Flagstaff Approves Pine Canyon Expansion and Launches Parking-Rate Increase on Path to Downtown Revitalization

All right, we are ready to get started. Today is Tuesday, October 7th, 2025. This is the city council's regular meeting. I'm calling this meeting to order and giving notice to members of the city council and to the general public 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 a roll call?

Mayor Daget here. Vice Mayor Sweet here. Council member Alen here. Council member Garcia here. Council member House present. Council member Matthews here. Council member Spence. Vice Mayor, would you lead us in the pledge of allegiance? Would be my honor. Please stand if you're able. Council member Garcia, would you read our mission statement? Yes. The mission of the city of Flagstaff is to enhance The mission of the city in Flagstaff is to protect and enhance the quality of life for all.

Thank you, Council Member Spence. Can you read our land acknowledgement? Thank you, Mayor. 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, which enables the public to address the council about any item that is not on tonight's agenda. And because it's not on tonight's agenda, um we cannot answer questions or have you ask us questions, but we can direct staff to follow up with you. First up, we have Steven Poor. Good afternoon, council, mayor.

Uh, last May, uh, 20th in 2025, the city treasurer, Rick Tatter, made a presentation recommending that the city council approve rehiring an investment manager for approximately $17 million. In that presentation materials and actual presentation, numerous red flags went off in my mind, having been involved in investment management for decades. I spent over the next three months verifying what I witnessed. And here's what I was requesting.

I was requesting the city council fulfill their obligations under the charter. That is that they monitor investments. That's all. How to have the investment manager CC you on an email with the investment management reports. What's that cost? 100 days. No answer from your city attorney. No answer from anybody else in the council or the staff here. Answer that question for me. It's a simple question.

If you don't have to do it, we did get the treasurer to write you a report, a little note in the city council. In that presentation to you, he noted a delegation of authority didn't cover these investments. Did you not notice that?

that that that was demand deposit CDs reverse repos doesn't say anything about corporate bonds which your investment policy allows 40% of your assets to be invested 20% in other corporate debt that's 60% of your debt 60% of your investments in corporates your benchmark has zero it's so easy to beat that when I can invest in corporates so it's inappropriate it's unethical what was done the SEC DC is going to rule on this for you and we'll see what happens elsewhere.

But it's terrible that you got to continue to bring this to your attention that if I took a look and I took a look at an appropriate benchmark for six different periods during the year 2022, 2023, and 2024, you're 0 for six. You can't beat a benchmark that has corporate bonds in it. Isn't that what you told them to do? Isn't that what your investment policy says? Why are we hiring these guys?

In 2024, your treasurer just gave you a report that gives an outline that supposedly you outperformed that easy benchmark by 20 some basis points. And it also mentions that you have $48 million with the Arizona Treasurer's local investment fund. Guess what? That returned 1% better than your manager. That's a hund That's a million dollars on 118. That's a million dollars. He didn't put that investment return in your report, though.

For some reason, that's why you should demand to get your obligation and oversight to get that report going directly to you. You would have known it doesn't have corporate bonds in that index. You would have known what those returns are in the corporate index. One of the things Thank you. Thank you, Colleen Maring. Good afternoon, mayor, vice mayor, council. My name is Colleen Maring. I'm the chief people officer at Northern Arizona Healthcare.

And as I've shared with you here and as many of you came and talked with us about at our recent strategic plan meeting in August, we are committed to putting our people and community first and listening to and being visible in the communities we serve. And as part of that effort, as we shared in August, we would be holding um listening sessions this fall to help us understand what the community wants to see happen at the current FMC site if and when we relocate the hospital to a new location.

So, I'm pleased to announce that we've set dates for those forums, and I'm here to invite the Flagstaff community, as well as each of you as our elected officials, um, to come share ideas with us. Uh, the two public events are October 28th at noon and October 29th at 6 PM, both in McGee Auditorium on the East Campus of Flagstaff Medical Center.

And during these sessions, we'll provide some information about how we intend to make a recommendation to our NAH board of directors um by the end of this calendar year about a potential to move to another location in order to build the modern regional referral facility we need to serve this community. But we heard loud and clear in 2023 that one reason people didn't support our move um at that time was that we couldn't say what we would do with the current FMC campus if we relocated.

And at that time we said we'll engage you later. We'll make a plan later. That's far down the road. Um but we definitely heard that that was not an acceptable strategy. And so um we now know that we need to help make that plan and make that vision prior to announcing where we intend to move if and when we're able to. So we're holding these two listening sessions to hear from Flagstaff residents about what should happen on that site um if we relocate.

We've already had two forums for our colleagues um and we got some great feedback already and you'll get to hear some of their feedback if you come to these open public sessions at the end of the month. Um so please join us again. It's October 28th at noon or the 29th um at 6 pm uh in McGee auditorium at FMC's campus. Thank you so much. Thank you. Next up we have proclamations and recognitions. We have three proclamations this evening and we will take them in order.

And typically we invite people who are here for each proclamation to join us down at the edge of the deis and we take a photo and then if someone from your um organization wants to say a few words. Uh you are welcome to do so. So in order we have housing America month. Thank you council member house. Domestic violence awareness month and indigenous people's day. So um anyone who's here for housing America month please join us at the edge of the deis.

Whereas safe and affordable housing is not a privilege but a fundamental necessity that shapes individual well-being, public health, educational achievement, and access to opportunities. And whereas the city of Flagstaff continues to face severe housing pressures with a median home price across all property types of $689,000 and an average rent above $2,234 per month.

These figures remain out of reach for the average household earning $69,700 per year and even further beyond the means of essential workers such as teachers police officers and firefighters. And whereas the city of Flagstaff remains committed to expanding housing opportunities, implementing solutions, and delivering local programs that create long-term affordability, reduce displacement, and challenge opposition to inclusive development.

And whereas as federal rhetoric and policies increasingly criminalize those without shelter, Flagstaff stands in solidarity with vulnerable community members by choosing housing first approaches grounded in compassion, dignity, and evidence-based practice.

And whereas the city of Flagstaff is deeply grateful for local housing providers, case managers, nonprofit partners, and advocates who support residents across the housing continuum, and help move Flagstaff toward greater equity and resilience. Now, therefore, I on behalf of Becky Daget, mayor of the city of Flagstaff, Arizona, do hereby proclaim October 2025 as Housing America Month.

Let us reject the idea that housing is a privilege and embrace our shared responsibility to make it a foundation of equity and opportunity for all. [Applause] All right. Thank you, Mayor, Vice Mayor, and Council. My name is Aiden Rutled, and I'm an administrative specialist with the City of Flagstaff Housing Office. I'm honored to accept this proclamation on behalf of our team.

Housing America Month is a time to recognize the importance of affordable housing and to celebrate the people and partnerships that make it possible. Throughout October, we'll be sharing affordability spotlights on social media, highlighting properties and programs that both our office and partners have helped bring to life across Flagstaff. Every day, the city works alongside an incredible network of organizations that help make this proclamation more than just words on paper.

Partners like Housing Solutions of Northern Arizona, Flagstaff Shelter Services, Habitat for Humanity, Catholic Charities, and many others are on the front lines helping people find a stable uh place to call home. Our housing challenges are real. High costs and limited supply leave too many families struggling. But what sets Flagstaff apart is how our community responds.

We continue to lead with collaboration, creativity, and compassion, using every tool available to make housing more accessible. From affordable housing incentives to partnerships that help first-time home buyers, this proclamation reminds us that housing is not just about buildings. It's about people. It's about ensuring that every teacher, every service worker, every family, and every neighbor has the security and opportunity that a home provides.

On behalf of the city's housing office, I want to thank our nonprofit partners, advocates, and community members who make this work possible every day. Thank you, Ameilia. [Applause] And if I could have our partners who are here for domestic violence awareness month join us at the edge of the deis. October is annually recognized as National Domestic Violence Awareness Month.

Domestic violence is a pattern of behavior of violence and intimidation for the purpose of gaining power and control over an intimate partner and increases the risk of other violence in the home, including child abuse. Although progress has been made toward preventing and ending domestic violence and providing support to survivors and their families, important work remains to be done.

Domestic violence affects people of all genders, sexual orientations ages racial ethnic cultural social religious and economic groups, encompassing more than 16 million people every year in the United States, including at least one in four women and one in seven men. Approximately 25% of all children witness domestic violence during their childhood.

Children exposed to domestic violence can experience long-term consequences, including difficulty at school, substance abuse, behavioral problems, and serious adult health problems. The Flagstaff Police Department recorded 1,756 calls for service for domestic violence in 2024, a 7.5% increase from 2023.

Survivors of domestic violence exhibit amazing courage, strength, and determination in the aftermath of such violence and deserve support and access to culturally responsive, trauma-informed programs and services to increase their safety and self-sufficiency.

The city of Flagstaff encourages all community members to work to support survivors of domestic violence and the efforts of community organizations that provide community education and outreach as well as services and support to survivors of domestic violence. Now, therefore, I, Becky Daget, mayor of the city of Flagstaff, Arizona, do hereby proclaim October 2025 as domestic violence awareness month in Flagstaff, Arizona.

and call upon the citizens of Flagstaff to join law enforcement, victim advocacy groups, and other local organizations to make our community a safe and supportive place for all for all of our families. To further acknowledge and support domestic violence month, excuse me, domestic violence awareness month, the city will raise the domestic violence awareness flag in front of city hall for the month of October 2025. [Applause] Good afternoon.

My name is Jen Rungi and I'm honored to be here today representing not just vict victim witness services but all of the agencies, advocates, and partners across Cookanino County who show up day after day for those impacted by domestic violence. We are a network of people who believe in something simple but powerful that no one deserves to live in fear. Domestic violence does not have a demographic. It doesn't care about where you live, what you earn, who you love, or what title you hold.

It happens in quiet homes on the outskirts of town and in city apartments among young couples and long marriages across every race, faith, and neighborhood. It can happen to anyone. And that truth is both heartbreaking and unifying. Because when we accept that domestic violence is not someone else's problem, we start to see see it for what it really is, a community issue that demands a community response. That response looks like the law enforcement officer who answers a call at 2 am.

The nurse who gently collects evidence in a forensic exam. The shelter staff member who says, "We have a safe place for you. The advocate who sits beside a survivor in court or quietly hands over a safety plan in a grocery store parking lot." It's the friend who notices something and says, "You don't seem okay." Every single one of those moments matter because each one offers something stronger than fear. It offers hope. Hope that things can change. Hope that safety can be rebuilt.

Hope that healing is possible even after the worst moments of someone's life. And hope isn't passive. Hope is action. Hope is showing up even when it's hard. Hope is believing that every survivor has the right to live a life free of violence and doing our part to make that possible. As we stand here today during domestic violence awareness month, let us honor the courage of survivors who have come forward and the resilience of those still finding their voice.

Let us recognize every advocate, every partner, and every person who chooses to make this work part of their daily life. And let us recommmit together to being a city that stands for safety, for dignity, and for hope. Could I have everyone coming to stand up for the um Indigenous People's Day proclamation? Stand with me. Whereas the city of Flagstaff recognizes that it is built on lands known, inhabited, loved, and respected by indigenous peoples since the time since time immemorial.

And whereas the city of Flagstaff was built and is still energized and maintained and shaped today with indigenous people's knowledge labor technology science philosophy, arts, and commerce. And whereas advocating for and supporting actions that lead to the advancement of social and environmental justice for indigenous communities is a priority per city council goals and objectives.

And whereas the city of Flagstaff understands that government entities, organizations, and public institutions have a responsibility to act pol to enact policies to combat racism and to build justice and equity for indigenous people and all people who suffer from the effects of prejudice and discrimination. And whereas the observance of Columbus Day is a com Thank you. commemoration of assimilation acculturation and genocide against indigenous peoples.

And whereas to this end, city officials and residents throughout Flagstaff and the surrounding areas participated in 2016 and 2017 in a series of indigenous community forums to hear the concerns and ideas of indigenous peoples and adopt the strategy and recommendations that came from these forums.

And whereas the city of Flagstaff resolved in 2018 to support efforts to educate the public about historic and contemporary indigenous human rights concerns and to honor its indigenous roots by becoming a better steward of the land it is built upon. And whereas the city of Flagstaff mayor and council members hereby recognize and renew the commitment between the city of Flagstaff in the indigenous nations and communities of Northern Arizona to work together for the benefit of all.

Now therefore, I on behalf of Mayor Becky Daget, mayor of the city of Flagstaff, Arizona, do hereby proclaim next Monday, October 13, 2025 as Indigenous People's Day. [Applause] Good afternoon. Those are my four clans, my mom and dad and my grandparents from both sides. Um I'm going to have our co-chair, one of our co-chairs for the indigenous commission um talk on our behalf. Yavu Ketcha in Mariah Zavala. Welcome Benos. Holaate saying hello in all the languages.

I am a member of the Bascoyaki tribe, Wakan and Puerto Rican. So extending my greetings to you in English, Yo, and Spanish, and in Da for my auntie over here. Uh, we would love to invite you to our um our event that we've been hard at work for Indigenous People's Day this Monday, October 13th, from 9:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. a free event to the public for all our relevant um relatives for again from 9:00 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Elks Lodge.

We'll have some vendors there with uh resources for health and wellness. We'll also have some indigenous entrepreneurs selling their their wares and crafts there. Our theme this year is from policy to prosperity.

With all the uncertainty that's happening in our world, in our lands, and in our government, we hope this will be a very a very supportive and kind and welcoming space for us to gather and have honest conversations on how we can move forward in these times and how we can move forward together. We'll also have lunch, which is open to the public, so please come by. We'll have our local family uh hosted by Maddie Bonali who will be providing indigenous tacos in the afternoon.

We'll have a cultural share there. And we just hope you can come and bring some good energy and we can share good medicine and be together on a day where we no longer honor or acknowledge the uh the genocide and pain from Christopher Columbus, but instead celebrate our indigenous communities that are moving forward handinhand with our partners and allies. this yet.

[Applause] Um, I just also want to um have a little bit of a of a time regarding who u we're going to have our keynote speaker who's going to who is the vice mayor of Tempi. Um she's D. She'll be coming up to give us a keynote. And then we'll also have our wonderful mayor and um council member lays on Lori Matthews as well. um there.

And then we're going to also have a little bit of um Miss Hopi and her attendant um talking about their what they're working on in their time of um having this these titles. And then we're also going to have indigenous business panel that are going to be talking about their businesses and what they do for the community here.

And we're also going to have another speaker who is the director of tribal community connections local first Arizona and he's going to be talking um regarding what he does in his work. And then we and then there will be a cultural share like uh Commissioner Zabala had said and that is going to be the Pine Country Powow Society. They'll be doing an exhibition dances of the different Powow styles.

And I also want to add um on top of what domestic violence is about um for this month, we are also putting on on December, not December um October 20th and 21st, we're going to show some films over at comm community at the center for the arts. And the first one is going to be the shape-shifting defense. and that was that is about a native Navajo lady that was murdered over at on the campus of um the medical center.

And then also there's also another documentary she cried that day um about missing a missing relative and that's going to be on the 21st at 5 both of them or at 5:30.

And then we're also going to have on the 22nd um what we call um hold on a second sorry um we're going to be having the voices unheard breaking the silence and that has to do with all the red flags all the precursors to what could be including domestic violence of what could be um precursor precursors to the missing and murdered indigenous relatives. Um and everyone's welcome to come and um hear from from our speakers. So uh please come and also be a part of our those days. Thank you.

[Applause] Okay, up next we have council liaison reports and I will start with council member Matthews. Thank you, mayor. Um, well, Rose just stole the thunder on my Indigenous People's Day announcement. Um, and another one is in a two from but we did have a mountain line meeting um last week and um just some of the updates, you know, working on um the tax um increase that was done.

We're continuing to rehab uh benches and shelters and working on our pair transit um agreements to serve our clients better and more timely. And those are just some of the highlights that we discussed. Thank you, Council Member Garcia. Nothing today. Mayor, council member Aline, we're going to pass today. Mayor, Vice Mayor, tomorrow there is a shortened metrop plan meeting 9 to 10 at the DCC. Council member House, nothing for me today. Mayor, thank you. Council member Spence, also nothing today.

All right, moving down to consideration of appointments. We have an appointment to the housing commission u made by council member Alen. Madame mayor, I would like to nominate Sarah Meyer to the position of building uh and real estate professional. Thank you. Is there a second? I'll second. Any discussion? All those in favor? I Any opposed? All right. Thank you. Moving down. liquor license public hearings. We have just one today. So, I'm going to open the public hearing and hear from staff.

Georgina Staski, deputy city clerk. Um, before you today is a liquor license application for a new application of a series 12 restaurant license for the Porch Flag Staff located at 360 West Forest Meadow Street. The agent on the application is John Steven Dolan and the managing um the manager handling the day-to-day operations is Joseph Anthony Hagerty. The police department and planning and development services have conducted their respective investigations.

Um those reports were included in the agenda packet. There are representatives from the divisions here to answer any questions you may have and representatives from the business were also invited to attend the hearing today. Thank you. Council, do you have any questions? And I see we don't have any public comment. All right, I'm going to close the public hearing and um we can deliberate or someone can make a motion.

Mayor, I will move to forward the application to the state with a recommendation for approval. I'll second. Any discussion? All those in favor? I. Any opposed? All right. Next up, 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 at the meeting to remove an item from the consent agenda for discussion. The agenda will be enacted by one motion approving the recommendations.

Um, I would like to pull item. Thank you. Not number letter F. So, I will entertain a unless there are other items that you would like to pull, I will entertain a motion to approve the rest of the consent agenda. Madame Mayor, I'll make a motion to approve um A through H minus F. Is that okay? Okay. A A A through H minus F of the consent agenda items. Is there a second? I'll second. Any discussion? All those in favor? I. All right.

And um so item F or um letter F I had um spoken to staff about ahead of time and just asked that they be present to answer any questions that might come up. I just wanted to make sure that we gave um council members and the public an opportunity to ask any questions. And um and also chief if you have anything that you would like to add. Good afternoon, mayor, members of council, city management.

I'm open for some questions and then I'll be able to follow up with some things I think are important. Council, do you have any questions? Council member House. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Chief, for being here. and for taking some questions on this item. Um, I understand that this is the extension of our um, existing body camera system.

Um, but some of what I've been reading from um, Axon and and other entities are talking more about the integration of artificial intelligence and um, programs like that in in reporting and um, and that sort of use. And I'm wondering if that is part of this contract extension, if we have integrated that or are considering that sort of integration or kind of what our our thought process is there. Yeah, mayor, members of council, council member house, that's a very insightful question.

And in this this package, I just want to say, you know, the city of Flagstaff and the Flagstaff Police Department in July of 2014 was groundbreaking. Uh they were one of the first cities and police departments in America to embrace the body warn camera system as a form of legitimacy and transparency and that technology continues to evolve and be hyper important for what we do on a daily basis. Roughly 200,000 videos a year are downloaded at approximately 4 to 500 a day of everything we do.

So I think it's very important the component as AI takes over and so many of our technologies um currently um with the camera system um there is no report writing component in it what this AI report writing component which will be in this um we spend significant uh money at the end of shift writing our reports. Officers are going call to call all day long and they come back at the end of their 10-hour shift and write their reports.

The new technology is taking us down a path where in real time that camera is is recording the conversation and creating a rough draft of what was said, super accurate. And the officer sits uh after that call and in a lot shorter time frame um is able to see an AI report that is generated. Um they have to go through it and edit it. There is actually things put in it so they have to review it. Um and so yes, the short answer to your question is it is part of it.

Um and I think for us when we look at uh financial responsibility um and the amount of money we're spending on overtime writing reports at the end of shift, I'm hoping to see some financial efficiency and increased accuracy with the report writing. And are there plans to look at any sort of um trying to think of how to phrase this?

Apologies for the the gaps here, but um any sort of protective measures or or um policy in terms of how reliant the officers may be on this um just because with AI is is a very helpful tool. There's no denying that. Um it does have its own programmatic barriers and and challenges.

Um and one of the things that somewhat concerns me is the ability of AI to um make its own assumptions um on uh how a how an interaction may have gone or or what um it thinks that the person using it kind of wants to hear um that you have to really actively build in some stout gaps for.

And so I'm just wondering what our department is is doing or has done or is considering to put those stop gaps in to do some whether it's bias training um in the the inputs that are being entered for that use or um policies that may be under consideration for ensuring that the officer is really updating uh based off of their live interaction in that experience and not just relying on um what the the artificial intelligence maybe is is making assumptions so that they can go in and correct some of those assumptions if needed.

Mayor, members of council, council member house, I I think you're incredibly wise in the conversations. You know, we've been having tech tips in our leadership and extended leadership meetings about the impact of AI just in our daily work here within the city. Um, one of the things and I think it what I'm hearing too and I think it would be important as we move we're not in implementation of this yet.

Uh, I think it would be important to have Axon come in and talk about the research that was done for years prior to implementation to this. What I've heard from them is this is a system from an AI perspective that's not extracting from outside sources. So it's it's it's based on the conversation that's learned.

But I think we have to be hyper sensitive and I'm in alignment with you related to ensuring um that that verbiage that is between the officer and the witness, the victim or the suspect uh is free of bias um is is intelligent and is documented accurately. Um that we have leaned into that research from Axon. We have seen some demonstrations of that. But I think um as we evolve, you hear me talk about this um great police departments are rooted in great training.

supported by um great policy with systems of accountability and then officer wellness. And so before my promise to everybody and to the communities before we implement this, we will make sure that those asurances are in there for the types of things that you've articulated. But I think it would be really cool for everybody to see a demonstration of this. The other thing that I think is amazing um is with the new AB4, it has the ability to translate 55 different languages.

So, if we're out on a call for service, um where we uh have a language barrier and we're not able to communicate, uh the officer has the ability to activate that function and then the the camera is translating in 55 different languages so we can bridge that gap if we don't have a translator on shift. Really great stuff. Thank you very much, Chief. And I I saw CJ stood up in the back. I don't know if you had anything AI guru Thank you, Mayor, Vice Mayor, Council, and CJ Perry, your CIO.

Um, just to kind of add a little bit of context related to bias. Um, there's a lot of different AI systems and and the way I AI systems are trained. In this particular instance, there are actually already safeguards put in by Axon. Um, so I would think of this more like a transcription service that has some added AI functionality. um where you get a lot of bias is where you're trying to get it to just take from the internet and try to make up stuff um based off of your prompt.

And in this case, it's using actually the body cam um footage as its single source of truth and not trying to pull things from the internet or trying to make things up. There's a huge difference there in relation to how AI systems are programmed in that respect. So, I have a very high level of confidence that there wouldn't be these types of bias in there.

That being said, you know, it is important for us to train the officers to doublech checkck the reports and go through that and that's part of this whole process. So, um just kind of trying to reassure you that it's more like a transcription service than it is like some of the AI stuff that you have may have, you know, may have played with um by yourselves as well. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mayor. Council member Garcia, thank you, Chief Connelly, for that for that answer.

But I was I had one question about the body cams. If you could do a quick summation of the importance of them for your officers in real time, what what are they bringing to the table now as far as safety for the department and safety for the community? Mayor, members of council, council member Garcia, the word that comes to mind is legitimacy.

There is an expectation in community and society um that we are legitimate in all of our interactions with community, no matter whether you're a victim, a witness, or a suspect.

And um since the you know I' I've talked about becoming a young police officer um absent a body camera I couldn't imagine being out there now uh in this day and age as a form of capturing the the facts of what had occurred uh in that particular incident um so when when I look at the importance of that it's first and foremost community safety um those cameras are capturing that event in a whole host of levels we know the impact biologically on the brain under stress and how uh victims and witnesses and officers um their mindsets of what they actually are perceiving is sometimes distorted by the pressure and the what's going on.

And so that video affords us that that transparency and that legitimacy. It's also you heard me talk about systems of accountability. Um when we talk about uh successful prosecution, um when we talk about the righteousness of our performance, um having that video uh as evidence of what factually happened at that moment in time, it it it's a form of our ability to hold ourselves accountable um when we're not performing to our expectations.

Um the other part of it too is um to be completely honest I if there are allegations made against our officers it provides us a non-biased very factual audio and video of what occurred for us to look into that performance um so we can be very accurate and precise with it. Thank you for your cander chief. Yes sir. I'm wondering of the 55 languages whether um D or Hopi is included. mayor, members of council and mayor. That was my very first ask and the answer was no.

Um they talked about the complexity of it and re continuing to research. I even had this conversation with Rose and some others in the police chief's indigenous advisory board and I've asked Axon if if if they get to a place where they can figure that out, we want to be the alpha testers for it in our community because it's so important. Um but currently it is not one of the 55 languages um within the package.

They are cognizant and sensitive of the need in Flagstaff and we're going to continue to apply pressure and be a supporter of of advocating for that. Thank you. Any additional questions? Thank you so much. Um appreciate it and I will entertain a motion on um item F. Mayor, I will move to approve item F. Is do I need to go through that? Oh, that was not there. It was just this mayor council and council member house. No, you just you do need to make a motion to approve item F.

Yes, I will move to approve item F. I'll second that. Any discussion? All those in favor? I. Any opposed? All right, moving down to routine items. 10A is the consideration and adoption of resolution number 2025-46 and 2025-19. Hello Tiffany. Hi, it's me. I'm here for the second read. If you have any questions, I'd be happy to answer them. Council, did you have any questions for Tiffany? Then I will entertain a motion to adopt. Mayor, I move to adopt resolution number 2025-46. I'll second.

Any discussion? All those in favor? I. Any opposed? All right. And a motion to read ordinance 2025-9. Mayor, I will move to read ordinance number 2025-9 by title only for the final time. I'll second. Any discussion? All those in favor? I I. Any opposed? All right. City clerk.

An ordinance of the city council of the city of Flagstaff amending the Flagstaff City Code Title 10 Flagstaff Zoning Code by adopting by reference that certain document entitled PZ-25-000028-H highoccupancy housing update providing for repeal of conflicting ordinances, severability, authority for clerical corrections, and establishing an effective date. Thank you. And a motion to adopt. I move that we adopt ordinance number 2025-19. I'll second. Any discussion? All those in favor? I. I.

Any opposed? All right. Thank you. Moving down to B. Consideration and approval of planned residential development allowances and modifications to engineering standards. Just a moment. Right. Good afternoon, council. My name is Ben Mahia. I'm a senior planner with the city of Flagstaff Planning and Development Services. for your consideration is a request for the use of planned residential development standards and modifications to engineering standards for STL 405 Pine Canyon expansion.

The uh application that was reviewed was for a 54 lot single family subdivision uh using PRD standards on 77.7 acres in the rural residential zone within the resource protection overlay. The parcel itself is 126 acres. What is being uh utilized for PRD is the 77.7 acres. Uh we can go into a little bit further detail there uh later. and the applicant requests five modifications to engineering standards. You'll see that it was written in four uh requests.

Uh the fourth or the fifth comes out of uh the fourth request for modification had kind of two parts. So the city uh city engineer split those and gave two separate recommendations there. Just to give a little context for the location, um to the north of this site is vacant land in the rural residential zone. To the west is the existing Pine Canyon shown in uh in this yellow color here uh is single family residential. It's single family subdivisions.

Uh to the south is Cookanino National Forest uh in the public lands forest zone. Uh to the east is additional rural residential as well as er uh estate residential uh zoned vacant land. City staff approved the preliminary plat on August 27th, 2025 based on conformance with all relevant development standards and the recommended conditions of approval. to uh elaborate on on why there is kind of two acreages provided for this.

The 126 um less than 77.7 gives you the the future development tracks that the uh applicant is is creating three future development tracks for uh further consideration at a later date under its own uh entitlements for the uh PRD. The proposal meets the development standards for the RR zone within or utilizing PRD standards. The rural residential zone allows a maximum density of one unit per acre. The proposed density of the PRD is 69 units per acre.

The future residential uh development tracks are not a part of this PRD. They will be developed under their own entitlements. Uh the lot sizes for this subdivision, the lots uh created from it range from approximately 9,637 square feet to approximately 80,278 square ft uh meeting the development standards for the RR zone in the or using PRD standards uh with minimum lot area of 2,500 square feet uh maximum lot coverage of 50% uh lot dimensions minimum lot dimensions of 30 by 50 ft.

Um front setback of 12 ft. Uh 20 ft for parking. The side setback of 5T uh 10 ft for street side and a rear setback of 12 feet. PRDS are required to provide a minimum of 15% of gross sight area as common space. Uh for this proposal they are proposing to utilize uh or to meet that requirement through the use of a golf course. That is a separate application um for the conditional use permit that is required for a golf course in this zone. Uh however the common space itself is being met by that.

So there's some uh need for discussion on that. But the entitlement itself comes from the public hearing for the conditional use permit. Um the applicant has identified their intent to develop portions of the common space area for future amenities. So rei revisions to the total common space may be required but it can't uh go below the 15% required and currently it is uh 26.6% 6% of the uh site area for the PRD. PRDS are required to uh select design elements totaling five points.

Uh this is being met by uh design element F which is significant trafficcomming design features selected from the engineering design standards and specifications for new infrastructure. uh as approved by the city engineer. This is being met with the uh traffic circle that is being designed for John Wesley Powell at the entrance of this subdivision. The uh next design element is design element J.

The provision of recreational amenities within a park or common space area including but not limited to dog parks, picnic areas, and sports courts. In this case, they are proposing a golf course within the common space tract which would meet that. Of course, as previously stated, the the conditional use permit uh does need to be granted for this to be able to move forward. Um as is if if that is not granted, uh alternative design elements would be required.

And then uh the last design element selected is that the subdivision CCNRs and setback standards do not prohibit the development of accessory dwelling units and staff will review the CCNRs with final plat uh to ensure conformance with that. A preliminary landscaping plan was approved with the review of the preliminary plat uh on October 1st.

The applicant proposed an alter an alteration to the approved landscape plan uh and requested a modification to this uh to the requirements of landscaping uh that's set out in the engineering standards. Uh the request was for a reduction in the required parkway median um number of trees in the parkway and median specifically for the internal private streets. uh and their justification is to reduce demand for for irrigation water.

Um this is not a formal uh or this doesn't require a formal uh engineering modification or modification to engineering standards. So it is uh going to be evaluated in the civil plan stage of of the review. But at this time we wanted to just make you aware of of some changes that are going to happen after the the uh approval of the preliminary platinum. It's just kind of along the way there.

Um the uh engineering standards allows for some flexibility with the uh meeting of those landscaping standards. They really establish baseline landscaping design themes. So there is sufficient um justification to to establish what the appropriate uh design theme is for for the project and that will be reviewed and evaluated at civil plan. As I previously stated, there are five modification requests and I'll be going through them now.

The the first is for uh modification to the typical urban culdesac and specifically the back of curb radi. Uh the city engineer has recommended approval of this request with the following conditions. First, that the culde-sac shall be signed for no parking. Second, that the culde-sac curb shall be painted red indicating a fire lane and no parking.

And third, that the uh that a concrete pad of sufficient length and width for two solid waste carts shall be provided behind the back of the culde-sac curb for each parcel prior to a certificate of occupancy. The second modification is to the residential local wide street section uh which is a request to modify this design um this detail to eliminate sidewalks. And the uh city engineer has recommended approval of this request with the following conditions.

That the street segment shall be signed for no parking and that the curb along the affected street segment shall be painted red indicating a fire lane and no parking. The third modification request is is a modification to residential local street section uh which is another modification to eliminate sidewalks but it's to a different detail.

Uh the city engineer has also recommended approval of this request uh with the following conditions that the final plat shall specify the type of roll curb and gutter uh type C or type D to be utilized as part of the local roadway cross-section detail. The fourth modification or 4 A um is a modification to the entry road, a uh specifically to separate the lanes, the entry and and exit lanes uh by use of a kind of a boulevard uh large median.

Um the city engineer has recommended approval of this request with the following conditions. Uh, entry and exit lanes shall be signed for no parking. Entry and exit lanes shall be painted red indicating a fire lane and no parking. And now the the fifth modification. Uh, at the time of the staff report being routed, uh, the city engineer had recommended denial of this request, uh, citing the the rationale that that's on the screen here.

But uh since then there has been further discussion and the city engineer has uh considered this request and has taken a neutral position subject to the following condition and that's a that a memorandum of understanding shall be executed prior to approval of the final plat that includes a resolution to traffic impacts on John Wesley Powell Boulevard to the satisfaction of the city engineer and uh that the use of the gate will abide by the regulations for public access as allowed by the existing Pine Canyon development agreement.

Um the applicant has submitted a draftou uh which is currently under review with staff that staff recommend the city council approve the use of PRD standards subject to the following conditions. If a conditional use permit for the golf course facility is not granted, all reference to the golf course use must be removed on all future submittals and an alternative uh PRD design element shall be elected by the applicant.

The planning director shall determine compliance with the design element elected. And then for the uh as for the modifications to engineering standards, staff recommend the city council approve the requests for modifications to engineering standards one through four uh subject to the following conditions.

Uh that the civil engineering plans and final plat for STL 405 Pine Cany expansion must meet the recommended conditions of approval as written in the city engineer response to engineering modification requests dated May 22nd, 2025. And then uh if city council approves the request for modification to engineering standards.

Number five, uh staff recommends the following conditions of approval and that a memorandum of understanding shall be executed prior to approval of the final plat that includes the resolution to traffic impacts on John Wesley Powell Boulevard to the satisfaction of the city engineer and that the use of the uh gate will abide by the regulations for public access as allowed by the existing Pine Canyon development agreement. Uh that's it for the presentation.

Staff is available uh to answer any questions that I see Lindsay is already ready to provide additional information regarding uh any of the engineering modifications specifically to modification 5. Thank you. Uh Lindsay. Yes. Do you want uh Yes. Sorry. Try it again. Perfect. Sorry, mayor. I didn't want to start uh without being recognized. Mayor, vice mayor, uh members of council, Lindseay Schubi. Apologies, I'm not there in person. And apologies, I turned my camera on too early.

I jumped the gun on Ben's great presentation. Um Ben did a very thorough job. I think uh Todd and Hillary uh are in the audience on behalf of Symmetry, and I'm here online. Um we're just here respectfully requesting approval of this preliminary plat including approval of of stipulation or modification five. Um we are well aware that there are you know some ideological oppositions to gates in communities in Flagstaff.

Um, however, as we were before you, you know, a few weeks ago, uh, we look forward to the great development that we're bringing forward with State Trust Land 405 and the first phase does include again this expansion of Pine Canyon. Um, it is a development that has historically been gated. I want to thank staff for taking the time over the past week to work with us.

We do understand their concerns with impacts to John Wesley Powell and we want to ensure that we enter into a memorandum of understanding to make sure that staff's concerns uh are met. The intention is not to create any uh any issue with any traffic on JWP. So, don't know if any of you are going to have questions, but again, respectfully requesting approval of the plat um with allowing a a gate just at this one location in the expansion of Pine Canyon.

Um and we absolutely are in agreement of the memorandum of understanding. We submitted one to to staff today and we do agree that we'll get resolution on that far before the final plat comes before you. So, respectfully request approval. Mayor, thank you. We have a question from Council Member Garcia. Yes, Mayor. Madame Mayor, um I've done a preliminary plat so far before, so but but I do have quite a few questions.

So, if I'm getting too far in the weeds for a preliminary plat, please let me know. So my first question has to do with the natural resources and I was wondering if you could add some clarification to the tree resources and the steep slope protection in the area. We have some of our uh greatest last pine trees in that area that that that I noticed when I went walking over there this weekend. I wanted to see how those are going to be protected moving forward.

And also if you could speak a little bit more to the contour and makeup of of the area. Um because I want to have a better idea of of if this where this golf course is going to go. Sure. Ben, I didn't know if you were going to jump in. Yeah. Ben, do you want to start? Sure. Yeah. So the uh residential uh or uh resource protection standards require residential projects to uh preserve 50% of tree resources or forest resources.

Um that was demonstrated in a natural resource protection plan that hasn't been submitted here because I didn't see it in the packet. Yeah. And I apologize. I should have prefaced that this is the first application under uh maybe the second application under uh the new uh subdivision code. Uh so really what is being considered today is is the use of the the plan residential development uh standards and the uh requests for the uh modifications to engineering standards.

So the uh the resource protection plan didn't really uh assist in that in that conversation. So, it wasn't included with with the packet here. Uh, but I can I can tell you that staff did review for conformance with the resource protection uh standards uh to achieve a minimum of 50% preservation uh both for the uh entirety of the site as well as the the components uh or for the golf course itself as well. Um and then you asked for steep slope as well.

Uh that was that was also reviewed uh during the staff review process to ensure that it was meeting all uh code requirements. Okay. So it's up to the standard and code. I get that. Thank you very much. I had another question about the sidewalks. Is it pretty typical in these rural residential areas to just not have sidewalks or was I misreading that in the plan? Uh that's a that's an interesting question.

I mean I so Pine Canyon developed without sidewalks and I think that's that's ultimately um a continuation of the the design and aesthetic of Pine Canyon that the applicant is is intending to pursue is um as far as what is standard for other rural areas uh within the the city of Flagstaff. I don't know that there have been projects within rural areas that uh would have would have triggered the requirement for a sidewalk and and didn't.

This is more about conformance with uh the development pattern established with Pine Canyon. Right. But this is the first step in approving this this particular project. Correct. Yes. I guess that's why I have such questions that are kind of in the weeds and will probably come up again and again. So, um, the last question was about what, um, the attorney was talking about as far as the gate access and and the issues that we're having currently with Pine Canyon.

Um, does the staff want to speak to to to what we want to do there in the new development as far as not having a a gate? Uh I don't know if if Paul is here Paul is here but the staff's position is provided that the the condition is is met that it would be a neutral recommendation. So so neither positive or negative. Um good afternoon mayor council member Garcia Paul Mood city engineer.

Um, as Ben referenced and Lindsay referenced, the gate right now on JWP for existing Pine Canyon, it's the construction traffic in the morning waiting to get in. We'll back up like 50 cars deep onto JWP. And we don't want that to happen once we do our John Wesley Powell extension project. And it's it's not a big deal right now because the road dead ends, but once that road goes through, we can't have that happen.

Um, so I did look at theou that they sent over this afternoon and they're talking about notifying all the contractors about not showing up before 7 a.m. Um, just a a program of outreach um to the residents with any of their staff or contractors like plumbers or electricians coming in. So fairly confident theou will work.

And u during your studies did you find that when you factored in the amount of that's going to be going into the area and also into the development that that'll be sufficient beyond construction equipment in the future. Um, are you referencing I mean the gate for like residents going in and out just in the area since it's coming right off of the main road?

Yeah, they should have enough stacking there fairly far back from the road just if as long as that construction traffic is what's kind of a big deal. Okay, I appreciate that. Council member Spence. Thank you, Mayor. Um, could you go back to your comments about the requirement for traffic calming um elements in approving a a project like this? Um, I think you said that they're counting the traffic circle on JW Powell as part of their calming requirements. Is that is that correct? Correct.

Um, can you explain a little more how they can claim a traffic circle on a public road as their contribution to traffic calming? Wouldn't logic it seems to me would require that the traffic calming elements would be within the subdivision. Yes. Uh so so typically uh most roads are are dedicated to the public. This in this case the interior roads are being kept as private street tracks. Uh but the uh dedication of John Wesley Powell is occurring with this subdivision.

Um, and as part of that, uh, you know, the applicant is working on the design of of John Wesley Powell and and, uh, the planning director and and city engineer reviewed the request to utilize, uh, the proposal for the, uh, traffic circle as as meeting those criteria. Thank you. Yeah, I was going to say, mayor, if I may just jump in. Yes, we're we're this allows for the dedication of the entire John Wesley Powell.

And so we specifically did design um that traffic signal or sorry not doing a traffic signal doing uh the traffic circle as a traffic calming along J Wesley Powell as well as the entry. And I think you know the other engineering modifications the intent is you know less asphalt less concrete um and and frankly using the road as a bit of a sidewalk for traffic calming too. So um the intention is just is is for traffic calming as well as the meandering roads.

Vice Mayor, thank you and thank you all for the presentation. Um, so I'm really glad to see that the setback standards do not prohibit the development of ADUs. Do you see ADUs being utilized within this development? And how are you going to maybe encourage or not encourage um the use of adding them into the development? Uh, Vice Mayor, Vice Mayor, if I may. Yeah, I think we're going to encourage the development.

A lot of these homes will be custom homes and so they'll have the ability to design them. I think allowing setbacks and lots that allow for them is the greatest um ability that we have. So we we'll do what we can. We'll continue to educate and work with our prospective uh homeowners and and encourage ADUs. Thank you. I like to hear that. I'm a proponent of ADUs and um as long as you're encouraging that and giving them the information, I would appreciate it.

And I do have one more question and maybe I'm jumping the gun on this for this discussion, but I'm wondering if you can talk about infrastructure that will be proposer um to support multimodal transportation in this area. Yeah. Um, I'll start with it and then T T T T T T T T T T T T T T T T T T T T T T T T T T T T T T T T T T T T T T T Todd's in the audience there, so if he wants to jump in. But I think, you know, part of not having a sidewalk.

I mean, we do intend for Pine Canyon to be multimodal and then as you could as you saw a couple weeks ago when we came forward with the balance of the STL 340 as we like to call it, you know, on the other side of this traffic signal, you know, we've got the integration of the foots trail.

Um we hope that there is a lot of bike connectivity, walking connectivity to commercial nodes right on the balance of STL 340 so that there are coffee shops, dining opportunities, parks and all of those things so that people don't have to go as far, have the opportunity to ride their bike or walk through the variety of trails. Um and and again having that that neighborhood commercial opportunity close to this site. Thank you, Council Member Matthews. Thank you, Mayor Ben.

Thank you for the presentation and Lindsay and Todd for being here. Really appreciate it. Um, just out of curiosity, kind of going back to the resource protection overlay, um, are is this project part of the pilot program or the existing standard? The existing standard.

Um, and the reason why I thought that, uh, my husband and I walk, uh, our dogs off JW Pal going south and about a half a mile in the forest service, the forest land removed, just by my eyeball, um, calculations, over 50% of the trees. It was been really devastating for us to see, but I just I I just found it interesting the difference you know, the Forest Service just one day coming and mowing down over half of the forest back there.

Um, just changing our whole experience to what we do on the inside. So, I just wanted to put oxygen to that and and just talk about the difference. Um, but I also wanted to make a comment. I think it was talked about a little bit last time when you talked about the whole development. Um, my grandkids when they come up, they we have little golf bags for them.

Um, you know, some people don't look um golf courses as you know open recreation for you know all of us outdoor people but um it's a really great day to spend outside off their phones and off their videos and um I I think that we can't lose sight of the fact that everybody has different um focuses on what is an outdoor activity and what they love about Flagstaff and especially my grandkids who that's the first thing they want to do is go golfing.

And so um I understand that the the executive course is just night hole. That's why they call it executive, right? Very small. So I just wanted to make that comment that it's not uh some of us like to go hiking, biking, boating. We also like to go uh golfing and I want to give that the same amount of of attention. So that's all I have. All right. Any additional questions? I don't see any. I will entertain um a motion and Sterling. Do these need to be two separate?

So, it's the PRD standards and then the request for modifications to the engineering standards. Yes, mayor. That would be best. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. So, if I can get a motion on the first Mayor, I will move to approve the use of PRD standards subject to the conditions as noted. Thank you. Is there a second? I'll second. Any discussion? All those in favor? I. Any opposed? All right. And a motion for the engineering standards.

Mayor, I will move to approve the request for modifications to engineering standards numbers one through four subject to the uh proposed condition. Is there a second? I'll second. Any discussion? All those in favor? Sorry, mayor. I saw Sterling put a C in. I don't know if that was for the motion. Yeah, thank you. I appreciate that, Council Member House. No worries. I uh should have mentioned also a a separate third motion after this one.

No, nothing for this one, but to deny the request for modification. Um would that would be a separate one after this. Thanks. Thank you. Where were we? All those in favor? I I Any opposed? All right. And on um engineering standards number five, mayor, I'll move to deny the request for modification to engineering standard number five uh as written. So and just for clarification, when the staff report was written, I I'd written a a recommendation in a particular way.

I've I've now provided an alternative recommendation on the screen there. Sorry. Uh, is it legible? I don't know. It's probably legible, but I have terrible glasses. Um, so I recommend uh ex. So, Sterling, how would I phrase that to accept that proposed change? Yeah please. Council member House, if I may.

Um, I think the motion would be to approve the request for modification to engineering standards number five, um, with the following with the conditions identified in the staff recommended action in the presentation. Thank you, Stacy. So I would move to approve the request for modification to engineering standard number five with the uh conditions of approval as presented in the presentation. I'll second any discussion. Um I actually have a question.

Will you will you state again why um this part of your presentation wasn't included in the um in our packet? Yeah. So I have to put the packet materials together about a month before the meeting. Um further discussion uh was held since I had routed that um the application materials uh which resulted in changes to the presentation um for for this hearing or this uh meeting today. And Stacy, I have a question. Um, so in the future, could we get a a red out and have the the correct Thank you.

Absolutely. Thank you. Yeah, mayor, mayor and council, I I appreciate it because that um the confusion that I had was as a result of the same thing. Uh that said, that read out typically is something that comes through. We'll we'll make sure that we check for that as it comes through our office as well. Thank you. Thank you. All those in favor? Oh, yes. I apologize, mayor. I'm just wanting to clarify.

Um because it sounds like, if I'm reading this correctly, is this current motion essentially the same as the first motion that was made to approve with the conditions included? Or is this separate? I think that was why I was confused about. Now this is separate. Yeah. Thank you. All those in favor? I. Any opposed? All right. Thank you. Moving down to 11.

We have a public We have public hearing items and I'm opening the public hearing and we have consideration and adoption of resolution number 2025-54 and 55 and ordinance 2025-21 One. Mayor, we mayor, we would just need to open the public hearing before we start. I did. Oh, thank you. Just making sure. Good evening, U mayor, vice mayor, council members, staff, and community members. Um, we appreciate you being here this evening. U, my name is Gail Brockman.

I am your parking manager with the city of Flagstaff. We have three items requiring action um on our agenda this evening. Two resolutions, a first read of an ordinance. If the reads um are approved, it will codify the current our current uh permit rates within the city code as well as introduce a proposed increase in the hourly parking rate. Before we get into that, I want to do a little bit of history and uh a program update if you'd like.

Um the city of Flagstaff's paid parking program was implemented in 2017 after three long years of research and development. Since that time, our parking rate has remained the same with just a dollar an hour. We operate by a paybyplate system, which means that when you pay to park, you can pay at any kiosk in the district um at the beginning of your session and then at any kiosk in the district anytime during your session to extend your parking.

Um once that payment has been made, you can also move your vehicle to any other paid parking space within the district. This one zone paybyplate model is very unique to the city of Flagstaff. Uh gives customers more flexibility um options and payment conveniences. Since 2017, we've continued to grow and refine our program. We've added more than 150 paid parking spaces to the north side, the first time in over 25 years.

um as well as created 14 residential zones through our petition process on both the north and the south side. We've expanded both our staffing and our technology tools um including uh the purchase of a license plate reader and um updated enforcement and back office software um which specifically was made for our end user uh for purchasing permits. In 2019, uh we were here before council um to make adjustments to our paid parking hours.

Um it was to better meet the community and business needs um downtown. We also significantly reduce the cost of a parking permit from $45 to $10 a month. Since then, uh we have seen like everyone else I think increase in operational costs. We've seen increased in wages. Um, we've seen increase in our contracts for our vendors, including our software, our kiosk software management software, which is roughly 5% year-over-year. We've also seen an increase in replacement parts and maintenance.

Um, what we haven't seen though, unfortunately, is an increase in um, parking revenues. It seems that um our parking duration, people are still parking two hours um per session and we are not seeing the year-over-year revenue gains and growth that we were seeing at the beginning of the impleation implementation of the program. And just like all other city programs, we weathered our share of challenges uh during COVID. Um we suspended the paid parking revenues uh for an entire year.

Um and although we did work with vendors on um asking for discounted rates for um our vendor contracts, most of our um operating costs remained. Since then though, we have expanded our services to include enforcement out at the airport that is fully funded by the airport. Um we have implemented the use of a LPR system um which helps us uh manage time limited parking and permit zone parking um especially when we're low staffed.

Um, we have reviewed and made adjustments um to our permit zones um as well as our hours. Most importantly though, we've remained um ambassadors. We've remained ambassadors. We are um we sorry, we continue to use an ambassador style approach. Um it's very important to all of us here with the city of Flagstaff. Um, we focus on education and behavior change through warnings and outreach. Um, before we issue citations as required, 20% of our revenues are restricted into what we call the lock box.

This is since day one until now. Um, and these funds are specifically for use of adding future parking to our inventory. Currently, we have almost we're almost there, $2 million in that account, and we are in negotiations um to spend a portion of those funds on two different potential downtown projects. After that, 20% is allocated, a 9% approximately 9%, it does vary with the year, um of our revenues cover our credit card fees.

So, essentially 70 cents on the dollar is what Park Flag is left with um to cover all other operating costs. We do anticipate a major um update to our kiosks. If you use a kiosk, you're familiar with what I'm talking about. Um banks are phasing out of credit cards that have the stripe on the back and they're moving towards chip and they're moving to touch.

So, we are looking at spending close to $30,000 um is what the estimate is to replace all of the card readers in our kiosk downtown to be um contactless tap style type payment readers to keep up with the industry standards and uh the customer expectations. So, now that I've discussed a little bit about the uh the background and the updates with Park Flag, let's get into the proposal.

Um, we are proposing a rate increase um from $1 to $2 an hour for on street parking spaces and in future covered parking um structures, we're proposing a rate of $3 per hour. We are not proposing an increase in permit fees. Employee permits will remain the same as well as the other permits we offer um for residents um in existing residential zones and um Amtrak and daily parking type permits.

Um we do not plan we do not plan to extend our parking our paid parking hours or our enforcement hours as the current schedule seems to effectively be meeting the needs um for parking management downtown. This proposed rate will also help us well it's going to help us sustain the program support our growth and accelerate at with the the monies that we can save um in the lock box um at a faster rate.

Additionally, it could possibly provide we'd like for it to provide um resources for enhanced right-of-way services within the parking district. Oh, I'm gonna go back one. So, in this slide, the first bullet point, um I talked about um no permit fee increases. Um but we are considering permanent expansions. So, this slide was not in your packet, but I wanted to touch on it a little bit a little bit more. So, this next slide talks about our permit expansions.

So, if council has no concerns, we'd like to move forward with two different permit types added to our already existing employee permit um north and south tites. The first being a vendor permit. It'll be available to vendors who regularly conduct business downtown and need regular parking as well as a construction permit which would be offered to construction employees that are working on long-term projects downtown um within the district.

Both of these permits would be priced the same as an employee parking permit and they would be in the same employee parking zones. These two options are intended to help support ongoing growth downtown um as well as local service providers while maintaining a fair parking system. We're also evaluating we're looking at adding additional um employee zones. So, we're looking at which blocks? Benton and Avenue, Benton Avenue and Cottage Avenue.

We're looking at adding employee exempt blocks um in the two-hour zones down there on the south side. Um this has been adjusted by several southside businesses who employees have to walk usually long distances, possibly in the dark to reach their vehicles. So, we'd like to make this option available as well. So, enhanced services, what would those look like? Um, sidewalk cleaning. Um, I think this is a big one.

It maintains a self and w a safe and welcoming environment as people make it um the simplest steps getting out of their vehicle and walking to a kiosk and then where they need to go. Um, our sidewalks need to be clean. Um, we'd like to be able to provide improved snow, ice, and cinder removal in the alleyways. Um, business owners, many of you may know, alleys, they get kind of sketchy in the winter.

So, we'd like to improve the um make those safer for everyone from drivers, pedestrians, cyclists, and additionally it would it could fund graffiti graffiti removal from kiosks, um municipal signage. Okay, so this next section is going to go over our our parking rate study and uh that's going to be Rick Tatter presenting for you. Thank you, Gail. Uh Rick Tatter, management services director. Hello, mayor, vice mayor, city council members.

Um management services along with our budget section and the uh economic vitality, community investment, park flag staff, as well as our legal staff uh worked to develop an in-house u analysis related to the proposed parking rates and permit changes. uh that was posted on our website and available for the PL public uh more than 30 days prior to this meeting.

I'm going to go over the financial aspects uh briefly uh today to kind of walk through some of the numbers uh that you'll see in that report and and what we're proposing. First uh just as we went into this process, we had some key areas that we wanted to discuss and make sure were built into this uh proposed analysis. We wanted to address the concern of revenue growth versus our operating cost growth.

Uh we saw that the in the revenue uh projections were not meeting what the ongoing growth in expenditures has been. Um, so we had a gap that was growing and we we have needed that uh since this current fiscal year. We wanted to provide funding for enhanced maintenance in our downtown area which Gail just talked about. Expanding our permits uh types uh within the districts, the construction vendor permits.

We wanted to build in revenue impacts related to changes we'll see over the next 10 years related to changes in parking capacity. I will talk about that a little bit later. Um, but we know we may be losing prop uh capacity and we'll be gaining capacity over the next 10 years. We want to make sure our revenues are meeting those expectations. Uh, look at increases to the lockbox.

Uh, increasing the rates will improve our lockbox performance and allow us for future structures and partnerships to improve our inventory for parking through debt and and cash financing. And of course maintaining adequate fund balance is really critical for our park flag fund. As we go through these slides, uh one thing you will notice that the FY2526 is just a partial year related to these changes.

Uh we are proposing a March 1st uh change for our uh parking rates and a December 1st for our permit changes. The following we also show the next five years of performance of our financial analysis on on the screen. So on this slide we'll talk about and provide a snapshot of revenue impacts uh related to what we're proposing. Uh the first two lines rec are recognize the current re revenue structures that we have uh for park flag.

Uh we recognize here that the revenue growth is very slow and and moderate for our downtown district. Uh reason is we don't have a lot of growth in parking capacity to add revenues over time. So we're about a 1% growth uh that we see in revenues that we what we've been projecting for the last couple years. Uh we go to the third line that represents the increase that we calculated based on the two-hour uh on street in parking lots and the $3 covered parking rates.

Uh we did take in considerations in this rate change uh changes in parking behaviors. Uh we understand that as you increase rates, you may see parking behavior changes uh such as people looking for an alternative mode of transportation, getting downtown, uh bikes, buses, and those types of things. We may see people move to that opportunity as well as looking for free parking areas around the district.

Uh and we'll look to, you know, let people know where the free area is that they can get close to our downtown area and park uh for free. Uh so we know that impacts our revenues uh over time. So we built in those kind of uh projections here. Uh the next line talks about our our permit revenue increase. Very mod increases here.

Uh with the $10 rate and adding the two uh types of permits, we expect maybe another 10 permits per month uh that we'll issue for our vendors and construction um partners downtown as they're working. Uh we'll get more information on this over time. What do we actually see in growth? But that was our first projection we worked with uh with our park flag team.

The next line uh was a challenging line for us to work on and and try to plan over the next 10 years is our changes in revenues related to changes in uh parking capacity, changes in spaces available. We recognize that there are a few moving uh items over the next 10 years that will impact our revenues uh uh for the park flag fund. Uh some of these things are are related to the uh the downtown mile, the building of the storm water infrastructure as well as the railroad changes.

uh we'll see changes for that parking capacity as well as redevelopment of the old courthouse property uh with partners. But then going forward, we'll also see us looking for partnerships uh in our downtown area to add growth and uh add capacity through partnerships or purchasing lots in the downtown area to add capacity from our uh new lock box revenues and so forth. So there you can see some some trend lines related to those changes in parking space availability.

Next uh we'll we'll talk about the uses of funds on this slide. Um when we talk about uses of fund these are the expected expenditures of the park flag fund is another term that we use. The first line is that current operational expense projections um that we talk about uh currently projected in our our five-year FL plans for Park Flag. If you look at this this growth, this growth definitely excels faster than our revenue growth.

And if you look at this and take out the 10% from the revenue side, you'll see that the projection of those numbers, they do not uh trend the same. And we will see gaps in our funding availability for operating expenses. And this is one of the main reasons we want to uh bring this rate u consideration forward for council uh to structurally balance our uh park flag fund.

Uh the next line is the increases that uh should we approve uh the rate increases um for our PI Park flag district is we have some known expenses we we will need to add and project in our uh expenditure side. Uh these are things like the 9% credit card fee. Uh we know that as you add a rate you have more credit card fees uh that you'll have to pay. There are some really uh important technology updates we look to take advantage of as well.

You know, we talked about the credit card tap to pay and those kind of things. Uh we'd like to have some funding for technology improvements. Um as we grow lots, we need to maintain those lots. So, we got to make sure we got the maintenance fund to continue to make sure our lots are in the in the proper uh level of service as we take ownership of those either leased or purchased lots.

And another item within here we'll see we have is, you know, as you partner with companies to build with on their site, there's usually a lease payment. We have to pay for leasing spots. So, we'll lease spots and make those available for the public through the park flag. uh fund as an opportunity for growing our parking inventory. So that's part of that growth that we see there in the additional uh operating expenses.

The next line is our uh parking district enhancements that were talked about uh several things that we want to bring forward uh for council uh through our fee increase. Uh this is where we start talk about color of money and and this is a portion that uh would be park flag eligible enhancements within the downtown district. Uh we understand the park flag revenues can go only go to the right away and the areas that fall within that park flag revenues.

Uh we would have to with the color money look at other funding sources to improve the full enhancements uh which city staff is working on currently to identify those. uh we put the initial numbers as well as some growth funding into that enhancement uh program uh and fund it here. Uh next line is our debt service. Uh currently we have debt service on the kiosk that we purchased uh several years ago back when the program started. We're going to be paying off that debt uh next fiscal year.

Uh and then future debt is related to being able to finance some purchases and partnerships for uh parking capacity improvements. Uh so that's what the debt service and outy years represents. capital expense is that general little operating capital they capital expense that they have as well as a demonstration that uh we'll be able to do some some large investments in our parking inventory uh in the five-year plan here.

You could see that we look to uh invest about $ 8.3 million in parking expansions. Uh this could be in a means of us purchasing lots uh somewhere in the district. It could be a partnership where we help build that structure and and lease uh uh them back. It could be a cash or debt financing opportunity. Uh so with this revenue um increase we have this capacity to do these uh big uh projects. As as you can see as we come down to fund balances the fund balance looks very healthy on this screen.

uh have a carrying over a million dollar fund balance most years. But let's talk about what creates that fund balance. There's two components uh that we watch and and develop through our fund balance policies and our 10-year five-year planning. Most notable is that that lock box. uh we do the 10 20% reserve of every uh dollar each year of our park flag revenues and we put that in a restricted fund restricted use. We've been doing that since 2017. Uh and we'll talk about that on the next slide.

So that's where the majority of fund balance that you'll saw on the previous page. The next line, the unrestricted fund balance is what we have a policy of having in our five-year plans. Similar that we do for other plants such as general fund and others, we set a 10% minimum recommendation of unrestricted fund balance.

And here you can see on that last line that we are right in line with what our minimum requirement uh for fund balance is with really the the touch point in 20 29 2030 we're at $1300. So we're really close to what our expectation uh for uh unrestricted fund balances. Of course we've done some expectations and unknowns. We tried to build in rates and such. So there will be future impacts of revenues if the parking capacity changes if we have rest recessionary periods and so forth.

So over time we will see how this adapts and change. So let's talk about the lock box. Uh the city's commitment, park flag's commitment to reserve the 20% of parking revenues annually. Uh as as we mentioned, since 2017, we've been setting aside this 20%. Uh currently, we're about $2 million set aside. While that's a good number, it doesn't go a long way. Uh and with the new proposed rates, it really does uh provide a positive impact toward adding inventory to our downtown district.

um with a better lockbox balances and and revenue growth, we it opens up to opportunities uh that we can debt finance or cash flow some of the parking opportunities we have uh to add capacity. For example, you'll see in fiscal year 2627 uh is where we're we're looking to use about uh $3.3 million in investments for new uh capacity. But this is going to be an option.

And we're going to use some cash, about $1.8 million in cash, as well as in debt financing the remaining portion uh to asssure we can deliver those projects. And that debt finances is paid over many future years, 160,000 here in our plan, which then future parking uh payers in our downtown area pay back help pay back that through the uh the payments that they make at the kiosks. So that's the advantage of having the rates and that's how we're managing the lockbox expectations.

So with those those were the financial slides that we have but uh I just want to show that you know through this conversation working with a a great team that we have we have addressed many things uh with this rate that were critical and that we needed to come back to council for the fiscal health of the park flag fund. we saw that it wasn't meeting revenues to expenditures. So this present this expectation they would be healthy uh and meet the right balances.

Uh funding for enhanced services you know improving adding value to our downtown enhancing the services within the district. The technology needs being able to invest in the future of technology improving our program and our operations is is really key and we've addressed a lot of that. the parking capacity.

We've been talking about how do we get more parking capacity for years and we see now there's availability to actually advance and add some capacity for partnerships and debt financing due to the rates. And of course, we recognize it's this is all dependent on the timing of those future parkings.

We're doing our best projection over 10 years, but as things eb and flow and and we get these developments in place, it'll it'll eb and flow a bit, but we'll be able to adjust and work within those uh with this plan that we put together. So, those are the financial slides, and I will kick it back to uh Gail uh for some more conversation. Thank you, Rick. Um, I did want to take a second to say this really was a team effort working with finance and community investment and legal.

Um, it was a it was a long process, a needed process to conduct this rate study. Um, and in that process, we didn't um post it publicly. Uh, we advertised two Let me switch the sides. There we go. I know he did that already. Okay. We did um advertise that we were having two um public meetings. We held two public meetings. One in Heritage Square as well as um at city hall. Uh and we posted um some of the updates and information on our social media platform through the city of Flag staff.

Um we received a lot of uh community feedback uh uh quite a few comments um at those meetings as well as through emails. We continue to to receive comments through emails and we appreciate it. So we encourage the the community keep sending them to us. Um some of the comments that we received were actually to limit free parking um to go ahead with the rate increase and encourage other mobility options. Um multimmobility um should be encouraged all over town. I think we can do that.

Um, we heard that we needed to improve our signage both on street and on the kiosks and um as well as update our parking map. And we do have an amazing staff member right now that has just recently updated our entire park flag website and is working on designing new um designing the map and we're going to uh use his talents as well to maybe work on some new signage. Um the community also brought up the idea of possible residential discount.

So, if you live within the um the city of Flagstaff, u maybe we could offer a discounted rate for parking downtown. Um we were asked when are we going to build a parking garage? Um I love that question. Uh we hopefully we can partner with someone and and we'll be seeing something soon. Um we it was also pointed out on multiple occasions that there's a lot of confusion between who manages the city lots and um other lots that are downtown that are managed privately um but open to the public.

So um for addressing uh those concerns as well on how how we can better work with our partners downtown who manage private parking lots. Um um and taking all of these public comments into consideration um and as we move forward, we are um discussing all of these comments as a part of our coming curbside management study. So um we've just selected a um consulting team to help us develop a curbside management plan. Um, we love bringing experts on all things parking.

Um, we are working to update our existing map. We're looking to expand our mobile payment options. Um, whether that be um, pay by phone or an additional um, parking app. We we want to be able to offer flexibility to our customers. Um, we are also continuing to upgrade our kiosks. We are looking at not only card reader updates. Those are needed. Um, we've talked with our vendor about touchscreen updates and just making the kiosk overall easier for the customer to use.

Um, we've also looked at um um we're going to study look at a possible uh rate structure that could include um 30 minutes um instead of an hour um for the previous cost of a dollar an hour um or a dollar for 30 minutes and then $2 an hour after that. So, um we're going to look into that um and how it would affect our revenues. Um and as mentioned earlier, we are looking to add two new permit types um downtown So, next steps. I know there's there's a lot on the agenda for tonight.

Tonight is the first read of the ordinance as well as both the resolutions. Um, and if we move forward after that on October 21st, we'll have the second read and possible adoption of the ordinance and resolutions. Um the this part of the slide has been updated because I do not believe we're moving forward with um October 21st enhanced services IGA approval. Um and we I have legal would be able to answer questions on that um during the question time. Um December 1st if everything is approved.

Well December December 1st is when we'd like to make our new permits available um downtown for our vendors and our construction um employees. And then on March 1st is what we're looking at when the new parking rates would um go into effect. So um with that, does council have any questions about the the permits that we're like that we would like to add or do you have any questions about the proposed parking rate um increases?

Myself, Rick, um David McIntyre and Anya Wendel are here um from legal to answer your questions. Thank you. And before I take questions from council, um, city manager had something. A couple of quick comments. Thank you, mayor. Uh, first off, thanks to the staff for this presentation. Um, there's a lot of information here to unpack. I just want to impress upon council, and I think you know this because you've been getting a bit of the playbyplay on this um, these pursuits for some time.

That's my first comment is that this discussion tonight is the culmination of years. Yeah, I think years. I was going to say months, but really years of work uh at the staff level in conjunction with our downtown business community talking about many things. Um and it it just has all kind of come together quite nicely. Um but I just I guess I want to impress upon council the the collaboration that underlies all of uh this proposal.

Uh you may know I sit on the DVA board and have been attending those meetings for years and uh I will share with you the discussions at those meetings and it's a monthly meeting frequently regularly consistently focus on two topics parking and enhanced services downtown. Um The parking rate increase that is kind of the core of this discussion is really coming about I think because of the desire to see enhanced services downtown.

I know Gail and others have mentioned that it there there's some potential benefit and Rick tal talked about this as well in terms of uh needed revenues to keep the program going internally. Uh but the lockbox revenues will continue to grow and the bulk of the um revenues coming from this increase will funnel right back in into the downtown community through enhanced services.

I don't want to speak for others who may be addressing this, but Gail just mentioned that the IGA uh is the only thing on that timeline that's not on uh that is the schedule's going to get pushed back a bit. I just want to emphasize that this is a very recent discussion. We are on track for all of these things to happen. We just need a little bit more time with the IGA. Kevin Finkeell, Shannon Anderson uh could speak uh more eloquently to that. Uh I just wanted to mention that.

So nothing is off track here. We're moving forward. Um last comment, the and and the speakers have touched on this. The revenues from the lock box um now going into two pending projects. Dave McIntyre referenced this uh pending parking projects. That's really exciting. Um it's a bit serendipitous that this coincides with discussions about enhanced services downtown.

Because really what we're talking about is enhanced parking infrastructure, enhanced services downtown all coming together at the same time, which again has been the focus of our downtown uh business community to so some some things are coming together here rather nicely. It's very nuanced. There's a lot to it. I encourage you to ask questions and and hear from others on this. Uh but again, uh big props to the staff for putting together this excellent presentation. Thank you, mayor.

Thank you council. Thank you. All right. At this time, I'm going to take questions from council and then I'm going to take public comment and we can deliberate after I close the public hearing. So, first up, we have uh Council Member House. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you for the presentation, Gail and Rick. Um and for your comments, city manager. Um just a couple questions for you.

So, I believe it was mentioned in the past, but um can you confirm what research was done for um comparable paid parking rates in in like cities and where our rates are falling in terms of those comps? Yes. So, um, we do in our rate study, I believe there is a, um, spreadsheet of all the of all the different cities that we looked at, as well as some of the, um, different parking lots. We looked at NAU. Um, I know that, uh, specifically we looked at, um, university like towns.

Um, Oh, I thank you. I appreciate it. We looked at Durango um, as a municipality. Um, and they charge $150 an hour, but I know that with Durango, once you move um and you repark, you have to repay to park. Um we looked at um private lots in Durango were around $2 an hour. Albuquerque municipality um $2 an hour. Um Nau, I know it's $4 an hour. Um the American Ballet lots downtown or now um PMC lots and Laz parking lots are anywhere between three and $4 an hour.

Um, tempee is anywhere between a$150 to $2 an hour. Again, if you have to repark, um, you have to repay and they have time limits in those areas as well. I think you're limited to two or three hours of parking. Um, I know just recently I had added a couple of other um, small towns and I I'm apologize. San Louisa Bispo um is a small town, a beach town that has a lot of visitors. um they're over $2 an hour. I know.

So, it is very common between a$150 and $3 an hour in a lot of the different municipalities that we looked at as well as locally here. So, thank you for the question, council house. Absolutely. Um thank you for the information and you can feel free to tell me if this next question is completely irrelevant to this.

I'm not sure um that I see even in my own mind like the correlation, but I'm just wondering if the um the discussions that we've had regarding charging for um vehicle charging and um possible expansion of that program figures into this consideration at all or are those completely separate conversations? Thank you, Council Member House. Um we we did incorporate those discussions while we were conducting the parking rate study.

Um and we we do offer I know the downtown it's very limited but we do have um vehicle charging in areas downtown. Uh I don't know I don't know how it would work to honestly um have vehicle charging stations on street. I know they're um you see them more in lots if if that makes sense. So we have them at the visitor center. Um we have them here at city hall um county facility buildings as well. Thank you. Thank you. Because we we did look into it.

Um we didn't know what the rate was going to look like as far as do we charge for both? Do we separate it? Is it free parking? Um those were things we needed to take into consideration. Mayor, vice mayor, council members, Heidi Hansen, economic fatality director. Um we've been working with sustainability on that and we have really liked to have the idea of having those charging stations at the visitor center.

Um it actually takes up less space and it offers them um ability to park and then come into the visitor center and actually get information on their stay and actually gives us the opportunity to encourage them to extend their stay. um doesn't mean that this won't be an opportunity in the future, but right now um that's really where we have them.

We also um with the parking program have them at the airport and we did that by design as well so that not only uh visitors could charge while they were maybe dropping off a loved one or doing what have you. Um also so that the rental car uh vendors could use them and things like that. We actually in the new um lot at the airport have an ability to add some more uh charging stations for the future.

But right now for downtown I think that we have really actually hoped that they would be utilizing the visitor center. But again a constant discussion with sustainability. Great. Thank you very much. And last question is just um I was really interested when you were talking about the the proposal for maybe the first half hour being a dollar and then $2 for the full hour. I think that's a a great idea.

I'm just wondering in terms of implementation of that like it I'm sure you're already considering like what would keep someone from just paying for half an hour and then just continuously adding another half hour. um or would it be like if you extend your time, you're automatically paying the higher rate? Yes, that's a good question. Thank you.

The way our current system works, um if you pay for a session and you want to extend your session, it recognizes it during the session and then for a small amount of time after the session, I believe it's like eight minutes after your session expires. So, it will know 30 minutes and then if you're staying another hour, um it would be $2 an hour after that. Um now, it it could happen that Somebody pays for 30 minutes. And it's happened to me before. I know it happens to a lot of people.

You you get sidetracked. You run into someone you know at the coffee shop and you're talking and and it's been 30 minutes plus 20 minutes and you think, "Oh my goodness." And you run back out the kiosk and pay again. Most likely you could pay for that um 30 minute session again instead of an hour um just based on the technology that we currently have. Um that is something we could work with our vendor on. Um recognizing this is what we're going to do.

Um implement implementation doesn't take much time. Um, a software update usually takes a month or so and then it takes um my amazing staff maybe two weeks to update all of the kiosk because it has to be done at each kiosk. So, I think it's definitely doable. Um, and keeping it at the dollar rate because I know that in the past we had looked at less than that. Um, I think would be better for our performer. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mayor. Council member Matthews. Thank you, mayor.

Can you explain um just take a few minutes to explain how the vendor permit works? Definitely. Um so we do have quite a few and it's been um asked of me. I know that David has received emails. Um for example, um let's just um put out maybe Budweiser. Um they need to go to um all of the different bars and restaurants in the area and just place orders.

So, they're in a car, they're not in a in a delivery vehicle, they're in something that will park fit in a parking space and they need to come down and they need to talk to five or six different um restaurants and retail merchants. Um so, they would be able to park in the employee zone um with their permit, $10 a month, and then they could make their way um around uh downtown and do all of their orders, you know, deal with invoices, um things things of that things of that nature.

So they park in the employee zone areas. Yes. Yes, they would. So um if I remember right, um when the old courthouse was torn down, part of the commitment was um 200 parking spaces. And I know there's been um discussions, well, we don't want that anymore. But it um it was a commitment that we made to our community. Hey. Uh, and you know, that's just something that's really important that we um honor those commitments.

You know, there's there's a a certain level of mistrust out there in our community because there's been times in the past that we don't deliver on what we say we're going to deliver when we've taxed or done something. So, can we, you know, Rick or or you had mentioned um when lots come available, maybe building them or, you know, buying them and I'm thinking, well, what wouldn't we do housing on that?

So, can you just you or Dave just speak on how we're going to deliver those 200 spaces and when lots come available, how we determine if they're for parking or for maybe a future housing? Sure. Um, yeah, I'll let David step in. I'll make my phone call. Uh, thank you, mayor, council member. Uh, my name is David McIntyre, community investment director. And, um, so there's a number of ways that we can help to create parking in the downtown and we are seeking to create that 200 spaces.

Um actually the lockbox ordinance specifically states that it's going to be in place until we've achieved 450 spaces, but our target shortmedium term is really the 200. Uh that's been a topic of conversation for a long time. In fact, as mentioned earlier, at the moment there's been about 150 surface lot spots created, but we're not counting those as that success because they're not necessarily permanent. They um one of them is on the Foundation for Senior Living parcel.

Uh that lot is one that if the foundation for senior living uh which is just north of the courthouse for orientation uh if that parcel disappears or goes away or is sold separate uh differently than the project currently intended, we could lose those. So that's not part of the the count. But uh if if all the project if all the um projects that we're currently in negotiations for go forward. So we would potentially have spaces up in that north of the courthouse area.

We would have spaces in a partnership with a hotel that's in design review in the uh downtown area and then there is a potential surface lot that could be built into a parking garage as part of the downtown connection center. Um if all those projects go forward as intended, we will be over 200 spaces and close to 200 in the north. So uh we do take that commitment very seriously. One of the challenges has been that it is it is difficult to purchase lots downtown.

And as we've talked about before in our presentations to council, the intention was never to buy up a large chunk of the downtown and turn it into a parking garage. We don't necessarily think that's the right use for some of the most prime real estate, most active real estate in the community. So, what we've been seeking to do is partner with development.

And in uh one example with the Foundation for Senior Living Project would be would have been or would be um affordable housing wrapped around a parking garage that serves that housing but also has a portion that serves uh the public through park flag programming. If that project does not continue and we end up working with them separately, we can potentially do uh a surface lot while we work to determine what other uses would fit with Park Flag on that lot.

So of course affordable housing is always going to be a part of a conversation around land that we acquire and the the way to provide parking and best provide for other services of the city will be part of that discussion too. So I guess to summarize what ended up a fairly long answer and I hopefully not too rambly.

Um our intention is generally to partner where possible so that we can be a part of development that occurs that actually does extend our timelines at time uh because we are working to um tie into an existing development rather than purchasing land and building on our own timeline. But we think it's the most cost-effective and probably the most uh beneficial to the downtown itself and for the vibrancy of the downtown. Um but we are seeking to achieve that 200 spaces.

Uh, and we actually have what we think are a good strategy in the plan for it. Thank you, Dave. That's I like that answer and I just wanted it spoke out loud here at the DEA. So, I appreciate it. My pleasure. Vice Mayor. Thank you. And thank you for the presentation. Um, I am happy that we're having this conversation tonight. It's been a long time coming. So, thank you for all all of the help and and staff time and um guidance on this. I have a couple of questions.

Um, I've had a business in downtown for 25 years. So, I've, you know, because of my role in downtown, I've had several businesses approach me. And one of the questions they're asking is, what mechanisms are in place to ensure that the enhanced services funded by this increase are actually delivered? And how are we going to make sure that that's visible to the small business community, to our our locals, and to the tourists visiting downtown?

How are we going to ensure that what we're saying we're doing? So, any any agreement that was going to uh be determined if if there's a third party who's going to be delivering these enhanced services in the downtown, then that third party would be put under contract and that would come to council uh either through any number of the different types of arrangements.

It could be an IGA, it could be a contract, it could be an agreement, but something on that scale of the enhanced services would come to council for um uh with a specific scope of services. And that scope of services, like any agreement that the city has with potential vendors, is what could be used to hold them accountable as the process unfolds. So enhanced municipal services can be delivered in a number of ways.

I think the intention at this time is potentially to work with community partners in the downtown to do it uh through a third party. And in that case, there would be some sort of a contract or agreement that would come to council with a defined scope of services and it would be the city's job to make sure that those services were being um accomplished properly as we do with every contract that we have. I hope that answers the question. It does. Thank you.

Um, another question I have, so we have um an ongoing or not an ongoing, we have a parking report and I've read it. Uh, it's very detailed, but it's not a yearly report. And I've had um people mention that without having those numbers and that information yearly so that we can say, look, this is we are we are making progress. This is where the money's going. And we can say that on a year-to-year basis. Um, is it possible to get that report to be yearly? Uh, thank you, uh, Vice Mayor.

Um, yes, I take full responsibility um for the lack of this last year's report. Um, we fully intend to make this an annual report and actually we're working on a simpler report, something that um is easier for everyone to understand and then offer it twice a year because I think the year-end numbers are just a lot to look at. Um, so yes, we are currently working on it.

Um, we are hoping to have something drafted by the end of next week to include all our financials and all the fun facts that we like to put in um about the the parking program, the why of the parking program. Um, so yes, um, and apologies for that. We we do intend on making it if not annual, a semianual report. Thank you. I really appreciate that.

But I know it's a lot of work, but I think it helps us answer questions as to um why this parking increase the rate um is beneficial and and what we're doing with the money. So, thank you. You're welcome. And I do have one last question slash comment for the vendor parking. I know it's in the presentation. I I think there's still a lot of questions and concerns surrounding that.

So, can we um make sure that we are having that continued conversation and address maybe what the concerns are even after tonight if this does move forward? Yes, I would like to um continue to meet about what the um qualifications are going to be for that. You know, how how do we decide who is a vendor and who is not a vendor? Um so, we definitely we need to work on that and we'd love to come back with our ideas um and ask for input on um how that will unfold. Great. Thank you.

I do have comments, but I'll save them until after. Council member Garcia. Thank you, Madame Mayor, and thank you staff for such an informative presentation and such great explanations and so many questions that are out there in the community up until now. You've really kind of um you know, probably without looking into my emails saw many concerns that were given to me by the public and given to us as a council by the public.

So some of the things that I'll be mentioning up here will be have some redundancies just to highlight and really put a put a exclamation point on on some of the terms. One of those is lockbox. One of the biggest concerns and we've heard it from other council members tonight is where's that money going? We've been paying a dollar every time we go to get a coffee for years and we still don't see any results. So, we mentioned lockbox a lot during this uh conversation.

And if you could just kind of define lockbox uh for a better understanding for the community. I would appreciate that. And I have about two more small questions. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Garcia. I'd love to define lockbox. Um those are our restricted funds by um city ordinance requires that we set aside 20% of every dollar spent on parking, whether that's at the kiosk or it's through our permit portal. Um, and that money is in um an account that is restricted.

We cannot touch it um for anything other than adding to the parking inventory. Um, you know, it's it's been a it seems like it's been a slow road. We we have approximately $2 million. David and I were just talking about it. I think we might be right at $2 million in that lock box. Um, and it has not it has not been touched up until this point.

We are waiting for opportunities, partnerships, um something to come along where we would be able to um provide the appropriate uh parking uh for our downtown community. Could I just add something? Sure. And if I could just add uh you know, it's been interesting. So, we did as as Gail mentioned, there was about a year where we we um eliminated revenue from the program and that was during COVID.

And I think it was a great decision that the council made uh to suspend the program, but obviously that's one year uh that we did not receive any revenue at all and and so therefore the lockbox wasn't growing. Um and that's not to make an excuse, but it is it was a legitimate situation that reduced our revenue growth. And then another is that it it turns out $2 million doesn't buy very many structured parking spaces.

Um, one of the things I wanted to add is is that parking garages are in roughly $50 to $65,000 per space and we're seeing those prices even when the land is a part of a different project. So, so while $2 million sounds like a significant amount of money and 20% of our parking program does does provide hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, um you're hearing us talk about using partnerships.

You're hearing us talk about all these different mechanisms and and still we would require debt financing uh which which Mr. Tatter is going to help us figure out how to do so that we can provide something without waiting for that lockbox to necessarily need to grow until we get to enough to build a parking garage. We're going to find ways to make this happen. But we do understand it seems slow.

Uh it it just turns out that building parking in the downtown is incredibly expensive and uh and we're saving like crazy for it. Thank you, sir. Oh, thank you so much. It's just a sounds to me like a ode or not an ode but a a kind of a nod to promises made. The lock boxes the lock box represents promises kept. It's just a slow process because you know the the rate of the rate of parking these days.

So I had a question about the the workforce parking or the employee parking and do we have analytics on the usage of that or so my I guess the the simple to simplify the question is is there spaces available for other employees to go ahead and take advantage of that. I ask because I'm concerned that with um the cost of living and the price of minimum wage, it's got to be very difficult if you have to somehow park downtown to work and still maintain your job.

Um so can you speak to the um if there's availability in the employ parking lots to your guys' knowledge, what that looks like and also the cost of employee parking. Okay. Um those are both great questions. Thank you. Um we currently The way the way the employee zones work, I think I'll start there. Um, it's first come, first serve. Uh, we have added to our employee zones with the addition of the the FSL lot, the lot that's located between Beaver and Humphre off of Cherry.

Um, we've added 91 spaces there to the inventory specifically for pay to park as well as employee and facility parking um, permits. So, um, we do have a set number that we are able to sell, uh, as far as our permits are based on how many spaces we have available. Um, and then after that, it would either turn into a lottery type style of system or it would be a first come, first serve. If you forget to renew your parking permit, the next person on the list would be able to purchase that permit.

Um, at that time, um, we currently have 400, I believe. I thought I had the number with me. I apologize. It's roughly 400 permits um sold for employee north parking only. Um and like I say, that's a lot of it is is um shift work. Uh we sell a lot of them um employee permits to someone who may only work in the the morning or in the evening around their student schedule. Um so it it's working out. We do have plenty of spaces for employees to park.

Uh we have a lot of empty spaces actually on Cherry Avenue as well as that lot across from the new um courthouse. Um on the southside it's a little bit of a different story.

We have sold just over 100 maybe 150 southside employee permits and um that's where we're looking to add spaces um like the zones on Benton and Cottage um because with the the potential or the future loss of parking spaces um due to the DCC um the Riot Flag project, we're going to need find other places for our employees to park on the southside. So we're working on that. Um but yes, we it is it is first come first serve. It can be pay to park. It can be employee permit.

Um and it seems to be working with a lot of space left over um for the last several years. Excellent. So what it sounds like you're saying to me is that u while we may not have as many um parking spots on the south side that only the only um barrier is going to be a block or two walk for employees if if they wanted to park downtown. There's plenty of spots on the north side. Yes, that sounds fantastic.

Now, this may seem like a really simple question, but it was one that kind of struck struck me um because well, I don't really want to say it, but um what are the hours of service for for public parking? Sure. Pay to park is from 9:00 a.m. until 5:00 pm Sunday through Thursday. We have a little bit longer hours on Friday and Saturday. It's from 9:00 am until um 800 PM. Those are our pay to park hours. All right. I really appreciate that. And I'm just kind of spitballing here.

So, so it's I feel a little vulnerable to be bringing this up and it's it's not I don't even know if it's appropriate to be honest with you. Um, but when I think about those who suffer from disabilities and have to use the handicap spaces, um, I realize that I have a couple of friends who who just can't take the bus, who just can't ride a bike. So they have to set up to those, you know, go to those spaces and those friends are also um just struggling to to make it, you know.

So, I was I was wondering if, you know, while we're thinking through this, while staff is thinking through this, maybe like a maturation of this or a hybrid idea of this could be um adding some discounts for the dis the disabled um or and maybe even make it a choice because I know that that that a lot of differently aabled people are are very able and capable of paying and taking care of themselves, but for those that aren't, I would like to have some considerations as we think this through and as we move the the program forward.

Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate your comments. Council member Alen, you had a comment. Yeah, thank you. Just going to weigh in here quickly, briefly on a couple of things that I haven't heard voiced yet. Um well, first of all, I do want to um say that I'm supportive of the idea of a dollar for every half hour. I think that's a nice way to hit the sweet spot on all this.

Um, another comment is that while we're talking about downtown services, uh, you know, I I was I was getting a little panicky during a large part of this conversation because we were hearing about, uh, park, you know, park flag, um, improvements. Uh, but in my mind that the reason when at the budget retreat when we had this conversation about increasing parking rates, it was all about improving downtown services. And I just want to say also that it's not just services.

I don't think that's the right umbrella term because when I think of services, I'm thinking about trash pickup, uh you know, um um litter control, uh some beautifification efforts. Uh I think of this as a little bit more inclusive of of infrastructure improvements as well. um uh aesthetics uh beautifying the downtown Flagstaff, getting it all homogenized in terms of its its its theme um and just those improvements coming through too.

So, not just a focus on on services, but the the entire aesthetic of downtown over time is is going to start to make sense and have have a a unified um theme to it. We we've talked about that a lot. I just didn't hear it tonight. Um, and the last point I wanted to make, um, Greg, you and I go way back, and I know whenever we talk about a parking garage, I've I've I've made the case that we should, uh, that should be something that could be repurposed in the future.

Um, when maybe we don't need as much parking because uh, there's a total paradigm shift in the way things are done. Maybe that will happen, maybe it won't, but um, the the the flexibility there is is a value that's very important to me. I haven't heard you give lip service to that recently, I I'm sure you haven't forgotten. Um, but I I just it's been a while since I've mentioned it as well.

So, since we're talking about parking structures, uh, want to make sure that stays front and center, the idea that that if we don't need that much parking anymore, it could be converted into another type of use down the road. And also, you know, we're talking about this 200 spots and parking garages. I I don't want to get too pigeon holed into in tunnel vision into thinking about traditional parking structures. This has been a part of the conversation as well.

I'm not bringing up anything new, but the dis, you know, getting all the parking that we need, but having it dispersed around town makes a lot more sense to me than than a huge structure that that forces everybody to go one place. And there's probably a lot of walking involved for for most people and their purposes being downtown. Just wanted to say those things and I'm looking forward to public comment on this as well. Thank you, mayor. Thank you. All right, John Van Landingham.

Good evening, mayor, vice mayor, members council. I'm John Van Landingham. I'm the owner of the Oldtown Shops and also a downtown resident. Um, I want to thank the city manager and city staff for working on this. As Greg pointed out, we do spend a lot of time talking about parking downtown.

Um, going back to 2016 when myself and many other uh, downtown stakeholders advocated um, before the then city council for managed parking and the creation of park flag, uh, it was in response to a simple issue and that is that um, the demand of parking outstrips the supply downtown. That was true then, it's it's still true now. Um so park flag uh addressed the issue of um managed parking and it addressed um creating a funding mechanism uh that we call the lock box.

I call the piggy bank to build more parking in the future. Um unfortunately as we all understand the prices of everything have gone up since that dollar rate was established in 2016. And so years later, here we are. Dollar doesn't go as far as it used to. Um, concurrently to that, downtown has become ever more a destination for locals and visitors. Um, with many dozens of events, all of which create a need for additional services.

Uh, the proposed rate increase addition uh addresses both the inflation and the need for those additional services. So, I asked you to support um moving this item forward. Um, I do want to bring up a few other things though, Vice Mayor Sweet. I appreciate you mentioning reporting. Um, we need to demand and expect an annual report from the park flag program and the enterprise fund. It's many millions of dollars that many people have been involved in for over a decade now.

Um, this aligns with the best practices in other cities that have similar parking districts. There's no need to reinvent the wheel here. There's plenty of examples out there of how to do it. We just need to commit to doing that on an annual basis. And that demonstrates transparency to the stakeholders um, you know, and and bolsters up trust. everyone in this community should be able to look at that report and see how much money is coming in and where all those expenses um are going.

Um secondly, while increasing um fees somewhere, I I feel like we should recognize that we need to maybe give a little bit somewhere else. There's been some other ideas um bandied about the half an hour for a dollar and so on and so forth. But I would offer up that the surface um lot north of the new courthouse should either stay a dollar an hour or be made free. Um, if we're going to give or excuse me, if we're going to increase, we need to we need to have a gimme somewhere, I think.

And then the third thing uh that I want to mention and and council member Matthews, I appreciate you bringing up the bond language of 2016 and that promise to the voters of a new courthouse with 200 structured parking spots. Um, we're here 10 years later and and while there's been conversation and efforts on it, we we still haven't made progress towards those 200 um structured parking spots.

Uh, and at the risk of mentioning an uncomfortable point here, the bond language for 200 parking spots and the lock box are separate items. So, that lockbox shouldn't be paying for 200 parking spots. That was a commitment that the city made in the bond language. Um, apologize for bringing it up, but it needed to be said. Thank you. Next up, we have Jean Christie. Hi. Really quickly, mayor and council members, hardworking.

Uh, I just had really this conversation brought up um some questions for me. Um, and I was just wondering, you're talking about um changing out the parking meters for a couple thousand of dollars just to make them according to industry standards.

And my thought is in my home I don't upgrade things just because industry changes and wouldn't it be better to not spend money on that as long as the until they make credit cards without strips on them just keep the strips and um save some money on that. The other question I had is I did it they say 400 parking spaces for that can't be right. But um for city employees and for our council members I can tell by the way people are dressed that most everybody drove their cars here.

And um I think that it would be thoughtful to consider um encouraging employees, staff to um take the buses or ride their bicycles as the city is trying to encourage the rest of the city to do. Um you have to change dress codes and put up with women coming in all sweaty. But um if you lead by example, I think people are going to be more inclined to join you in the project. Thank you. Thank you. No additional comment. Okay, then I am going to close the public hearing.

I am now closing the public hearing. Sterling. Um all right. So, do we have any additional questions that we want to get answered or I will look for a motion? Council member, um Oh, wait a minute. Sorry. Um, Council Member Matthews. Thank you, Mayor. Um, I have a comment and I was going to make a motion, but I see council member Garcia has a comment, so I'll uh check that over to him. I just want to to um reinforce the the request to have an annual report. I had no idea we didn't do that.

Um and it's an enterprise fund. So um Rick, I'm going to put that, you know, burden on you, not just Gail. Um because definitely we need this is something that a lot of community members question and we need to be very transparent on that. Um and then the other comment I wanted to make was um and I didn't about it earlier was the enhanced services um that will come with this um um parking um increase. Um yes, it will help with the beautifification.

It's been uh pointed out to us that when you really look at our benches and our trash cans and stuff, we're kind of hodge podge in some areas, but it also is going to help us with trash pickup and snow removal because we haven't been doing a good job in that um in our downtown area. and that's kind of the the hub of our tourism. So, um you know, I I think that the the staff's been working really hard to try to address that and it hasn't really gone well.

So, um I'm anxious to see um those services enhanced so that our downtown um is more desirable and clean and uh uniform. And I look forward to what that's going to look like in the future. Council member Garcia Thank you.

In closing, I just wanted to put a put an idea out there and I'm not sure if it's even feasible for us to collect this kind of data, but I think it would be important for us to understand how many locals are being parked as opposed to tourists um just as we uh move through the our our programming for us to have a better understanding of that.

And I also wanted to while I was had the time highlight the amount of emails that we got from small business owners like Vice Mayor Suite who um were very encouraged by uh by the paid parking program and who gave us u quite quite a lot of analytics about year-over-year uh increases in um po people both local and tourists coming into their establishment since the park paid for parking program started here in Flagstaff and how much nicer it was for people to be able to find that spot when they needed it, to go in there, make their purchase, come out, and then free that spot up for the next person because of this paid program.

And um I and I'm really happy that all the um small businesses reached out to us and let us know that they are the ones that reached out to us were in support of this. Thank you. Vice Mayor Thank you. And thank you again to everyone that has worked on this. Um I know it's a lot of hours going into it. Um you know, this makes sense to me. I I feel like downtown has grown. We are a destination for sure.

And I feel like um there's a lot of benefits that this will give to our downtown, including cleaner streets, safer walkways, including alleyways that are connectivity routes within our downtown, maintaining restrooms, graffiti removal, um general maintenance, and so much more. So, I am in support of this and I really do look forward to seeing the benefits of the enhanced services and and seeing what that will do for our downtown. Um, I think this is long overdue. Thank you. All right.

Um, Council Member Matthews, did you want to make the motion? I do, Mayor. Thank you. Um, mayor, I'd like to move that we read resolution number 2025-54 by title only. I'll second. Any discussion? All those in favor? I I. Any opposed? City clerk. A resolution of the Flagstaff City Council repealing resolution number 2017-03 related to park flag district fees, repeal of conflicting resolutions, and establishing an effective date. And who would like to make the next motion?

I move that we read resolution number 2025-55 by title only. I'll second. Any discussion? All those in favor? I. 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 2025 park flag code amendments. And one more motion. Mayor, I'd like to move that we read ordinance number 2025-21 by title only for the first time. I'll second. Any discussion? All those in favor? I. Any opposed? All right.

Thank you so much. Mayor, city clerk still needs to read mayor. So, oh, you did get me.

An ordinance of the city council of the city of Flagstaff amending the Flagstaff city code title 3 business regulations to establish parking and permit fees for the park flag district and title 9 traffic to update provisions related to the comprehensive parking management program and duties of the office of the parking manager by adopting by reference that certain document entitled 2025 park flag code amendments providing for penalties, repeal of conflicting ordinances, severability, authority for clerical corrections and establishing an effective date.

Thank you. All right. So, um we are going to move on to our regular agenda, but first we're going to take a 15minute break. Thank you. Okay, so we're ready to get started. We're on to our regular agenda 12A, consideration and adoption of resolution number 2025-48. All right. Good um afternoon, evening, C mayor and council members.

My name is Jessica Vigorito and I'm the fire administration manager for the fire department to today I'm here to request consideration and adoption of resolution 2025-48 which amends our existing IGA for joint hiring and promotional processes among regional fire agencies. The original joint hiring IGA was approved by council in November of 2019 and was entered into December of that year.

It formalized collaboration between Flagstaff Fire Department, Summit Fire and Medical District, and Highlands Fire District. Since then, we have successfully hired over 80 regional firefighters through this process with the Flagstaff Fire Department overseeing the Greater Flagstaff Region Academy at our training facility. This amendment formally adds Pinewood Fire District and the city's airport rescue firefighting services to this agreement.

This amendment strengthens our regional collaboration, enhances efficiency and hiring and promotional processes. These processes are labor intensive, and by working together, we can standardize procedures, reduce duplication, and ensure we're hiring and promoting the best candidates. This amendment reflects our continued commitment to high performance governance, regional cooperation, and public safety. and I'm available to answer any questions if you have any. But that's all I have for you.

Council, do you have any questions? I will just say that um I love that we do this. I think that this is um wonderful for northern Arizona and for um each of the cities or the fire districts in terms of I'm sure that it saves money and and I love that our firefighters are all trained in um the same methods. So, any questions, comments? All right. I will entertain a motion.

Madame Mayor, I'd like to make a motion to approve the amendment as recommended and authorize the city manager to execute the contract amendment. Wait a minute. We're on 12A. Mayor, I'd like to move to read resolution number 2025-48 by title only. In a second. I'll second. Any discussion? All those in favor? I I. Any opposed? City clerk.

A resolution of the Flagstaff City Council approving an intergovernmental agreement between the Summit Fire and Medical District, the Pinewood Fire District, the Highlands Fire District, and the City of Flagstaff for joint hiring and promotional processes. And a motion to adopt. Mayor, I'll move to adopt resolution number 2025-48. I'll second. Any discussion? All those in favor? I. Any opposed? All right. Thank you so much. Moving down to B.

Consideration and adoption of resolution number 2025-52 and ordinance number 2025-20. Good afternoon, Mayor, Vice Mayor, and Council. I'm Dave Milis, development engineer. Um, I'm joined here by Robert Thompson is the project manager in development engineering. Um, we're going to present to you some proposed amendments to title 13 of the code, which would allow for micro trenching for the purposes of fiber optic infrastructure in the rightway.

Uh Robert's he's a real rising star in the engineering division and he's getting his first opportunity to present to you all tonight. So, he'll kind of go over some some of the highlights of what micro trenching is, how it affects our rideway, and then I'll come back up at the end just to talk a little bit about some of the u impacts both to the community, to our infrastructure, um and some of the staffing impacts associated. Thank you. Uh good evening, mayor, vice mayor, and council.

Uh so, a little background. Uh micro trenching is an emerging construction technique that uh allows for rapid de uh development of uh broadband internet access fiber to home. Um it uh it creates uses you can see on the picture here a large saw to cut into the roadway cuts a a very narrow trench at relatively shallow depths compared to traditional construction techniques. Uh it creates a joint in the roadway.

So we uh the preferred location for these trenches is right at the existing joint between asphalt and curb as you can see in the other image there. Um there we go. Uh so the standards that we're using are based on the city of Mesa standards. Uh this is the the drawing that you're seeing here. uh the the trench maximum trench width of two and a half inches, trench depth of 12 inches at local roads and 16 inches in collectors.

Um the de the detail drawing shows our preferred primary location there against the the curb and asphalt and then also allows for a secondary location for instances if the primary location is already taken by an existing mic micro trench or if there's confliction uh conflict with uh with utilities. This slide here shows uh the the conduit that's being put into the ground. So that's that orange tubes that you're seeing there.

Um in that first image at the top, you can also see a splice box where you can access the or where where the companies can access their fiber lines. That's our preferred location for for this uh splice boxes. It keeps it out of the um out of the sidewalk to uh um protect ADA requirements for uh uh for our sidewalks.

Um once the the trench is cut and the conduit goes in, then they'll come back and fill in that trench with a a a flowable um slurry mixture and then that gets cured and covered with a mastic that kind of looks like a crack seal. Um so it it looks like a repaired road at that point. Um this is a map of the pilot project area. This was divided up into 10 separate permits. Um, three of those permits work has been completed. Site restoration is completely done.

Uh, four of those permits are have ongoing work and then three more are still in in review pending release for completion of some of the other permits. Um, here's just some images of the work in progress. So, it's it doesn't always look great up front. Uh, there's there are traffic impacts. Um that middle image there shows you what uh what it looks like while the the slurry is getting poured in. Um that last image, you know, sometimes mistakes happen.

The trench doesn't get cut in quite the right place or not quite the right depth. So it'll have to be recut. Um and then that gets repaired. So this that what what you're seeing there that's already been mil and overlaid. So that that um doesn't exist anymore, but it things like that happen during construction. And here's images of the finished product.

Uh so you can see on the left the standard micro trench in the middle they're um when they're going along their trench they have to identify utilities and visually uh uh uh locate them to make sure that they don't damage them. So that that's a little bit larger cut there. And then sometimes there are utilities that they they can't micro trench around or uh or get over the top of like that catch basin in the right image. So, they would need to get uh get around him in some other way.

Like in this case, what they've done is gone underneath the sidewalk, over into the into the dirt behind the sidewalk, and then come back out on the other side. Um here's some more images of of vault placement. Uh this there couple of different examples of vaults that that are used to access the fiber. Um uh one of these has to be placed at every property corner. um they they get placed where where property corners get shared.

So uh that like that that smaller one on the right, the standard flower pot will serve as two properties. Um those alternate with the slightly larger boxes um on the image you can see on the left. Um there are some places particularly at uh like intersections where uh property might have to have multiple boxes on their frontage. And anecdotally, I would say this is where we get most of our complaints related to this project.

Um, there's a common misconception that uh property lines extend all the way to the back of sidewalk or the back of curbs. So, when we when these vaults and and uh flower pots get put behind the sidewalk, people call us saying saying they're putting things in my yard and they have to explain, well, no, actually the right of way is is, you know, this distance uh behind the sidewalk. and that usually helps.

Um, so we started the the pilot project and we we fine-tuned the standards that that we've been working with. And then for public outreach, we emailed those standards to the local broadband providers, um, prospective and current broadband providers. And, uh, then we also sent out an email to our engineering community distribution list asking for comment. Um we got a few comments back.

One uh one main concern is uh regarding during the pilot project we had to institute uh a limit on the number of active permits that could be that could be allowed. We had um some concerns about um restoration work that wasn't getting done in a timely fashion. So we capped it at five permits saying you need to close out old permits before you start opening new ones. and um they they expressed concern to us about that that's not enough permits and they'd like us to increase that limit.

Um we got comments about possibly needing to increase the depth of the trenches to make sure that those conduits go below frost line. Uh making sure that the standards uh call for uniting uh uniform permitting standards under uh across all different types of construction methods.

And we also got some feedback from an earlier project uh down south in in Anthem um where they tried micro trenching and had didn't have a good experience with it and so they told us they have no plans of of using micro trenching even if we do approve it for citywide. I have a question if you could go back please. I want to make sure that I understand. uh concurrent permits. These are permits to internet providers to have their conduit put into these trenches. Yes.

So, this is permits for one provider to be working in five different areas simultaneously. So, the idea being like they could start uh start a trench in one area, have their saw move on, and then while they're while they're repairing that other site, then they can have other permits where they're doing new cuts and kind of be following along as as they as they progress. All right. So, Robert did a good job kind of showing you what what micro trenching looks like in the rightway.

Um, you know, why the micro trenching is really I think hearing both from council priorities for having options to bring broadband service to the community and hearing from providers that the most coste effective and rapid way to roll that out is through this um micro trenching technology which is is different than our current standards which um for the most part would require either open trenching or um directional boring.

Um there is a bit of a misnomer in that directional boring results in no cuts to the asphalt. Um, as as you saw in one of Robert's previous slides, there's little every time we cross an existing utility of which there are a lot in the road, it's a requirement that it be potholed. So, they take a vac, they have to open a small hole, take a really aggressive vacuum cleaner essentially and and identify every utility.

So, even with boring, you end up with a large number of potholes plus a large war pit to do this. So, there's really no such thing as a no impact way to get this rolled out underground. Our our engineering standards um they don't allow for new uh utility poles. Um there are some options where they can be colllocated with existing runs. Um but that those are options. is we as a city do not mandate which of the options in general are um utilized.

We have a a set of criteria which prefer boring because it does create less impacts than a full open trench. So this micro trenching as you can see it it runs typically along the curb line where there's already a joint. You know, frankly, as a civil engineer, I'm always I was always taught, you know, minimize the every time you cut asphalt, no matter how well done the patches, there's going to be some level of impact to the longevity of the asphalt.

Um, the reason why this location by the curb was selected is because there's already a cold joint there um between the con the edge of the concrete and the the asphalt. Um, so that's, you know, I'm I kind of went off the script here, but just kind of give you like why are we even up here telling you about micro trenching? That's why. So it's in in response um you know it it results in the smaller cuts.

It's certainly less impactful than open trenching would be and um it's very fast compared to any other method. They get a th00and 2,000 feet a day. Um, so the amount of time that they're in in, you know, it's it's a lot of residential neighborhoods. So the amount of time that they're in a given neighborhood, um, a given block is less than it would be under any other method. Obviously, the costs uh, for that type of installation are lower for the providers.

The city um, for the most part, I think of what you'll see would not be paying for any of this. that this the proposed code amendments would allow the city to utilize this method um for our own uh data conduits should that be incorporated into a capital project. But for the most part uh the the costs are more so the market driven factors of lowering the cost likely means that more providers would be interested in coming uh to town.

And then um the shallower excavation um that this method allows tends to go above and not conflict with many of our uh existing utilities that are already under the street. Um, you know, some of the risks that I had touched on already is is, you know, anytime you're you're cutting in our road, there's there's a bit of a a degradation regardless of how well the patch is done. Um, we think we've minim we've m mitigated that as I mentioned with the location.

Um, but you can't you can't put that there are so many different unique scenarios in the field that we can't you know, we have to go around things. You'll have a water valve in the way. he showed the the picture of the the catch basin. Um so it doesn't always end up that perfect drawing that you know our standard drawing we have to kind of work through in the in the process to avoid those things.

um that mastic overband that uh if I back up a minute, the black stuff that you see there is the mastic overband was a big concern. And one of the things that we looked at because most of uh the both the standards from the city of Mesa and other standards we looked at most of our peer cities in Arizona have different climate conditions and so we had concern about freeze thaw and just the difference.

So, we actually do have specified a different uh type that's a mastic overband that is intended for cold weather. Um, and we did discuss there are some cities in Utah specifically that we talked to similar climate that have so far um had good experiences with that. On top of that, our standards actually require that whatever provider puts this uh micro trench in, they actually maintain responsibility for the maintenance of that overband.

Were there to be a failure of that, it's not going to be uh put back on the responsibility of public works to come in and fix a failed overband, it would be on the provider to maintain their infrastructure till such time that there was a either a mill and overlay or a full replacement of a section. And at that point it it would be gone and then at that point it would just be buried under our rightway. And then you know the it's a newer technology.

So frankly we don't have 30 40 years of experience with this in places that we can point to and I can't stand here and tell you that you know I've seen it over longer term. It's it's had some growing pains.

If you looked it up, there were some early um types of micro trenching is a fairly broad category and there were some early efforts made and some I think Louisville is one of the more famous ones where they went they just basically put a very shallow cut about halfway into the asphalt gym some fiber in there and epoxied over it and it was a bad failure. So this term micro trenching is kind of catching a lot more and what we're proposing here is is nothing like that.

Um you know and then the rapid deployment that I mentioned um has its good and its bad points. We talked about the good point. I I shouldn't say bad but it's going to present some challenges. uh these projects um were the where these standards to be approved will result in a fairly rapid uh network roll out.

meaning um although on any given location they may the that location may not be affected for a extended period of time but the number of locations being affected is going to be um much more than what we normally experience even with all of the uh you know construction that's going on in town.

you know, you'll just have so many more properties touched, so much more uh work involved both from the development engineering side in managing the project and our inspectors um inspecting the projects and also um in in speaking with Patrick O' Conor and water services is has already just with the pilot project experienced a relatively high increase in their workload for the utility locates.

Again, just due to how fast this goes, we're having to go out and every before they cut any road, all these utilities have to be located. Um, so, you know, associated with all that, we anticipate if these standards are approved that there will be a a rapid roll out, which kind of only makes sense with a provers's, you know, business model to get that network rolled out. And, um, we would request, we would be putting in separately.

That's not what you're we're asking to be voted on or anything tonight, but that we'll be putting in a midyear uh request for additional project manager and construction inspector to be able to keep up with the volume of this new work that we anticipate that we'd be in addition to um to just all of the other construction that you're all well aware of in town. Um so that kind of concludes our presentation and if you have any questions. Yes, we do. Council member House. Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you both very much for the presentation. Congratulations on your first presentation to council. You did very well. Um, so my question is mainly around the some of the feedback that was received in the public comments um particularly around the challenges with um micro trenching and the frost line. Is that something that we would be looking at addressing in our process or how does how does that work? Yeah. Um, thank you for that question, Council Member House.

The uh the frost line um is a concern primarily well with water certainly. Um but when we look at our existing engineering standards which have been around for decades, they already um do not they they require 24 inches of cover and our um frost depth is 30 here in town. So essentially we already have standards which do not require dry utilities such as this to be below frost depth.

Um so the frost depth these standards are also for our depth are are the same or very similar to other mountainous communities both I think I was never able to make contact with anyone in Tahoe but looked at Tahoe Salt Lake um the the frost concerns with this type of um installation were something that we did look into and that we have seen no evidence that it would be different than um what we already have for other dry utilities which which what is it 16 inches Robert 18 in is our cover.

I'm not sure that if we were to try to get down below frost depth that this technology is really because you saw that well the picture of that saw. So if you were to go deeper, that saw it gets has to get, you know, for every inch you go down, the saw needs to be at least 2 in bigger.

So I'm not sure that that saw is even made, although I don't know all the things that are available in industry, but that on that specific concern, um, we don't think that it needs to go any deeper than uh what the standards were proposing based on our climate. Thank you for that.

And then in terms of the additional staffing um that would be required for this, I'm assuming and um I'm just looking for affirmation on that that that was part of the consideration in the overall like cost savings of micro trenching over some of the other models. Did that take into account the additional staff? you know, it's kind of it's coming from from two different places, right?

That I think most of the cost savings are on the provider side and the um these specific costs for staffing are coming from our side. So, I don't know how they all balance. I know there that I'm not super involved in the details of the license or franchise agreements, but I do know that as they roll out additional feet of of um fiber into the rideway, there are some fees associated with that on an ongoing basis to be able to calculate out.

I mean, part of the problem too in in giving you an exact budget for that is is we respond to what comes. It's a little bit different than if it were a capital project. We can kind of plan it, say, "Okay, we'll do one this year and one next year." But in our role in development engineering, we respond to permites in our right of way.

And so we we have some ability to manage that by, for example, the five permits at a time per provider um item that we put in the standards, but we ultimately don't have total control of how many, you know, we we could have three come in all wanting to do five permits at the same time. you know, that would that would definitely overwhelm staff uh to be able to manage it and manage the community impacts associated. I don't know that answer. Dave, can I jump in as well? Um, excuse me.

Uh, mayor and council, just to provide additional context, as Dave mentioned, this is not an a request for um, a staff person to counsel, but we have identified some funds that um, through it that are actually coming from um, this project, the fiber project. Um, and then moving forward, we'll be looking for some ongoing revenue to to fund this position if it's approved.

So, um, at this point, I don't think we know what that looks like, and I think, um, a lot of unknowns right now, but that's, you know, the the background on the position. Thank you both. Thank you, mayor. All right. I have a couple of questions and one was about the road longevity. So it as as much as as you've been able to ascertain um in colder climates, they haven't seen um a decrease in the road integrity from these trenches. I that's correct.

I haven't seen any um evidence or from any of the municipalities that we reached out to failures or or road degradation. I think generally the kind of the feedback I got from a lot of kind of our peers was similar to mine where initially they hear about it and we're you know as engineers we're like whoa whoa you know we like our roads to stay as as untouched as they can and the general feedback that I got also was that they've been surprised at the that it was as um unimpactful as it was.

I I will say that in certain locations in the pilot project we've in some of the areas in grain law there were you know fairly old. I think a lot of that went in in the 50s and the old roll curbs are kind of have started to rock back in that gap between the asphalt and the curb was actually opening up.

And in those conditions, I would probably make the case that this has been a net benefit because taking an existing gap, running a saw down it, filling it with what's essentially kind of a weak concrete, and then putting the mastic over it probably resulted in a net positive in that instance. But in other instances, particularly where the roads are newer, it it certainly is not a net benefit. How long has uh this technology been used in colder climates?

I don't I I think because it's such a broad term, but I I think at least five years is in and there I think some folks from from one of the providers here that might be able to um kind of give a little more history about it, but from in our research around here, the city of Mesa kind of took the lead. And then it's really been coming, it's kind of common throughout the country.

Um, state of California actually passed a mandate from the state down to their municipalities where they have to come up with standards and allow micro trenching. Um, the Maricopa Association of Governments who issues a set of standards that we normally kind of most most of the cities in Arizona follow with a few amendments. uh seems to be heading that way.

They don't have a set of we they don't have a set of a of standards yet, but they just issued a a study um and did a there's a lot of good information in there that um kind of has some best practices and I I wish they had done that about a year ago because by the time that came out, we were almost done with these, but we did kind of cross reference ours into that.

Um and if or when other providers come along, are they adding their fiber within the um conduit that's been laid down or is another cut made? Uh typically no. Um they there would be a second cut in that one uh that one image that Robert showed. the primary cut is not only the location on the curb um but also if if there's a second provider. The way we wrote these standards is that we have standard locations for up to two providers.

The one that's on the curb and then you know the second one doesn't have that benefit of the cold joint but it's two foot out unless noted otherwise. There's areas like bike lanes and things where we would not run a a longitudinal cut in a bike lane. we would move it to the outside edge of the bike lane. And then the standard that we've presented here says if there were more than two, it would be on a case-byase evaluation.

Uh the the feedback we've received from other municipalities is that it tends to be when you have multiple providers that they kind of tend to not all go into the same neighborhoods. And so it's not super common that you're going to have two new providers on top of the existing uh providers that are already providing internet.

So most likely the areas that you see multiple cuts are kind of where they all tend to need to get their facilities back to more centralized nodes where they're connecting into the broader internet or fiber to outside. Um but it is a possibility that we have um in these standards. All right. And my other questions were about freeze thaw and whether money has been identified for the additional staff. So, thank you for providing those answers. Council, are there any additional questions?

Then I will um entertain a motion. Madame Mayor, since I jumped the gun on this one earlier, I'd love to make the motion for this. Like to motion that we approve the suggested code amendments. Wait a minute. I think you're going to be one ahead of us for the entire evening. We're on B and we're looking to read the resolution by title only. Correct. My apologies. I would like to recommend that we read the resolution. Okay. 2025 council. Sorry, Council Member Garcia.

You would just need to word it as a motion. I would like to move or make a motion to Thank you. Thank you. I would move that we read the resolution 2025-52 by title only. I'll second. Any discussion? All those in favor? I I. 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 2025 amendments to Flagstaff City Code Title 13 engineering design standards and specifications for new infrastructure. Thank you. And can I get a motion to read ordinance 2025-20? Mayor, I move that we read ordinance number 2025-20 by title only for the first time. A second. Any discussion? All those in favor? I. Any opposed? All right. City clerk.

An ordinance of the city council of the city of Flagstaff amending the Flagstaff city code title 13 engineering design standards and specifications for new infrastructure by adopting by reference that certain document entitled 2025 amendments to Flagstaff City Code Title 13 engineering design standards and specifications for new infrastructure providing for penalties repeal of conflicting ordinances severability and establishing an effective date. Thank you. Thank you.

All right, we are moving down to 12 C. Council member Garcia, uh, consideration and adoption of resolution number 2025-51. Thank you, Mayor, mayor, and council. Sterling Solomon, your city attorney. Um, in 2010, as I mentioned at the work session a couple weeks ago, but just to refresh your memory, um, the city entered into an agreement with Arizona Game and Fish for the release of 200 gallons per minute of reclaimed water on a weekly basis, um, for a period of 20 years.

That said, uh the city has obviously recognized the benefit of continuing on a more long-term basis the release of reclaimed water to enhance and improve riparian habitat. As a result, this resolution extends those benefits, like I said, on a long-term basis subject to, you know, technology evolving with respect to water purification and other options and regulations and availability. Um, a big shout out to several staff members who have helped with this.

Shannon Anderson making sure that we got additional outfalls included in the resolution so that places like Sinclair Wash uh could eventually see some reclaimed water as well. Um, Rebecca Sers, director of pros and Lee Williams, um, director of water services and Aaron Young, who's here with me tonight in Lee's place, uh, have all been very helpful in getting this. If you have any questions, I'm happy to answer them. Um, that said, sta staff definitely recommends approval of this resolution.

It's a long time coming. Thanks. Thank you. Uh, any questions? Council member Matthews. Mayor, I'd like to move that we read resolution number 2025-51 by title only. I'll second. Any discussion? All those in favor? I. Any opposed? City clerk. A resolution of the Flagstaff City Council establishing an amount of effluent reclaimed water to be released into the Riota flag subject to advanced water purification technological options, regulations, and availability.

I move that we adopt resolution 2025-51. Any discussion? All those in favor? I. Any opposed? All right. Thank you. Moving down to D, consideration and adoption of resolution number 2025-50. Um, good evening, Mayor and Council. Stacy Burken, grants contracts emergency management director. Um, I do not have a presentation. Um, but this, so this should be quick.

Um, this is for an intergovernmental agreement between the state of Arizona through Arizona Department of Transportation and the city of Flagstaff. And I got to read this titles along. Arizona State Match Advantage for Rural Transportation. Uh, Arizona a smart grant as you've heard of it. It's a match reimbursement program and it's for the downtown mile safety and connectivity improvement project.

Um, as you recall, we went came to you for uh approving a grant for $32.4 million, a little over that. Um, for a total grant construction award of 56.3 million. Um, which is pretty exciting uh to get that level of grants, probably one of one of my highest in my careers.

um this um opportunity the state um offers if you apply for a federal grant or you receive the federal grant you can apply for a matching grant for through a smart um we've been very successful with it um and we received $3 million to offset our match which our match um commitment was 12 million.8 so that'll reduce it down to 9.8 8 for the match and then the remaining balance of the match um our total for this whole project of the 56 was 23.8.

We approached um BNSF um talked to them and um they are throwing in an 11 million match. So um the leverage on this project is is great when you have that kind of partnership between the federal, state, local match and then and then uh BNSF match. So, uh, pretty amazing for that level of project. Um, and then, um, Christine Cameron's online if you do have I thought I saw Christine if you have questions about the downtown mile project. Otherwise, um, is, uh, approval for the IGA for the match.

Council, do you have any questions? Christine, thank you for watching this entire meeting up until this point. Um, I will entertain a motion to read the resolution. I move that we read resolution number 2025-50 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 state of Arizona and the city of Flagstaff for the Arizona State Match Advantage for Rural Transportation A Smart Fund Award for the Downtown Mile Safety and Connectivity Improvement Project. Thank you. Thank you. And a motion to adopt. Mayor, I'll move to adopt resolution number 2025-50. I'll second. Any discussion? All those in favor? I. Any opposed? All right. Down to E.

Good evening, Mayor and Council. Nicole Antonopoulos, sustainability director. I'm here this evening to present an intergovernmental agreement with Northern Arizona University. Dr. Eric Nielsen, chief sustainability officer and professor of environmental science and policy is also joining us virtually this or this evening. I have a brief presentation for the council that will complement our August 26 virtual power purchase agreement 101 discussion.

It will provide a brief overview of the intergovernmental agreement framework and discuss next steps. I'd like to revisit some key points about virtual power purchase agreements which I will refer to as VPPAS. From this point forward, our VPPA discussion focuses on exploring more cost competitive purchases for renewable energy credits to meet our commitment to clean energy.

Keeping in mind our clean energy trajectory would in an ideal situation the city would be generating all of its energy on its own. But to uphold our commitments, we are currently purchasing clean energy credits. We are continuously exploring our options to move forward with being self-reliant on energy that we produce. But at this time we have several limitations. So we continue to maintain our commitment to clean energy but also exploring future opportunities.

This is a snapshot that I provided on the August 26 discussion of our clean energy portfolio as well as our expenditures. And the key focus of the discussion today is really that highlighted area number two our APS green power partners expenditures. We believe through a consortium and a virtual power purchase agreement, we can actually reduce this cost of purchasing clean energy credits and redirect that funding to more cost-effective programming. So now let's discuss the IGA with NAU.

The IGA will authorize NAU to issue a non-binding key key word there non-binding solicitation on behalf of the Arizona consortium to procure price competitive renewable energy credits or clean energy credits. We will prioritize regional participation from both APS and SRP, but it will be open to a national wholesale energy market favoring the Southwest Power Pool.

And in the graphic on the lower right hand corner, you can see the different power pools of the Southwest Powerpool, also known as SP, that will be going essentially live in 2027. The consortium has been busy working on the proposed solicitation and this is just a bit of a teaser alert but I wanted to share with the council the five elements that we've been focusing on regarding the scoring of a solicitation if we move forward with the IG and NAU is successful in procuring solicitations.

We will be focusing on project economics. Right now we're talking uh about project economics being the most robust scoring mechanism. We'll be focusing on projects connection project connections to Arizona. Right now that focus has a 10% scoring weight project impacts as well as the likelihood of project completion as well as contracting. And I want to just take a moment to point out the contracting.

Um this is incredibly important because of the multiple numbers of partners in this Arizona consortium. We want to ensure that whoever is brought forward uh to collaborate with is very understanding of terms and conditions of each agency within the consortium. This is very important to us as a city organization as well as the consortium members.

We've had a lot of dialogue on the makeup of what the draft scoring could look like and of course if things progress in a productive manner I will be back in front of council to discuss this in more detail and the bids that have been received by NAU. So that is the framework of the IGA and I wanted to just highlight a timeline for the council.

Um this is not a if you will an easy uh immediate project to get across the finish line but our ultimate goal is if we are successful that we will be operational in the year 2027 2028 time frame. So just to put that in perspective, there would be a lot of negotiations and contracts, um the issuance of course of the solicitation and then a lot of negotiations at which point if negotiations are entered, I will be back to the council for discussion and approval.

And with that, I am here to answer any questions. And if I may uh offer the microphone to Dr. Nielsen if he would like to jump in. Oh, pardon me. Eric, if you'd like to jump in. I believe you have access now. Thank you, Nicole, and thank you, uh, mayor and council. Um, NA is really excited to be leading this um, Arizona Consortium of of Public Entities uh, to try to solve a problem that really has vexed um, NAU, ASU uh, and others across the state.

Um, and so we we think this is going to be a really constructive uh, engagement. uh we've been talking uh I believe over about the last 15 months um to get to this point. So we're very very excited about the opportunity to to actually start moving forward. Thank you, Council Member Matthews. Thank you, Mayor Nicole. Just a couple of clarifying questions and then um one follow-up question just so I understand.

Uh right now I I think we call it a PPA where we are are buying um credits for like 96,000 but we offset it with these other um projects. Is that is that offset close to just net even? Is that just in offsetting the cost of the green power partnership or offsetting our utility cost in total? Council member Matthews, thank you. So, the green power partner program allows us to buy those renewable energy credits based on our monthly consumption of electricity.

So, we offset if if you will, we generate some of our own electricity. We purchase electricity from Hoover Dam. And then everything else that we don't kind of qualify as clean or renewable energy, we buy credits for. So right now we are annually purchasing renewable energy credits roughly around 36,000 megawatt hours. That will fluctuate depending on weather.

um specifically the the um water services division being the lion share of that which is why we have focused on um a lot of energy efficiency elements in our water services department but so that's a fluctuating um rate and I want to make sure I'm answering your question so I'm not sure so our total for the municipality and all of our buildings that we own our total net cost of electricity is offset by these PPAs and and the power authority Hoover Dam or is that or are those port that portfolio just offsetting the green power partner cost?

Thank you for clarifying it is offsetting the full organizational costs. Yeah. And then um my next question is and thank you for that because I started getting confused. Um what and you may not know this off the top of my your head and you can get back to me, but I was curious um what percentage of our carbon neutrality plan uh focuses on external like buying credits in New Mexico and stuff and not um actually Flag staff's impact in reducing our carbon emissions for the city. Thank you.

The way that the carbon neutrality plan is written and previous city councils had given direction for municipal operations to be clean energy or um offset with renewable energy credits. So, we have built that direction into the carbon neutrality plan, and I'm happy to follow up with the council with some more detail on how we've built that in, but we've always um calculated into our emissions projections that the city based on whatever amount of consumption that we have will be net zero.

So, we know that that's a moving number. Our energy consumption continues to grow. Um and again it can fluctuate depending on on rainfall or snow um each year. So we anticipate with new technologies coming on board for example in water services we're going to see an increase in their consumption for bio uh solid drying. Um so we're really working hard to create that fiscal stability especially in this line item that you're seeing in number two on the screen. Okay.

And then um reflecting back on when you first presented this in um August um I remember you talked a lot about how we can leverage um having a consortium um gives us leverage because we're a bigger voice. Right. Um and so that helps us uh negotiate the price. Right. Exactly. So, um I was surprised that um we're not mentioning tonight um I noticed on the um contract that the city of Flag uh Phoenix is not on there. And so then I did research and they pulled out of this um this group.

Is that correct? Yeah. And thank you for that question. I'll Oh, I'm not sure. Oh, Eric is still on. I'll let Eric answer that question if you don't mind. Eric, may I put you on the spot? Sure. Uh, not at all. Uh, Council Member Matthews, um, the Phoenix has not pulled out. Um, what they did, there's been a lot of, um, very enthusiastic participation over the last 15 or so months from Phoenix.

Um but recently their chief sustainability officer has been replaced and and multiple other um deputy city managers have also uh been replaced and so it's a time of a lot of turnover. Um and their staff is still trying to uh engage with and and really come to an agreement on on moving forward and presenting this to the council. So, initially we did have uh Phoenix included on the IGA.

Um while they're figuring out their strategy um to to move forward, um they asked that we take them off so that other councils uh other entities don't approve based on thinking that, you know, Phoenix is uh fully in. Um and so that's really where we stand. Uh we're still having very constructive engagement. I received a couple emails today on presentations that they are giving on this uh internally.

So my hope is and my uh I'm quite confident that the solutions we're pursuing are the solutions that Phoenix will have to pursue as well to reach their carbon neutrality goals. So, as a followup, the the pie chart that um I printed out from that uh presentation, Phoenix was about 80% um of the whole pie. So, if they don't come back into um this group, um that I'm guessing will really impact our um negotiation power. So, can you speak on that, Eric?

is not taking for granted that they will or will not come back in, but if they don't, what's the game plan? Thank you, Council Member Matthews. That's a great question. Um the we've talked to our consultants about this and um who are constantly in this energy market. Um we all of the other parties which are moving forward with uh votes in the next couple weeks are um all of us together move us into a pretty good space in the market in terms of getting some economies of scale.

Um, if we are able to bring on Phoenix, it it basically almost would allow the consortium to buy into two fairly large utility scale renewable energy projects. And so, um, the other complicating factor in Phoenix is that, you know, Sky Harbor is part of that, um, and has very aggressive goals. Uh, but they also are under FAA regulations and there's some issues. they're trying to figure out whether or not Sky Harbor can be a part of a consortium like this or not.

So I I think economically we will still be um much better off than any of us would be uh individually. And uh I feel very confident um that we can also try to procure um with or go out to marketplace basically um with I'm hoping uh again that that Phoenix will be a part of this but if not I don't think it's going to be detrimental for the economics what we be looking at. Okay. Thank you so much. You're welcome. I was going to ask a question along those lines, too. So, answered. Thank you.

Any additional questions, Council Member Alen? Sure. I'll follow up on that other question. Uh, it was it was great catch there and a wonderful thing for us to to to think about. Um, my my comment to kick off my question would be uh, you know, I' I've been very enthusiastic about this agreement and um, have said so in multiple different ways. Uh we're we're we're leading here. We're we're building something and um all great things start off small.

Um I I see partners coming into this on an ongoing basis as as time moves forward. Um and you know there's going to be a snowball effect and at some point there's going to be a a a saturation point where things are really moving and it's a lot it's easy for other groups to join in. Erica or uh Nicole, I'm wondering if if you have any thoughts on what some of those other entities might be. Um I I know there's some conversations going around uh with with with someone.

I I'm I'm not going to mention who that is uh just because it's I I I don't want to um presume the end product of that and it would be their announcement to make, not mine. Um, but do do you can you can you speak more fully to the the general snowball concept? Yes. Uh, Council Member Alan, thanks. Um, there are some other public entities that have uh reached out to us um and have been learning about what we're trying to put together um as well as some some nonprofits.

Uh again, there's a lot of entities that have these goals and it's very hard to reach these goals when we don't live in a state that has wholesale or retail market competition. Um and uh and so I you know as uh I can just say that one entity I know their board is uh they're not on the current IG. Um, and as you'll note in the text, um, others can join the IGA, uh, and as long as everybody else who has approved it will, um, let them in.

Um, so I do think there's an opportunity for for a snowball and, um, having Flagstaff be the first partner in this IG, I think, is really speaks to the town gown relationship. And um NA designed its climate action plan to be in concert with and in harmony with um and be supportive of the city's uh plan and I think uh the two of us kind of stepping forward together and then bringing others on board is uh really showing leadership state. Thank you Eric.

I don't think um your your own personal work in all of this can uh be acknowledged uh or um enough or that there can be enough gratitude for it. appreciate everything you've uh all the heavy lifting you've been doing over the past 15 months. Same goes for you, Nicole. Um but NAU is is showing some real uh hutsp here and uh I'm just really impressed and very excited to be on a ground level. Thank you. And if I may just add uh Dr.

Neielson's commitment to this space and um it has been very time consuming and it's not lost on any of us in the consortium how much work has gone into this. One other point to make on that note is uh sorry mayor um you know this is a commitment by any so this goes all the way up the the chain to president Cruz himself. Uh I I I would dare say he deserves a lot of credit for putting Eric in this position and uh giving Eric the green light to pursue all of this.

Um just speaks very highly of his own trailblazing attitude and uh his capacity for for doing things differently and thinking outside the box and and showing real leadership. Council member Garcia. Thank you, Madame Mayor. And um thank you, Council Member Alen. you uh stole my word. I was going to ask, are we the trailblazers in this in this state um moving forward with these type of initiatives?

And if so, then um I'm I'm comfortable taking the risk because with great risk often comes great reward. And I don't see this as a great risk. I see this as a a metered risk that um we have fail safes involved to monitor up to the point where we actually have to to move forward with it. And at that point we'll see the reward.

And since it is a a substantial difference in the way we do things, I think we'll see a substantial reward without very many um without very many risks or or fallbacks because we are able to move in and out of this. Am I correct by thinking that way? I'm sorry, what was that last piece? That we we're we're not necessarily married to this idea we'll be able to away from it. Absolutely.

This is a non-binding IGA and and if I may, I'll just revisit the timeline for the council that if approved by the city council tonight and the other agencies that are part of the consortium approve their IGA as well, then NAU will issue a solicitation on behalf of the consortium and then we will wait to receive bids and hopefully we do um and then we will rank those bids.

We will score them and go through a similar process that we do through our city procurement and then I as staff will come back with a recommendation and um I will not come back with a bad recommendation that commits us to higher level of expenditures than we currently see. I really appreciate that context and when we came up with the climate action plan we were moving forward with it.

there was a sense of how are we going to get this taken you know how are we going to complete the task of of of the plan and it's by taking bold new risks that we're seeing that come to fruition and I think that this is a a good risk to take council member Matthews thank you mayor um so I understand correctly right now we're just talking about um a $10,000 commitment as part of the cost for the attorneys or the um consultants and then you're going to come back to us and we're going to talk about what guardrails you put in to you know because I I read a lot about the risk is in fluctuation which we have already but this would be in a bigger scale and so we'll have time to to know who is all involved and what guard rails we've determined and stuff and we can make it a more formal decision then, but right now you just need to know you can move forward and continue the investigation.

So, the good news is we actually don't have to spend any money only if we go into contract with a virtual power purchase agreement developer. Um, and that would be a shared cost for the legal fees. Um and we are capping that but NEU has uh essentially taken on the fiscal load if you will of hiring consultants you source to get us to this point today. Yeah. Vice Mayor. Thank you. Just a quick comment. Um Nicole, I wanted to thank you for walking me through this.

I had a lot of questions early on and I said it at the last time we talked about this, but I'll say it again. I'm very impressed that we have this opportunity and I'm thankful that NAU is becoming a partner if this does go through and I I just am I'm excited to see where this can go. So, thank you for bringing it to us. Thank you. All right, council. I am looking for a motion on E. I move that we read resolution number 2025-49 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 Arizona Board of Regents for and on behalf of Northern Arizona University and the city of Flagstaff for cooperative purchasing intergovernmental agreement. Madame Mayor, I move that we adopt resolution 2025-49. I'll second. Any discussion? All those in favor? I. Any opposed? All right. Thank you. Moving down to F, consideration and adoption of resolution number 2025-47.

Uh, well, good evening, mayor and councel. Joanne Keane, deputy city manager. Um, I'm going to kick this presentation off and then turn it over to our engineer who can give um more details than I can provide. Um, but I just wanted to give a back a little bit of a background on this um on this and why we're discussing it today.

um in uh Senate Bill 1713 737 which was one of the the budget bills from um last legislative session uh Senator Rogers um included some language that provided 1.9 million uh to the city of Flagstaff for design and construction of a traffic signal at West Route 66 and M Woody Mountain Road. Um just some background on this appropriation. Um each each um me senator um not always on the House side, but on the on the Senate side, they're given an amount to spend within their district.

And this is was this was one of Senator Rogers um requests this um last legislative um budget cycle to provide the 1.9 million um for this project. Um we were contacted by AOT. Um they wanted to transfer the um the funding to us through an IGA. There was actually specific language in the bill that um stated that that had to be done by September 15th, which um as you see has has come and gone.

Um but we had a a pretty quick call with um ADOT to discuss some of the terms of that IGA and let them know that the soonest we could get it to council was um likely this meeting. Um also in the the actual authorizing legislation, it states that the the funds need to be transferred to the city by November 1st, 2025. So you'll see that in the IG. Um, just to provide some additional background, when we were contacted by AOT, um, we were able to set up a meeting with Senator Rogers.

I think one of the um and I'll have our engineer um talk about city engineer Paul Mood um come up next to talk about the specifics, but one of the con initial concerns we had was that, you know, we may not want a traffic signal at this intersection that there may be some other improvements that we want to do down west Route 66 um and specifically in this intersection. And I know several of you are involved with Metro Plan.

And Metro Plan has um a pretty big um appropriation request for um next session in the rural transportation bill to fund this project and I believe it's the number one priority. Um that request is actually $18 million. Um so in that discussion with Senator Rogers that we had um I can't remember the date, Paul will remember. I know he will.

Um we had a discussion with her about whether there was some flexibility with this 1.9 million and whether we could um use it for kind of a a quick fix but then use it for some improvements that that we see are necessary down on this um west Route 66 corridor.

Um those discussions were very positive and she was um incredibly open to that and in fact in that discussion agreed to uh drop a bill next session um to provide funding for the entire project um likely not the 18 million but um I think what we're asking for is three million. So, just overall um positive discussion.

Um this item tonight, I'm gonna have Paul kind of go into the details on the actual signal, but the item tonight is to approve the IG where then these funds will be basically provided to the city of Flagstaff for this um weight west 66 corridor. So, is it with that Paul, can I turn it over to you? Thank you. Thanks, Joanne. Um she actually did most of my presentation for me. Um yeah, like Joanne said, um the state appropriated the city $1.9 million. It's just a pass through.

Um the intersection is actually controlled by ADOT. It's West Road 66 and Woody Mountain Road. Um we did meet with Council Member Matthews and Senator Rogers, myself, Jeff Bowman, um Joanne, and Kate Marley with Metro Plan. Um, this is a picture of the intersection. So, it's really unimproved right now. There's no curb, gutter, sidewalks, or anything like that. So, um, if we want to move quick, we're looking at potentially a temporary traffic signal in that area.

Um, long range plans, uh, Metro Plan is doing the West Route 66 operational assessment. Um, the Metro Plan board will be, um, seeing that at their next meeting. um longterm um could be preferred option here would be a roundabout but it could be a traffic signal. So this IG before you tonight is just to get the money transferred from the state to the city and then staff will be working with ADOT on the design of a signal at this intersection. So that is the end of my presentation.

Happy to answer any questions. And Paul just um Kate Mley from Metrop Plan is here as well if there are any other specific questions. And Kate, did you have anything that you'd like to add? Okay. Um, Council Member Alen, thank you very much. Uh, this question is for any of the three of you, two of you in the orange. I don't know if you guys are coordinating some secret signals here tonight. And Paul, little bit orange.

Um, so obviously some improvements need to happen here and there's uh de development that's going on, big development that's happening nearby. It's going to have a major impact on traffic. This is definitely a worthy project. Um, I I know there been some concerns in the city about uh the timing of this and uh the place in the queue that it has. And um it's it's interesting you just mentioned the plans for a possible roundabout there, which is what I'd much rather see permanently.

Um can you speak more to how uh this going down this route would endanger an eventual roundabout? And also, I'd like to know how long are we talking having a temporary uh traffic light there? And and what does that look like? Is that is that just a a trailer hitch that's dropped off in the intersection? And um or you know because I'm thinking temporary traffic lights, you know, on mountain passes where you have to go one lane. Uh those things are slapped up overnight.

Um and so I I just want to make sure that that's not what we're envisioning of long term, but what is that timeline? And I'll let you get started answering all those questions. Uh thank you, uh mayor and and council member Alen. temporary traffic signal would be the wood poles and and wire and a signal similar to Butler Fourth Street. Um, if we were to do a roundabout that location, the temporary signal would be probably be the best option.

It would allow you to have that span wire signal for I would say a year or two and then go back and do a roundabout. Um the city has a approximately $11 million in Prop 419 funding for West Route 66, but it's spread out over several years. So we don't have one big chunk of money to go say, "Let's go do a project." Um if we do do a a temporary signal, uh we we are hoping to get it done by the end of this year.

Um, if we were to do a more permanent signal, the MA, you know, you have to order the mast arms and poles and those are long lead items that could be roughly six to eight months longer than the temporary signal would be. It'd be much more expensive. Um, talking with Senator Rogers, it sounded like the money we did not spend we could on the signal we could use towards improvements along this corridor.

Um, so if there is a bill introduced next year um to get funding for something at this intersection or along the corridor, we could put that money back in. I know Metro Plan is is looking to u make made that art um funding request. You usually don't get all that funding, but you could get a few million dollars. So, we're hoping that something could happen this at this intersection probably within the next two to three years.

And uh absent all of this, what what was the plan for that intersection and what was the timeline for that? And and where where does where where do other projects around the city fit in to this? And how are they disrupted? I guess other projects around the city aren't disrupted because we have the 11 million programmed in in Prop 419 specifically for West Route 66. that money um is in our CIP just for this this corridor.

Um that money is really to look at partnering with ADOT or going after any grants. So I can't I couldn't really tell you the timing. We were going to start looking once the West Route 66 operational assessment is approved by the Metro Plan Board. Then we're really going to start looking for funding from grants um through ADOT, any means possible. Metro Plan's always helping us look for that.

And I' I'd love to hear from my uh executive director at Metrop Plan on on this topic too and how it plays into the longer term strategy that we've been building at Metrop Plan and and how synergistic that is or disruptive. Hi council Kate Mley, executive director of Metro Plan. This is a spoiler alert for tomorrow's meeting. Sorry. Um the west 66 operational assessment is present is being presented to the board tomorrow.

The real punchline of that is that um over the past year and a half, a project advisory group made up of city staff members, ADOT staff members, metrop plan staff members, mountain line staff members have worked on what this corridor should look like and they have a proposal which is the true full buildout vision for the corridor which has a $32 million price tag on it and includes roundabouts at the intersections that you're talking about.

Um, we have $11 million through the city's Prop 419 and then this $2 million uh appropriation from Senator Rogers. So, 13 million, which doesn't get us to that full project vision. One of the things that the PAG said that they would pull out if they can't find the funding to do the full vision are the roundabouts and they would put the signals in instead, though the roundabouts are desired. So, this does help get us towards that.

And with this big funding gap um between the full vision and the money that we actually have in hand, it it is incremental progress towards that. Council member House. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you both for uh or all I guess I should say for your parts in this uh conversation.

Um, so I just want to make sure that I'm understanding correctly that this funding is it was maybe brought forward for a specific purpose, but as it's being presented in this IG is un not unencumbered from how it's used overall, but not necessarily dedicated to that original ask that might not actually be the final desired product here. Um, am I understanding that correct? Um, yes, Mayor, Council Member House, the IGA is very specific to be used for a traffic signal. Okay.

And so I guess my pause there is just in like if if the vision for this area and what's going to be presented um even tomorrow, I I know Um, I don't have any direct um, insight into what that conversation will look like, but what does it look like for us to accept this funding if our overall vision is for a different type of traffic signalization or control in this area? Yeah, I would say um, so we have the appropriation for the $ 1.9 million.

Um, I don't have a cost estimate for a temporary signal, but I'm thinking a few hundred,000. So, that could leave us, let's just say, $1.5 million left that we could use potentially for a roundabout at this intersection once we get additional funding put together. And Council Member House, just to also jump in, um, so we will be using this fund, these funds for a signal. So, we are complying with what's in that IG.

um just the flexibility that we've been given to use the rest of the funds for other improvements. Um you know, we were just talking up here. I mean, this is an intersection that definitely needs some safety improvements. You know, with um all of the new housing developments in this corridor, um the the Sierra on 66, the Woody Mountain Homes, Timber Sky, etc. There's definitely a need for something in this intersection. Yes, thank you both very much for for that answer.

I obviously agree that something is needed. I just I think my concern is if if we have one vision for what's ultimately needed or desired in this area and this funding was for a different vision, making sure that we are still able to meet out our vision and and have that say in in what ultimately goes in here. Um, but it sounds like we do. So, that's that's good. Thank you, Council Member Matthews. Thank you, Mayor. Um, I feel like I I need to do some clarification just to make sure.

um the 1.9 million um Senator Rogers um allocated for that intersection because she saw um she experiences the traffic dangers and um seeing the Sierra on 66 coming in. So, I was real excited that that Kate was there to be able to talk to her about the bigger vision for Metro Plan, which was not on Senator Rogers radar to support, right?

I mean, maybe she'd come around later, but um the temporary signal was is to address the immediate um concerns and needs with Sierra 66 opening up this this year. Um, and knowing how long it usually takes us to get um, road improvements like that, we're talking years down the line. Um, we did talk about and and she was um, how I understood it, she was good with a roundabout. Um, the developers in Timber Sky um, and around have put in all the infrastructure for street light.

There's big cement boxes around there. Um, And there are some concerns about um entitlements to get a to get a roundabout in, but that's up to the engineers and to the overall design plan. We can go whichever way we want. There's no restriction there. And so in my mind, that 1.9 million um minus what it's really going to cost us, 400,000, get it? That's an extra 1.5 million that we didn't have uh for that overall improvements.

And I I think we all heard her say you can use the rest of the money for any part of that improvement on that corridor. So um I don't see any um area of concern. This is something that's a temporary fix um because it's going to take years to get the the permanent fix and we've got 220 units just in the Sierra on 66 coming live in two months or less. Um so I get a lot of uh comments from people that live in that area concerned about the dangers of the traffic and coming down that hill.

Um so I I unless I'm missing something I I think this is a just a bonus, right? Yes. All right. Seeing no other Council Member Alen. Yeah. Just real briefly, um I'm not I'm not sure it does the senator any favors by pointing out that this is her personal uh intersection where she lives at in terms of um how she uses it personally. I'm I'm sure it doesn't run a foul of any legalities, but it it sure doesn't have a a really good smell to it.

Just to clarify, she doesn't live on that intersection, but it was her constituents that made her look at that and then she personally experiences that, so I wouldn't taint that water. All right. Seeing no other questions, I will entertain a motion to read the resolution. Find it. I'd like to read resolution number 2025-47 by title only. I'll second. Second. Any discussion? All those in favor? I. Any opposed? All right. And oh, city clerk.

A resolution of the Flagstaff City Council approving an intergovernmental agreement between Arizona Department of Transportation and the city of Flagstaff for the design and construction of a traffic signal at the intersection of Woody Mountain Road and US Route 66. A motion to adopt. So move. I'll second. Any discussion? All those in favor? I I. Any opposed? All right. Wow, he's already gone and Bryce is already here. G. Good evening, Mayor and Council. Bryce Dota, your real estate manager.

You know, shortly after Seinfeld was over, Jerry Seinfeld did a really fun stand-up comedy um HBO special called I'm telling you for the Last Time. And as much as I would love to say I'm telling you for the last time I'm here about the Rita flag, there's this thing called the upper reach. And so on my MA map here, it's phase five, I will be back to talk about some acquisitions for that.

But tonight's item, I'm telling you, for the last time, everything in phase four and phase six, this is the last um ask of me to say we've tried our best to to acquire all these property interests. And there's two additional property interests that we're asking you to authorize condemnation actions for. And let me scroll down on my map here. The first one, and these are these are tough uh tough negotiations.

Um the one right here is called uh it's actually the high country in it's uh the take that we need is actually just a temporary construction ease um for the realignment of Milton so that when the Riota Flag project does go through Milton, there's uh enough of a traffic alignment there. Um with this property owner, it's going to have some significant impacts. the project is they're going to have to figure out how to get their um their patrons um in through a different way.

And we don't have great answers on to as to timing of when all this will happen. Um we have a schedule that we're trying to keep with the Army Corps, but this particular part of the project is going to come in well there's a lot of contingencies for it. So they the core can't put this part of the project in before the lone tree overpass provides enough traffic relief um for them to do the temporary reduction of lanes here. And so we just have a lot of questions there.

And so um talking to a property owner say well we need these rights right now. Um when are you going to be here? When's this impact going to be here? Um we don't have great answers for that. And so um I understand their position and said you know what let's if this is what you need right now go seek the rights from through the court. So that's where those negotiations um uh left. And then the second um interest that we're asking for is for the SECO2 property. This is off of uh Butler.

It's where uh Single Speed Roaster is. And let me scroll down here. What we need there. Um this was um basically we we had an an interesting kind of collaborative deal with these property owners previously where we did we agreed to uh to lesser interest than than we were previously asking in exchange for some kind of land swaps. We got a deal um kind of in principle done.

Um unfortunately the core looks like um they took another look at the rights that they need and they said you know what we actually need the full suite of rights we were initially asking for and so once we went to the property owner and said you know what we actually have to go this direction um that's led to the negotiations we installed and so that's why we are asking to get those rights through the courts and so these are the two um final interests for the phase four and five six of the project um we're asking for resolution for the authority to condemn and I'm happy to answer any other questions.

Greg, thank you for that uh succinct presentation. I just want to elaborate a little bit on this property. Mayor, you know this because you've been at the table, but I I wanted to mention that the discussions with the core, there's been many on what Bryce just articulated and I think we have exhausted our resources. Our last meeting on this was yesterday morning and uh the core um their position is firm and time is of the essence on this.

So, I just want council to know that there's been a lot of effort underlying what was just described. Thank you. Um, council member, is that a motion? Um, any other questions? Because we're going to take a motion. All right, let's go. Inventing new shorthand, I guess. Um, yeah. Uh, you know, it's it's never fun. It's always very sobering to have to condemn uh properties um and to move forward this way. Uh, but I do think that the city has given its due diligence.

Um, you've worked so hard to to to find another solution to this. We can't let this slip by the wayside any further. Um, so I'm I'm really pleased that the a solution has been found and that we can keep putting one foot in front of the other on this project that always seems to be a little bit on life support but just keeps on plugging along. So, I would uh very much um be in favor of uh um making a motion, Madame Mayor, that we read resolution number 2025-53 by title only. I'll second.

Any discussion? All those in favor? I I Any opposed? City clerk. A resolution of the Flagstaff City Council authorizing the acquisition of pretty interests necessary for the Rio de Flag flood control project, a public use, providing for delegation of authority, condemnation authority, repeal of conflicting resolutions, and establishing an effective date. And a motion to adopt. So moved. And a second. Second. Any discussion? All those in favor? I. All right. Thank you all. Thanks Bryce.

Item 13 discussion items. Hello. Hello. You guys should have come down here on one wheels. Mayor and Council, I'm Jenny Neman, climate action section director. Thank you so much uh for making time tonight for us to talk once again about micromobility share. I am joined tonight by a large group of folks um and we're actually backed by an even larger group of folks that we have collaborated with over the past couple months.

So, um, they will introduce themselves when they get here, but, um, we've got Kim with Metro Plan, Jamie with the sustainability office, and Chris with transportation engineering at the city. Um, also on our working group are Kate Mley of Metro Plan, Aaron Stam of NA Transit Services, Lorena Reyes of Mountain Line, and a host of other city partners.

We were here in February uh to restart the discussion about microobility share in Flagstaff and tonight we seek your direction on whether to continue this work. We'll do a quick recap of our engagement since that February conversation and then we'll talk about what it would mean to move forward. I want to start before um we get too far just to talk about what microobility is.

Micromobility means those small electric powered uh devices that have really proliferated across the country in the last 5 to 10 years. This can mean the onehe um that you might see a 14-year-old in your neighborhood about. When we use microobility tonight, we we're going to be talking about e- scooters and ebikes. The reason for that is micromobility share companies provide those two devices.

When they provide microobility share services, those shared services mean that these devices are available to rent by generally any adult um that wants to rent them. Um and rental rates are, you know, we're we're talking renting by the hour or renting even sometimes by the minute. Um, and so that's really what we mean when we talk about micromobility share. A really important thing to note is that microobility devices are already here in Flagstaff.

Um, we're not talking about should we allow those in Flagstaff. They are here. Um, I see an ebike for about every bike that I see. Um, I see a couple scooters a day and then I go on to NA's campus and you can see hundreds of scooters in in an hour, right? Um, so they're very much already here in Flagstaff. What we're talking tonight is about a micromobility share business or an operator that would provide this shared service. Um, and that's really our focus of this project.

Just for a little bit of background, um, this is a slide that we talked about in February. Um, our code currently specifies that a permit can be obtained to operate micromobility share in Flagstaff. We have two options tonight. we can move forward with creating a permit to operate here. That permit can be awarded through an RFP process or if council doesn't want to proceed with allowing this in Flagstaff, we can change the code.

Um, that wouldn't happen tonight, but that would be where we would eventually go to say we actually don't want these businesses to operate in Flagstaff. We came to council to begin this conversation in February of this year. And since we've been working to hear from staff and city commissions as well as a couple community groups and so tonight we bring to council two questions. The first is the simple one. Um it's sort of the go or no go.

Should we allow micromobility share operators to come to Flagstaff? Um and then if council directs us to proceed with this, there are of course a handful of steps. They're not going to show up immediately. But then the second question is if council does want us to proceed, does it have any feedback for how we proceed? We're going to talk about a staff recommendation about requirements that we would place on a vendor.

And so that's sort of the second question of just any feedback or ideas about how we work with that uh potential micromobility share operator. Here are the implementation steps. The first row shows what we've been doing since February. to get to today's decision points. If we proceed with allowing this type of business in Flagstaff, um we'll work internally to set a permit fee. Then we will start a procurement process that would really say we're open for business.

Give us your proposals for how you, a microobility share operator, might operate in Flagstaff. Then we would select one vendor to go forward if staff if council decides to go with the staff recommendation. And then we would start what we call uh implementation planning, sort of launch planning. Um we've been here before and and we'd really work really closely with the vendor as well as a lot of different partners um to plan for that implementation.

We'd also stay in close communication obviously with that operator uh through launch and then through operation. Now I'm thrilled to hand this over to Kim. Thank you, Mayor and Vice Mayor and Council. My name is Kim Austin and I am the transportation demand management planner at Metrop Plan and I presented the micro micromobility feasibility study in February to council.

Um, I've been involved on this team for a year and um, as a TDM planner, my goal is to reduce the reliance on single occupancy vehicles by promoting alternative modes of transportation. A microobility share program would have many benefits to Flagstaff. Flagstaff has a robust walking and biking community. A micromobility share program would only enhance mobility and access for walking and biking.

It would allow transportation equity and provide options for those who do not own vehicles, help fill the gaps left by transit and school bus constraints, reduce our environmental impact and congestion, and help support tourism as a selling point to attract ecoourism. Micromobility is mentioned and supported in several city of Flagstaff planning documents including the active transportation master plan. The uh Flagstaff regional plan 2030 and the carbon neutrality plan.

In addition, Metroplan Stride Forward mentions microobility as a beneficial transportation option to support carbon neutrality goals, decrease vehicle miles traveled, and as a needed change in transportation behavior. Okay. On the right side of this slide, you will see an image from the North American Bike Share and Scooter Share Association. Um, of the 415 cities shown on this map, um, 79% of the systems include both ecooters and ebikes.

So if um an operator were to come to Flagstaff, you expect to see both of those devices, please. On the left side of this screen, you will see a graph and those were the pier cities that we researched in the feasibility study. What you don't see are the cities in Arizona that currently have shared micromobility programs and those are Yuma, Scottdale, Phoenix, Tucson, Tempe, Mesa, and Gilbert. This is an infographic from a bike share pilot.

So, Micromobility Share is has been in Flagstaff before and um so Flagstaff had a pilot program with a company called Spin and it ran from April to October in of 2018. And in this six-month pilot, almost 11,000 trips were taken and almost 14,000 miles were ridden. The average trip was about a mile and a half and most of those trips were after 700 p.m. which um also coincides with when the bus kind of starts decreasing their service for the evening.

And I want you to notice um on the slide the thicker lines, those are the um most ridden areas. And this um correlates with areas where Mountain Line has received um requests for increased service and but they're unable to fulfill those requests. And this is where micromobility can um support transit in the first mile and last mile to and from transit services. The micromobility feasibility report was led by ME met Metroplan and Mountain Line and completed in January of 2025.

Within the report, we listed risks and strategies to mitigate those risks. These are the risks in the feasibility report we identified and uh because of the potential consequences and adverse effects on the city. Um you'll see these later on in the presentation and others uh parking concerns, winter and snow operations, personal injury, staffing and program maintenance and public perception.

In addition, we also identified some medium impact risks um including gaps in active transportation infrastructure options for those individuals without credit cards or smartphones, devices taking over our existing bicycle racks, and company viability. Thank you. I'm going to hand it over to Jamie Larson. Thank you. Thank you, mayor and council. My name is Jamie Larson. I'm an America Vista at the sustainability office. So, I will begin with discussing our partnership with NAU.

So, NAU has been a key partner from the very start participating in working group um engagement efforts, the physibility report and RFP discussions. Because devices will cross jurisdictions, NEU's involvement ensures consistent management and rules across the campus and city. So, if we move forward, um the city would manage procurement while NA will sign a matching agreement.

This is similar to what we did in 2020 with the Gacha agreement where we worked through many of the same topics that we're talking about today and had a successful partnership. That previous teamwork gave us the opportunity to think through requirements for vendors such as how quickly the devices are moved from sidewalks um and are now incorporated into this project as lessons learned.

So the result of this collaboration is one seamless system for the community with each partner's interest protected and consistent expectations for safety, parking and compliance. Uh I will now discuss some of our engagement efforts with the community. So to inform this proposal, we conducted broad engagement with about 16 different groups from city commissions, divisions and regional partners.

This engagement ensured that we heard from those who are most affected from accessibility advocates to transportation planners. And across all these conversations, each group expressed their support with moving forward with the microobility program. However, they did outline their concerns um in order for us to address them early. So through our conversations, we identified five common themes. Here are the first three of them. So equity and accessibility.

uh they outlined the need for affordable and adaptive devices and options for those without smartphones or credit cards. In addition, device features and safety was often brought up. So, interest in having headlights on the devices as well as encouraging helmet use and writer education. Compliance was another strong theme. Um there's concern about proper proper parking, speed limits, and alignment with existing code. Another two themes was enforcement.

So stakeholders asked how rules would be enforced and suggested using incentives or penalties to encourage proper use. In addition, community relations. So there was strong support for proactive public education. So explaining how the system works and promoting safe and respectful writing. These themes based on our conversations and engagement with the community helped to shape our RFP requirements and potential future program design. In addition, we also conducted a community survey.

So, this lasted from May to June 2025 and was hosted on Connect Flagstaff. We had about 107 respondents. As you can see here, 71% expressed interest that um micromobility share would be a useful option in Flagstaff. Additionally, the top trip types included recreation, errands, as well as commuting, and 45% said they'd be use microobility more if it was integrated in collaboration with mountain line. So, overall, public sentiment leaned positive and people were supportive.

However, they did have concerns um regarding safety and accessibility. So, during this engagement process, we also sought information from peer cities. Uh we sought to learn how our peer cities compensated from operators in their communities. Uh through this we discovered that more than half of our peer cities um did charge a fee which is built into the contract. So uh there's for example Fort Collins so they have an RFP process and hosts spend in their community.

They have one staff member who dedicates 25% of their time to the program. In contrast, we have Santa Monica who has multiple companies in their community and as a result they have one staff member who dedicates 50% of their time to the program as law as well as one code enforcement staff member who dedicates just a small time. So if Flagstaff moves forward with the microobility share program, we would expect that we would need to dedicate similar staff levels.

And finally, um, we have had a lot of conversations with the community over the last eight months and moving forward, it will remain a multi-dision effort. So from our colleagues in street section to pros and economic vitality, we had really valuable feedback from these groups and more importantly, we will continue to work with these groups if we plan for implementation.

So for example, many folks have volunteered to be part of our procurement process and park flag and pros teams will be heavily involved in the operations planning. So the goal of this collaboration is to have a well coordinated system that integrates smoothly for the community across city and NA boundaries. I will now pass it to Chris. Thank you Jamie. Uh good evening, mayor and council. My name is Chris Far.

I'm a transportation planner with the city and I'm here tonight representing the engineering division. Uh and I'll be discussing our staff recommendation for taking on a micromobility share program in Flagstaff. Our staff recommendation is to allow one vendor to operate in Flagstaff by issuing a single permit through a competitive RFP process. This strategy would allow us to uh implement operator requirements uh to mitigate risks which we'll discuss over the next few slides.

We also recommend assigning a cost to the operator permit to offset staff time associated with contract compliance and program analysis. Uh we estimate 25% of a new city staff employees time and 50% of an NA employees time dedicated to the oversight of this program. Uh now we will discuss recommendations for operator requirements uh to include in a future competitive RFP.

Uh I would reiterate that these recommendations have been reached through pure research and outreach to ensure a comprehensive program. Uh we request operators provide a shared device plan. This would include information related to the number and type of devices, city areas to limit or restrict usage, uh how devices would be distributed across the community, their proposed mix of device types, and a scalable plan to manage the size and uh the size of the device fleet.

To address appropriate parking strategies, uh we request operators provide a parking plan. This would serve as a baseline for future planning between a vendor and the city and its partners and should include strategies to limit parking in downtown and on NAU to designated areas. Uh to a description of the parking racks to be provided, uh how improperly parked devices would be managed and strategies for winter operations to ensure the program is adequately staffed and maintained.

Uh we request operators provide a maintenance and distribution plan. This should include a description of how devices will be distributed and regularly balanced across the city, including Flag to Flagstaff's underserved neighborhoods. Uh, also a plan detailing the vendor's local staffing strategy to run the program and a plan to pay annual the annual permit fee to offset city and NA staff time to encourage safety and compliance. Uh we request operators provide a safety plan.

This safety plan should include the use of speed restriction and geo fencing as it relates to Flag Staff. Uh the details of a customer safety agreement and education for safe riding in the city. Uh to address equity concerns, we request operators provide a pricing and access plan.

This plan would include details related to their proposed pricing structure and strategies uh to make them accessible to lower income residents as well as a description of devices or operations for people who require non-traditional considerations.

To address customer service and public uh perception concerns, we request operators implement a user-friendly interfaces, uh a community communication plan leading to the systems launch, uh provide 247 customer support, and regularly share data related to ridership.

And to address company viability and revenue model concerns, we request that operators comply with our city sign code, are properly insured, and have a decommissioning plan in place, uh comply with the city's insurance requirements, and provide an overview of their company's history that uh history and cities that have demonstrated their success. With that, I'm going to pass it back to Jenny. Thank you so much, Chris. and Jamie and Kim. Uh, council, thanks for making time.

I know it's a lot after a long meeting. Um, I've just got some repeat slides. So, um, I wanted to just reiterate the staff recommendation um that Chris just took you through. Um, you know, our recommendation is here for your consideration. We're completely, of course, open to any feedback you have here, but um, this really comes based off of our conversations with the commissions.

Um you know Jamie reiterated it but every commission said yes and right yes and we want these things and that is what this recommendation reflects. Um we recommend you know one micromobility share operator. We also heard that from a number of other cities that we talked through. Um a permit um being offered through an RFP. This is the same uh model that we used in 2019. uh we put out a request for proposals and got a number of proposals back from companies.

Um that then requests for proposals led to that permit um being awarded and as going into contract. Um and then finally adding a fee to the operator permit. Um this is something new, something that we'll work with finance on. Um but we feel it's important that we do offset the staff time and that also comes from our lessons learned here. In terms of implementation steps, this is also a repeated slide, but just really quickly, um, if council directs us to move forward, these are those next steps.

Um, we would have a fee study conversation with finance. We would go through a procurement process and then we would work handinand with the selected operator as well as with many different community partners as well as many staff partners uh to plan for that launch. um to plan for what does operations look like, what does customer service look like, what does parking look like, what do winter operations look like. There's a lot of details to be worked out.

Um again, we'd rely on our uh experience in 2020 working through a contract um that was signed both by the city and by NAU um and work on a lot of rely on a lot of partnerships. So here again, council is a request for direction. Um, first, should we move forward? And if so, do you have any feedback on how we should move forward? We'll take any feedback that you offer on number two and and put that into our conversations about the fee study if that's appropriate or into the RFP, right?

We have the ability to craft that RFP in the way that we want it and see what um the respondents come back to us with. So, we will use that there. Um, and just before I close, I'd like to thank the large team here tonight, as well as our NAU and Mountain Line partners um, who are not here and the many folks at the city who have contributed to this process. So, thank you, council. Um, and we are here if you have any questions. Thank you, Council Member Garcia. Thank you, Jenny and team.

That was a very interesting presentation, and it's not that I haven't seen it before. Uh because I I really enjoy watching all the commission meetings and I have a lovehate relationship with this presentation because I'm always watching the commission meetings to see what's new and then I see the presentation and I go to the next I see it again.

But what I saw during that time is you guys listening and responding to the questions which had a common theme um that we saw here on council during our last presentation kind of moved through the through the commissions with little nuances that you addressed in this presentation. So I was able to see like the maturation of the process and um and really enjoy the outcomes of it. So the first recommendation is I want to kick this into motion full throttle.

The Now the small the the second part how we should proceed I think we should do it in small steps you know as incremental as as we need to to understand our strengths and our weaknesses is important to me and I don't think by making it as small as we need to be that we're going to be short selling ourselves. I think we're going to get real data from a small subset without taking too much risk and not putting too much onus on the on the providers.

So that way we have a partnership that's feasible in the beginning and that we can grow as both the city and the partner um sees fit and the community starts to align with with the microshare mobility. Uh which which I am I'm am hopeful for. When I leave town, when I go out of town, you'll see me on one of these things all the time. You won't often see me carrying my helmet with me. It's just not something that happens.

So there, you know, the stuff that you addressed face forward in the beginning of this uh presentation makes warms my heart and makes me think that you guys are very cognizant of of some of the challenges that are out there and that you guys are ready to face those challenges and see what we can do with this thing. Um, but going back to the story, you know, I I I use these a lot when I go other places.

So, I'm ex I'm excited to see what we do with it and I want to see this program succeed and if it doesn't then we um we'll we'll know why. That's it. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor, Council Member Alen. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Thank you so much, Jenny, and the team um for going through all of this. I know it's been a long journey. Uh, you know, I was the only person who was on council back in 2018 during the pilot project and the the conversations that went on around um all things e uh mobility.

Um, of course, all of us were in town during the the pilot project. So, uh we all have very valid legitimate uh memories and considerations from our own personal experiences during that time. Um, you know, I I really don't think we can stop this. Uh, so it's better to ride this bull than to stand in its way. Uh, and I I like what Council Member Garcia just said about incrementally, uh, phasing it in, baby steps. U, I think that's the the best way this is going to become palatable.

You know, I have a lot of questions about what this is going to look like during a heavy winter. Um, I think I think a lot of these things are going to be frozen in ice for months at a time and awall until they thaw. Um, you know, but the the main thing for me is uh there's two sides to this. Um, there's the this side. Uh, you guys have meticulously thought through all of the challenges and criticisms probably more so than anyone.

And uh you know a lot of your wisdom is based on what we learned during the pilot, but you guys are hyper sensitive and aware of all the ways in which uh this could run a foul and could fail and you're trying to you know um uh head that off. I I fully acknowledge all of that work and I trust um all of that dialogue and work that went into this to to fully guide this process to to success and to community buyin.

But the other part of this is the community buyin and um that's just a journey that we all have to go on. Um and we have to listen to people and we have to show them that it's working. um and we have to allay their fears and their and their their skepticism um through actually navigating success on this. I think it's really interesting that a lot of these things are used after hours when the buses stop.

Um, you know, I have questions about ice and berms and uh really our our mobility during uh winter is terrible to begin with and it's largely criticized and and we're working on that very hard to try to figure out how to, you know, rep prioritize all the people who walk in this town um during those winter events as well as getting cars uh going. Um I wonder about uh honestly one of my questions is about uh drunk e mobileing. I don't know I don't know uh it seems like a broad category of things.

Uh but it it wouldn't surprise me that a lot of this after hours use um is people using this as an alternative to cars. But there may still be issues um with that. Uh I'm interested in exploring that as fully as possible. Um but anything we can do to create to increase multimodality um and alternate forms of transportation in the city of Flagstaff, I'm all for it. And I think you guys know how to get the community to yes on this.

and being out in front on the community here as a representative, I'm willing to put your reputation on the line by supporting this fully. Thank you, Council Member House. I hear that last comment correctly. Okay. U Thank you all very much for your presentation. Um, I am also in support of moving this forward and um and am excited to see this come back um for our community.

Um, Jenny, I I believe we've had past conversations about this um possibility and just some of the considerations from the last time we um had this the pilot program.

Um, at that time I was working in multifamily housing and so of course dealt with the um challenges we'll say of where people decided to drop off their their bikes and um so I'm I'm very um happy to see in the operator requirements that you all have have expressed mindfulness of that and are um putting in some considerations for dedicated parking or um designated spaces um in different locations.

Um, I'm also really happy to see the um addressing of equity concerns and making sure that this is accessible to um all members of the community in uh ways that um that work for them. Um the only thing I'd add on to that consideration is um that there is the consideration under equity for residents without a smartphone or credit card. Um and then in the section on addressing customer service and public perception concerns, it talks about a user-friendly app.

Um so just thinking how how will that be accessible for people in that same situation? um or how will people um have access to information about the program if they maybe don't have access to a computer or a smartphone or um easy access that way. Um the only other thought that I had on on any of this was um ensuring that the um neighborhood associations or neighborhoodbased organizations are um continuously part of the conversation as well. Um which I'm sure they've been part of it so far.

Um but just considering how they might um contribute to um ensuring access throughout some of the historically underserved or underrepresented communities and neighborhoods. Um helping to get the information out about the program um if and when it comes to the community and um also considering like that they would likely become some of the centers of conversation if parking or um abandonment of a a bike or or anything like that came into consideration.

Um, but overall very excited by what you all have presented, the level of thought and detail that's gone into this and the amount of partnerships that you're bringing into this as well. I think it's really exciting and um it's keeping our community moving forward in really positive ways on this front. So, thank you all. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Thank you. And thank you for the presentation. I was here for the spin and then I was in the audience during all the gotcha conversations.

Um, so maybe third times a charm. Um, I do appreciate all of your time on this. I know it it takes a lot to come to us with such a wellthoughtout um pre presentation and and thought process on how to move forward. I do have a couple of questions. Um, how will the program work with Mountain Line to help create seamless trips for its users? Thank you so much, Vice Mayor, and I invite any of my co-presenters to hop up too if needed.

Um, so what we are asking for, what we propose to ask for if council wishes us to move forward, um, is to ask for the vendor to, um, consider integration with the transit app, um, which Mountain Line uses. We don't have that as a requirement just because we didn't want a technological barrier to be what keeps us from one or the other. We're not sure about how integration will work. Um, but we want to hear from the proposers on how they would do that and how they would integrate with it.

Another way that we plan to integrate with it, when we were in the process of planning implementation with Gotcha in 2020, that was kind of our fall start. Um, we started talking about what does parking look like around bus stops, right? Do we have parking stations where that's sort of a preferred parking area? Right. Um, parking will look different throughout the city, right? It will look different downtown. It will look different at NAU.

It will look different in our more suburban neighborhoods. Um, but what we want to do is make sure that we're having special consideration to that. Um, we, as was noted before, um, the spin pilot showed us in 2018 that we were getting a ton of use after Mountain Lines hours had dropped off. um and even before in the morning too, right? And so Mountain Line saw this as really complimentary. Um they've been partners the whole time.

And so what we want to do is really continue that collaboration and that and being complimentary in that way. Um another, you know, thing that we're asking for the proposers is could there be a seamless integration of payment, right? If you pay for a um let's say microobility ride, do you could you get a discount um on your transit ride, right? What could that look like? Um again, a lot of this is the operators are operating in hundreds, dozens if not hundreds of cities across the US, right?

They know what they can do and so we want to hear from them. Can you do this? Can you make it a seamless payment? Can it be so that you can transfer to from one to the other? Um, what we also found with the spin pilot was that micromobility was being used where mountain line has gaps. And so that was really exciting for them to see. Um, we want to continue that to really for this to help close that first mile, last mile.

Maybe you can't walk the two miles to get to a bus stop if you're in one of our outlying neighborhoods, but you sure can scooter and there might be a scooter around. And so, can people use that as a bridge to get over to the transit? Great answer. Um, thank you. That's a lot of of good options and I appreciate the you thinking about that. Uh, my other question since the spin cycle, um, it's late.

Uh I feel like there's been a lot of technology and a lot of of of change in this and I'm wondering moving forward when things are changing and there's new technologies out what is our plan to keep up with that um so that we aren't having to reinvent things every time. That's such a good question. Um I'll start and y'all can jump in if you want. We have been lucky in some ways to sit out micromobility share since been right it's been seven years.

um will be at least eight by the time this comes back if it does. And there has been so much change as you mentioned. Um one of the best changes is that cities and operators have learned how to work together really well. We've learned a ton from our peer cities about what requirements they're putting on the operators and what operators are asking back from the cities. Operators have also really learned how to control behavior, right?

And and to incentivize behavior um with money as as that works, right? But they've learned a lot about that. So, I just want to acknowledge that change. Um, I think that in terms of how we want to deal with that going forward, we see this as a short contract, so a two-year contract, right?

We have a lot of work to do with procurement, um, to to get there, but we think that a two-year contract would allow us to sort of see what's going on and figure out where we're at and then extend if both parties agree, right? But it wouldn't be an automatic extension. And it would allow us to say, "Yeah, we actually want to incorporate this into our contract, right? or we need to raise or lower fees as we kind of see how much staff time is going in here.

We want that to be sort of a um ongoing conversation with that operator. We also just hope that you know we have the ability with the operator to have a good relationship.

Um we our proposed requirements are asking for a lot um but we feel that we can build a really strong relationship with that operator so that if they're able to come to us and say we would like to add this offering because of this new technology um that we can work through it with that that's part of the staff request right so that we have someone who can really work with that operator and be that partner oh yes Kim you can stay oh I'm not gonna I'm not gonna stay up here um I did want to mention that um the devices, you know, things grow old devices, you know, there's newer devices that come out and stuff.

I just want to mention the devices will not be they're the operator's devices. They're not our devices. So, it's up to the the operator to maintain and keep current those devices. That's their job. It's not it's not the city's job. That's their job and it's in their contract. So it wouldn't be a requirement of the city to do this. It's their job and it would be in their contract. So that I just wanted to mention that. Thank you.

Um so I am very supportive of the direction given and um the two options and or I guess one option. Yes. And I don't really have any more feedback. I think you've done a great job. you've really thought this out and I appreciate that and I'm excited to see what comes of it and what this will do for our city and micro micro whatevers. I'm so tired, Council Member Spence. Thank Thank you, Mayor. Um, excellent presentation. I thank you.

Um, I'm fully supportive of uh allowing one and only one microbility share to operate. I do have um just to be clear, I think as was implied but not clearly stated that we would uh require uh vendors u applicants to provide both ebikes and e- scooters. And the other comment I have is your um in your presentation you said there they would need to provide technical support 247. I would add or suggest adding 365 so that that support would be available on on holidays. Thank you. I agree 100%.

Council member Matthews. Thank you, Mayor. Um, just as a side note, um, Google Maps, they could just plug it in their destination and it would tell them when the next bus stop is and where they go in case they don't want to or can't integrate. Um, very happy to um, and just thank you for all the partners and all the hard work. You guys have done a fabulous job.

Jenny, you and I have talked about this project um not too long ago and so you already kind of went down all the the things that you envision putting in a contract and having a vendor providing stuff and so um I feel really good about you know you've already figured it out. I mean you just really covered bases that um I hadn't thought about. So thank you for all that hard work.

Um, and I I appreciate and agree with council member um house about making sure that this is accessibility to all and to all um if whether they have debit cards and credit cards or you know how do they how do they get the information and how do they pay for it. I think it's going to be really important and I appreciate you guys looking into that. And then um you know, I just wanted to comment.

I was down in Phoenix a couple weeks ago and I thought about this program because I saw a scooter laying on the ground and I thought to myself, wow, you know, there's you have to go so far. You know, in Phoenix, you can really you could go a really long distance to get from A to B. And so I was questioning, do we really need that here, right? Um but Kim, thank you for kind of showing the map and showing what we the usage before.

So that really answered the question and um I did want to just speak on geoengineering. It was a term I learned just a few years ago and just for the audience if they've never heard of it or council members that um interesting technology I know NA uses a lot for football games. That's how I learned about it. They pick up your cell phone where you are and send you a little message saying come to the game. So if you walk around with your cell phone on, they know exactly where you are.

There's software out there. So I just think that it's important for our community to know that. Um and so thank you so much. I think this is um I'm hopeful for this uh pilot program. Um I think that it'll get uh very popular and um I think you've done a lot of good background work to ensure its success. So thank all of you for all that you've done. Council member Garcia. Thank you, Madame Mayor. And I'll be fairly quick. Surprised nobody took the bait on this one.

When it comes time to promote this, um, since I'm a public facing figure, I want to be u I will I'm willing to help out in any way I can for communication. So, you can count on me. I too am supportive. I think one vendor is good. Um my main I I just I I think that this is a great opportunity for um transportation in Flagstaff.

My biggest concern is who who makes sure that our sidewalks aren't blocked by these because accessibility is incredibly important and is that what this staff time the 50% to NAU and 25% to the city I is is that how it will be handled? Yeah. come up here, Chris. Uh, thank you for your question, mayor. Um, so related to enforcement of keeping scooters off of sidewalks or uh anywhere that they would be improperly parked.

Um, this is something that we hope we can cut off uh before it becomes a problem for the city by putting all responsibility onto the vendor. Uh, and having a system in place where on the scooter uh a say a complaint is going to be filed against it uh for how it's parked, that phone call doesn't go to the city necessarily. That goes to the vendor to be managed.

uh we understand that there's going to be uh some some level of how it comes back to us and that's where we want to have a person in place whose responsibility it is to oversee uh contract enforcement and management uh a as well as somebody who could uh be very close to the program analyze uh ridership data and create reports. Uh so that's part of the proposed new role uh that would be associated with the program.

So are you anticipating that a vendor would contract with someone who lives in Flagstaff to be on call to handle these situations? Uh yes, that that's the goal. Uh to have a system set up in place where because there's going to uh vendor management is going to be essential.

you know that redistribution of scooters um so that they don't end up just cluttered in you know two parts of the city NA and downtown but redistributing the systems that were established through the contract is uh an important part of this so the vendor is going to have responsibility to manage and maintain scooters uh across the city great because if there's if there's a something blocking the sidewalk we need it taken care of immediately that's right and I just want add to Chris's answer to here.

Um, but that, you know, we are going to ask through the RFP process since it looks like we're moving forward. What is your staffing plan? Exactly how many local staff are you going to have here? Um, that was a good lesson learned with 2018 because we got some promises but didn't get it right. But what we want to understand is exactly what is your staffing plan. We don't want to mandate it because we don't know how many devices they're going to propose to bring, right?

We we want them to tell us what they need to successfully operate their business and also what staff they need to meet certain timelines. Um in the 2020 contract and what we would do now, we said this must be picked up if it's blocking an emergency exit, if it's blocking ADA access, right, within this set amount of time. And so we want to set those boundaries and then say, tell us how many staff you're going to provide. Are they full-time? Are they part-time? What does this look like?

When are they working? So, we're asking for a lot of details. Um, we'll see what we get back. And Kim is going to add stay right here. And that's why we want them to provide their peer and who they've contracted with in the past so we can check their references. Thank you. So, uh, do you feel like you have enough information from us, enough feedback? Yes, I believe we do. Wonderful. Thank you so much for the presentation. Thank you. Okay, we are moving down to 14 future agenda item requests.

The first one A is from Council Member Matthews. Thank you, Mayor. Um, as I stated when I brought this up a couple weeks ago, um, just decoupling the, um, requirement to have a site plan or a, um, concept planned before a developer even knows uh, if he gets a resoning is just a lot of um, time and money investment.

Um, taking that requirement out does not put us at any more risk because they'll still have to go through the site planning and and uh concept uh plans um after they know uh that they can get their property resed. Um I believe in my research that this will uh speed up the process um reduce the cost which will um eventually impact the overall end product and the cost of the housing. So, um I'm really excited um to think that we might move in this direction.

So, I'm just looking for support so we can hear from staff. I've if I read Michelle McNelte correctly, she's Oh, there you are. She's in support of this idea. Yes. Did you want to add anything, Michelle? Yeah. Thank you, um, mayor and council members, and thank you for giving me a chance to speak this late after you've been here this long, but I I I do support it. It's something that we've been working to head in that direction.

Um, I don't know how much discussion we want to have on it, but I'll just say that we're setting up the regional plan to really support us in moving in that direction. We've been looking at code to understand what can we do even under the current regional plan to start to to make that process for the reszone easier and definitely decouple. So here to answer any questions and kind of understand better what you're what you're asking for.

I think if it's okay, I'd like to offer um to start this the conversation, maybe we could prepare a community council report just updating you on everything that we are doing. Um and that might help any future conversations that you might have about this and doing what I should uh clarify is everything that we're doing to move in the direction of decoupling site plans from reson.

And if I understood you correctly when you and I met about this before I brought it to a fair um it was you know it what you're doing now is moving in that direction but this fair just kind of brings it over the finish line.

So if I understood that right, I just again the speed of government kind of goes slow and so um I want to make sure we have a lot of good traction behind this because I think in my mind I don't know anything about changing code but it just our policy but it just seems like that could really open up uh the processes now and as we're working on the regional plan and stuff but we could get this now so developers can see that there's um new light at the end of the tunnel.

I think I need clarity when you say that the fair would get us across the finish line. So some to I think to entirely decouple the reszone from a site plan. A lot of that has to do with adopting the regional plan specifically because that's a big portion about why we have land use designations with implementing zoning districts. That's actually a major component to what we're trying to do.

Um, I think the we could talk about what we can do under the current zone and under the current regional plan, but I don't know if the fair gets us across the finish line from um institutionalizing something. Okay. And so tonight, if I understand that part, is just moving forward so we can have this more robust discussion and really understand Yes. and the importance of um I think the regional plan, what it's trying to do.

And I think for for me personally, you know, in a large part of this is also what we're doing with the last cap and trying to get the code to actually um just as a code get the development the community wants. That way there's kind of this comfort level from council that we don't need to see the site plan because we trust our code to get us the type of development that we want to see.

Um, but I also think staff needs to understand how far our council is willing to support us going in that direction. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Sure. Go ahead. Can I ask Michelle a question? Um, and I don't mean to crack an egg open here. Uh, please be sure to head this off at the pass if you need to. Is this at all relevant to the controversial stuff that we're getting lots of emails and chatter about regarding the original plan?

Um, oh my gosh, I'd have to look it up, but you know what I'm talking about. I do and it's not I think you're talking about um numbers 67 and 24. Thank you. No, those are not related. Um, no. Okay. I just wanted to make sure mayor and council, sorry, we're kind of moving into discussion of it before, you know, bringing it back to talk to you about it. So that it's a clarifying question. I apologize. All right. Do we have two thumbs up to request that we have a future conversation about this?

Great. All right. Thank you. Thank you, Michelle. Um B, future agenda item request. This is a citizens petition and it was submitted by council member Spence and so council member Spence will be acting um as the citizen in this regard and so we'll not be voting on this and we'll be staying in the audience. So council Mr. Dr. Spence. Thank Thank you, Mayor. Um, and as has been stated, I'm here as a citizen and, uh, my colleague, uh, Dave Fransky is also here to speak to this issue.

Uh we circulated this petition um which is a request for the city Flagstaff City Council to pass a resolution of support for the back from the brink campaign regarding the US nuclear weapons arsenal. Of course the first necessary step is for the council to approve this as a future agenda item and that's why we're here today.

This is a grassroots uh campaign back from the brink sponsored by the Union of Concerned Scientists and that organization of course has the the doomsday clock that's updated every every year and it's at 90 seconds before midnight at the current uh placement. also sponsored by Physicians for Social Responsibility. Disarmament regarding nuclear weapons has been a public discussion ever since the founding of the United Nations, and that was one of their first resolutions.

However, from 1946 until 2021, there was no actual path or method to eliminate nuclear weapons. Then in 2021, the the general assembly treaty on prohibition of nuclear weapons came into force for the 50 nations that had ratified it. And it has now been ratified by 74 nations. None of the nine nuclear armed nations have ratified.

And that is the purpose of this campaign is to get the United States to sign the treaty and initiate the process of uh multilateral verifiable irrevocable elimination and prohibition. And the key to getting this action is grassroots campaign. Currently, 78 cities and municipalities have endorsed and I have a a t-shirt that has all of the cities that have endorsed. The only Arizona city that has endorsed is Tucson. So, Flagstaff would be the first or the second city to endorse.

So, I ask for your consideration for future uh consideration. Thank you. Thank you. And we have an additional commenter. We have David Fronsky. Good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor, and council members. Uh my name is Dave Fransky. I'm requesting a future agenda discussion of the endorsement of Back from the Brink campaign and its five policy agendas. that are common sense practical solutions that would greatly reduce the risks posed by nuclear weapons.

Back from the Brink campaign calls on the United States to prevent nuclear war by these five provisions. One, actively phasing act actively pursuing a verifiable agreement among nuclear armed states to eliminate their nuclear arsenals. Two, to renouncing the option of using nuclear weapons first. Three, ending the sole unchecked authority of any president to launch a nuclear attack. Four, taking US nuclear weapons off hair trigger alert.

And five, cancelling the plan to replace the entire arsenal with enhanced weapons. Today, the threat of nuclear war is greater than it has been in decades. The catastrophic risks are real and urgent, threatening our communities, our environment, and the very future of human civilization. Dangerous policies remain in place that heighten these risks. Diplomacy has been sidelined far too long.

US decision makers plan to spend up to$2 trillion dollars over the next few decades on new nuclear bombs, missiles, submarines, and other instruments for waging nuclear war. The only way to eliminate these risks and truly prevent a nuclear war is to abolish nuclear weapons.

To date, more than 502 health, environmental, academic, peace, faith, and justice organizations have endorsed Back from the Brink, and 78 municipalities and counties have adopted resolutions supporting the solutions, as well as eight state legislatures. Nuclear abolition is not only possible, it has precedents. Diplomatic agreement like the limited testban treaty and the new strategic arms reduction treaty have helped promote peaceful cooperation.

Technology and systems exist for verification and enforcement. There are organizations in place that systematically verify treaty compliance. There is a myth that we can stop a nuclear attack. It is highly unlikely that there will ever be a a fully effective system to defend against a large-scale nuclear missile attack. ICBM missiles are incredibly fast. The warhead, the part of the missile with the weapon, is a small and difficult target to hit.

In the event of a large-scale missile attack, there is no existing defense system that can su successfully stop such a barrage. You can make a difference today by requesting a future agenda discussion of endorsement of back from the brink campaign. Thank you for your time and consideration. Thank you. So, I'm um we need three thumbs up to move this forward and then if you would like to indicate why you um gave your whichever you do. Um, so do we have three thumbs up to move this forward?

Okay, looks like we don't. And does anyone have anything that you Council Member Alen? Yeah, I'll try to be brief here. Thank you, Dr. Spence, for bringing this forward. And to the other member of the public, I'm sorry I don't recall your name all of a sudden. Dave, um, this is incredibly important. It's existential. I think it's one of the most important things that we need to be locked on as a a global community. Um, and this has come before council before.

Uh, I remember at that time I supported moving it forward. Uh, that conversation didn't happen. Um, and I guess all I have to say at this point right now is that I spoke a couple weeks ago about another uh topic that I personally felt was worthy for support um in my personal life. and I gave a bunch of um uh rubrics about, you know, my current thinking, how I've evolved over the course of being on council, about which um public petitions to move forward.

And it I'm I'm afraid that this this petition kind of follows the same track. it it clicks the same boxes and it doesn't click the same boxes um that I felt the the previous petition that came through um uh was about. And so I I just I I think we have to be very judicious about moving public petitions forward and and the the number one concern needs to be their local focus and what are we able to do um through our role as administrators and policy makers for the city of Flagstaff.

Um, I would happily sign on to this this resolution myself. I don't feel that it's a conversation at this time that rises to uh involving the city apparatus in engaging in a a greater discourse about it. Um, that might sound a bit contradictory and and like there's some cognitive dissonance there and that may be true, but I'm trying to stick to the new um thresholds by which I I let these things go forward. I I have to treat them all equally. Council member House. Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you, Dr. Spence, Mr. Frronsky um and others who supported this um this uh citizens petition. Um I agree with uh council member um Alen, so I'm not going to reiterate all of what he said. Um I would just like to add that um I I believe this has come before us um at least once before, actually, maybe um twice since I've been on council. And um with one of the past ones, I um was supportive of the conversation, but not to the point of of uh continuing it forward.

Um but personally was willing to sign off on the um commitment from uh council members that was asked for on that. And for me, this is the same. Um so I have um personally signed off on the um back from the brink campaign but don't believe that it rises to the level of um future council conversation. So um I I support the cause just not this particular petition. So thank you again both for bringing this forward. Council member Garcia. Thank you for bringing this forward. Dr. Spence and David.

Uh it's good to see you here and um your advocacy for world betterment and world peace is uh a testament to your community to to who you've become in this community and it's seen by by myself and and by everyone here on the dis. So thank you for coming forward. Um I did support this for a public discussion. Um but I I do agree with the my with my colleagues for their sentiment there.

When it comes to resolutions, I've just seen so many of them being in this room for, you know, as long as I have that have kind of have went nowhere or and a bit of a waste of well, I don't want to say a waste of time because it meant something to somebody, but it didn't actually make change any anything on the dial. Um, so I I do support this conversation, but I do also sympathize with my colleagues. Thank you, Council Member Matthews. Thank you, Mayor.

Um, I won't be belabor the point, but for all the reasons that have just been said, um, it has been my stance since I've been on council to, uh, stick to focuses on things that, um, we can make a a direct impact in our city. Um, I too am very supportive of the movement, um, of the cause for sure.

Um, so it's um I'm happy to hear my colleagues um have the same reasoning uh to not raise their hand and again not because we don't support the efforts but just because um you know we we have to have a clear focus on what resolutions or proclamations we bring forward and they need to be uh focused on what we can do at the city level. Thank you, Vice Mayor. And I'll make this quick. Um, thank you for bringing this forward. I did go to the website and I will be signing off as as myself.

Um, and for the reasons stated by others, I I I do agree this isn't something I want to move forward on the deis, but in conversation in the community, I think it's it's good and warranted. Thank you. All right, we are moving on to item number 15, open call to the public. and I do not see any. So then we're moving on to 16formational items two from mayor council and staff and future agenda item requests. And I'll start with uh council member Matthews. I have nothing. Thank you.

Council member Garcia. Not tonight. Mayor. Thank you. Council member Alen. Vice Mayor. Nothing tonight. Council member House. I promise I will be super quick with this. Um, one conversation that I've been having in the community um with uh deputy city manager um Shannon Anderson and um involving the mayor in is conversations about um the ability to move Flag Staff forward as a recovery ready community.

um which is essentially a a movement that's happening across the country to um to unify the efforts that we're having in terms of behavioral health care, substance use um and um housing, criminal justice, all the things that kind of make a a community healthy and thrivable um are part of this work. So, I will be um hopefully bringing more information on that forward to um the rest of council soon, but just wanted to um kind of give a prelude for that conversation. So, that's it for me.

Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Council Member Spence. Nothing this evening. Thank you, city manager. Okay, we're adjourned.