're they're in full compliance. These are beautiful amber um lit parking lots here they've got.

Um data shows that crime does not decrease necessarily as light increases. Um effective lighting design utilizing fully shielded fixtures can enhance security while using less energy and lowering the impact on the community. Um Safety, one of my favorite things to say when I'm doing table events or talking to the public is that uh brighter lights definitely create darker shadows. And uh you can see by this illustration here illustration here that um the shadows are very dark.

Uh really good place for um folks to hide if they're um interested. And then feedback from the field, this This kind of just general stuff I've discovered Driving down any given street in Flagstaff can yield numerous residential cases. Lighting of long-term rentals and short-term rentals are generating calls from neighbors citing violation of the dark sky ordinance. Contacting one residential case will commonly generate complaints from the contacted residents.

When I go up and talk to residents, they're going to point to their neighbors right away and it kind of gets out of hand exponentially. As string lights are becoming more popular, I'm finding a lot of tree wraps, bushes, decks, fences, roof lines and that's kind of in conjunction with holiday lighting that's remaining up and illuminated all year round. The largest emitters of light pollution are commercial for sure.

We just had a couple that I was able to reduce 100,000, 200,000 lumens just from one commercial property. That's really where we find most of our emissions. And then I'll frequently not knowing the code, commercial entities will change the lights without checking on what the code is and that obviously would stimulate a visit from me. The other thing to note is that local hardware stores touting safety will often tout brighter lights.

Just like I said before, brighter lights definitely make darker shadows. In case you weren't aware, residential limitation on lumens is 5,000 lumens per acre, I'm sorry, 5,000 lumens per So no matter if your parcel is a quarter acre or three acres, 5,000 lumens is the max. Commonly with hardware stores, the most bright lights they have are 8,000 lumens so they exceed the limitation of these residential properties.

And then as we get more development, we're definitely going to see more lumens just by default. I will say that a lot of our builders in town are very knowledgeable about what the restrictions are and know the code very well and um they're very cooperative. Um logistics in practice, um investigative field work will yield as many residential and commercial cases as are feasible to handle.

Um in addition to patrol generated cases, outdoor lighting violations are submitted through a variety of mediums by residents. And at any given time, I've got 20 active cases on my plate. Um I I can easily get 20 a night if I really wanted to. Um this requires a lot of communication between myself, the dark sky specialist, and the party in violation. Uh this commu- communication, as I stated before, will also include electrical engineers, contractors, business owners, and residents.

And it's not uncommon to need to educate these parties as far as what the code is. I spend a lot of time doing permit review. Um with out-of-state uh contractors or entities, there is a lot of back and forth as far as educating them on what our codes actually require. Um we've got a pretty good code in my opinion, but it's very strict and it's um kind of a shock to a lot of the electrical engineers that I deal with.

Um I also, like I said, do a lot of outdoor lighting permit and final lighting inspections, uh requiring a good amount of flexibility with the existing caseload. Um definitely time management is something I'm learning to a lot better, um prioritizing and triaging what needs to really take place. Uh we do have a new code one that took my role when I stepped up to the light specialist, and um he's starting to learn about all this as well.

So, we're really able to uh kind of get out there a little bit um more and uh tackle more cases with uh with him. Um some potential solutions I'm brainstorming right now um is definitely community outreach with local schools, um educational fireside chats, um at supportive venues. Um I've had some meeting with some homeowners associations, and they've asked me to come and educate them on what um our code is, um apartment complexes as well.

And then I would welcome anybody who's interested to do patrol ride-alongs. It's a lot of fun. Um I'm out for 2 and 1/2 hours a night, three nights a week, sometimes more if I find a lot of stuff that I need to tackle. But, um you've got an open invitation to come out with me anytime and cruise around the neighborhoods, and um I can show you what we're dealing with with light pollution. And then, I would like to see more social uh media to heighten awareness.

Um I'm in the midst of direct uh developing some curriculum with Willow Bend and uh Camp Colton right now to see if we can't uh start hitting it from the uh younger individuals' perspective and educate them. And then, um contemplating utilizing NAU and CCC interns. So, just some ideas that I'm pondering right now as I get more and more into this role. It's really fun. I've had a blast with it, and um would welcome any questions if you've got them. Thank you very much. Um Thank you.

great presentation, and um welcome again to the team. And I will say to all of staff that I know the council would welcome um additional updates from Dark Skies. It's It's a priority, and I think it's really important that we be talking about it even more than we're currently talking about it. So, thank you. Um Council, any questions or comments? Councilmember Aslan. Yeah, thank you so much.

I'm so glad you're on board, and you've already hit the ground running, and I wish you the best of luck with, you know, uh those uncomfortable conversations that sometimes arise out of uh code compliance. Um very grateful for you. Uh you know, I'm a huge proponent of our dark skies, and I'm very proud of my role over the past 7 years in protecting and advancing that cause.

Um I just want to take a beat to give a shout-out to Metro Plan's Kate Morley, who has been very responsive to my uh particular requests to work with ADOT to change the culture of their bureaucracy to allow for what we do up here and and you know just trying to drive home the message that we're not we're not simply just quirky and weird up here but there's very specific reasons why we want to protect our status as a and our designation as an international dark sky city.

I'd love to see the the whole of Northern Arizona expand into a dark sky preserve and working on that in the margins as well. You know, I don't need to overemphasize what we all share up here when we're talking about why we value our dark skies but I do want to put a finer point on two things. I just like to do this whenever I have the opportunity to.

Our community just made a $52 million investment in an open sky planetarium on top of the hill and it would be a real shame if the the the experience that visitors and members have over there diminishes over time because you know, we take the foot off the gas of this program and you know, the US Naval Observatory provides a critical national security mission for for the United States for timekeeping and and for defense and for other things.

You know, and coincidentally purely coincidence I was up there last night. My daughter has an internship for the summer.

She's working with some of the folks at the Naval Observatory and we got access last night to go up there and and just see things and do some stargazing and I was able to do some astrophotography and it was very clear as wonderful as the night sky was last night no moon and the compliance that we do have provides an exceptional experience but even when a cloud is drifting by, you can definitely it's it's it's it's very conspicuous at the Naval Observatory because of the lights from town bouncing up off the clouds.

And you know, there's a red hue that that's everything, especially near the ground, which actually shows that we're doing good with our our shifting of our light changes. Our frequency our wavelengths, but it's it's still it's a constant fight and it's one and if we if we if we if we let off the gas, um things will will go away. And you know, I love how our community is able to be a um an example for the rest of the state and and the region.

I know that even communities in Phoenix are following our lead like Fountain Hills and Paradise Valley and things like that, which is really exciting. And so your work precedes you. It's creating opportunities all over the place and one of the greatest things that we have with our night skies the ability here in Flagstaff to to be in touch with the cosmos from which we came from.

And to have those questions and a wonder and to and to and to just um have those experiences especially for children who grow up valuing that they'll be the next generation of those who protect what we have left in dark skies. And just want to thank you personally welcome you to the team. I'll take you up on that drive-thru at some point or that right along.

Uh and looking forward to what you have in store and and you know, you certainly have my blessing in terms of getting out there and applying a heavy hand in securing compliance. So Thank you. Council anything else? All right, then I am looking for a motion to read the resolution. So moved. I'll second. Any discussion? All those in favor? I. Any opposed? City Clerk.

A resolution of the Flagstaff City Council approving an intergovernmental agreement between Coconino County and the City of Flagstaff for a jointly funded dark sky code compliance specialist position. And a motion to adopt. Madam Mayor, I move that we adopt resolution number 2026-27. I'll second. Any discussion? All those in favor? I. Any opposed? All right. Thank you, Rob. Thank you, Councilman. Moving down to M, consideration and adoption of ordinance number 2026-18.

Hi, Mayor, Vice Mayor, Council, Kevin Finsel, Deputy City Attorney. Um, I'm going to take this item. I was actually in front of you 2 weeks ago on June 2nd talking about the Canyon del Rio, um, the second amendment to the Canyon del Rio DA. And through that DA or as part of that DA, Council agreed to compensate Canyon del Rio, um, for 14.7 acres of right-of-way that is needed for the John Wesley Powell extension across their property.

Um, that approval or that, um, second amendment was approved via resolution. But our city charter requires us to acquire property via ordinance. So, I'm here tonight asking Council to approve this ordinance to essentially comply with our charter for that acquisition of the 14 plus acres. I'm also asking Council to do both reads tonight, which is somewhat odd, but allowed under our charter. Um, it requires unanimous vote on the second read.

So, if you see your agenda in front of you, it is proposing both the first read and the second read tonight, but again, that second read has to be by unanimous vote for it to count. Um, and that's about it. Thank you. Council, any questions, comments? All right, I am looking for a motion to read the ordinance. Mayor, I motion to read ordinance number 2026-18 by title only for the first time. I'll second. Any discussion? All those in favor? I. Any opposed? All right, city clerk.

An ordinance of the Flagstaff City Council authorizing the acquisition of approximately 14.7 acres of real property interests generally located southwest of East Butler Avenue and South Fourth Street for the John Wesley Powell Extension Project providing for delegation of authority, severability, and establishing an effective date. And a motion to read the ordinance by title only for the final time. Mayor, I move to read ordinance number 2026-18 by title only for the final time. I'll second.

Any discussion? All those in favor? I. Any opposed? All right, city clerk. An ordinance of the Flagstaff City Council authorizing the acquisition of approximately 14.7 acres of real property interests generally located southwest of East Butler Avenue and South Fourth Street for the John Wesley Powell Extension Project providing for delegation of authority, severability, and establishing an date. And a motion to adopt. I move that we adopt ordinance number 2026-18. And a second? I'll second.

Any discussion? All those in favor? I. Any opposed? All right. Thank you all. Now we are moving down to item N. Thank you, Mayor and Council. Uh, Shannon Anderson, your assistant city manager. Um, this will be a brief presentation uh just prior to the call of special election um as a reminder of what we're asking for um and then Stacy will touch base on the two resolutions.

Um so for our background, we've updated this slide a bit uh to reference the um few presentations that we've provided to Council. Um so March 24th, uh we did a presentation where we identified those public safety needs. Um May 5th, we focused on those community survey results. Um and then most recently, May 26th, uh we uh presented on the citizen committee recommendation.

Um also want to continue to point out that all of the work that we did with the citizen committee, all the presentations, um the questions and answers, all of those documents are on on Connect Flagstaff site, and we've included a link uh in the presentation that council or any members of the community uh can view at any point in time.

So, as a reminder, the citizen committee recommendation includes a half-cent sales tax, um a $40 million general obligation bond, um and then although this third item isn't necessarily for the upcoming ballot, we didn't want to lose sight of it because it is part of the recommendation, and that's to evaluate the water resource and infrastructure protection fund fee. We call it RIP for short.

Um they're requesting it be bumped up um and be evaluated in 2027 uh to address uh needs in the wildland fire management program. So, when we talk about our ongoing resources, um the half-cent sales tax will provide ongoing resources to hire additional all-risk firefighters that respond to wildland fire calls, residential or commercial fires, and provide emergency medical services.

It provides those staff members with the academy and the ongoing training resource, and the specialized supplies and equipment to do the work. It provides them protection through cancer testing and ensures they have the important safety equipment like turnouts. The ongoing funding will provide training for police personnel, maintain all public safety facilities and response vehicles, and emergency planning.

It also provides for additional staffing in emergency management, aircraft rescue firefighting, and police, along with the equipment and supplies they need, such as public safety radios, computers, and personal protective equipment.

Moving on to the $40 million general obligation bond, um this can be supplemented uh with development impact fees and will provide the one-time resources needed for construction and equipment for new and existing buildings, purchase vehicles, cardiac monitors, radios, computers, and software. The half-cent sales tax creates approximately $18.2 million in revenue each year. And would provide the revenue needed over the next 15 years.

It would increase the city's tax base, excuse me, the city's base tax rate, but benefit of a sales tax instead of a property tax is that 37% of the sales tax is paid by visitors who use these services and a smaller increase produces a large amount of ongoing revenue. For example, a 14% property tax generates just over $1 million and and a half-cent sales tax produces $18.2 million.

Half of the Arizona cities have a rate of 3% or higher and you can see how Flagstaff compares in the chart to the right. There've been four cities that have used a sales tax to fund public safety needs and additional communities are considering the opportunity to address unmet public safety needs currently. For the city of Flagstaff, it is a funding source for ongoing staffing, contractual, and commodity expenses.

So again, there's been some confusion over time about what sales tax applies to within the city of Flagstaff. And so we shared this with you last time, but one of the things that we talked about during that discussion is a few examples. And so we've added that information to this slide. Um so to remind everyone um that this tax does not apply to food at the grocery store or residential rent as examples.

But it does apply if you're going out to eat at a restaurant or if you purchased a refrigerator. The half cent would equate to 50 cents for every $100 spent. So a few examples, if we purchased a $50,000 vehicle, it would cost you $250 more with this half cent sales tax. If you decided you were going to grab some fast food for lunch while you're on your way to your next meeting, it's going to cost you 11 cents more.

If you buy a gallon of milk and that cost is $4.59, doesn't cost you any more cuz this is considered food at a grocery store. Um and the same thing with apartment rent. If you're paying $1,575 for your studio apartment, it's not going to cost you any more because the sales tax does not apply to that residential rent. Um so hoping that those examples bring forward what we were trying to explain um in that what a sales tax would mean to those that live in our community.

This slide articulates what the ballot language would look like for the sales tax. Um basically talks about it's to levy a transaction privilege tax. It's dedicated to enhance public safety services. It's at a rate of that 0.5 or the half cent. It would begin on July 1st of 2027 for a period of 15 years ending June 30th, 2042. Um and this is what you would see this proposition number 404 on the ballot should council uh support putting this on the ballot for November of 2026.

Moving on to the general obligation bond, this slide's been updated since we met because you've been working on adopting your budget. Um and if you will recall, there is a portion of that budget that Heidi talked about earlier today where we're shifting some of our secondary property tax to primary property tax. That has an impact on our general obligation bonds. Um you'll see at the first bullet point that there's 95 million in capacity.

This is slightly less than the 98 million that we presented to you on May 26th, and that's because with that shift, you have a little bit less capacity in your general obligation bonds. Um again, it reduces that flat rate policy. You used to see a 0.8000 there where you now see that .7600. And then in the next few bullets, we talked originally about assuming an assessed value of 4%. We chose to look at 5% because 5% is the maximum that the assessed value can go up each year.

So, if there was a maximum increase of assessed value, it would cost the average residential customer $14.93 more per year. But that's only if there's an increase in assessed value. Simply giving a bond doesn't necessarily increase it. It's only if the assessed value goes up. Um for that $1 million property, um for commercial property, it would be $0.11 less per year.

And Rick actually talked through some of this with council um back at your April retreat, so it might sound familiar for that exact reason. Uh we wanted to again remind that this general obligation bond would be supplemented with development impact fees. Um and it also is a great one-time source for buildings and equipment. The more that we're able to put into a bond, it reduces that amount that we need through a sales tax. So, moving on to a similar slide where we talk about ballot language.

Um this uh ballot language would talk about the issuance of a general obligation bond in a principal amount of $40 million. And this would be to invest in public safety infrastructure and equipment. Uh this would be proposition number 405, and this is what it would look like um should a ballot measure be placed on the November 2026 election. So, I will turn it over to Stacy, and she'll talk about our resolutions. Thanks, Shannon.

Stacy Saltsberg, I'm your communication and civic engagement director, and also serve as your city clerk. Um so, tonight before you are two separate resolutions. The first will be um to call a special election on um a bond measure. So, that's resolution 2026-36. And then the second resolution um will call the election for a sales tax uh question if you choose. Um adoption of these two resolutions allow my office to take the next steps in preparing for the November election.

This will be um that this will include opening um a call for pro/con statements from our public. That would start um to gather those, and also for the development of our publicity materials um to be uh created and sent out to our households with registered voters. Um as Shannon was going through the presentation, I did notice um a typo on the sales tax ballot language.

So, as you can see there where it says um a no vote shall have the effect of not of approving, um that will be updated to uh remove that second of. Uh so, just note that that that will happen should this uh resolution be adopted. That will be updated when we send the materials to the county for the ballot. And I am here for any questions that you might have. Thank you. Councilmember Matthews. Thank you. Stacy, I think this question probably can be directed towards you.

Um math is not a primary um talent or skill set in a lot of uh people's uh toolbox. And I've seen a lot of calculations out there on social media where um you know, uh there was a post that said, "Well, uh 0.5% would be $50 on every hundred or $5. Um is there any way we could in parentheses put half cent because that 0.5% just I mean, I was even starting to doubt myself because it was so prevalent on social media. It's like, I guess I don't understand how to do the math.

So, if we could just do in parentheses, I don't know if it's allowed, but just say half cent, not I think people read it like 50% but not 50% of a cent. They're just thinking 50%. That makes sense. It does. And and I will empathize with you. I'm a clerk for a reason. Um I am grateful that we have Rick um to handle all of the math. [laughter] Um but I don't see any reason why that couldn't be um included.

I know that we've got some word limits and so we can go back and kind of look um at that just to make sure that it fits within those particular requirements, but I don't see there's that there's any concern about adding that um in parentheses to the um both the question and the um two yes, no statements. that would just be really helpful to keep the conversation on factual information and not get confusing.

Um I'll and I also just wanted to comment and and it had to be done, but the truth and taxation statement and people tied that in, which it is tied in to this public safety question, but people were interpreting it that their taxes were going to go up that 6.89% period, not re-shifting it. Um and it just muddied the waters even more. So, I think it's just really important.

I'm glad that Shannon, thank you for representing this information that we can use to send out, you know, to people that may be confusing all the facts. Um but this is such an important um ballot and tax question, and I think that we need to make sure that do everything we can to make sure that uh the voters understand and not get misinformation. So, thank you. Thank you.

And I'll just add, we've got a a good group of folks that have been put together who will be working on that publicity pamphlet material that will go into some really good detail um to help with that education and to really make sure that we're distinguishing carefully um what this is and and what it is not. All right. Um I'm going to take public comment. And first up we have Casey Gonzalez, and you have a group of people. If everyone who is here with Casey could stand up, please. Yeah. Great.

So, Casey, you have 15 minutes. I can talk slower. Um I don't think I'm going to need the 15, uh Mayor, Vice Mayor, Council, City leadership, Chiefs, everybody that's hung out till the end, those online. Um Not much to add overall. Um the to speak to Council Member Matthews' last comments about the education part. One of the best parts about this whole process has been seeing the collaboration from top to bottom on how this came about.

Um prior city leadership before a transition that saw a need uh to fix some processes, funding uh gaps that have existed for a long time. Doesn't matter where they came from. We've moved on from that and we're looking to fix things now and move into the future. Carried into a new leadership within the city. Council talking about it, uh bringing it forward, putting it together in front of a a large diverse citizens committee that really started to dig into the numbers.

And not just anecdotal stuff. Uh one of the individuals that I've met through that, uh had coffee with him a few times. He was on the committee. And he really talked about, last time I met with him, um it really comes down to math and emotion. And I think we've fully addressed the math portion of what's going on with public safety in the city of Flagstaff.

Um wildfire threat increased, buildings getting taller, population going up, calls increasing, uh doubled since uh 10 years ago, staffing numbers staying the same, uh equipment needing uh fixed, stations, um not having the resources to handle that stuff, more paramedics for response. The math part of it doesn't lie. It's all been put out there and where it really comes down to at this point is the emotion piece. And with that, the education of nobody wants to pay more for anything. I get it.

Um what's coming with that for the citizens and and that's where it comes from is the citizens. It's we can do all the education and we're going to be out there We're it uh through November 3rd.

But seeing a group of 25 plus um influential people in the in the community sit through 7 months of meetings and ask hard questions um to city leadership, to the chiefs of the department and watching everybody work together and grow to a point where in my 11 years with the city, I've never seen this type of collaboration with this big of an outcome to completely change the direction of public safety for the citizens of the of Flagstaff and the surrounding region and the visitors.

Um so that's where I stand with it right now. Uh not a bunch of extra to add. Just I appreciate the work done by council being involved uh as as they have up to this point taking that information to sit where we sit with it in front of you all to make your decision. City leadership that has continued to push forward uh in getting the information, clarifying information, answering questions.

It's really going to come down to people getting the correct information and not just making stuff up out of emotion. Get your questions answered and that's what we're here for. Um watching our chiefs week after week uh in front of the committee answer questions. Uh it's been an awesome thing to see and so looking forward to the next several months of getting into that education part and [clears throat] see in November 3rd where we end up. But we feel good about where we're at right now.

So thank you. Thank you, Casey. Mhm. B.J. Dempsey. Thank you. I personally sat on the public safety committee. Coming into the meetings, I was adamantly against raising taxes and putting additional financial burden on Flagstaff citizens.

During the almost 7 months of weekly meeting meetings, we were given immense amounts of information and presentations ranging from the city budget to extensive presentations from our fire department, police department, water needs, and all of our core safety and emergency services, including our airport personnel. What was unknown at the start of the committee was the depth at which the at which these departments were underfunded.

These are at the These are core services that are expected by each and every taxpayer within Flagstaff. The need was $500 million. Disgusted as I was that our first responders and the very people we have come to depend on for life and death situation, do not have the tools they require to perform their jobs as effectively and efficiently as possible, we buckled down and wanted to hear where the gaps have come from. I learned of department cuts a decade ago that were straight across the board.

Upon economic recovery and increases that came back to personnel and other departments, those same increases were not increased at the same rate in our public safety sectors and other departments within Flagstaff city government. This is of great concern. The presentations by each of our public safety departments brought so much attention and light to the growing problem we face in our community. The need is the greatest within our fire and our police departments.

These brave men and women put themselves in harm's way daily to save our town and keep it safe. They do this with minimal staff and for individuals that they've never met. They sacrifice their family time and risk their lives daily. We do need another fire station in Flagstaff to account for continued growth that is inevitable. Flagstaff will only continue to grow. We need to retain our current workforce.

The current firefighters and police officers know that they can get jobs in other locations with higher pay and less of a workload. They stay because they love this town. Unfortunately, we have forced many of them to leave. This causes unneeded turnover, which in cost which in turn cost the city more money. The city is at a point that requires us to act as city council and voters to ensure that our children will have a safe and vibrant community in the future.

These are the reasons that we as a public safety committee have recommended the general obligation bond of $40 million and a half cent sales tax increase. These recommendations were not taken lightly and it hurts me to recommend additional financial stress on the already troublesome issue of affordability within Flagstaff.

The citizens of Flagstaff need these measures on the ballot and the men and women that serve us so bravely need these measures to ensure that the safe and sustained future for Flagstaff. The need is there and I hope city council sees public safety as their sacred duty and the responsibility to act is now so that we do not fall further behind and have a catastrophic disaster. I ask that you advance these ballot measures. Our amazing law enforcement officers and firefighters deserve this.

Thank you. Thank you, B.J., and thank you so much for your service on the committee. I know it was a lot of work and a lot of meetings. Next step, we have Patty Pastor. Good evening, Mayor Daggett, Vice Mayor and City Council members. My name is Patty Pastor and I am a long-standing member of our community and the education sector in Flagstaff. I'm here to express my support for the public safety ballot measure.

As we look at programs that are in high demand in education, fire science and public safety are high ranking. Our community needs to support our essential workers. They are the heroes of our town. Flagstaff has grown while funding has not grown to keep pace with the needs of our community.

Fire and police provide our community with vital services every day and we need to support them by providing the funds to provide training for additional firefighters, training facilities, and the equipment needed to serve our community as it grows. This is why I support this ballot measure. Thank you. Thank you, Patty. Michael Oliver. Good evening. Mayor, Vice Mayor, Council, community members, thank you for allowing us to have a voice here and opportunity to speak to you.

Uh last I spoke with you, if I was cordial or emotional or direct, I have no intention of not doing that tonight. Okay, cuz this is a serious matter. Um Flagstaff is changing. Okay, it has been changing for years and our staffing has not changed with it. Uh and the expectation that is placed upon us um has never been higher. Um the reality is simple. Public safety cannot continue to do more with less. We've heard it too long and too much. And frankly, we won't.

Okay, we won't do more with less cuz we can't. We're tired, we're exhausted. We're under understaffed, overworked, and frankly, underpaid. But that's another issue. Um strong public safety systems do not happen by accident. They happen because communities choose to invest in their public safety before a crisis forces them to. You are at that moment, community and council, you are at that moment where you have a staffing crisis within your all of your public safety sectors. That's facts.

Um we understand what we're asking. 100% that we are asking the community uh taxpayers to support us. It's not something that we take lightly. We are empathetic to that. We are part of this community as well. We're going to pay the same tax. We get it. Okay? But if there was another way and we looked at other ways, there isn't anything less than what's being presented to you is just a band-aid, another band-aid that will not fix the problem. We need long-term solution here.

Um and finally, this is not about politics. Okay? Politics has nothing to do with this. President of the United States has nothing to do with this. This is about people, your people. Uh it's about the people that keep your people safe and making sure they can do it in the right way with the right resources, with the right training, with the right equipment.

And if for anything else, if you do it for anything else, you push this forward for anything else, look at the wellness of your officers, your firefighters, and your emergency personnel. We're struggling because we lack support in those areas. We can't fund those. We can't staff those. Each officer or firefighter probably wears five or different hats. And that's not that's not efficient for any department.

So, I thank you for your time today, and please ask you push both these ballot measures forward. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Garcia. Oh, thank you, Madam Mayor. And uh I just want to look at my colleagues for a moment and and acknowledge everything that we've been through on this with this whole thing.

From the first budget retreat that I sat in on where we all kind of came in to a consensus that this was a priority, I was elated cuz, you know, I didn't [snorts] know you guys well that back then.

So, I thought, well, maybe maybe this is going to be a tough tough to get through to the council, but to not only hear the support of the your the council that was there currently, but also to reverberate what they had done, what y'all had done before my time getting here to shore up the um everything that we needed to do with public safety on police and fire to get us to a point to where we could take this next big bold step. I was stoked.

And I would wanted to also acknowledge the manager's department for when we did mention um our desire to make these changes, for acknowledging those changes, and then coming up with a creative uh the creative tool, which is the process that we'll be voting on tonight, um pretty quickly. Uh you know, this this process has been going on for quite some time, but it's been going on steadily, and that's uh with the speed of government, something that I really really appreciate.

Um I think it's it's also, you know, I mentioned past councils, but they have been working diligently on doing what they could to get us to where we're at today. So, it it's it all, when you look, you know, 5 years back and 10 years back, it all kind of comes to this to the head at this moment, this critical mass, and I will be supporting this tonight. Um staff that went through the whole process with the uh public safety commission, thank you so much for everything you did.

Uh especially vice manager city manager um Gosh. Help me. Shannon Anderson. Sorry, I almost called you Stacy Anderson. I got the two confused. So, uh thank you. I I watched incessantly those committee meetings um up to three times sometimes just because there's so much details that I had to take away from them and and the staff was always there to bring back all of the questions that the commission had to offer. And um Chief Gallard and and Chief Conley, thank you for your patience first of all.

I know that this has been quite some time that you've been talking about making these changes, but as an organization we had a long way to go to get to where we were today. So, you guys were patient enough and through that patience you guys took the time to account for everything that was necessary for us to have a a community that has a prosperity and a safer for and a safer for our future. I really appreciate your guys' work on this. Thank you.

Um I guess kind of most importantly I was very impressed by the Public Safety Commission um themselves. Um B.J., you're here today. I wanted to say thank you for for, you know, coming through with all the questions.

And um I watched all those meetings and it was just it was it was both fun for myself, somebody who really enjoys the process of city government, to watch the evolution of that committee in itself kind of evolve, learn, and um be a true swath of our community our general community in my opinion.

Each member brought their own side of the of our community to the table as almost a perfect replica um and representation of of the 70,000 people and I've been a part of many committees I've seen plenty of committees commu- committee meetings um just watching them as a citizen and this is one where I was really impressed by the coverage um and and that committee was formed the coverage of our general committee and the questions that they were bringing in from their constituencies.

So Yeah, thank you BJ for being here today and thank thank you to the committee in general for asking you know all so many questions and helping me learn as a as a as a council person what we need to do to help our public safety for the future. Um I think that we're at a point now and we'll see how the vote goes tonight, but we're at a point now to where if this passes the key is public outreach and education.

Uh not it would be hard for me to to believe that anybody who was as educated as I am on this now after everything watching all the the different committee meetings and and researching this that wouldn't want to go through with this uh vote understanding that this is the mechanism that we have to use and it's really the best mechanism um according to the committee and I support that mechanism.

So that was pretty much just it just kind of reflecting on the process putting it into a little bit of a story and making sure that everybody got thanked along the way cuz this this is one of the uh big um big issues that I've been through so far on council and I'm really impressed by the entirety of it and where we have come to. With that I'll say thank you mayor. Nice mayor. Thank you. Um thank you for those comments council member Garcia.

And thank you for everyone who spoke tonight to the citizen committee. Um I I definitely watched those and there were so many questions that a a of work went into that to staff and to the community members who have participated. You know, Flagstaff has consistently identified public safety as one of our main priorities.

And I can see and I've talked to a lot of our public safety heroes out there and and I know you are tired and I think it's time that we give you the resources to do your job, do it well, and and continue. I I don't want to see anyone not be able to to be where they're at today. So, I am glad that we have this path forward. And I'm I'm very thankful that we took the time to really do this in a thoughtful process.

And I I know this was a lot of work, but I think that the time has come that we have this as an opportunity for our community to um move forward. So, thank you. I just want to um again, thank the committee, thank the staff for the amount of work that went into um putting together the presentations and asking the questions. And I want to walk again through the process so that the public hopefully can understand how rigorous this process was.

There were There were outside consultants evaluating the needs, uh national standards that require certain things of our public safety that we need to um fund, lots of internal planning to ex- to ask assess the strategic changes we need to make to arrive at critical improvements. Repre- We had a representative group of residents meeting several times a month, and this included many skeptics, and we heard from one earlier. Many skeptics.

So, I I want to emphasize to the public that this wasn't a any kind of hand-picked group that is going to go along with whatever is presented to them. These were residents of Flagstaff who took their duty very seriously and asked the really tough questions. And that's what gives me confidence that this is the right thing to do. We wanted those skeptics. We needed those skeptics. And yet, it was a unanimous vote to move both of these forward.

It was a clear and transparent process and deliberation. You can go back and watch every single meeting and access all the materials that this the citizens committee used to make their decision. And and please, you know, for those of you who who want to take the time to listen to the needs um we're we're looking at plugging in where we need to currently, but we're also planning for the future.

And we're planning for a um strong future where we know that we are well placed to take care of all the hazards, potential and current, wildfire, fire in general, uh law enforcement, and as um Michael said, the um emotional toll on all of our staff from having to fill multiple roles while doing their primary role, um I'm just I'm very proud of the committee. I'm proud of staff. I'm proud of council.

And um And I'm hoping that on November 4th, I will be just proud that we um rose to the challenge, recognized the need, and and said, "This is important to our community and we're going to support it." Councilmember Matthews. Thank you, Mayor. I just wanted to echo um what my colleagues have been saying about how much we appreciate the hard work. Um Those committee meetings were pretty intense, and I learned a lot by watching them and reading the transcripts.

Um And and you know, there's so much more to it. I spent 8 hours uh yesterday learning about uh trafficking in our town, sex trafficking, child sex trafficking, labor trafficking. Um you know, I've said this before, don't think I think we've done too good of a job of making our public think that we don't have any problems up here. We just have a really good law enforcement that uh keeps it under control.

But it was pretty heavy yesterday to hear the cases, hear the stories, hear the victims, um and to emphasize that um it's happening here. Um we needed I mean this is not just you know, PD or just fire. We also have airport. We have, you know, airplanes that come in and stuff. It is time. I think we all and I've said this before, too. We all just assumed um in our daily lives that all these needs have been uh taken care of and and we just the revenues haven't kept up with the needs.

And I'm so grateful that our city um whenever it was decided, you know, said, "Hey, we need to do an assessment on what we need today as well as what we need over the next several years. Um because if we don't have a healthy public safety, um we don't have a community. So, I just want to thank everybody that invested that time. I was very impressed with the um citizens committee group that met for so many uh days and so many hours and asked the tough questions.

And that makes me feel good about them hopefully being that the the champions out there to answer the questions. And I want to also point out that we started at 500 million plus dollar need. And it's not that we identified that, "Oh, we really don't need that." But there was some tough decisions made on you know, we we just want to make sure we get what we need most urgently. And that's why it was cut down. It wasn't because somebody decided we really didn't need that first initial ask.

We do still need the 500 million dollars. Um but this will get us to that next level. And we need to make sure that we are successful in communicating that. So, just thank you to everybody. You know, thank you to our fire and our PD. Hold on. Hold on. You know, we're we're we're getting close. And um you know, it's not like just a 9:00 to 5:00 job. You know, I I hear the stories about our first responders going after call after call after call without a break.

Um you don't get to you know, design your agenda for the day. You have no idea what's coming across your desk and I just want you to know we hear that and we see that and we appreciate that. And um we're going to do everything we can to help resolve that to take some of the the burden off of that because it is a very emotional um draining job at times and I just want to recognize that. So, thank you. Councilmember Aslan. Thank you. Uh I'll just briefly weigh in here. The need is real.

The request is reasonable and the effort so far has been transparent, authentic, responsible, and heartfelt. Um this matter deserves to have its day in court, so to speak. I support the public having the final say and so I support adopting both resolutions. I truly hope they pass. I still had carrot in my mouth. I thought I had time to chew that piece. Any additional comments or questions? All right. Um Stacy, you wanted to offer a comment. Thank you, Mayor.

I just wanted to circle back around on Councilmember um Matthews' request on the addition of that parenthetical language of half a cent. Um while we would be in the word count limit, um I think that there's some concerns about referencing half cent as it relates to a rate of 0.5%. Um and I think we'll be faced with having to kind of completely rework that question.

Um and so I I would My recommendation would be to keep it the way that it is and we can emphasize that throughout the publicity pamphlet as well as the educational materials that we um put out to the public. Thank you. Yes. Um so, we have two separate actions. If you would make the motion for the first one. Mayor, I move that we read resolution number 2026-36 by title only. I'll second. Any discussion? All those in favor? I. Any opposed? City Clerk.

A resolution of the Flagstaff City Council ordering and calling a special bond election of the city for November 3rd, 2026 in conjunction with the city's general election to submit a bond question to the qualified electors of Flagstaff with respect to selling and issuing general obligation bonds in the aggregate principal amount of $40 million to be repaid with secondary property taxes for public safety infrastructure and equipment. Mayor, I move that we adopt resolution number 2026-36.

I'll second. Any discussion? All those in favor? I. Any opposed? A motion to read resolution 2026-37. I move that we read resolution number 2026-37 by title only. I'll second. Any discussion? All those in favor? I. Any opposed? City Clerk.

A resolution of the Flagstaff City Council ordering and calling a special election of the city for November 3rd, 2026 in conjunction with the city's general election to submit a question to the qualified electors of Flagstaff with respect to an increase in the city's transaction privilege sales tax of an additional 0.5% for the purposes of enhanced public safety services. And a motion to adopt I move that we adopt resolution 2026-37. I'll second. Any discussion? All those in favor? I.

Any opposed? Motion carries. Thank you, everyone. [applause] I'll give a couple of seconds for the uh room to clear out. All right, we're moving down to discussion items and we're having a discussion about the land availab- availability and site suitability /code analysis project. I think I'll make it full screen. Thank you. Good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor, and Council. Michelle McNulty, um Planning and Development Services Director for the City of Flagstaff.

Um before I introduce our consultant who'll be doing the bulk of the presentation tonight, I just wanted to say a few words. Might be my last chance to talk about last cap. Um tonight's presentation is the culmination of 3 years of work starting with the land availability and suitability study and code diagnostic report which identified barriers and opportunities to achieving our housing and carbon neutrality goals.

After that, draft code concepts were developed with which opened the door for very meaningful conversations with the community and other city divisions on what kind of code changes we should consider moving forward to remove the identified barriers. In August of 2025 we presented the draft code concepts to council.

This included presenting six decision points with feedback from the community and various city city divisions and recommendations on how to move forward with each decision point based on that feedback. With that information, you all gave us direction on how to proceed with the final code recommendations. The presentation tonight will go through the final code recommendations that came out of that direction.

But I do want to take a minute to thank you all for the continued support while we work through the study. The time we took and the feedback we received has been critical to the success of the project and will be invaluable as we move forward with removing barriers from housing um for housing and carbon neutrality in our zoning code. And with that, I'd like to um introduce our consultant, Jamin Kimmel with Cascadia Partners. Thank you. Thank you, Michelle.

Uh good evening, mayor, vice mayor, and council members. Glad to be with you here tonight. Um my name is Jamin Kimmel. I'm a partner with Cascadia Partners. We are the lead consultant on the code analysis part of this project. Uh and yeah, looking forward to sharing our recommendations. So, uh want to also recognize a couple of other partner uh consulting firms we worked with on this, Dial Engineering, uh GBD Architects, and also Building Community Flagstaff.

Uh and as well as just a great collaboration and teamwork with staff. We had staff from three different departments, planning, housing, and sustainability, and staff from Mountain Line all participating in this project and a lot of collaboration with them to make sure this really reflected the priorities for Flagstaff. Okay, so um what I'll cover in this presentation today uh uh I'm going to try to get through this in about 30 minutes.

I'm going to try to go as quick as I can, but we also wanted to make sure that we you had time to hear our rationale and um the details around some of these recommendations so that um in the future as staff comes and presents some of these amendments uh that you'll have that background in mind. Um so I'll go a little bit of background on the project, a refresher, and a summary of our recommendations.

Uh then I'll focus on um some specific uh changes to zoning district standards, which is one of the core aspects uh of the recommendations. Uh then go to modifications to parking requirements. And then propose a new change to um the way that the city applies and offers incentives in the zoning. And then a few additional um sort of miscellaneous code barriers that we think should be addressed as part of the future amendment. So a bit of a refresher on the background.

So um you know what, I think Michelle covered this, so I'm going to skip this part. Um Michelle did mention so that the directive from uh the city to us on this project was to help you to understand how your codes, your especially your zoning, subdivision, engineering, all of your codes that affect housing development are aligned with three key policy goals. So housing affordability and supply really set out in the 10-year housing uh plan, climate action set out in the carbon neutrality plan.

And at the same time, the city has recently adopted the regional plan which sets a vision for how the community will grow and evolve over time. And the code should really implement that vision. So, it's difficult task to make progress on all of these goals at the same time and to think about how do they interact with your regulations and how do you make sure your code is doing the most it can to advance all these goals. Um but we did know that the current code is falling short.

So, it doesn't affect or doesn't reflect the urgency of addressing these housing and climate issues. Um and it doesn't really reconcile reconcile some of the tensions between these goals. So, that was our key charge going forward. Uh Michelle already mentioned um the the background of how we how we got here.

Um and so I'll I'll skip over this slide, but just again to to reiterate, um we knew this was going to be a complex and challenging project and so we broke it down into some different phases. And there were some uh opportunity for some public engagement and direction from council to uh shape these final recommendations. Another aspect of this uh project was the land availability and suitability study. And these recommendations are are influenced by some of those findings.

Uh and so that study evaluated where and how much buildable land the city has uh for housing in the community. Um and then took a closer look at 51 specific opportunity sites, which are sites where housing is most likely in the short term. Uh and so that really influenced some of our thinking about how can the city um amend its code strategically to have the greatest impact on where future housing development is most likely.

And so a couple of specific ways um that uh the last uh study influenced these recommendations. First, um we knew it was critical to support uh infill of high-density housing in commercial zones. Um many of those uh sites which are more likely and more viable for development in the short term are in those commercial and mixed-use zones. And so we wanted to take a very close look at those.

And then on the periphery of Flagstaff, there's a large number of sites that are zoned for rural residential or estate residential and zoned for very low densities. And we know that there'll be requests and interest in upzoning those to uh another higher-density residential zone in the future. So we need to think about how do we set up those zones to make sure they develop with a range of range of housing types and at densities that support your your climate goals.

We also look closely at the rezoning process. I believe staff uh have already presented some of those recommendations to you in a separate meeting. So I won't cover that today. Um but we wanted to make sure that uh the rezoning process itself wasn't deterring uh potential development from pursuing rezonings. Okay, now I'll get into a summary of the actual uh recommendations, trying to boil them down into basically one slide with six six bullet points here.

So um Flagstaff's maximum densities are relatively low. And we know that allowing for higher densities is um a critical to achieving both your housing and your climate goals. So that is a sort of a core aspect of these recommendations. We also know that density is sort of a blunt tool for regulating the design and compatibility compatibility of new housing development. Doesn't do that all that well, but there are other tools that can do that.

And one of them we're recommending uh is a new maximum floor area ratio uh that can be paired with maximum density. We think achieve better outcomes by using those tools to two regulatory tools together. And then once you get to a certain scale of of higher density development, uh increasing density with all also reducing parking requirements can be counterproductive. Uh and I'll explain that a little bit further.

So, we do recommend uh reducing your baseline minimum parking requirements and offering further reductions through the incentive programs. So, all of those strategies have to do with providing more flexibility for housing and some loosening standards. But, there are some recommendations in here that set new standards and some higher standards for development. We know it's feasible to build to a higher level of sustainable design at a relatively low cost.

And so, um that's why we're recommending a new baseline sustainable design requirement in the code. And then to go above and beyond that uh baseline, we recommend um integrating uh three disparate three disparate incentive programs into one more sort of coherent structure. And we think that will help for uh to make those programs um more likely to be used and to have projects that include affordable units or are meeting a higher level of sustainable design.

Lastly, we recommend uh key changes to the resource protection overlay and street design standards. Okay, getting a little more into some details here. So, as you're aware, the cost of development housing development has uh risen sharply in the last decade. And it's one of the key drivers of the housing affordability crisis. So, our goal with these code recommendations was to design a set of code changes that would on net have uh actually reduced the cost of development.

Um and so, um we did a lot of different kinds of financial modeling in doing this work. And our modeling has shown that these recommendations put together and applied um to a typical development project in the future would reduce the total cost of development per unit. And so that's what these charts are showing here with different examples for different zones and whether the project is pursuing under by right standards or an incentive program.

There are a few key reasons why that I want to point that out. The higher densities that would be allowed under these recommendations mean that the development can spread the fixed cost of development over more units. That reduces your per per per unit cost. Parking related costs are reduced if you don't have to provide quite as many parking spaces on the site.

And those sustainability requirements that we mentioned were really designed to have a minimal impact on the cost of development while still achieving higher carbon emissions reductions. Okay, getting into the actual zone district standards. So I explained a little bit why higher density is crucial to cost and affordability, but it also helps you move toward your housing and climate goals in a few other ways. And I want to make sure that's really clear.

In terms of carbon reductions, higher density makes it more feasible for transit to be to work in a community and for people to be more likely to walk and bike for more trips. We know that transportation accounts for about 30% of overall carbon emissions. So the the more that the development pattern of Flagstaff can support multimodal sustainable transportation, it will make an impact on your housing or climate goals.

We also know that higher density makes it more likely that a wider variety of housing choices will be developed. So at certain density levels, it just doesn't make sense to build town homes or duplexes or apartments compared to detached houses. And so developers will continue to build only detached houses. And so, raising that density provides that rationale for a developer to include a wider variety of housing types in a development, more choices.

So, I'm going to take you through a couple of charts on our the current densities and recommended densities and try to relate that to cuz these numbers are all sort of um uh hard to visualize what that means. But, I'll relate that to the kinds of housing types that we think that density level supports. Uh so, current densities now there are relatively few zones that support a wide variety of housing types, uh especially the R1 zone at a maximum density of six units per acre.

Really only going to see detached houses in that zone. Uh there are a few zones that support um a mix of detached houses with some middle housing, um but the overall density of that zone would still lead most developers to to choose to build mostly detached housing. And then in the higher density residential and commercial zones which um top out at about 29 units an acre, that really only equates to about a two to three story tall apartment.

Um and we know that there's an option to exceed that density in the commercial zones, um but that's contingent on a um uh being approved through a conditional use permit for a high capacity housing. Uh and so, there's some complications there that also constrain potential density in those zones. So, these blue bars represent our recommended densities. Um a few kind of patterns to highlight about the recommendations.

Even the lower density zones under these recommended densities would support neighborhoods with that mix of housing types. So, in that range of 12 to 16 units per acre, um it really then becomes rational for a developer to mix in in a new subdivision some townhomes, maybe some apartments, uh maybe some duplexes or triplexes.

Uh And so that's part of the intent there is that those middle we'll call middle housing types are now required to be allowed in every single family residential zone, but that existing density really means that it's not rational for a developer to build those unless that density is a little bit higher.

Um, second the MR zone which also has a lot of buildable land in it is recommended to be increased in density to allow for a little bit more of that middle housing and apartments, which is really the the intent of that zone. And then the density scales up more significantly for the high density residential and the commercial zones. And part of the reason two kind of key reasons for that. One is these zones are close to transit and more walkable areas.

And those are the places where it would make sense for your climate goals to concentrate more housing development in those places. And two, higher density doesn't always mean lowering the total cost of construction. So as you build to a higher density, sometimes you need to build to a different construction type. A four-story or five-story building is actually going to be quite a bit more expensive to build than a two or three-story building.

So these recommended maximum densities are intended to offset for that. If the developer can include more units, they can offset that higher cost construction type and that project can pencil. If the density is capped at something like 29 units per acre or less, it's just not going to make sense for them to to build at higher density. Okay, so going to take you through a couple of specific zones and just give you some more examples for the rationale for the the recommended densities.

And so starting first with the R1 zone. So the R1 zone today has the most um the largest number of buildable land or buildable acres according to the last study more than any of the other residential zones. And we also know as I mentioned that many of those rural areas rural residential areas are likely to be requested to be upzoned into an R1 or an MR zone. So, we know this is an important zone to allow for a wide variety of housing types.

So, this is a sort of a typical neighborhood today built to the R1 standards. Um And so, like I mentioned even though the zone now allows for a variety of housing types and some of that are lower cost and more affordable. Um it's not rational for a developer to build anything other than detached houses. And that's part of the reason why much of the new development is exclusively detached houses.

Today's land and construction costs are modeling found that a project like this today would basically need to sell each of these houses in this development for about 900,000 to be economically viable. So, including all the infrastructure costs and construction costs of today. You know, some existing houses are selling for less than that, but for new development that's really what is necessary to pencil.

So, the recommended densities for the R1 zone would look something [snorts] more like the the subdivision on the right which I believe is the Presidio and so this is something in the range of about 12 units per acre. At that density it becomes rational for a developer to include a mix of housing types some townhomes, some single family homes on smaller lots, a wide variety of housing types.

Because those units tend to be smaller and because of the efficiencies of the higher density development it's feasible to deliver those units at lower prices. And so, our modeling indicated that a large unit and maybe a single-family home in this type of development would pencil at something like 790,000. And a smaller unit could pencil at something like 500,000.

So, that's where we're really able to deliver on those some of those housing affordability goals just through market rate development by allowing that higher density. So, we also know that one potential outcome of allowing higher densities is that developers tend to maximize the size of the building on the site. And um that is not always a bad thing, um but it's more likely if more units are allowed.

Um and so, the current lot coverage, height, and setback standards, which would, you know, set the envelope of how build how big a building can be, won't necessarily um constrain that very much. You might get some some very large buildings compared to um what is developed today. Um we also know that larger dwelling units tend to be less affordable. Makes sense. Um but also um less energy efficient.

And so, it would be consistent with your housing and climate goals to try to adopt a regulation that would encourage for as you build higher density, you also build smaller units. And the way that we've seen other jurisdictions have success in doing this is pairing a higher maximum density with a maximum floor to area ratio. And so, what this basically is is just depending on the size of the site, then you have a cap on the overall floor area that can be on the site. Right?

So, it's another version of a density control, but it doesn't regulate units, it regulates floor area. Right? Um but what it does is by allowing more units, but capping the floor area, the code just not encourages just higher density, but higher density with smaller units, which I think is really more delivering on your housing and climate goals. This is an example of sort of an FAR cap in practice and what that looks like. So, I'll just quickly step you through this graphic.

The house labeled in gray here is a model of what sort of a typical smaller existing home would be in a neighborhood today. Uh the house outlined in red is what would be likely under your existing code, which would allow for a duplex, but there is really no cap on the overall size of that building. So, it would be rational for a developer to build relatively large units that tend to be more profitable.

So, you get a duplex with 2,000 square foot units that are not much more affordable than that existing home. If you increase the maximum density, but don't implement a maximum FAR, you get what's in that light blue outline there. And so, you'll get higher density four homes, but it's possible those four homes are also still 2,000 square feet and relatively unaffordable.

Um so, the the dark blue is what the outcome you could see with a combination of a maximum density increase and adopting a maximum FAR. And so, that controls the overall scale of the size of the building. Uh the units max out at about 1,200 square feet. And the price of those units will pencil at a lower much lower um sales price. Um so, you're delivering on that that need for those smaller lower-cost homes.

And then importantly, if you compare the scale of um the larger fourplex in the outlined in light blue to that existing home, that's where you start to get concerns about density because that home is not or that fourplex is not really compatible in scale with that single-family home, sort of looming over its neighbors.

If you compare the one that has a maximum FAR applied to it, it's sure it's it's the same density as the light blue house, but it's really a compatible in scale with the existing houses. So that's why that's how that maximum FAR can work with density to achieve your goals. We also recommend scaling the FAR by the number of units on the site.

I won't this a lot of technical detail, but um basically if you set that too low, you can inadvertently make it less attractive to build um higher density multi-unit um housing uh because every one of those units will need to be too small and they wouldn't even really need to be remarkable. So this is a way to counteract that. We have some specific recommendations in the report by zone and housing type of what FAR um levels are recommended. Oop. Okay, now shifting to the commercial zones.

So um commercial centers and corridors are really a key building block of the regional plan. Um the plan envisions many of these existing commercial areas will redevelop into mixed-use transit supportive neighborhoods. Um more density in these places means that those that transit operations could be more viable.

So again, there's a strategic role for density in the commercial zones, not just about lower cost housing, but also creating the conditions for transit to be successful and really having a better functioning lower carbon transportation system. So we took a closer look at where those commercial zones are mapped today in relation to transit.

And if uh if those commercial zones were built out at the recommended densities in this report, uh they would have account for about 70% of the housing capacity that is close to transit citywide. And so um what that tells us is there are a lot of sites that are currently zoned for mixed-use or commercial that have a lot of capacity for housing that are close to transit, far more than there are sites that are zoned residential.

And so it really begs the question, how do we make sure that these sites can develop at high densities because we know that would support our our transit system and our transportation system. So, um the current commercial zones put up some pretty significant um both substantive and procedural barriers to building at higher density. So, um as a refresher, the the maximum density in in the commercial zone is 29 units per acre.

Um if developer wants to build something larger than that, they need to they trigger that um HOH conditional use permit. And the conditional use permit is not something that is um an unreasonable requirement to mitigate for the the special impacts of a certain kind of use. And high occupancy housing could be one of those certain kinds of use.

So, um a a development that includes almost all of the units are four or more bedrooms, that's unconventional and is going to have different kinds of impacts on the neighborhood and the community. Um but the code today also lumps in buildings that have more conventional smaller units, but they're over 29 units per acre and treats those as if they were the same as a building that has all four-bedroom units. They all still required to um be approved or through the conditional use permit process.

Um the central issue with that CUP requirement is risk. So, it's a discretionary approval by council. Uh I believe with planning and zoning commission recommendation. And it's based on some fairly subjective criteria. So, from the perspective of a developer and their lenders and investors, that is a a major source of risk. And we heard this from developers throughout this process. It's That is a one a reason why they would not pursue a project. And it's risk that the project could be denied.

It's risk that it could be delayed by multiple hearings. It's risk that conditions could be applied on the project that will affect its viability. And so um it's really a significant barrier to building at higher densities by having that procedural requirement which presents a lot of uncertainty to a major investment. So our recommendation is to allow for higher densities by right uh in those commercial zones up to about 50 to 60 units per acre um who up from that 29 units per acre.

And then to exceed those densities, you would need to participate in the city's um incentive program. So I'll get it more into how those are structured um but either meeting elevated sustainable design requirements or afford providing um a certain number of affordable units. Now this would retain the um high density housing conditional use permit, but it changes how it's triggered.

So instead of every project over a certain density triggering high density housing, only projects that have a certain bedroom density would actually trigger it. So it's not just a unit density, but the bedroom density that would trigger it. So we think this is a more targeted and appropriate application of that conditional use permit requirement. It really applies to those projects that are both high density and high occupancy and not just high density.

So one question that might come up here is what's sort of the um magic behind a number of 50 to 60 units per acre for the commercial zones? And um why specifically that? And um there's nothing really magic about it, but there is that is sort of in a spot um where there's a transition point uh between different construction types. So if you were to exceed 50 to 60 units per acre, um then you probably need structured parking or much taller building which both cost a lot.

And then the rents must absorb that cost and the housing is less affordable. Um if you can build up to 50 units per acre, you can build a what is a very what's often thought of as sort of a sweet spot for high-density development, which is a four-story building, which is wood-framed with an elevator, but no concrete podium on the on the on the bottom, and surface parking. Uh so, no structured parking. That's a very economical, efficient way to build at a higher density.

Um and so, that's the the thought process behind why to allow that by right. We know that's going to be a successful housing product if it's allowed. Um and then, as you if you were to want to exceed that density, that's where the incentive programs then kick in. And so, you can exceed that density, but you really need to participate in the incentives. Those incentives can both help the developer by providing relief from certain standards that would make the higher density viable.

Um and also, um can help the community by by making sure that that development includes sustainable design, affordable units, help compensate for some of the additional impact of a higher density project. Okay. Um I'm going to wrap this up with this section on just a few sort of common concerns um about higher densities. Um so, they they generally fall in in two categories um here. Um so, compatibility.

So, are new buildings just going to be tall and boxy and really contrast with the the visual character of Flagstaff. Um and as we discussed, the the new maximum FAR is really one tool that we're is intended to directly address that and be paired with maximum density. And we're not recommending many changes to other standards that affect the um look and feel of the building. So, setbacks and lot coverage and the even the maximum height of buildings.

Um and uh as well as um site planning and architectural design standards will continue to apply. And then another concern is related to infrastructure, that there wouldn't be sufficient capacity, roads, sewer, water to support this higher density development. And we believe that's really best addressed as a site-by-site determination and not a sort of cart blanche prohibition on that density at every location in the city.

So, the city has existing procedures in place for infrastructure studies, mitigation required, traffic impact analysis. All of that is not changing. It's just that that that higher level of density would not be sort of prohibited before the application even gets in the door. Okay, going to parking requirements.

Um so really the key takeaway for these recommendations is that like I mentioned, higher density is important, but allowing higher density with also lowering parking requirements will really sort of constrain a lot of the progress towards meeting your housing and climate goals. So, it's important to really kind of have a clear understanding of why and how parking impacts the cost of development. And there are two ways it does this.

There's the direct cost of providing the parking, but also the opportunity cost of the less space available on the site for housing and what can't be built there. So, surface parking is relatively inexpensive to construct, but it also consumes a lot of area on the site, which limits density.

If higher densities are needed, then developers will strip switch to these more costly parking types such as tuck-under structured or underground parking, but that means a a huge cost premium compared to surface parking. The estimate is between 20 to $60,000 a stall uh to do either tuck-under structured or underground parking. Again, the rents have to absorb that that cost.

So, if that higher density is possible with fewer parking spaces, that means that the that the development will not get triggered up into having to require these more expensive uh construction types of parking. So, this is a a graphic that helps to explain that. Um on the left side is is 50 units with 100 parking spaces or about two spaces per unit. And um so uh in order to meet that parking uh ratio, you need about three-story parking garage.

Um you know, you've got to room for ramps and uh some of the geometry of a parking garage. Um there's really less um space remaining not as much space remaining on the site, and that means that that building needs to in order to hit 50 units needs to be five stories. If you're building at five stories, that means a concrete podium on the first floor, that's a very expensive and wood wood framed above it.

Um on the right side by comparison is a site with 50 units and 50 parking spaces, so one space per unit. Um it's feasible to fit all those 50 parking spaces on a on a single surface parking lot, and there's more space left over on the site uh for the building, so it doesn't need to be five stories to fit 50 units. It can be four stories. That's wood frame construction, no concrete podium, it's about 20% less per square foot to construct.

So, trying to the key takeaway here is it's not just about that direct cost of providing more parking that might be necessary, but the way in which providing that amount of parking influences the overall construction cost of the project. So, these are our recommended base parking requirements uh for multi-family uses. Um the today's standards require about one and uh 1.25 to three spaces per unit plus additional spaces for guest parking.

We're recommending a general reduction across all unit types to a range of between 0.75 and 0.7 1.75 spaces per unit with no guest parking requirement. So two sort of rationale for for this general recommendation. So nearly all developments would still be required to provide about one space per unit. We believe that's a reasonable floor for how much parking is often needed in Flagstaff. Household owning no cars in Flagstaff might not be feasible.

You're probably going to need some offsite parking or off-street street parking. But it may be feasible for a household household own fewer cars to own one car. And so setting it at that the floor at that level we think is is aligned with what could be feasible in Flagstaff. And then again, that level is where the higher density projects start to become more viable because they're not requiring the structure or underground parking. Um so keep in mind these are minimums.

Um if a developer or their lenders investors believe that more spaces are needed than the minimum to make a project marketable, which often happens. It's hard to believe but it does. Um they'll provide them. In a lot of cities that have lowered their parking requirements have actually seen this that developers don't necessarily build to the lowest or if they've eliminated parking requirements they still often provide parking because it is it affects the success of their project.

If there's not enough parking, they're going to have trouble leasing up those units. So what this lowering the floor does is does not say that every project is going to be built at that floor. It gives the option for some project where a developer sees that the households I'm targeting in this location, I think will will lease up this unit with this amount of parking. Right? Gives the option for the developer to make that judgment call.

So, in addition to the um base parking uh reduction, um the city currently has um several ways to get additional uh reductions for parking requirements. We recommend keeping these reductions, but modifying them to do a couple of things. Provide a deeper reduction for projects that participate in the incentive programs in order to encourage um them to provide affordable housing or meet sustainability standards.

And then integrate that with what I'll discuss shortly, which is a new points-based way of regulating um sustainable design. Uh and so it'll be part of a sustainability menu uh that developer will have access to. So, but the three key ways that um uh reduced parking could be granted would be sites that are close to transit, projects with affordable units, and then projects that implement a range of different what we would call trip reduction strategies.

So, features of the development that make it more likely that those households will own fewer cars and need less parking demand. So, additional high-quality bike parking, transit passes. You do have a program right now. Um uh so, things like that that can um if you do that, then you can earn that additional parking reduction. So, I'm going to address the winter parking ordinance. Um we know having on-street parking around a site is um one way that that lower on-site parking can function well.

Um it may not always be necessary for residents to park on the street, but in some cases that on-street parking can play an important role, and it's an efficient use of your street space. Um however, that the the WPO is a major constraint on the availability of on-street parking consistently throughout the winter months. Um we know managing snow removal is a major challenge for the city and we understand why the policy is structured the way it is.

We also know that other jurisdictions that have high snowfall have implemented alternative snow removal policies and operations uh such as alternating the side of the street um by day of the week, only triggering full uh snow removal during major snow events. Some of these things that will still be a headache in winter months for people who are parking on the street um but it may make that space available more consistently than today.

So, we don't have a firm recommendation of how the WPO should the WPO should be modified, but we do believe it's imperative to your housing and climate action goals that on-street parking be more consistently available during winter months. So, we recommend further study to identify a way to modify the AP WPO to achieve that goal. Okay, a few common concerns about parking requirements.

Um so um when discussing reduced parking, a few concerns that come up are congestion of on-street parking, impacts on parking options for existing residents, on those those streets that don't actually have on-street parking, the right-of-way is not wide enough, uh and then of course the constraints of the WPO. Um we think these are legitimate concerns and there will be tensions and trade-offs that are associated with reducing your parking requirements.

At the same time, these recommendations are a are um designed to try to address some of those concerns. Um so I mentioned these are minimums and if a developer views a site as needing more parking, they'll they will likely provide it.

The deepest parking reductions are targeted to developments that are expected to have lower parking demand because of the way that they um are designed, because of who that who is the households that are occupying them, the size of the households, many different things.

And the last point I'd make is that when there have been parking utilization studies, when they look at how congested is on-street parking in a neighborhood, they often find that it's far less congested than what the perception is, right? And so that perception is often often not quite the reality, and so some overflow of on-site parking onto the street may not always lead to congestion and some of the concerns that are brought up.

Okay, getting on to the incentive framework, I'm going to try to get through this quickly as possible. And so the two things I think I want you to take away with from our recommendations are integrating your some various different incentive um provisions in the code today into a more coherent coherent framework. And then offering benefits associated with those incentives that would really motivate participation. So those are our sort of two major goals here.

So first on how we recommend integrating the current incentive programs, um first thing is it's actually not an incentive, but as a matter of by-right development, we recommend having a um required baseline for sustainable design for all projects. So not just those who opt in to the incentive program, but all projects. We think we've developed a menu of sustainable design features that is flexible enough and it's low enough cost to implement that it's appropriate to apply broadly.

Uh and this is something other cities have had success with. Um it's um something we think is worth um the city look taking a closer look at, and I'll go into what that point system looks like. The second, um there's a a current sort of um quasi incentive in the code called the planned residential development option. Um we think that those standards should be converted into a by right allowance, uh, and um, by right requirements.

Um, so rather than structured as an incentive, um, most developers seem to be taking advantage of those. They make sense, um, and and really shouldn't be treated as part of the incentive package. Uh, and then lastly, integrate the affordable housing and sustainable, uh, incentives into a single program with three tiers. Um, so tier one would be projects that meet elevated sustainable design above the baseline requirement.

Tier two would be projects that include affordable units, and tier three would be projects that that include both affordable and sustainable units. So, I'll come back to that, but I want to make sure we cover the, um, sustainability point system and like sort of the required baseline. Uh, this is a new new feature, um, that's different than the way that sustainability is regulated in the code today.

Um, so today's requirements, um, are relatively simple, and they don't offer a lot of flexibility for different types of sustainable design treatments on a site. So, there's four different categories of, um, sustainable design features, and you need to need to implement, um, you typically one uh, strategy from each category. So, the a points based system that we're recommending would have a much wider range of of uh, strategies. So, seven different categories and 34 separate options.

Um, and there would be point values associated with each, um, item. And so, a developer, when they're choosing how do I comply with the sustainable design requirement, it's not X, Y, and Z, it's A, B, C, A, X, Y, A, Z, M, you know, there's lots of different combinations that they could put together to meet a minimum point value requirement.

This is something that really works well, and it's something that the lead and other green building building certifications is the is the um approach they use. Um provides that flexibility because what kind of design treatment and energy efficiency measures, things like that, that makes sense for that project can really vary um from site to site. It also means that um you can calibrate those point values to really reward those features that have a proven record of reducing carbon emissions.

And so you can put more um weight on those kinds of sustainable design features, things like all electric buildings that we you know are going to have a more measurable reduction in in in carbon. Okay. So, this is a slightly more complex sort of part of the code than you have today. Um so, we've started to develop some tools that city staff and applicants can use. So, there's an appendix in the report.

You could see there's a um spreadsheet tool that has all of the sustainable uh design strategies. It has a calculator built into it. So, the developer and staff can choose different strategies, see what um uh um see if they're meeting the minimum point value, see what the estimated carbon emissions reductions associated with that.

Um so, wanted to just highlight that because it seems like it'll be a much more complicated code, but there I think there are ways to make it simple uh and easy to administer for staff. Okay. Um Oop. I skipped that slide. So, wanted to directly address the any concerns about that cost impact of um this new sustainable design requirement.

As I mentioned, the way that we structured the point values and the items that count um the most towards um meeting the requirement was to reward items that have a low impact on the cost of development but a high impact on emissions reductions.

And so, doing that in tandem with some of these other code changes related to density and parking means that the while the um elevated sustainable design requirement may um look like it would increase construction costs, increase overall cost of development, it's completely dwarfed and offset by those other changes that are recommended to density, parking, other things which which have a much greater impact on the cost of development than any of the sustainable design requirements.

So, adding a little uh cost of development, also potential to take away a lot with the other um changes. Uh and that's what these um charts are showing here. Okay. Um that covers the sustainability requirements. So, I just want to give you a little bit more on the on the different tiers of the incentives um and how that will work. Um so, imagine there's three different tiers.

We use the term tier here purposely because those are meant to respond correspond to um both additional requirements as you move up to another tier, but also um additional concessions and flexibility and more bonuses to help offset the cost of complying with those requirements. So, here's the overview of the whole framework and all the different um uh both requirements and then benefits to the development that they get by participating in the in the incentives.

And I just two things I want to sort of highlight here. Um so, first um you should note that the density bonuses and parking reductions, which we've we've talked about so far, are really just one element of uh many other types of um incentives we think could be effective. Um density and parking are not going to be effective for every project.

So, it's really necessary to provide other kinds of reductions or increases, other modifications to development standards to make um that work for other kinds of sites. And then again, the range of or the um the scaling of these um reductions or modifications goes up as you move up into other tiers, right? So, what we're trying to do is make it rational for a developer to go to the highest level of affordable units and sustainable design because the benefits of doing so outweigh the costs.

Um, one other way we recommend modifying the current affordable housing incentives is to um modify uh both the number percentage of units that are required to be affordable when opting into the incentives and the um income levels they need need to be affordable at. And the sort of highlight thing to highlight here is the current um incentives we think don't uh distinguish well enough between the difference in um development economics of rental uh projects and ownership projects.

And they sort of treat them as equivalent in terms of what income levels need are needed to be targeted um for those. And um the the issue is that rental units can start to become at the at a market rate affordable at 120% of AMI or even 100% of AMI. And so, if you provide incentives above that income level to rental units, you're not you're incentivizing something that was going to happen anyway. You don't need to provide those incentives.

And so, we recommended a narrower um range of affordability requirements for rental units between 60 and 100% of AMI. And then for ownership units, having that scale up much further because the market for um for sale units is um much less affordable at 120% of AMI, 100% of AMI, those sort of median income or slightly above median income.

And so, allowing for developers to opt into income-restricted housing even up to like 150% of AMI for ownership units can fill a gap that the market isn't filling today. So, this chart shows uh there's a lot on this chart, but it shows um how the density bonuses would tier up uh with each of the incentive tiers comp- uh above what the by-right density achieves. So, um I think that the two things I want to point out here are um the densities that we recommend, they're specific to each zone.

So, it's not a flat percentage. A flat percentage doesn't really work very well as a density bonus because 25% of 12 is a lot different than 25% of 50. And so, really need to think about how would that density change what kind of project is built, and would it be a high enough to offset the cost of the different kind of project that's built? And that's really the story with the um higher-density in commercial zones.

Those scale up more dramatically in those zones compared to the low-density zones because there's a step up in construction costs. If that incentive doesn't allow for that more units, you can't offset the construction costs that step up there. So, this is a chart showing um some of the pro forma modeling we did of the incentive programs.

Um we ran over 80 different financial pro formas for each zone and each incentive tier, um and tried to make sure that um based on the data we have and the assumptions we're making, that the um a project that opts into the incentives would be equally viable, um have returns that are similar to a project uh that's under the buy right incentives and certainly better than the existing code and that's what the short shows.

So, that the return sort of flatten out in this chart, that may look like a bad thing, but actually um what as you build as you opt into more higher incentive tier, that project is going to include a larger number of units. If you have a larger project, you're at an equivalent rate of return as a smaller project, that larger truck project's going to be more attractive.

So, we think being able to have parity between the buy right and and those incentive tiers for the returns you can achieve will make more developers opt into those. That said, this doesn't mean every project will use the incentives. It's more headache, it's more complexity. Income restricted units have a lot of complexity to it and so, but it just means it'll probably more likely than under today's incentives, which really aren't significant enough to motivate participation.

Okay, in the interest of time, I'm going to skip over this slide to make sure we get through here. So, um I want to cover a couple of other topics. So, the first is the RPO. Resource protection overlay, it's a really consequential set of regulations. Applies to many new developments in the city. Protects multiple types of resources as you you know, flood plain slopes and forest.

We don't have any specific recommendations related to flood plains, but we do believe that the steep slope and forest regulations deserve a second look. So, the slope and forest protections today may in some cases inadvertently conflict with the city's goals for density and concentrating growth near services.

The RPO applies to the many of those close-in sites that already have it infrastructure and can effectively make 30 to 50% of the site not buildable because so much of that must be preserved for trees or in steep steeply sloped areas. So, preserving trees or building carefully on slopes is not the problem. It's really just the calibration of that standard.

It's um it is um the protection requirements are so stringent that even on sites where high density may be desired by the city, it's not going to be feasible um while meeting those protection requirements. Um and the tree protection requirements aren't really well aligned with wildfire prevention best practices. They often result in dense stands of trees intermixed with housing and uh I know that your fire marshal has had some concerns about that.

I think it's something to look at how is the code maybe encouraging developers to do that because they're trying to meet that tree preservation requirement uh and that's forcing them to um put trees in places that may not be safe from a wildfire um uh perspective. So, our recommendations related to the RPO, um we think it's a really complex set of uh changes that will need to be implemented over time, but we have some recommendations for how to approach that work.

We think it would make sense to separate out the slope protection areas from the forest protection areas. They're sort of a fundamentally different kind of thing to protect and they're kind of bundled together in the code today and it can make it fairly complex.

Um and um there's some um uh a good rationale for um inventorying where all the steep slopes are in the community, mapping those specific areas, and then protecting those specific areas, rather than relying on development by development then conducting those surveys to identify those sloped areas, and um uh then applying protection standards.

Um Secondly, we recommend remapping the boundaries of the RPO to more precisely target where are the areas in the community that forest protection is the highest priority, and where are areas where we might be okay with a lower level of protection because it's a important priority to have density in those places. We think that the RPO, because it's mapped to nearly every property in the city that isn't developed, um probably hasn't taken that step.

And so that remapping, rethinking where should the ROUPO apply and how should the RPO apply to different kinds of properties would make sense. And lastly, just adjusting those um preservation requirements to account for fire risk. Okay, two more topics here are street uh engineering standards. So one clear thing we heard from developers is that current engineering standards require unnecessarily high or unnecessarily wide streets in some cases.

Adds to the cost of development, constrains achievable density, and even encourages higher speeds. Uh we know other jurisdictions have adopted uh street designs that allow for narrower travel lanes and overall right-of-way that's narrower. Um implementing that type of street design does have some complications for um fire apparatus access, uh parking, um but we know there are solutions to ways to resolve that.

And so our recommendation is to uh develop a narrower street design option and allow that through an exception process with some defined criteria for how that street needs to be signed and operated uh to make sure that it that it's working um as intended, but we think it's worth um the focus because uh there are some significant savings to the cost of the um and um overall just pavement that needs to be put on the ground.

So another issue related to street um design is how street networks are designed in new subdivisions. So the current engineering and subdivision standards are really just missing some stronger standards to require a connected network of streets. So um what what we see happening or that the standards would allow for today is more cul-de-sacs and dead-end streets than really maybe necessary. And this is a really key issue for walkability.

So, those connected networks create shorter walking distances. You don't have to go all the way around a cul-de-sac or take a long route to get somewhere because the streets connect on more closely. But, it's not just important for walkability. It's really important for transit. So, if transit stops aren't within within close walking distance, people aren't going to use them. And transit lines really don't work at all through networks that are have a lot of dead-end streets and cul-de-sacs.

Um so, in the report, we've recommended a few changes to those street connectivity requirements that would make sure that more consistently you're getting in a connected grid of streets in new developments. Um things like having a maximum block size and more strict limitations on dead-end streets. Okay, that is the whole thing. Thank you for bearing with me. And I think we're going to take some questions and then before we wrap up, Tiffany has a few comments on next steps. True.

Okay, Tiffany's going to do next steps now. Hello, Tiffany. Hi. Next steps now. So, one we just wanted to sort of recap that while this has been a three-year process that hasn't stopped us from continuing to work on these topics. And so, just wanted to show you the the text amendments that have been more focused on housing and carbon carbon neutrality issues since 2021. When you see the times two, it means we touched that code twice.

Um so, we are ever evolving and trying to make sure that we are on track um with the code as is. So, um unfortunately, our consultant has had to follow along and change things at the ready with us, but they've been great to work through this process with. In terms of next steps, um just you know, where we go from here, uh we need to sit down and identify all of the necessary code amendments, direct and indirect.

Um so, it's really listing out all of the specific sections and getting that detailed. Jenny has created this master spreadsheet. We are brain dumping currently. Um Uh next step, once we have our brain dump completed, we are going to prioritize those amendments. And prioritizing is not just us, it's also reaching out to our partners in the community and understanding what's going to work best for them. Uh we also need to strategize how to group those amendments together.

Um then it's going to be preparing those amendments. Some of these are going to come really easy cuz the consultants have really just they've buttered the bread for us and and it's going to be easy to grab and go. There's a a few more things that'll have some complexities and we'll likely bring some alternatives or um different things as we really dig into the code and figure out how these things get threaded in.

Of course, from there, we hit pub um work sessions, then we finalize the amendments, we do our internal review, spend some time with Kevin and friends. And um then we um do public outreach. We try very much though, I mean, there's one piece for public outreach, it doesn't mean that public outreach is limited to just this one point in time and that there will be many opportunities for that as well. And of course, hitting public hearings.

Just lastly, wanted to cover what the time frame looks like cuz I know people always want to know how fast can you do this? How long can you get it here? So, this is just this is just rough. You know, drafting that amendment approximately 90 days. I have a feeling this first amendment's going to be really big.

Um so, it's going to be a lot to digest and we're going to need to figure out the best way to bring that across so that it's the most understandable information about what we're actually doing. Um the internal review is about 30 days. That's reaching out to all of our internal partners, making sure they have a time to comment. That public outreach is really between 30 and 60 days. Uh it takes about once once we we've got that draft and legal says we're good.

Um it's about 21 days to get um P&Z work session and public hearing scheduled. It starts to domino after that, but it is about at least a 3-week process to get it noticed, get the staff reports written, do all of those corresponding documents, um and fun stuff. And um of course, there's the break between P&Z. I I padded these numbers a little bit. Um certainly we've gone faster before, but just to give you a time frame of what we're expecting.

Um we are as we're strategizing and working through this brain dump of a worksheet, we are planning on having a detailed schedule and we're trying to work backwards from when we have heard people are sort of expecting some big changes and and bringing something that's realistic. We don't want to bring you something that's rushed.

We want to we want to make sure that we're taking the right time, but we're we're in it to win it and the group's all in and we've got hours blocked on our calendars ready to go. And with that, if you have questions, we're happy to go. It's an excellent example of why a code change isn't just a thing that you do.

Yeah, there's a actually a lot more work that goes behind the scenes and when you think about it in reality you're writing three separate different staff summaries, ordinances, resolutions, all of those have to be vetted with multiple people, so. Thank you. Um questions? Thank you. Um Thank you and I don't I do have a lot of questions and I will be at your door with needing some appointments to talk, but I do want to thank you for the presentation. You really broke this down for us quite nicely.

And I wanted to thank staff and leadership for [clears throat] slowing down the process for my brain. I just You should have seen this diagram that I threw out at Nicole at one of our meetings. It's embarrassing.

Um but I am I'm really understanding it and it takes a little bit of time to for me at least to understand how this goes along with all of our other codes like the IECC that's going to be coming to us and how are we balancing it all and you did a great job tonight of of explaining that, so thank you for taking that time to to go over it. Um maybe not in terms of the IECC particularly, but um I am understanding how it all intertwines.

And when it comes to the parking, it I'm I'm pretty in with all of it. I guess I We didn't talk about um removing parking mandates altogether and what that would look like and I know that on the south side I went down a rabbit hole years ago trying to figure out how to do curbside management parking programs over there and it became a disaster. Um so I just think that might be something that we want to talk about moving forward even with the changes that you're proposing.

It is a way to manage less parking and how do we get more on-street um away from the development and and manage that. And with the FAR, I am definitely understanding that better. So thank you for explaining that to me a few different times. And I know that we're looking at that um and I think it's a great way to work towards smaller units and and really giving that kind of push to our our builders to do that. So again, thank you.

A lot of time went into this and I I I will look forward to having more conversations as we move forward. Thank you. Any other questions or comments? Um I have a couple. Can you I In many conversations with the public, developer profit comes up and there is a perception that that um developers are trying to get an even bigger return on investment and that's why they're not doing X, Y, and Z. And um and sometimes the public will accuse us of giving away things to developers.

And I'm wondering if you could talk about um developer profit and investor and um loan you know, whether it's a bank or whatever, returns on investment and and and I don't know if you can do this briefly, um but just kind of the considerations that go in and why we're looking at doing these changes um in order to get more affordable housing and to meet our climate goals. Mhm. That's a big one. Let me think here.

So, I think where I would start is there's lots of different kinds of developers and they all approach us a little bit differently and depending on who their investors are and what their investors' expectations are um and whether they're just a home builder or they're a land developer. So, lots of different scenarios there.

Um a couple of things I would say in general um is that uh the extent to which developers can command a higher sale price or higher rent and achieve those higher profits, cuz that fluctuates more than construction costs and land costs uh and things like that um is really dependent on the um how tight the market is. And if there's not a lot of supply, prices are going to go up because they know they can they can manage that.

And so, part of this is there's a spiral that happens in high demand cities where um demand is really high to live there, a lot of people want to move there, supply is not keeping up uh and then that also means that it's expensive to live there, which also means that the laborers that work on the construction have to be paid more or travel from farther distance, which raises construction costs, which raises the cost of land.

So, there's a lot of things that can sort of lead to um construction costs going up in places that are high-demand, but aren't don't have the housing production to keep up with it. So, one thing that way to think about this is the power to for developers to set prices is partly dependent on how much housing is getting produced.

So, if the response to I don't want a developer to profit too much is we need to constrain and apply so many regulations and procedures to slow down development, that's going to be counterproductive in the long term because you're going to have less supply and you're going to not be able to meet that supply, prices are going to go up, developers are going to have more power.

So, as a way to think about why housing supply is such an important part of the equation of giving more power to consumers to to um to be able to set prices. Um the other thing to that I would just say in the market today in the last few years, um the combination of inflation, construction costs, wages going up that I it's hard for me to imagine many developers that are able to uh secure exorbitantly high rates of return on projects.

Um projects don't pencil very often um and a lot of variables have to come together for a project to pencil. So, yes, developer may be asking for more cuz they have an interest obviously in maximizing their profit, but it may be because they just need to hit a certain return standard in order to get a lender to fund their project or an investor to invest in it.

They're just not It's either they're going to hit that return that's required to be competitive on the market, or they're not and the project's not going to happen. That's what I think more happens more often than a developer being able to really maximize profits. Thank you. That was a a great concise answer to my question. Um and I think that that was really the only question I had. Um the rest is mainly comments. So, I am going to go ahead and take public comment. First up, Tyler Denham.

And I'm sorry. Thank you. Thank you. Hey, uh good evening, Mayor and council members. My name is Tyler Denham. I'm here speaking on behalf of Flagstaff for Affordable Housing. And we enthusiastically support the LAX Cap recommendations and want to thank city staff and the consultant for the thoughtful and ambitious work that has gone into reducing housing barriers. It's always worth rating who this work is for. The people who keep our city running that can no longer afford to live here.

The long-term residents being priced out of the community they helped to build. Young folks struggling to put down roots. Families being pushed into long commutes from outside the city. The recommendations before you will not solve the housing crisis on their own, but they represent a meaningful opportunity to address housing affordability through local action. So, as staff ask for direction tonight, we hope you will provide the following guidance.

First, reassure staff that council supports the overall direction of these recommendations and is committed to seeing them through to adoption. These reforms will require political courage, but they are necessary if we want to bring down housing costs. Second, uh move these recommendations forward as quickly as practical.

Staff are best positioned to determine the sequencing, uh but we're hoping for reforms to at least development standards, parking, and zoning before the next construction season begins. Third, when considering requirements that may increase housing costs, uh pair them with additional flexibility elsewhere in the code so that projects remain feasible to build.

And fourth, uh strengthen the recommendations in a few places, um such as by removing residential parking minimums or at least considering exempting more uses and zones from them. Consider expanding the scope of the project to reform commercial parking requirements as well so that underutilized parking lots can become homes. Take a more proactive approach to designing and implementing narrower residential street designs.

And finally, consider converting portions of the traffic impact analysis process into a more predictable and equitable development fee. And to be clear, um there's a lot of policies in there that I didn't mention and that's because, you know, we very enthusiastically support them. We've spent years discussing the need for housing reform and tonight is an opportunity to move from discussion to action. We urge you to give staff clear direction and keep these recommendations moving forward.

So, thank you for your time and I'm happy to take any questions you may have. Thank you, Tyler. Any questions for Tyler? I have a question. Councilmember Matthew. Thank you, Tyler. I really appreciate all of your input. You're like the brain trust for housing solutions cuz I know this is what you live and breathe. Um can you expand a little bit?

Um I know we've had a conversation on this, but the traffic impact study requirements, can you talk a little bit about right now why it maybe we could improve on it? Yeah, so to explain that a little bit, and hopefully I don't have to have staff jump in to correct me too much. Uh, but uh, there's something called a development fee, which is a very predictable fee you have to pay for a project, and at the moment Flagstaff has development fees for fire and police.

And then for all the other impacts that come with development, like sewer and traffic in particular we're talking about, there's this whole fairly complex process that the developer and the city staff go through to model and predict and then attach a fee to those impacts. And the issue with that process is that uh, it's very uncertain, which means that a developer cannot put that into their pro forma.

Um, they can't predict that fee beforehand, and also it can stretch out the timeline quite a bit if they're going back and forth with city staff. And there can also be some other unintentional downsides of that process. So, you often have big infrastructure upgrades that are triggered at certain breakpoints.

And developers, in order to avoid those breakpoints, may willingly cut units from their project, and they may choose to build something that's below the densities that the regional plan calls for.

And yeah, we think the solution there that would be more equitable in terms of spreading the cost of that infrastructure across all of the units evenly, and um, would just get rid of that issue with the financing, complicating the financing, and dragging out the timelines is to convert as much as possible of it into a standardized development fee. To be clear, you can't convert everything in the traffic impact analysis to a development fee.

There are like, you know, on-site upgrades that you you can't get rid of, but as much as possible. Thank you, and I I know that you I'm guessing you've had that conversation with staff, but if not, I'd really like to, you know, find out more about what they think about that in the future. Yeah. Yes. I I just want to remind council that staff is actually currently reviewing the development impact fee analysis. Um we have to review it every 5 years.

At the last council retreat about a year ago, you gave us direction to as part of our review with the public safety impact fee to also look at libraries, which I think we're no longer looking at just because of the recent bond. Um traffic and open space parks and open space. So, we are actually considering that. And it's we can talk more about how that impacts the whole process when we have that information. Thank you so much. Thanks. Tyler, Councilmember Aslan has a question for you.

Get back here. Earn my keep. Um curious if you can elaborate on Flagstaff house housing Flagstaff affordable housing Flagstaff affordable housing things um thinking and position on the intersection and the relationship between our two declared crises. Uh yes, so the regional plan has two declared crises, the uh housing affordability issue, and then also climate action. And this project, the CAP, is motivated to address both of those.

And there are some uncomfortable some uncomfortable conflicts between the two of those in places. There are cases where you want new development to be more sustainable in terms of energy efficiency or water efficiency and whatnot. But mandating those things may increase the upfront cost of development.

We are concerned about that, but we our position is that if there are places where we are adding mandates and requirements that would increase the upfront cost of housing that the city try and find other places that it can make the situation easier for the housing as opposed to cutting the requirement. We want to avoid a situation where these two are in clear conflict with each other.

We just think that's going to be it's going to cause a lot of conflict in the community if we frame things that way. So, let's just find additional areas where we can help with the upfront cost of housing as much as possible. Stay there, please. Council Member Garcia. Thank you, Tyler. I was wondering if you could expand a little bit on your proposal to remove parking minimums.

Yes, so at the moment Flagstaff uses parking minimums as the primary tool to manage demand for public parking on the street. This is fairly common, but there's been a trend in the past few years of moving away from parking minimums as a planning tool and instead doing things like curbside management and parking benefit districts to manage demand for on-street parking.

And there's quite a bit of literature on this, but it just seems very clear that that latter set of tools is a lot better and gets you to more efficient land use. I thank you. No. Councilmember Spence. Thank you, Mayor. And and Tyler, the the presentation that we just um were have benefited from and I thank uh our consultant for a very a high-level overview of of the recommendations. And one of the specifics was reducing street um width from 57 ft to 52 ft.

To me, that seems like a relatively small decrease in uh street width. And one of the uh concerns that I've heard with reducing street widths is that our emergency vehicles aren't going to be able to uh make it down the street. Uh the fire trucks won't be able to uh quickly get to a a burning building. But um are those concerns um alleviated when we're only decreasing street width um design standards from 57 to 52?

Uh Can you comment on uh how that mm minimum it's only 5 ft uh less for the right-of-way. Uh is that going to allow our fire trucks to get to a burning building? Pardon me uh for just a minute. I think this is a question for staff. And so I'm wondering if staff wants to respond to that. I mean Thank you, Tyler. Let me pull up that uh cross section for you here.

Um So, um this specific 52-ft cross section, um the main thing that it that it does is um what's what's shrinking compared to the standard cross section now is the curb-to-curb width. So, it was a priority that if we were to propose something different than what you have today, that wouldn't negatively impact the pedestrian experience, right? So, the the um the street trees and the sidewalk width, those are all the same. Um but the um so, that it becomes what is known as a yield street.

So, it actually in um if there's parking on both sides and the it's cars are parked there, um cars may not be able to park at the or cross at the same time. So, you yield, you pull off to the side, and let let another car come through, and then you move in. So, it's it's unconventional, and some people don't like it. But, uh it does result in narrower streets, which some people prefer.

People slow down, uh and even though it's only 5 ft of difference, 5 ft across a hundred or thousands of linear feet of street adds up a lot. Um and so, um in terms of emergency access, yes, there is an impact to that because the fire truck would also have to deal with that yielding maneuver.

Uh and um so, way other cities have addressed this is through signed restrictions on parking at certain intervals, so that there is space to to pull over and yield, um and particularly when there's a a fire uh truck being access there. So, just requires a little bit more management of the on-street parking than you would otherwise to make sure there's those yield zones. Thank you. Paul, did you have anything you wanted to add? Um sure, Paul Mood, city engineer.

The consultant pretty much said it. Um it would it would have impact and they said I believe he said when if you're going to look at doing that, reducing the width, then you have you have to look at parking options too, either restricting parking or parking on one one side of the road only, things like that. Yeah. Thank you. All right, I'm going to take our next commenter, David Hayward. Good evening, everyone.

Um I'm going to I think I'll speak from the heart a little bit tonight um and not just because my therapist told me I have to practice. Um but I mean, first off, um I just want to thank Tiffany and Michelle. They have done I think just some really amazing work um and it's really impressive to see folks who, you know, look at that job and don't just say, you know, how am I going to get home by 5:30, but how can I make this better, right?

Um how can I make my job better and you know, also how can we make our city better, right? Um and I'm I'm really impressed by that. Um I would also say, you know, I I do think they've been carrying the water um for on this issue uh for the city.

I think, you know, when we go um in front of the uh you know, the the groups, the committee that reviews our planning applications, there are seven major departments, right, that that review those applications Um and thank you for Paul for showing up but really there's only one of them here tonight.

So I hope you guys will set the expectation that you know, maybe they don't need to be all this great as Michelle, but you know, they should they should at least try to you know, learn from her example.

I think that the second thing that's the the I really like about the direction that this whole thing is going is that it sets up a a world in which the developers, city staff, city council can all work together to achieve right, the goal of providing more housing for our for our community, especially for the most vulnerable vulnerable members of our community. Um you know, the the process too often can become contentious, right? It turns into an us versus them thing, right?

Where we all start you know, and this happens I think on on both sides of the table, but you know, we all start kind of assigning values, right, and motivations to folks. I think you guys I mean you guys know what that's like, right, as being politicians, it's kind of like you know, you're either in my camp or you're not. You know, and if you're not, you're a bad person, right?

Obviously, that's not the way to you know, to solve a problem as big as this and so like the fact that we're moving in this direction really really gives me hope that um you know, maybe I don't need to see my therapist quite as much.

Um [laughter] but I would say lastly um um Mayor Daggett, because you asked the question, um it was the that that question was the one that I came up here to to answer when I you know, started thinking about the comment that I was going to make 3 days ago, and I changed my mind. Um But will you be honest? Please continue on that. [laughter] But I think there's um you know, I think there's there's really you know, two kind of two two big things there I would say, right?

I I did the the math this morning. Um And if you you look at the 7,000 units that we've talked about in our housing plan right? And some of those average prices of 750 grand a unit that we we saw on the slides up there. Um that's just over $5 billion of housing construction. Um there you know, we we we have to be able to harness, right? Private money, right? Bank money uh developer money to be able to achieve that.

Um we're not going to you know, we're not going to be able to do it from this building right here. Um I think the um I think the other point I've forgotten. So, I'll email you guys later. But um I think Tyler answered all your questions, so unless you have any other ones. Thank you. Cool. Thanks, guys. Thank you. And we have an online commenter. We have one online commenter this evening. Um Ace, you may go ahead and address council. Hello, Mayor. Hello, Mayor, council, and staff.

My name is Ace Overman. I want to start by saying thank you to everyone that worked on the code analysis project and report. The recommendations in this report are much needed reforms to our outdated zoning codes. For far too long as these codes have not reflected the city's continued growth ongoing climate change, nor the rising cost of housing.

The recommendations laid out in the report will help the city into the future as we continue to grow, combat climate combat climate change and tackle the housing crisis. I agree with the recommendations of reducing parking minimums, narrowing our streets, increase base max maximum density across both residential and commercial zones, commercial businesses closer to streets instead of massive parking lots.

You have to narrow go through till you get to the actual business and reducing the number of cul-de-sacs.

These recommendations will lower the cost of housing, make our city more walkable, reduce our carbon footprint, fill missing middle housing throughout the city, make our streets safer for bikers, making neighborhoods more diverse via income and housing side size, increase the amount of housing and commercial businesses the city has, and overall just give us what we all want, which is welcoming, beautiful, safe, walkable, green, affordable neighborhoods close to stores and resources.

These recommendations laid out in the report make this possible throughout the city of Flagstaff. A particular recommendation I think is very relevant right now as the World Cup is ongoing is reducing the number of cul-de-sacs to improve walkability within our neighborhoods. I don't know if you've seen the news segments or social media videos of people trying to demonstrate to tourists that one cannot walk from Manhattan to MetLife Stadium, New Jersey. It's just impossible.

Um walkable neighborhoods are rare here in the US as we know, while across the globe they are the standard. Several of the photos for the recommended R-1 neighborhood and housing types are of in the presentation are of my neighborhood that I currently live in, Presidio in the Pines. It's a great, safe, condensed neighborhood with great diversity of housing. I do think it is the format going forward for neighborhoods.

Um the lack of a lot of the homes here have very small yards and don't have yards at home all and that's compensated throughout the subdivision with three parks. There's not much I would change about my neighborhood but I would advocate that more projects like my neighborhood come forward here in the city that the city advocate for more green space in these neighborhoods and diversity in color and layout of the housing to improve the visual character of a neighborhood. Thank you. Thank you, Ace.

That was our last public commenter. All right, so we have a comment from Council Member Garcia. Thank you, Mayor. This should be pretty brief. I wanted to um to mention that when you brought up the slide that had the the change in the parking minimums to where they were going to or [snorts] where they were going to stay in current with about one per unit one parking space per unit and then you had the other metric that showed far less.

I I really appreciated to see the the two the two the differences between the two. When I look at where I live now, it looks more consistent with the one on the right to where we have about 70 or 0.75 spaces per I guess bedroom not necessarily unit since my unit is a three-bedroom. And it seems to work out nicely even though it consumes quite a bit of space almost as much as the property itself.

But to Tyler's point in the future if it's within the realm of state law, I would like to see additional metric that Um that solved for or at least equated for um parking minimums being removed. That's about it. Thank you. Council? Additional questions or comments? All right. Um Yes, Councilmember Yeah, I'll just voice out loud very briefly. I do support Flagstaff for affordable housing.

Uh uh generally Well, I generally support the recommendations that staff are making and uh I I would agree with pushing things a little bit further where uh Flagstaff for affordable housing um suggest we do so. I'm pretty much in line and in sync and very synergistic with their way of thinking and and and and for the logic behind it. Thank you. So, um thank you for so clearly articulating all of the benefits of density and showing us what different densities look like.

So, it it doesn't need to be a frightening thing. I think people go immediately from Flagstaff to Manhattan. Um and we're talking about densities that fit Flagstaff and conserve I mean, if you're looking at it from an environmental standpoint, conserve water resources, um make better use of space. And if you're looking at it from uh city infrastructure, you know, you have more units creating the um the money to maintain rather than rural residential.

And I And I'm not sure that we've gotten the message out, and maybe we have um enough about what having um rural residential as the default zoning for so much land, it gives us the exact opposite of what we're looking for as a community, which is sustainability and housing costs, as well as community, right? Where you're able to walk places, you're able to you have more opportunities to mingle with neighbors and people in other neighborhoods.

I mean, this is such a positive for Flagstaff, and I'm appreciative, so appreciative, of all the work that has gone into it, and all the work that is going to go into it to bring these code changes back to um public discussion and council and planning and zoning. Um I just I think that this effort is probably the greatest effort that is going to get us toward our climate action goals and our housing goals. And I've been so excited to see this presentation for so long. So, thank you.

And um with that, can we get Mayor, you have Councilmember House with her hand up. She has her hand up? Oh, okay. Councilmember House. Yes, thank you, Mayor. Sorry about that. I For folks who can't see our chat, I am in a hotel and we got called out for a fire alarm, but I'm back and just wanted to make the comments that I had earlier.

Um just going back to and and actually expanding on some of what David shared in his comments and a a question from Councilmember Aslan about the correlation between the two declared emergencies in our community. It just feels very important to re-emphasize that what we're talking about here with with this analysis and in this conversation is not a matter of either/or, but a matter of both/and.

Um people know that I work at the intersection of behavioral health and housing and one of the things that I've learned in this work is that housing very much contributes to the overall health of our neighborhoods and the people who choose to call our community home.

When we talk about code changes that support more housing options, infill development, when we're talking about walkability and more efficient use of land and infrastructure as as the Mayor was just referencing, we're not setting our housing goals against our climate and sustainability goals, but what we're doing is recognizing that they are deeply interconnected.

We spoke earlier tonight about the public safety measure and it's worth noting and going back to a comment earlier this evening that stated that the people we're talking about are the most vulnerable in our community. They're the young people who are looking to establish their roots and they're the elders who are looking to maintain them.

They're the people who both live here and serve our community, our teachers, our nurses, our firefighters and other safety team members, and so many more of the people who make Flagstaff the community that it is.

If we want people to live closer to where they work, if we're trying to reduce transportation burdens, support more resilient neighborhoods, and create a community where people of different incomes and household types can truly stay in Flagstaff and call this place home, then our land use policies have to reflect that.

And these changes are just one way that we align our housing emergency response with our climate emergency response, rather than treating them as competing or uh non-complementary priorities. So, I very much support the recommendations of this analysis.

I look forward to seeing where we can strengthen and expand our work to create more opportunities to address both of our goals, and do the work that we need to do to meet the challenging needs that are facing our community in a very holistic and uh thoughtfully combined and united way. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you. If I could get thumbs up um that we want to see this continue forward and are supportive. Thumbs up. Great. We got unanimous thumbs up. All right.

So, next up is open call to the public. None. Announcements and updates to and from council and city manager. Uh Council Member Matthews. Thank you, Mayor. Um I just wanted to make one other statement from the um conference I went to yesterday. For all the parents out there and grandparents, this really stuck with me um when we're talking about trafficking and the definitions and stuff.

It was very profound when somebody said, "You're not giving your child access to the world with the internet, your iPads, you're letting them um get on separate apps and stuff, you're actually giving the world access to your child. So, um, that's just a warning shot across the bow to I know I'm going to have a conversation with my kids about what they allow their kiddos to do because, um, just how these predators get to our children is amazing and it happens more often.

So, I'll leave it at that. Thank you. Councilmember Garcia. Thank you, Madam Mayor. I would like to thank everyone at fire station number three who showed me, uh, all around the firehouse and all around their equipment. It was a blast.

Uh, I was fed probably the best breakfast burrito I ever had in my life and we just kind of sat back and chatted for about an hour or two and an hour and a half about, um, the fire the fire house lifestyle, um, the challenges and the successes of of family members and and how, um, their how their lifestyle equates to, um, you know, having a good family life and also, um, some of the shortfalls and some of the successes of being on the fire squad, um, in the current in current the current capacity.

We have a at least at in that department at that time we had a really cool conversation and everybody seemed really content with where they were at. Although, they were all very also they were all also very cogni- cognizant of some of the challenges that we spoke to tonight with our public, um, safety committee bond, um, resolution that we were passing, not resolution, but, um, the the, um, the special tax.

Um, Vice Mayor and I attended the Strong Towns meeting and as long as well as well as our planning department and that was fun. It was a way to walk through the historic downtown area and look at look towards solutions, um, even in the space that we had the meeting at was once a parking lot and now it's a meeting area and one of the cooler spots downtown that I've never seen before. Although it's been right there the whole time. I'll leave it at that for tonight. Council member Aslan.

Vice Mayor. Council member House. Nothing tonight. Thank you. Council member Spence. Nothing this evening. Thank you. All right. So today the city of Flagstaff presented a resolution regarding short-term rentals to a sub committee of the League of Arizona cities and towns and it is to raise the fee for short-term rental licenses to help offset costs of code compliance having to do with complaints coming specifically from short-term rentals and the committee unanimously supported it.

So it will be going to the league at the conference. There's a resolutions committee that I serve on and all the different cities will be presenting their resolutions and the resolutions committee will vote on whether to make that a legislative priority. Just want to remind everyone about all the pride activities going on on this weekend. And that is it. City Manager. Mayor and Council just a few updates.

Just a reminder that City Hall and our city operations were closed on Friday for Juneteenth. So we'll be celebrating Juneteenth and staff will um, staff will not be available, but we will be in events. Um, the second item is, in, um, addition to the item that you presented today, uh, Council Member Matthews will be presenting one tomorrow to another, um, subcommittee. Thursday of this week. I thought today was Wednesday. Um, so we're looking forward to, um, some good news on that.

I wanted to just do a few special recognitions. First of all, today, uh, it was a really big Council day with a lot of big issues that we have been, um, talking about and dealing with for months, some of them years.

I recall when I was actually first hired as a Deputy City Manager and Michelle McNulty and I met at an event and she said, "I've got this great idea to, um, you know, to to do a land availability and suitability study and look at all of our codes." So, just, um, wanted to just recognize all of the staff that that were involved in that effort, our budget process, um, coming to conclusion, uh, today as well.

And then also the public safety ballot measure, and I want to give a special recognition to Shannon Anderson who has really led that effort and the team and has spent a significant amount of time, um, getting us to where we are. So, um, we just have such a great team and I just want to make sure we recognize them. Um, I feel like I have one other.

Oh, and tomorrow we have our Leader of the Year Award, our extended leadership team and our leadership team will be meeting, um, and it's a surprise, but, um, you'll hear about it soon after. Um, so with that, thank you. Thank you. And along the lines of staff thanks, I want to thank staff for the two recommendations going to the league. Uh I'm very happy to see the city getting more active in um providing suggestions for resolutions and getting more active at the um at the state legislature.

So, thank you to staff who had a hand in doing that. You just triggered my last update or my last thank you. I I just want to recognize Sarah Langley and Stacy Salzberg. This session was a tough session and we were dealing with things up until the last minute of items that were coming forward and just being able to to get comments quickly from staff and get things sent out. Um just a great effort with a very small staff. Um and we also had some successes.

We were able to get some legislation through this year that that we actually asked for an amendment to another bill that um will make it easier to annex um a fire station of ours that is actually within the county. So, annex that within the within city limits. Um so, there are some things we'll we'll come back with those updates, but just a great effort this session by our whole team. And legal as well. Legal help as well. All right, we are adjourned.