Flagstaff Expands Housing Options via Citywide Middle Housing Zoning and School-District Partnership; Southside Residents Detail Six-Year Bar Disturbance Crisis Without Resolution

All right, we're ready to get started. Today is Tuesday, November 18th, 2025, and this is the city council's regular meeting. Calling this meeting to order and giving notice to the city council and to those present that at this meeting, the city council may vote to go into executive session, which will not be open to the public, for consultation with um the city's attorneys. And can we have roll call? Mayor Daget here. Vice Mayor Sweet here. Council member Alen present. Let me adjust that.

Council member Garcia present. Council member House here. Council member Matthews here. Council member Spence here. Council member Spence, would you lead us in the pledge of allegiance? Thank you, Mayor. Please stand. To the flag of the United States of America and to the stands one nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Council member Garcia, could you read our mission statement? Yes. Thank you, Madame Mayor.

The mission of the city of Flagstaff is to protect and enhance the quality of life for all. And Council Member Matthews, could you read our um land acknowledgement? I would love to. 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 con contributions.

We celebrate their past, present, and future generations who were for who will forever know this place as home. Thank you. All right. Next up is open call to the public. And this is the public's opportunity to address the council about any item that is not on the printed agenda. And because it's not on the agenda, we can't respond, ask questions, answer questions. And if you wish to speak about an item that's on the agenda, you'll turn in a comment card when that item is up.

So, first up, we have Rebecca Sers. Hello. I was not expecting to be first. I'm going to show you a video if that's okay. Uh, we are wanting to My name is Rebecca Sers. I'm the parks, recreation, open space, and events division director. And if I can get this going and talk at the same time, we'll be doing great. No. Okay. As many of you know, we recently just finished our uh Bushmaster Park Sports Court uh project.

want to show you some drone footage that will take us from hopefully the beginning of the project to pre-construction. I promise that I played this before the meeting and it worked perfectly. And um so this is uh an image of before construction. You can see we had two basketball courts and two tennis courts that doubled as pickle ball courts. In the top right image, you can see the existing skate park that remains.

Um, the basketball and tennis courts were all cracked and had major repairs needed. We ended up I'm just going to start pulling this through. Um, we ended up Maybe it's because we're on teams. I'm not sure. So we uh demo we demoed uh those existing courts completely. We poured new four new slabs. Uh so now we have two brand new concrete basketball courts, two brand new tennis courts and eight pickle ball courts. Six are in a group together and two um are separate.

So this image shows uh those quarts being poured and the post tension slabs going in. What I really want to show you is our final images. Trying to get there. And we were able to install um brand new LED lighting with this project. And you can see that in these images. And what we really wanted to showcase is this is the modern technology lighting. And you can see here that the light goes straight down onto the courts. There's no spillover. There's no It doesn't light up the whole park.

It lights up the courts and the courts alone. This is modern-day uh sport court lighting and field lighting. Um, we hope to be able to bring this to the future of Flagstaff Parks and Recreation. And, um, apologies for the glitchiness of the video, but hopefully this gives you an idea. So, these are the finished courts. The basketball courts are the turquoise. Uh, the pickle ball courts are here on the right, and then the tennis courts are up on the left.

We had a ribbon cutting last week that was very successful. Thank you. Thank you. Next up, we have Joseph Spence. And it's already Thank you. Thank you. Can you guys hear me? Okay. Awesome. Good afternoon everybody. My name is Joseph Spence. I am I'm I am in a wheelchair and over the last month I have had such a disgrace. I have been part of the CIA meeting for years as far as I as far as I can remember.

And when I and when I got home a couple months ago, I checked my email and all and all of them were cancelled. And I'm like, what the heck? First of all, whoever whoever cancelled the meetings, you guys should be ashamed. And I don't know I don't know who canceled it, but I'm but I'm but I'm so ashamed. I get to city hall every day and I'm super happy that I get to be a part of these meetings with Russ with Elida and everybody else. But now I don't get to do that now.

All the meetings were cancelled on me. I was supposed to have a meeting in November and December, but that did not work out for me. I'm pretty appalled. I am I'm pretty I'm pretty frustrated. Not at you guys. The way the way that that didn't go go good for us really. First of all, nobody never told all of us that the meetings were cancelled. And that and that really and that really made me mad. It really made Russ mad and it really made everybody else everybody else frustrated as heck.

And I don't know I don't know how you guys can resolve this situation. But if you if you if you have that idea, if you have any ideas of how of how it makes me feel, it honestly it honestly frustrates me honestly to God because if I if I if I didn't have these meetings, how would I how would I learn to figure out what to do with the sidewalks? How would I figure it all out? And now I can't. And I've been I've been doing these meetings for years.

Heck, I even had a chance to do it on uh Microsoft Teams a lot. But then I had a chance to go to city hall and meet some wonderful people around here. And I have and I am and I'm truly truly truly disappointed about how about how about how it ended up to this point. So, we don't know. We don't know where it ends up at this point. But I wish But I wish But I wish it could have ended up better. I wish we could have I wish we could have resolved it any more better. Any more better than this.

My name is Joseph Spence. If you guys have any concerns, you guys can come to me. Thank you, Joseph. Next up, we have Russell Randall and then Alida Peril. Mayor and honorable members of the council, I am Russell Randall. I live at 1199 West Koi Drive in Flagstaff. Today I speak to you as a representative of two disability advocacy groups and our community, the Northern Arizona community of practice transition team as well as barrierfree flag staff.

Today I am addressing you over the suspension of meetings of the commission on inclusion and adaptive living. As you are aware, at the request of the previous city manager, all meetings and activity of the commission have come to a complete stop for the past three months. Members of the disability community have been advised that it is likely that this pause in commission meetings will stay in place until late spring.

This long suspension of commission activity is extremely harmful to the disability community of Flagstaff. And now the harm caused by this suspension is compounded by the understanding that city staff will not meet with disability advocacy groups until the commission reconvenes in the late spring.

This ongoing suspension of meetings and communication between city staff and the disabled community of Flagstaff is denying the disability community the voice it needs as the city council and city staff are making decisions that affect the disability community. Without an active working commission on inclusion in adaptive living, the concerns of people with disabilities can only be addressed in an ad hoc uninformed manner.

An active dedicated commission provides a structured platform for disability related issues to be addressed proactively and systematically. Additionally, the commission serves as a central point of advocacy for the disability community. The commission reviews city initiatives, infrastructure projects, and policies to ensure that they meet or exceed the requirements of the Americans with Disabilities Act.

The commission provides expert guidance to city departments on best practices for accessibility, universal design, and inclusive services. and the commission provides communication and collaboration between the city government and the disability community. These are community functions that simply do not take place without the commission being allowed to meet or carry out its duties.

An immediate restart of the commission on inclusion and adapted living would demonstrate a tangible commitment from the city council to creating a city where people of all abilities can fully participate and thrive.

Resuming commission activity would demonstrate that the city council cares about meeting the needs of Flagstaff disability community and that it is willing to invest in equity, independence, and the overall well-being of our community, ensuring that opportunities are not limited by disability.

and an immediate resumption of commission meetings would indicate to the Flagstaff community that in our city accessibility and inclusion have not become taboo words or ideas and that our city council will not be coerced into giving up on the ideas of equal representation and justice for all its citizens.

Therefore, we advocates for Flagstaff's disability community strongly urge the city council to immediately restart the commission on inclusion and adaptive living and to re and to schedule its meetings monthly as has happened for the past quarter century. We and other members of the community are ready to offer our complete support in restarting the commission so that it can perform its most important duties.

Today, I sincerely thank you for your time and your consideration of this very important matter. Thank you, Alida. Good afternoon, mayor and city council. My name is Alida File, lifelong Flag Stafian, and today I'm really here as a person, although I do also work with barrierfree flag staff and the Northern Arizona Commission of um sorry, Northern Arizona Community of Practice Transition Team.

And I am here also to speak to the importance of the city of Flagstaff Commission on Inclusion and Adaptive Living. I think it speaks volumes about our city's integrity that we have such a commission to give a voice to people with disabilities and to ensure that all citizens are included and respected within our city. The recent cessation of commission activities and meetings has denied people with disabilities that voice in our community. And we're feeling that impact.

I've been a part of organizations that have reached out to meet with the city to collaborate and to make progress together to serve people with disabilities and have been met with the same message that currently um disability work is on hold until the commission is reinstated. I think that's counterproductive to the city's goals. I believe that the city does want to include people with disabilities, be compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act, etc.

So I am also here to urge all of you to please um reinstate that commission and resume its meetings and activities as quickly as possible.

I would also like to request that a change to the member handbook for commissions be made and that if there is conflict on a commission um I believe that there should be a resolution process to address whatever issues are coming up instead of pausing a commission and I believe that's a a procedure that should apply to all commissions as they all serve essential functions. So thank you for your time.

Thank you, Danielle Adams, Madame Mayor, Madame Vice Mayor, members of the city council, my name is Dr. Danielle Adams and I am the executive director of the Flagstaff Dark Skies Coalition. Uh I also have um our president, Chris Lugan Bule, here in the audience. Um, I'm here to say thank you.

Uh, this Flagstaff City Council is the latest in a long line of Flagstaff governments that have consistently decided to protect our starry sky in order to protect and enhance the quality of life here in Flagstaff. In 2001, those efforts were formally recognized when Flagstaff became the world's first international dark sky city. And next year, our community will be celebrating 25 years with that designation.

But just last week, Flagstaff was recognized again by Dark Sky International with their Dark Sky Place of the Year Award. So allow me to read their description of this award. Dark Sky Place of the Year Award for Flagstaff, Arizona in the United States. This award is given in recognition of a recent exceptional achievement to an international dark sky place.

Flagstaff, Arizona was the first community designated as an international dark sky place in 2001, setting a lasting standard for urban night sky stewardship. Building on its 1958 outdoor lighting ordinance, the city has achieved full compliance with dark sky approved lighting, enforcing municipal codes to reduce uplight, glare, and light trespass. And let me say, our code is actually higher than Dark Sky International's standard. We're leading the world.

Flagstaff demonstrates that large communities can sustain long-term dark sky efforts while supporting urban growth. The city offers diverse programming beyond astronomy, engaging residents and visitors in environmental education and cultural events. Additionally, Flagstaff actively mentors other communities pursuing dark sky certification, sharing expertise and best practices to expand global impact.

Its continued leadership and innovative approaches serve as a model for cities worldwide seeking to balance development with night sky preservation. And from me, I would like to say that this award belongs to all of our residents and community leaders who do their part in ways large and small to keep the Milky Way visible where we live, even when that place has a population of more than 75,000 people. Thank you very much. Thank you, Colleen Maring. Good afternoon, mayor, vice mayor, council.

My name is Colleen Mering. I'm the chief people officer at Northern Arizona Healthcare. And today I'm here to highlight um our educational partnerships, one in particular, Cookanino County Community College. We were very pleased to see that voters supported um the CCC bond election uh earlier this month as it enables the school to build more space for its nursing and and allied health um education programs that really directly benefit us all as residents here in Flagstaff.

Um, Northern Arizona Healthcare is the only acute care placement where students can locally do their clinical rotations while they're learning nursing or um to be a paramedic or CCC's soon to be launched programs in in uh O scrub techs and respiratory therapy. Um, and as CCC builds the facilities it needs to physically expand class sizes and host those programs, we are all in on hosting those students and doing everything we can to keep them here in the community.

Um, not only is it easiest for us to recruit folks when they live here locally, um, but we get very excited about it because we get to see our community's economic earning power increase and their education level increase. So, a a new um student in nursing or in paramedic school can come to us, do a rotation, see what it's like to work with us, and we do really really well at hiring and retaining those students and then funding their continued education through CCC.

Um so, it's this great upward spiraling um partnership that we have with CCC and benefiting the city of Flagstaff. Um, in particular, we're grateful to CCC for listening to our pleas uh to build a respiratory therapy um training program as well as an O scrub tech program. We actually need those folks more uh direly than we need nurses. And when there isn't a training program locally, it's really hard to get people here.

Just to give you a sense of volume, um, in the first 10 months of the year, we've, uh, hosted 181 CCC students completing clinical rotations, um, but over 900, um, students in all training programs, uh, of all types from Yavapai College, from NAU, from North Country, um, and from places far away.

But we're really excited to increase the percentage who are right here locally training inside Flagstaff, living inside Flagstaff, and hopefully continuing their career and economic development inside Flagstaff. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Next up, we have Sean Gollightly who is speaking for a group. Uh so I'm going to give you uh 15 minutes. And um thank you to all of you for being here and thank you for providing the comments ahead of time. Of course, mayor. Thank you.

Uh well, good afternoon, Mayor and Council. Again, thank you for the time to be here. I'm here to speak on behalf of my community, which is uh includes the Southside Community Association and uh other assembled members, neighbors of the Southside neighborhood. And we're here tonight, frankly, because we love this city and we love our neighborhood. And some of us have had families in this neighborhood for over a hundred years. Other of us are raising families in hundred-year-old homes.

Southside neighborhood, if you don't know, is Flagstaff's longest continually inhabited neighborhood. And it contains some of Flagstaff's richest history, some of its most vibrant streets and businesses. and that is one of the reasons that we love it. But today, Southside is at risk of driving out its residents. I'm here to ask for your help so that we can address these problems together and keep the Southside thriving for another hundred years.

So, to paint the picture, I want to share a few stories with you. One Southside mother and homeowner has in recent years endured relentless late night noise and targeted harassment from a nearby bar. The business owner posted her home and address online. Her husband, a respected city employee uninvolved in the issue, was publicly attacked through the bar's social media. What was once their safe home is now fraught with fear.

For six years, she has done everything asked of her by the council, staff, police, and yet her family still endures relentless late night noise and targeted harassment from the bar next door. Another mother will tell you how she laid on the floor beside her six-month-old son, feverish with COVID, while the base from a completely different bar a block away rattled items off of her nursery shelves.

She wanted to call the police, but enforcement required officers to enter the home to verify the noise. So, she was forced to choose between being disturbed by nuisance noise or being disturbed by an armed officer in her sick child's bedroom at 1 in the morning. Another family with yet another bar nearby will tell you how they endured one of the most one of the worst weekends they've seen this last Halloween.

Groups drank openly in their illegally parked vehicles and then walked in loud packs to the bar next door. The next morning, residents filled buckets with trash, broken glass, beer bottles, pizza boxes that were strown across their yards. And yet another neighbor awoke the same morning to find large dents in their truck after asking people parked illegally that night to go from the bar and move their car.

Finally, another resident whose family has lived on the southside for over a hundred years will tell you that for months he has been cleaning urine and worse from the side of his home because the bar next door doesn't have adequate restrooms for the crowds that it invites into its operation. He recently called the police at 12:30 a.m. when a loud group of drunk people leaving the same bar gathered on his property.

It escalated into a riot, shouting, attempts to fight responding officers, and arrests all outside of his family's bedroom windows. And these stories are not the only stories by far. But some people are afraid to speak publicly for fear of retaliation from business owners, landlords, and the like. But these stories also underscore what scientific research consistently shows. Disturbances like chronic noise are not just a nuisance. They are a public health and safety issue.

For example, a 2024 study published in the Journal of Exposure Science and Environmental Epidemiology concluded that excessive noise exposure can impact the central nervous system, increase the s susceptibility to mental health conditions such as depression, anxiety, elevated cortisol, and other stress hormones.

A 2022 study from the Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health found a negative link between high noise annoyance and depression, generalized anxiety disorder, and general mental health.

A 2025 article from the Center of Occupational Environmental Health shows that the risks of NOID disturbance extend to hypertension and heart disease and that the potential impact on children could be more serious because evidence shows that once exposed to excessive noise, the body may overreact with repeated exposures, amplifying the negative effects. And as you put these together, hopefully you can understand why Southside residents are exhausted.

We have watched neighbors give up on this situation and move away. Coming up on seven years, we have followed every process the city has asked of us with regards to these issues. We have talked to our neighbors personally. We have called non-emergency lines. We have submitted petitions and reports, attended meetings and community commissions, cleaned up the trash and human waste that has been left on our properties. And police have responded when they can.

But this issue has outgrown what law enforcement alone can solve. The problem has grown due to a pattern of inaction. When residents speak up, they follow the process, file reports, attend meetings, many are met with silence, or worse, harassment, intimidation, and public retaliation. In a healthy city, silence should never be the cost of living in your neighborhood that you've lived in for a hundred years.

From our perspective, attempts to fix this through policy have been stalled again and again. The city has spent thousands of taxpayer dollars on a professional consultation for a noise ordinance and then moved on without adopting any of the recommendations. Residents supported a decelbased ordinance. Certain business interests opposed it. A non-deible version was proposed and those same business interests opposed it for not being based on a decibel system.

We've gone around and around and around and gotten nowhere. And now the Southside, once a stable, multi-generational neighborhood, is seeing families leave. It's seeing stress rise and the sense of belonging erode. Families live with things that no resident should tolerate. Music and bass shaking their walls past 2 a.m. Children unable to sleep. Strangers wandering into your yards. vandalism, public urination, and escalating aggression.

And the most heartbreaking fear is this, that the city will not act until someone is seriously hurt. Fortunately, and I do mean fortunately, the solution is already in front of us. The Flagstaff City Zoning Code already exists to protect against these very issues. The core of the southside is composed in by community commercial zoning which according to city code 10-40.30-040 is meant to quote encourage a wide variety of goods and services.

The provisions of this zone are intended to ensure that such commerce will be compatible with adjacent non-commercial development and minimize the undesirable effects of heavy traffic and commercial activity. End quote. The code is unambiguous. Commerce will be compatible with adjacent non-commercial established development. Or to put it plainly, businesses will be compatible with their residential neighbors.

With a little common sense, I think you would agree that if a business is keeping their neighbors up all hours of the night, drawing in crowds that they can't control, that end up using their neighbors house as a urinal or a trash can, that business would not meet the standard of compatibility. No. Now, the solution could be straightforward. Define the existing code a little more clearly. Give it some teeth. Define compatibility and then enforce it with accountability.

Now, let's talk about what you might have heard on this issue as well. Some folk would have you believe that what I'm saying here tonight is exaggerating a personal problem that exists between one business and one resident, and this is false. I am representing a community of residents who have suffered under a pattern of incompatibility of multiple businesses. Others would have you believe that the neighborhood I represent is anti- business or anti-live music. Again, this is false.

We love our businesses and there are so many, the vast majority of Southside businesses are clearly compatible with the community commercial zoning and enhance the neighborhood. We've got Bis Bagels, Bry, Macy's Coffee, Nearos, The Flagstaff Baking Company, Northern Arizona Yoga, Tourist Home, The Annex, Visible Difference, Beaver Street Brewery, Mother Road Brewery, Lumberyard Brewing. The list could go on and on.

And you might note it includes some of the oldest and most beloved establishments in Flagstaff that frequently host live music with no problem because they have common sense regard for their neighbors. Enforcing compatibility within a neighborhood is not just required in the zoning. It's also good for business because when times get tough, and we know they do get tough, who will see a business through if not their neighbors?

Finally, others might tell you that enforced zoning or noise ordinances will threaten the vibrancy and success of our businesses, arts, and culture. And again, this is false. There are plenty of cities with vibrant downtowns that also successfully use zoning and noise ordinances to protect the quality of life for their residents. Boise, Idaho, Boulder Colorado Raleigh North Carolina, Ashlin, Oregon, just to name a few. Flagstaff is special, sure, but we're not that special, right?

If they can do it, we can do it, too. And furthermore, the Southside is not asking for special treatment. We're asking for the same thing that any of us would want. We want a safe street. We want a quiet night's sleep. We want a city that values its residents just as much as it values its businesses. Our vision is the city's vision to make the city of Flagstaff a safe, diverse, just, vibrant, and innovative community with a unique character and quality of life for all.

And we know without doubt that we can have a vibrant economy and a unique, livable, historic neighborhood where families can live and engage in public life. but only if accountability, transparency, and consistent law enforcement function to ensure that commercial code violations do not drown out the people who live there. Now, I want to expand this vision a little bit. Right?

We just heard from Danielle about how our our dark sky ordinances has not only made us a national leader, but enhanced the quality of life for all people in Flagstaff. We took a gamble in 2001 to do something that no city has ever done. And it has paid off in spades, not just for the quality of life and our people here, but for our presence in the national community. If we can have that kind of courage around dark skies, we can have that kind of courage around zoning like this as well.

So to make this vision real, we ask two things. one, that the city code and the party nuisance ordinance be enforced consistently, transparently, and not selectively, or intermittently. And two, that clear comm clear clear communication and follow through exists between police, the prosecutor's office, city staff, and residents so that we're no longer left in the dark.

Quickly to this point, we got word today through uh former council member Jim McCarthy that he was contacted by uh city attorney city attorney Sterling's office to give an update on some court proceedings around some of these issues. And so I want to applaud that and thank uh Sterling for that because that kind of transparency around proceedings that have a direct impact on our day-to-day lives is exactly what we're looking for.

So thank you for that and thank you for continuing that kind of transparency. Let's keep that moving. Now, to move things forward on these subjects, we are also making a specific request. We want a meeting. We want a meeting with the new city manager and key city staff, the Southside Community Association, and the neighbors that I represent.

And this meeting must address accountability, transparency, zoning and ordinance enforcement, protection from retaliation for neighbors that speak out, and clear communication. This can't wait. It's waited six years. Six years is far too long. The Southside is losing long-term housing stability. When families leave, we don't just lose neighbors. We lose history, generational investment, and trust in our city. Flagstaff spends millions on housing, community resilience, and livability.

And the residents invest into their neighborhoods as well. But if we don't protect the quality of life for residents that are already here, those investments unravel just as soon as they're spent. Just as a parent must provide confident and just leadership around the rules in their home, the council is elected to provide confident and just leadership around the codes, ordinances, and laws of their city. So, please do not let this linger any longer.

We need your help to make this right and to envision how the Southside can be a bright and thriving community for the next hundred years. meet with us. We look forward to talking more. Thank you. Thank you. All right. We have council liaison reports. Uh council member Matthews. Uh tomorrow we have a joint uh TAC and Mountain Line meeting that starts at 9 and goes for several hours. Uh last week I attended the CJCC meeting um over at the uh county courthouse or not courthouse but county building.

Um, again, just some great discussions on um looking beyond what we've done always and see if there's other ways we can approach uh justice in the criminal justice system and help people to um get on a better path. Um and I think that's it. Thank you. Thank you. Oh, wait, wait, one more. Airport almost forgot. Airport commission this week. um where we talked about um Brian and Claire went to another um conference to search for an airline. Uh we have some great leads and appointments there.

Uh we talked about the need for waiting for um the final stage in funding for um our snow building and um it was a great meeting. Had to leave early. Council member Garcia. Thank you, mayor. Uh parks and recre uh parks and recreation commission meeting had quite a robust and productive agenda including u updates and future actions. First, there will be athletic allocation revisions for the group sporting fees within our network.

This will be designed to provide a greater um distribution amongst a diverse and growing uh user base. This will help to garner more efficient, effective, and sustainable usage for all. While change can often be challenging, there has been no significant ne negative feedback as pros has done significant due diligence within their public outreach program. Two that I have, number two that I have on the list for this week is the pros master plan preparation.

I'm super excited to see so much activation around the parks and recreation and open space and events commission when it comes to um uh the future RFP and procurement process for hiring a consultant to comprise our new pros master plan. And um with all the work that I have done on the regional plan, I'm super excited to sink my teeth into what the pros master plan looks like for our future.

uh we should see proposals filing in this month and after the consultant team is hired expect expect a massive community outreach program so that um so that this plan will reflect the community values so we could look forward to seeing that cross council's desk here shortly. There was also mention um a long awaited uh restrooms at Heritage Square design concept is kind of in in the in the in our last meeting's agenda. Um we can kind of see what the concept can be for that uh restroom downtown.

This is lot sought after by the folks that um attend events down at Heritage Square. And um I'm pretty excited about this. Uh putting a putting a usable restroom in in that area is has been u something that the entire community is kind of looking forward to.

I was um saddened to have missed the ribbon cutting for the sports courts at Bushmaster Park, but I wanted to thank Council Member David Spence and Vice Mayor Miranda Suite for showing up and taking that on that responsibility and doing such a great job in um welcoming that space to the community. I had uh I was at Civic Craft with the uh League of Towns and Cities down in Tucson on that day. So, and we have um well, it's slipping my mind now. So, that's all I have for today. Thank you Mayor.

Thank you, Council Member Alen. Yeah, Mayor. Thank you. Um just couple quick notes about the October sustainability commission meeting. Uh they were able to introduce um three new sustainability sustainability division staff members. uh Blake Commaso or their service coordinator, Sierra Friedenland uh the food systems coordinator and Diana Bridger who is uh going to be our new engagement specialist and the sustainability commission staff leaison. They had a couple programmatic updates.

uh they reviewed the adopt an avenue program and the engage and power elevate uh or E3 program and Jenny gave a review of how the regional plan public hearings and council adoption went in September and October and um also they reviewed uh council's actions supporting the BPPA the virtual power purchase agreement.

Um just a logistical note, wanted to be sure to mention that uh the next sustainability meeting is scheduled for this Thursday, November 20th, um for obvious reasons due to the holiday. And if anyone on council is interested in the sustainability holiday gathering, um please approach me for the information about uh when and where that's happening. Thank you. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Thank you. I do have a couple of things.

Last week I attended the BPAC meeting and we had 14 applicants for the beautifification and action grants and um they were fantastic. A few of them that we approved were the Beaver Street Theater. I have not been there yet, but I can't wait to check it out. They're getting new doors and a mural. Um there's the plane air concert series which is the piano at Buffalo Park and um I had to miss that the last time that that happened. So there'll be a few more chances coming up for us to enjoy that.

And our own sustainability building will be getting a new mural. Um that's just to name a few. So that was an exciting day. And this Thursday is the water commission here in council chambers 4 to 6 pm. Thank you, council member house. Thank you, mayor. Just a few things. Um so the Commission on Diversity Awareness met last month um to discuss a couple items including the upcoming MLK day celebrations um have working group updates and so forth.

Um I would like to acknowledge that that was the last meeting I believe for our uh at the time um staff liaison Mr. Chris Roadie who did just an amazing job of overseeing that commission and supporting uh the commission with his uh time and dedication. Um he will be sorely missed and we are greatly appreciative of I believe it is Stacy Salsberg who is taking his place for at least the time being. Um very grateful for her stepping into that role as well.

the housing commission uh is cancelling their next meeting uh because it falls on Thanksgiving. And um just a I don't know if members of the Southside Community Association are are still in attendance or if maybe they've left, but I wanted to acknowledge uh thank and apologize to the Southside uh community association for uh partnering with the Cookino County African Diaspora Advisory Council.

This past weekend, um, they hosted a public viewing of, uh, the 68, uh, the Tyler Perry film about the all black female, uh, postal unit, um, and a public, uh, uh, conversation following that event. So, um I would encourage community members to watch out for uh ongoing events from uh the Southside Community Association and um their work to share those stories and provide those opportunities to the community and I apologize sincerely for having missed it.

Um but uh am very grateful to them for putting that on. That's all for me. Thank you very much. Thank you, Council Member Spence. Thank thank you mayor. Um I am the liaison to the transportation commission and for the public uh the public should be aware that this commission has two committees the pedestrian committee and the bicycle advisory committee.

The two committees meet on a monthly basis and their next meeting will be uh this Thursday um and report uh quarterly to the transportation commission. Um the uh item of interest is that and is that Martin Inks, the city employee for many years who chairs both of these committees, pedestrian and bicycle, has announced his retirement, and he's leaving some big shoes to fill.

But I'm confident that these two committees with their uh citizen leadership and citizen participation will continue until the city can fill uh Martin's shoes. Uh they're exciting committees to be a part of and I'll continue to report. Thank you. Joanne, do we have to accept Martin's retirement? Apparently, my microphone's been turned off. Did you do that?

U Yes, we do need to accept his retirement and we're very excited for Martin and we will we will find somebody to replace him on the commissions, but he will be sorely missed. Sorely missed. Um I have a couple of updates. Um, we had an EONA, which is Economic Collaborative of Northern Arizona Board meeting and also a separate meeting to work on the bylaws. We had the Alliance for the 21st Century meeting last Friday and we met at the new Marshall School and toured that.

And if you get a chance to tour the new school, you need to do that. And as a reminder, the alliance is the city, the county NAU CCC uh, Mountain Line, FUSD. Did you say Cookanino County? You said that. Yes. I think you got them all. Yes. Okay. Uh, and then tomorrow we has have a Flagstaff Housing Authority meeting. All right. So next up we have November work anniversary presentation Shannon. Thank you Mayor Dugget. Um we've got our November work anniversaries to celebrate with you today.

For our first year anniversaries, we've got some folks in our public works team, um, as well as water services, uh, pros, our police department, um, and, uh, we are super excited that they are celebrating their first year with the city of Flagstaff. Quite a milestone. For our fifth year anniversaries, we have Marissa Malloy. Um, she is a housing specialist within our newly created housing division. We also have Elizabeth Ferguson.

Uh she is a building inspector uh within planning and development. We've got another five-year anniversary with Susan Zutton. She's a finance specialist, part of our management services team. And also Karen Caps. Uh she's a risk management analyst, part of our human resources and risk management division. Moving on to our 10-year anniversaries, we have Sarah Weatherbeby. Uh she is a collection specialist, again, part of management services.

And Trace Ward, uh who I'm sure you recognize, our discover flag staff leader with the CBB. Um he's celebrating 10 years as well. Our 15th year anniversary, uh we have Tim Skinner. He is an airport um airport airline rescue firefighter battalion chief. Um so he's with our economic vitality uh division. Um funny story, I always thought ARF was airport rescue firefighting and I recently learned it's aircraft rescue firefighting. So that's why I stumbled a little trying to remember the right words.

uh fifth year again uh Richard Mononttoya. He is working with our public works division as a streets operations technician three. We also have Anna Delpaxton. She's a library specialist, part of our economic development team. It's a lovely picture just right for the holidays. Um we also have Dana Cole. Uh he is celebrating his 20th year with the city of Flagstaff.

He joined in 2005 as a development engineering project manager and he served the community in that role continuously for all of his 20 years. Prior to joining team Flagstaff, Dana served in a similar role for the city of Sedona for five years. He'll soon be making a transition to a well-deserved retirement. And he has provided service, expertise guidance technical knowledge, and problem solving to citizens, customers in the development community, and his fellow teammates.

Dana is a wealth of information on all aspects engineering, construction, as well as city of Flagstaff code and process. He has trained all of the current development engineering staff. He certainly is going to be missed and his shoes will be extremely difficult to fill.

Some of the projects that Dana has managed managed, excuse me, is the WL Gore West Campus expansion, McMillan Mesa subdivision and development, the Prescidio and the Pines Restart, our Timber Skies subdivision, the uncommon student housing, and Habitat for Humanity Starter Home Development. If I recall correctly, I think Dana was going to try and join us online. So, I'm going to pause for a moment in case he would like to um come on screen and if he'd like to say a few words. Um, hi.

I really just want to say I'm thankful to have been able to work here for the last 20 years. It's really been a pleasure and um I'm proud to have worked with all the people that work for the city of Flagstaff. We have one of the best organizations around in my opinion. Um that's pretty much what I wanted to say. Thank you, Dana, for being able to join us. Congratulations to you. and 25 years we have Jessica Cortez, our court administrator.

She was not able to be with us today, but I'd still like to spend a little bit of time talking about Jessica. Um, her dedication, her integrity, and her commitment to justice has helped shaped a fair and efficient municipal court system that serves our community with excellence. Through decades of change, Jessica has remained a steady and trusted leader, mentoring colleagues, modernizing processes, and ensuring the courts run smoothly for all who depend on it.

We're congratulating Jessica for this incredible milestone and thanking her for her lasting contributions. So, a round of applause for Jessica as well. So, congratulations to all of our November uh work anniversary celebratories and we will be back in December. Thank you, Shannon. All right, next up we have appointments. We have three appointments to make. Is it just me that that happened to? Okay. I'm sure it's fine. No, I've I've got it. Thank you. All right.

So, we have three appointments to make to the Heritage Preservation Commission. Um, first up is an appointment made by Council Member Garcia. Thanks again, Madame Mayor. I wanted to begin by thanking the public for such a great interest in serving our community as we had quite the outpouring of applicants and um you concerned people that want to get into the process.

I also wanted to remind those u members of the public who are unfamiliar with commissions that there are over 25 commissions and there's one suitable for anyone who is interest in public service with the only requirement of for the most part you have to live in the city of Flagstaff and you have to be over 18 years old. So anybody out there that is interested in joining one of these committees it's a great way to get started.

I think that many people up here on the dis and um and other community leaders have have gotten their start on the commissions. That being said, it is a great honor to appoint Alec Over O overman to the Heritage Preservation Commission. Second. Any discussion? All those in favor? I Any opposed? All right. Uh, I am the next one to make an appointment and I will move to appoint Alicia Hayes. I'll second. Any discussion? All those in favor? I I. Any opposed? I. All right, then.

Council member Spence. Thank you, Mayor. Uh, I would like to appoint Jean Stevens to the uh, commission. Is there a second? I'll second. Any discussion? All those in favor? I. Any opposed? All right. Thank you. Next up, we have liquor license public hearings 8A and B. Hello, Georgina. Hello. Um, good afternoon, mayor and council. Georgina Stasky, deputy city clerk. Um, before you today are two liquor license applications. The full packet material is included in the agenda packets for review.

For conciseness and motioning, I will provide the information for both licenses together. Matador Coffee Roasting Company series 12 restaurant located at 203 South Milton Road. The agent is Wanita Alicia Esparza. Lobo Drink House series 6 bar located at 30 South San Francisco Street. The agent and manager handling the day-to-day operations is Brian Lawrence McCerrick. The police department and planning and development services have conducted their respective investigations.

The reports were included in the agenda packet. There are representatives from the division here to answer any questions and representatives from the business were invited to attend the hearing today. Thank you. Council, do you have any questions for staff or for uh Oh, actually, let me open up the public hearing. Um, which should have happened before the staff pre presentation. And I can't believe the city attorney didn't interrupt me and tell me that.

Uh, I got in trouble last night for saying that. So, my apologies. Um, council, do you have any questions for staff or for the applicants? Okay. And we don't have any public comment. All right. So, um, on item A, can we get a motion? Oh, Madame Mayor, I'd like to Sorry, mayor. Can you close the public hearing now? I would like to close the public hearing now. Um, thank you. All right, Council Member Garcia, my apologies for interrupting you. Oh, no problem at all.

I would like to uh make a recommendation to forward the application to the state with a recommendation for approval. I'll second. Any discussion? All those in favor? I I Any opposed? All right. On item B. Mayor, I'll um make the recommendation to forward this application to the state with a recommendation for approval. I'll second. Any discussion? All those in favor? I I I. Any opposed? All right. Thank you. Moving on to 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 consent agenda will be enacted by one motion approving the recommendations listed on the agenda. Unless otherwise indicated, expenditures approved by council are budgeted items. And I've had a couple of requests to pull item 9A. So, we'll set that aside.

And I'm looking for a motion then to approve 9 B. So moved. I'll second. Any discussion? All those in favor? I I. Any opposed? All right. Um, Vice Mayor, you had requested that 9A be pulled. I did. Thank you, mayor. And I do see a couple of our sustainability team members out there, and I'd like them to come up.

Um, I pulled this because it's a pretty exciting um, announcement for our community and I want to make sure that those online and in the room and those not online can have the opportunity to learn about this. So, go ahead, please. Amazing. Thank you, Vice Mayor Sweet. Good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor, and Council. My name is Jacob Brz. I serve as an energy specialist for the city sustainability office, and I also manage the energy upgrades for healthy homes initiative.

I'd like to start by saying how incredibly excited I am to be up here today. Uh we received federal funding from the Department of Housing and Urban Development and began development of this program in 2022. This contract before you is the final step in our procurement process before starting this work. At its core, the energy upgrades for healthy homes program seeks to provide comfort, safety, and affordability for Flagstaff households.

We know things like increased weatherization and energy efficient equipment provide real tangible benefits. They save people money on their monthly utility bills. They make homes healthier by reducing indoor air pollutants and more comfortable by allowing people greater agency over their indoor climate. But they can also come with high upfront costs. And for far too many households, that puts these upgrades far out of reach.

This program provides access to these benefits for those who need it the most. Through the energy upgrades for healthy homes program, each participant household will receive upgrades tailored to each of the unique needs of their space, addressing any specific health concerns, priorities, and desires of the residents who live there, all at no cost to them. For some, this could look like new insulation and a new efficient water heater.

For others, it could mean a new cold climate heat pump paired with a smart thermostat. We know that no two households are the same, and neither are the solutions. This work isn't just about improvements today. It's also about preparing for the future. As we reach more participant households, we'll collect valuable data on the condition of Flagstaff's existing housing stock and the impact of energy efficiency on those households.

This information will help us shape future programs and inform policies, understanding where the greatest needs are and continue improving improving on the services that we offer. Lastly, I want to speak to trust and partnership.

This program is hands-on and as the city has been developing this program, we have sought expertise from community members and leaders and are working alongside a coalition of community partners, some of whom are here today to engage with residents who are most in need and to make this program stronger and more effective. Together, we're building something that will support and strengthen our community for years to come.

Any interested households can contact the Office of Sustainability for more information or visit our website at www.flagstaff.az.govh. /uhh. Thank you. And I'd be happy to answer any questions you might have. Thank you. We have a question from Council Member Spence. Thank you, Mayor, and thank you for this presentation.

It is truly an exciting program to be able to offer and uh we need to recognize the federal government uh for um helping us to afford for supplying the money So many things have been cancelled, but this one has not. Um, my question is, was this a competitive bid process? And, uh, if that's an appropriate question, how many biders did you receive? Yeah, wonderful question, Council Member Spence. Um, we did make this bid available to the entire um, contracting community.

I believe um if our procurement division would like to answer any more or less questions, but I can just expand on. We did receive one bid only for this process. Um but after a comprehensive review process featuring members of the community as well as city staff, uh we were able to determine that the one submission was sufficient for for the job and we're excited to move forward with them. Thank you for that background. All right, we have a couple of public commenters.

First up, we have Michelle James. Hello, mayor, vice mayor, and council. I'm Michelle James. I'm executive director of Friends of Flax Future. I wanted to come and talk in support of this uh this momentous moment. Um FCubed has been working with in partnership with the city sustainability division since 2003, excuse me, 2023. as one of three members of the community engagement coalition for energy retrofits. We often just call that the coalition.

It also includes um Northern Arizona Interfaith Council and the Arizona Students Association. The coalition has assisted in designing some components of the city's energy upgrades for healthy homes program to meet the needs of those who are most impacted by climate change in our community.

Over the last two plus years, the coalition has trained interested volunteers from the community, knocked on doors in the Sunnyside neighborhood to learn about the concerns of residents, developed relationships with them, and identified needs of the neighborhood. We've held house meetings to discuss the benefits of energy retrofits, and explored how the city's programs could be designed and implemented to meet the community's needs.

The coalition has met regularly with the city sustainable sustainability staff to provide important input as the program has been developed. We'll continue to meet with sustainability as additional qualifying residents are identified and the city brings no cost energy audits and retrofits to the Sunnyside neighborhood and beyond. FQ believes the relationship with city uh sustainability staff and coalition members on this project has been valuable and beneficial to all parties.

I personally have found working with sustainability staff to be awesome. To say that the coalition has been eagerly awaiting on the ground implementation of the program would be an understatement. We're so very very happy that this contract for provision of retrofits to the community is now before you for approval.

The program will have a significant positive impact on lowincome and vulnerable populations in the Flagstaff community and we applaud all the work the sustainability division has undertaken to make this program a reality. Thanks. Thank you and thank you for all of your work on this and thank you to the um Northern Arizona Interfaith Council and thank you to the Arizona Students Association. And with that, I would like to call up Kyle Nitzky.

Uh, Mayor, Council, thanks so much for having me here today. I'm here today on behalf of the Northern Arizona Interfaith Council and as co-executive director of the Arizona Students Association. And I'm going to stay on script today. Um, the community engagement coalition for energy retrofits formed almost three years ago to bring together community organizations working on climate action and affordability, NIC, Friends of Flagstaff Future, and the Arizona Students Association.

And since 2023, we've worked closely with the City of Flagstaff Sustainability Department to design the energy upgrades for healthy homes program in a way that best meets the needs of our residents. Developing the program has offered a powerful opportunity to build relationships among low-income residents, landlords, community leaders, and city staff.

And we've trained local leaders in the skills of relational organizing to prepare to knock on doors and hold house meetings to understand housing and energy challenges. Uh during this work, we've also worked with the city, sometimes pushing to ensure that all materials were available in Spanish and an inaccessible language. And we also pushed for the inclusion of mobile homes in this program, potentially reaching some of the most vulnerable members of our community.

We've now moved to the exciting stage of connecting with residents and supporting them in filling out applications, walking folks through the process of energy audits and retrofits. And this offers new opportunities for relationship building and systems change in the long term. As we learn from participants what is working and as they share information with their neighbors and hopefully feel a sense of possibility for themselves, their families and the larger community moving forward.

We've been deeply deeply appreciative of the relationship with sustainability staff. They've been absolutely incredible. And also just want to note that this is a really excellent way for the city to address the carbon neutrality plan and our housing emergency. It not only lowers utility costs for Flagstaff residents, making our housing more affordable, but it also lessens carbon emissions, addressing the goals of the carbon neutrality plan.

So, it's a really uh equitable and efficient way for the city to address housing and climate. And thank you so much for your time today. Thank you. Um before we move into voting, um just a note on the procurement process that it's always a um competitive bid and I'm wondering if if staff wants to just briefly touch on that because I think it's important for everyone to understand that um that it is always a competitive bid. And there's procurement right there. Here I am.

Uh, good evening, mayor, vice mayor, council. Patrick Brown, your purchasing director. Yes, this was procured through a competitive procurement process. Um, it was advertised in a newspaper and posted on our Planet Bids website for uh, I believe two weeks, two to three weeks. Uh there was an evaluation committee that was uh developed to evaluate all the well the statement of qualifications. Um only one was received. There were interest by others but they did not submit.

Um it was evaluated as we have to evaluate even when we get one in just to ensure that it's going to meet the requirements for the city. There were multiple disciplines for the solicitations and each of those disciplines were evaluated and Mammoth scored well in all those discipline areas. So the committee and staff felt that Mammoth was appropriate and had the qualifications to provide the services that we were looking for. Does that help answer? Thank you.

That certainly answers my concern and uh we wish Mammoth well. Thank you very much, Council Member Spence. Thank you and staff. Thank you. I know this has been a long time coming, so thank you for all of your work. And um just on another note in the vein of of education, even if one of our council members wouldn't have asked to pull this from the agenda, we h already had a comment card from Michelle James from Friends of Flagstaff Future and so we would have pulled it anyway.

So, that's important for the public to know that if an item is on the consent agenda and you have a question about it, you can ask to have that item pulled so that we can get your questions answered or you can make comments or whatever it is that you'd like to do. So, now I'm looking for a motion. Mayor, I would like to move that we approve 9A. I'll second that. Any discussion? All those in favor? I. Any opposed? All right. We will move it down now to routine items.

10A, consideration and adoption of ordinance number 2025-24. This is regarding the joint law enforcement firearms training facility. Thank you. And um this is our second time considering this. Um so council, not second time, it's a second time on the agenda. Um council, do you have any additional questions for staff? Okay, I'm going to take public comment. Dennis Given. Thank you, mayor, vice mayor, city uh council staff, good citizens of Flagstaff.

I'm Dennis Given, a vegan cook and also a concerned citizen. Timberline shooting range. That's what I'm here for today. Please should have more training, not less. I'm for the idea. Will citizens still be able to attend the shooting range, though? I like Dave Spencer's Dave Spence, my boy. idea of opening up back to the public to create revenue from emissions, sales, and tax to maintain the facility and also hopefully to fund public safety. More training equals safer cities.

Cops are underst staffed, underpaid, overworked. Police are also social workers. We need more training for our police officers, not less. I know it sounds crazy, but let's give it a try. I also think that we should have martial arts training. I think police officers should learn Brazilian jiu-jitsu. The benefits are ground control where many aggressive encounters end up.

There's also deescalation factor, have more control of the situation, increase officer safety, minimize injury to both themselves and people, citizens, reduce use of force. Studies have shown that officers who train in martial arts are less likely to use their gun. Let me repeat that. Less likely to use their gun if they're trained in martial arts. They're also mental and health benefits or mental and physical benefits.

Exercise is the best med medicine for you and your mind for your mind and body. I'm excuse me. Exercise is the best medicine for your mind and body. Let's pass the public safety ballot measure next year. More funding for public safety. Firemen, police officers, emergency medical services, first responders need our funding. Use sales tax, bond, or grant, whatever. Let's go save the day. Thank you. Thank you. All right. It doesn't look like we have any questions, so entertain a motion.

Mayor, I'd like to move that we read ordinance number 2025-24 by title only for the final time. I'll second. Any discussion? All those in favor? I I. Any opposed? City clerk. An ordinance of the city council of the city of Flagstaff authorizing the acquisition of a joint law enforcement firearms training facility for public safety, providing for delegation of authority, providing for severability, authority for clerical corrections, and establishing an effective date. And a motion to adopt.

Mayor, I move that we adopt ordinance number 2025-24. I'll second. Any discussion? All those in favor? I I. Any opposed? All right. So, we also need to approve the I'm looking for a motion to approve the purchase agreement. I'll do it. Um, mayor, I move that we approve the purchase agreement with Shoot West Properties LLC and authorize the city manager to execute the necessary documents. I will second. Any discussion? All those in favor? I I I. Any opposed? All right. Thank you. All right.

10B, consideration and adoption of ordinance number 2025-27. This is the um personnel system amending the employee handbook. And as I understand it, um Brian from human resources is out ill. This is our second time. This is the second read. So, any questions? I'm looking for a motion. Mayor, I'd like to read ordinance number 2025-27 by title only for the final time. I'll second. Any discussion? All those in favor? I. Any opposed? City clerk.

An ordinance of the city council of the city of Flagstaff amending the Flagstaff City Code Chapter 1-14 Personnel System by amending the employee handbook of regulations section 1-60-030 nepotism providing for repeal of conflicting ordinances severability authority for clerical corrections and establishing an effective date. I move that we adopt ordinance number 2025-27. I'll second. Any discussion? All those in favor? I I. Any opposed? All right. Thank you. On to C.

Consideration and approval of planned residential development allowances. Hello Ben. Good afternoon. Should come up with a longer title, so you have to read a little longer. Then I just stop in the middle because I get tired. Right. Uh good afternoon council. My name is Ben Mah. I'm a planner with the city of Flagstaff Planning and Development Services. For your consideration today, uh is a request for the use of planned residential development standards for terrace at Canyon Del Rio.

Uh this request was filed by Kenya Del Rio 2 LLC and is for use in a plat uh with the title terrace at Canyon Del Rio for 129 129 lot subdivision on a 33.35 acre development site using PRD standards. Uh there's also a 12.49 acre tract uh titled R2 for future development. We'll see that as we look at the plaid. Uh the development will be located on two parcels that haven't been created yet. It's part of Canyon Del Rio phase 2. Uh you'll see that more clearly in our next uh slide.

Uh and straddles two uh zoning categories that of medium density residential and single family residential zones. Uh both parcels are within the resource protection overlay. So here's the vicinity map. It's uh might be a little confusing but on the on the right hand side is the existing context but prior to the recordation of Kenya Del Rio phase 2 which is the the block plat that would create uh the parcels Q1 Q2 and R2R3 uh which are part of the development site uh for consideration today.

Uh to the north is a single family subdivision in the R1 zone as well as uh vacant land in the MR zone or medium density residential zone. To the west are travel accommodations in the R1 zone and RR um ER sorry uh to the south is vacant land in the R1 and MR zone. to the east is actually it's vacant land in the MR zone in in uh Canyon Del Rio. I apologize for my typo there.

Um the background for Canyon Del Rio and in June of 2019, the city council approved a resoning request, development agreement, and preliminary block plat allowing the development of Canyon Del Rio. Uh since then, John Wesley Powell has been realigned to uh cross Canyon Del Rio, which did uh require an update of the preliminary block plat.

Um the original Kenya Del Rio development um proposal was for a 261 acre site consisting of 1,426 residential dwelling units uh including a variety of housing types as well as 225,000 square ft of commercial development.

Uh so this uh development includes the two parcels of land proposed in the Kenya Del Rio phase 2 uh block plat um which is currently uh known as track Z of the Kenya Del Rio phase 1 final block plot and the city council approved the preliminary block plat for Kenya Del Rio phase 2 on September 2nd 2025. The development site is again uh blocks Q1, Q2 and uh R2 R3 of Canyon Rio phase 2.

City staff approved the preliminary plat on October 22nd, 2025 based on conformance with all relevant development standards. Planned residential developments have uh standards based off of the zoning category that they fall in. In this case, there are two that that apply. That's R1 and and MR.

Um the proposal has 79 lots uh that will utilize the R1 zoning standards for for using PRD uh and 50 lots that apply the PRD standards for the MR zone as well as the uh future residential development tract which is outside of the PRD. it will develop under its own um entitlements when it when it comes in.

Um the proposed lot sizes in this subdivision vary from approximately 3,162 square ft to approximately 16,128 square ft which meet the minimum lot sizes for PRD standards for both the R1 and the MR zone uh which is 2,000 square feet in both. There are some some changes between those two uh but they they track pretty closely. Really the only change is the maximum lot coverage which is 70% in R1 and 80% in the MR zone. Then uh the lot width is 20 ft for both and depth is 50 ft for both.

Those are minimums. The front setback is five feet uh with 20 feet for parking. uh side setback is three feet uh 10 feet for street side and the rear setback is is three feet and this application is in performance with that planned residential developments require 15% of uh the area to be utilized as common space. Uh this was calculated based off of the area that is part of this planned residential development. So tract R2 is not a part of of the area uh calculated for the common space criteria.

Um they are proposing 7.16 acres of common space or 21.8% of the PRD and that's shown in in pink on the uh drawing here and orange uh is the future development tract and north is left here. PRDS are required to uh meet design elements for uh five points design elements in our code that have a a menu that uh needs to equate to five points um which can be elected at the applicant's discretion.

The application is meeting that by providing significant traffic traffic traffic calming design features uh selected from the engineering design standards. Uh this is being met by two neighborhood traffic circles uh serving as trafficcoming along Malow Way uh at the intersections of South Yan Lane and Rabbit Brush Circle as well as a choker uh that's incorporated as a raised midblock crossing uh of the Foots trail where it crosses Maloway.

And uh the next election was uh subdivision CCNRs and setback standards do not prohibit the development of access accessory dwelling units and staff will review the CCNRs with the final plat application to ensure conformance with that standard or design element. Uh then item Q was selected for subdivision includes enhanced pedestrian environments including outdoor seating areas or larger landscaping areas.

This application uh proposes two outdoor seating areas uh including a bench and landscaping in both outdoor seating areas. And with that, staff recommends the city council approve the use of PRD standards. Thank you, Council Member Spence. Thank you, Mayor. Um thank you for this presentation.

And my question is um since this parcel is subject to the resource protection overlay um has either the developer or the city uh brought in the pilot program where we're trying to uh fine-tune and reassess the RPO. Is this um is there any um uh pilot activity involved in this uh proposal? No. Uh the the pilot program was not used for this application. It meets the resource protection standards of uh the existing or the the zoning code without using the Thank you. Any additional questions?

Uh, we don't have any public comment, so I will entertain a motion. Wait. Yes, I'll entertain a motion. Mayor, I move that we approve um the consideration approval of planned resident development allowances for Canyon Del Rio 2 LLC. I'll second. Any discussion or is this just a direction? Is it okay because it doesn't say um any discussion? All those in favor I I All right. And Ben D, you should read the title. consideration and approval of planned residential development allowances.

I I got it up. All right. Thank you, mayor. Um again, my name is Ben Mia. I'm a planner with the city of Flagstaff. Uh for your consideration today, we have a request for planned residential development allowances for Fourth Street South single family. uh this project is is a little bit uh different in in terms of its development sites. So we have to make sure I explain it uh adequately here.

It is a request filed by uh Birch 6 LLC and Canyon Rio 2 LLC uh to utilize planned residential development uh standards for four street single family. The the project in total uh consists of 113 single family home lots. The uh development site is a 70.44 acre uh area located on two parcels. Uh one of these parcels is within the Canad Rio development area. Uh the other is not, but both are within the resource protection overlay.

So the uh the development site is 800 North Fourth Street uh which is a 57.4 acre parcel in the RR zone uh outside of the boundaries of Canyon Del Rio uh and therefore it was not conformed reviewed for conformance with the CA canyon del Rio development agreement as well as a 13.04 04 acre portion uh known as tract S of Kenyon Del Rio. And this tract S uh will also be created with the recordation of Kenyon Del Rio phase 2 block plot which has not yet happened.

Uh and that is in the R1 or single family residential zone and medium density residential zone. uh and this portion of the site or or this parcel was reviewed uh for conformance with the Canyon Del Rio development agreement. That might be easier to see visually here. Uh so this uh this R1 portion here is is where the uh site is within Canyon Del Rio. This is the the dividing line here. Uh, it also includes a bit of the MR uh land back here. I just couldn't draw it very well.

Um, the site is bounded to the north by vacant land in the research and development zone as well as public facilities zone. Uh, to the west is vacant land in the medium uh, density residential zone. To the south are single family uh lots outside of the subdivision in the estate residential and uh zone as well as county land. Uh and to the east is municipal vacant land uh as well or it's it's in the rural residential zone.

I'm going to say it again, but the the Kenya Del Rio uh background is uh in June of 2019, the city council approved a resoning request, development agreement, and preliminary block plat uh allowing the development of Canyon Del Rio, which is a 261 acre site consisting of 1,426 residential dwelling units, uh which included a variety of housing types, uh 225,000 square feet of of commercial development, Uh and the the reason why this applies is a portion of this development site is tracked S uh within the Canyon Del Rio phase 2 block plat and is which is currently a portion of track Z of the Canyon Del Rio phase 1 final block plat which city council approved the preliminary block plat for Canyon Del Rio phase 2 on September 2nd 2025.

Uh city staff approved the preliminary plat uh for street south single family on October 23rd, 2025 based on conformance with all relevant development standards. This development site uh is also within two uh zoning categories and therefore there are two PRD standards that that apply here and that's why it's it's in the table for the RR zone and the R1 zone. They are a little bit more different so I'll break them out uh out.

uh 26 lots will apply PRD standards for the R1 zone and 87 lots will apply the PRD standards for the RR zone. Uh any splitzoned lots apply the more restrictive uh PRD standard. While a portion of track S has the MR zoning, no lots will utilize that uh development standard. The proposed lots in this subdivision vary from approximately 6,514 square feet to approximately 42,149 square feet, which meet the minimum lot sizes for the PRD standards of the R1 and RR zones.

Uh the minimum lot areas for RR is 2,500 square ft. For R1, it's 2,000 square feet. Uh the maximum lot coverage for the RR zone is 50%. uh for R1 is 70%. The minimum lot width is 30 feet for RR and depth is is 50 feet. Uh for the R1, it's it's a 20 uh 20 foot width and uh 50 foot depth. The front setback for the RR zone is 12 feet uh with 20 foot 20 ft for parking. In the R1 zone, it is five feet, 20 feet for parking.

Uh the side setback is five feet uh with 10 feet for street side in the RR zone. In the R1 zone, it is 3 feet uh 10 ft for street side setback. Uh for the rear setback, it is 12 feet. For the RR zone, and in the R1 zone, it is three feet. North is up in this. I get I'm sorry I got confused there, but um North is is uh up on the screen. Um the PRD requires 15% of the uh development site area to be utilized for common space. This application proposes 31.1 acres or 44% of common space.

The common space includes both HOA maintained trackcts and lands to be dedicated to the city for preservation of flood plane. Uh there is a foots uh through city dedicated land to be develop uh developed by the city and uh in in the uh image here the common space is shown as pink whereas the uh land to be dedicated to the city is orange uh which is also being utilized for for common space as well.

PRDs are required to uh select from a list of design elements to account for a total value of five points. This applicate uh application uh meets that by uh design element F at least 50% of the required resources per division 105090 are maintained within common space areas outside of individual lots. Uh the preliminary natural resource protection plan was submitted with the application that shows conformance with this design element. Uh design element N was selected.

Subdivision CCNRs and setback standards do not prohibit the development of accessory dwelling units. Uh again this will be reviewed with final plaque when the applicant submits uh CCNRs for staff review. Uh then design element Q subdivision includes enhanced pedestrian environments including outdoor seating areas or larger landscaping areas. And the proposal includes two outdoor seating areas which include uh a bench and landscaping.

And with that staff recommends the city council approve the use of PRD standards. Council member Spence. Thank you mayor. on on your last slide, the design elements must total five. The way I add it up, it's two + 1 + 1 equals four. So, how does this apologize selection meet the requirement? Thank you, uh, Council Member Spence.

So the uh subdivision including or uh design element Q you get one point per uh the enhanced uh pedestrian environment or uh so when they provide two outdoor seating areas they get two points. So I should have written that more clearly. I apologize. So that is two points for item or design element Q uh one point for design element N and two points for design element F.

So, we're using conventional mathematics here and the slide just didn't point out that that last Q should be two points instead of one. Correct. I should have written that more clearly. That is two points for for design element Q. Thank you, Council Member Garcia. Thank you, Madame Mayor. Um, and thank you for the presentation. It's always a breath of fresh air to see all the work that and the code work that you guys put into this.

And you know, I'm still catching up and learning on some of these things. But my um my question slash potential comment is really just in reference to an email that we got from the planning and zoning uh planning and zoning commission vice chair of Mary Norton.

Um, it's I don't think it's specific to this, but I just wanted to make sure that we highlight that I'll be looking forward to the questions that we have that the the way that the question is answered that she has because she does mention some of the plans, revisions and updates for the PRD standards and design elements.

um in some ways she feels that there could be some um some that the developers could be kind of circumventing what we're really trying to get at with um some of the decisions we've made by changing those design elements. Um again, not specific to this, but I'll be looking forward to that email and thank you again for the presentation. Any questions, council comments? All right, I'm looking for a motion.

Madame Mayor, I'll move that the uh that we approve the PRD standards for um let's see here, Fourth Street Single Families. I'll second. Any discussion? All those in favor? I I I. Any opposed? All right. Thank you, Ben. Thank you. All right. We have some public hearing items. So, first off, I'm going to want to open the public hearing. Uh, consideration and adoption of resolution number 2025-61 and ordinance number 2025-26. Welcome Tiffany. Thank you so much, Tiffany Antel, zoning code manager.

So extraordinarily happy to be with you all today. I think I was just saying that this is probably the best zoning code amendment I've ever gotten the pleasure to be a part of and I'm really excited to share it with you today. There is a lot in this presentation. There's a lot of information because a lot of pieces of code are being touched. Please stop me if you have questions, but I'm going to try to stay really high level and get through this quickly.

Um, and again, just address any questions that you may have. So, middle housing is coming out of a bill um that requires us before January 1st um to basically make provisions for middle housing. Middle housing is defined as duplexes, triplexes, forplexes, and town homes in this bill. What is very interesting is that a forplex is not just one building. It could be multiple buildings. So that definition of forplex really think of it as four units on one lot, right?

Whether whatever form they come in, one building, two building, three buildings or four. Um that's what it is is four units on a lot, two units on a lot, three units on a lot. Town homes are essentially attached single family. The bill did have us um had set some limitations for where this zoning ordinance would need to apply.

It basically stated that it needed to apply to all lots zoned for single family within one mile of the municipality central business district and at least 20% of any new development of more than 10 contiguous acres. So we don't really have a defined central business district. um we would needed to have gone through a very detailed process to define that. But thinking of what is most likely going to be our central business district, that is our historic core downtown.

Within a mile, you basically just pull in every um existing historic um community or neighborhood within Flagstaff. Um early on this year, we started with a series of workshops. We went to the housing commission, the heritage preservation commission, the planning and zoning commission as well as to you to discuss the potential of taking this amendment citywide. And that was the general agreement amongst all.

So today you have before you a code amendment that will implement citywide um amongst all almost all of the residential zoning well in all of the residential zoning districts and in one commercial district which is the community commercial and the neighborhood community commercial as well as our transex zones. Uh middle housing set all of these things that we couldn't do. Um we couldn't make it harder. We couldn't limit these to owner occupied units. We couldn't keep them less than two floor.

We can't require more than one off- streetet parking space per unit and so forth. So the code before you represents all of these things as called out in the bill. Um it touches every basic chapter of the zoning code. We're amending the definitions, our supplemental standards, which include architectural design standards and parking. All of our land use tables, as well as some of of our administration procedures, because with these land uses, we need to treat them similar to single family homes.

So, what all does this mean? We're going to treat uh up to a forplex, four units on one lot, like a single family home, which means they will not go to concept plan review. They will not go to site plan review. They will be treated like a non-conforming single family non-conforming land use. Um they will basically these will go straight to building permit is the answer. There is no other precursor of review. You want to build a forplex you're going straight to a building permit.

In our general to all um here are some of the big ones are public improvements and site planning design standards. Public improvements in the past have always generally applied to two units or above two units. Um so multifamily which was defined as three and above. Public improvements include things like curb gutter sidewalk. Um so those will no longer be applied to developments of four units and less. So public improvements will not be uh required.

Um they will also not have site planning design standards applied to them. Uh my favorite in this is building forward design. Um building forward parking at the back. The good news is is we're not requiring that many more parking spaces. So hopefully we've taught our community how building forward design is good and can be done. So we'll continue to advocate where we can and the specific to zones again. So the land uses are really changing here. Multifamily is no longer three units and above.

It's five units and above. and that's where public improvements get triggered and all those other good things. It's pretty much where everything else is going to get triggered to. Uh so where we're what we've done is we've replaced these existing land use types that are really based on what what somebody's perception is of a building looks like.

the duplex dwelling, the single family dwelling, detached, attached, they are just now one unit development, two unit residential development, three-unit residential development, and four-unit residential development. And in turn, it turns out that that puts us in better alignment with our building codes and how we even differentiate between zoning and building code. It pulls us into better alliance with one another.

Um, additionally, we made some adjustments to our mis mixeduse development standards while we were in there because I can never not touch certain other bits of the code. Nothing substantial here. Just cleaning up that mixed use is a combination of commercial and residential and is not two commercial uses. It just when you read some of our language and the code, it reads as if any two commercial uses on a site would be considered mixed use. That's not really the case.

Uh the one trigger we did have to add we could add was a floor area ratio. This is something that we've been discussing as part of the code analysis process to some success and some not as great success. We're we're going to use it as a try out in the R1N zone. R1N is over our historic core neighborhoods town site Plaza Vieja north of the downtown. We're going to see if this tool helps us in settings at least some scale um calibration in these neighborhoods.

It is the one tool we have in the toolbox to use. Most importantly, this removes all high occupancy housing land uses less than five units. So because we have to treat uh a 4unit development the same as single family, the option was to put them all under a similar definition as single family or remove the high occupancy housing land uses. When we presented this to the planning and zoning commission, we presented two different options.

The planning and zoning commission voted for this option currently which is the removal of those land uses um for duplex for triplex for forplex which is in alignment with the high occupancy housing plan. So the high occupancy housing plan was only intended to apply to those larger multifamily and mixeduse projects. Um, so let's talk about uh we did some cleanup in our access accessory dwelling units. There's a cleanup um from the last amendment and that had to do with water meters.

So I did happen to throw it in here because I needed to get it done in a quick basis. Uh high occupancy housing section is amended to reflect the removal of the one two three and four unit. Uh mixed use again just recclarified that mixed use is commercial and residential and not just a mix of commercial and there's also some cleanup on references to the regional plan. All of the formbbased code standards get updated.

What it's essentially mean to update the formbbased code is that we had to allow some building types that weren't previously allowed. Um on those building types, we do make it clear that they are limited to the four units. Um and so because some of those building types could range from four to 12 units. So we made sure that we capped it at the four. Um where it wasn't already capped. So that changed for all of those transex zones. Here are all the transex zone tables.

Um we also just did some cleanup work on the tables. It was excruciatingly painful. Um, they were the worst tables I've ever seen in my entire life. Who decided to do double stack tables? I'm not sure, but they're fixed now. All right. So, other things that go, uh, architectural design standards will not apply to four units and below. Landscape standards will not apply. The parking standards basically are changed so that one parking space per unit is required.

Here's the other interesting fix that we also made is that single family homes are required to have more than one parking space. It didn't seem in this case necessary to require a single family home to have more than a fourunit development. So, we tred up all of those development types together. They all just require one parking space. Uh specific to buildings, we just had to clean up a table there.

And then in the definitions, it all of these definition fixes are about removing those um high occupancy housing land uses and clarifying that mixeduse definition. All right. So goals and policies um m middle housing is highly supported. The term middle housing is not used or missing middle is not used in the current regional plan. It is in the new regional plan. And there's one specific policy that supports that and that's here.

But we've been encouraging this missing middle, this variety of housing. This is what we've been aiming and hoping for. And hopefully this is the kick in the right set of pants um to get this housing in our community. And um I do not see we do not see that the proposed amendment will be detrimental.

um it is based off of recently adopted state legislation and um you know staff can make the assumption if it's okay within a quarter or within a mile of the downtown it's it's okay to apply citywide as well.

um it's a greater it's a higher level of equity and in fact I think the one email I've received on this particular code amendment has actually been somebody from the city of Phoenix a resident of the city of Phoenix who was actually really appreciative of the way that we've decided to handle it. So I thought that was really interesting that I was getting feedback from residents of Phoenix rather than the residents of Flagstaff. But it is what it is.

Uh the proposed amendment is internally consistent. And that's what I've been spending the last six months doing is making sure we've gone through this code and if we miss anything, we'll come back and fix it with you. And uh the planning and zoning commission did recommend um unanimously to support this zoning code amendment. If you have any questions, I'd be happy to try and answer them. Council, any questions or comments? Vice Mayor, thank you and thank you for the presentation.

And this is exciting. Um, couple of questions. Have we, you did talk about feedback. Have we received feedback from developers or small smallcale developers about these changes and what are they saying? I actually have not, but I do am in the process of setting up a meeting with Jeff Canor.

uh he's done a lot of sort of two-unit development in Sunnyside and I think he's going to be really surprised when he finds out what because he's got two more lots and I think he's going to be surprised when he finds out now what he can do with them. Um so, you know, the word is sort of hitting the street with these smaller developers.

I'm afraid that a lot of them have kind of gone by the wayside in the interim, but hopefully this will spur more people into action because I think more people this will allow more people to get into a smaller market which I think is more manageable for folks. Thank you. And then kind of a followup um on the public side when this goes through if and when which we'll know um how will the public be informed about these changes? Sure.

So, we when we do our required legal notification, we like I said, um we've been we've we've definitely been posting and noticing folks about this legislation. Um so, that's been everpresent on the website for the last two years knowing that this was coming. Um again, reaching out to all of the different commissions, making sure that they were engaged and informed in the process. Um we did do a uh public outreach event.

I mean, we've we've had I I unfortunately I I don't attract as many people as I would like. Sometimes I'm very excited about it, but um and uh so we just continue to try to outreach in that regard. I think a lot of people are aware of this um statewide just because of the fact that so many municipalities are getting to this final end run of having to get this codes these codes adopted. Thank you.

and thank you for all of your work on this and keeping us informed and and meeting with me on it and um I just think this is a great step in the right direction. Thanks. Thank you, Council Member Garcia. Thank you, Madame Mayor, and thank you, Madame Vice Mayor, for asking all my questions. Um so, with that, I will just say, Tiffany, thank you for the presentation.

there was during the um the time on the regional plan that I had spent with you, I I would often bring up some of the these questions and while you would give me a brief answer, you would say it's coming. You know, it's it's coming and and this is the final product to um build in um the community often asks us what more are we doing for housing than just simply looking at lowincome housing for folks.

And I think a lot of it is is centered in this plan right here um and all the and all the amendments to this plan. Um to go a little deeper about um the uh small contractors, I did meet with David Carpenter and I think that a lot of his questions and concerns and and suggestions are are reflected in in some of these updates. So um I thank you for that as well. Council member House, sorry about that. Uh, thank you so much for the presentation.

Um this is very exciting to see this uh coming forward and and moving ahead in alignment with the state statute but also um to the extent that that we have supported it here in the community even beyond what uh that statute requires. Um, this is really exciting to see our community open up these pathways to allow more diverse forms of of housing. Um, because it's uh, I think giving us the flexibility we need to meet the housing challenges that we're facing uh, in our community now.

And um, I appreciate you um, clarifying and and specifying what uh, forplexes look like. um just because I I think um people don't necessarily recognize how many options this is uh opening up and how uniquely this will impact um a lot of the housing need that we face in our community. Um, so I'm just really excited to see this moving forward and very grateful to you for all of the work that you have put into uh updating this um particularly with those graphs or the uh the tables.

Um, I know that it all of this takes a lot of effort on your part and the part of uh your team and so it's just wonderful to see you um uh put these things in place and help us move these efforts forward. So, thank you very much. Council member Spence. Thank you, Mayor.

Um, we recently here in Flagstaff were had the great privilege of having a guest speaker in town from the Strong Town organization co-sponsored by FCube uh he made two presentations and at one of his presentations at Trinity Heights um in the evening he pointed out um a simple one word change that helps the the parking issue.

Uh what we know is that requiring one or two or however many parking places per dwelling unit has a big impact on affordability because parking spaces uh are costly and it has an impact on uh meeting our climate goals. So his one-word suggestion uh which apparently met with great success in one particular city, I can't remember what city it was, but was to change the wording from parking x number of parking units are required to x number of parking units are recommended.

So changing from requirement, which the term you just used in your proposed revisions, changing the word required to recommended. Um, is that something that we could or should consider as part of this code amendment? Well, thank you so much. Um, you know, it is not something we've advertised to the public at this point to to do that across all land uses.

Um, I would think that you would want us to go out and engage the public in that com in that conversation so that they could be here and be present um to voice support or concern in that regard. Um I would note that it is part of the the next stage of the code analysis process to um look at the the full reduction. Uh there's a sort of a gamut of scenarios that'll be presented. Um I think that that will also give us that big leg into that public participation and communication.

Um and then we can proceed with a text amendment as you like in accordance. But at this point, we tried to just stick with the the state bill for digestibility and also didn't want to overly complicate this with something that might be a little controversial since this does need to be done by the January 1. But again, all of those things absolutely can be done and are in the process of being considered. Thank you.

That's I very much respect your approach to that and um I'll look forward to um that public engagement and the potential for future code revisions. Thank you. All right, I'm going to take a little public comment and then we will um close the public hearing and do our deliberations. Charity Lee Good evening, Council Charity Lee. Um, I wanted to take an opportunity to just comment on this since U. Tiffany said she didn't receive any comments or anything from anyone local.

You know, sometimes I guess no news is good news. Um, so many times though, unfortunately, I think staff hears negative all the time. So, I did want to come up and just say I thought this was a good change and I'm excited to see how we can work with staff to see if we can incorporate this in some of Capstone's projects. We've been talking about that internally at Capstone. How could this work? What could this look like? And it's new.

So, like anything that's new, it I think we're going to have to figure it out as we go along. But, it just seems like it's a new tool in the toolbox. It's something that I think it could be really great for Flagstaff.

So, I just wanted to take an opportunity just to say that I think it's a positive and that's coming from the development community and I wanted to just give kudos to staff because I think that they have been working hard on a lot of uh different oh boy so many different things but they don't always hear positive they hear mostly negative. So, I just wanted to say that. Thank you. Thank you Tyler Denim.

Hi, I'm my name is Tyler Denham and I'm speaking today on behalf of Flagstaff for affordable housing. I'm here today to express enthusiastic support for the middle housing ordinance under consideration. It's a huge step towards increasing the variety of housing options available to residents. Mental housing is a missing piece of our market that provides rental and ownership opportunities at a variety of price points and stages of life.

There's a lot to like, but I want to give special praise to the ordinances citywide approach that will enable much more middle housing and avoid the displacement concerns that would come from concentrating new property rights on central older neighborhoods. Areas like Townsite and Southside are brimming with missing housing or middle housing already, which is great.

Uh the main benefit is in incorporating middle housing into new developments, letting new developments look more like traditional neighborhoods. And this ordinance is all the more remarkable because it's far removed from House Bill 2721, the state law that sparked this conversation. By looking beyond the bare minimum required by state law, Flagstaff found its own path that is more effective and simpler to implement.

The city staff and commissions that helped craft this ordinance really do deserve enormous praise for it. If we get this over the line, it'll set Flag Staff as a leader in the state on housing reforms. It sounds like we're already there. We're getting comments from Phoenix on it. Um, and I can't stress this enough. this ordinance is far better than what other cities in Arizona are doing.

And uh finally, I'll mention that I'm looking forward to the results of the code analysis project in a few months, which I believe will make suggestions for updates to property development standards to better enable middle housing in certain zones. But uh this is going to lay the foundation for that. And um final bit, there was a question about the response from local developers.

So, this is antidotal, but the small number of local developers I was able to review the language with were very excited for many of the provisions of this ordinance. Yeah. So, thank you for your time and happy to answer any questions. Thank you, Tyler. Uh, any additional questions? Tiffany, I think you're hearing a round of applause. and a standing ovation from Phoenix on up. Yay. So, I am going to close the public hearing and um entertain a motion or entertain additional thoughts.

Mayor, I'd love to move that we read resolution number 2025-61 by title only. I'll second Any discussion? All those in favor? I I. Any opposed? All right. City clerk. A resolution of the Flagstaff City Council declaring as a public record that certain document filed with the city clerk and entitled PZ-25-000027- Middleing. Mayor, I'd like to move that we read ordinance number 2025-26 by title only for the first time. I'll second. Any discussion? All those in favor? I. Any opposed? City clerk.

An ordinance of the city council of the city of Flagstaff amending the Flagstaff city code title 10 Flagstaff zoning code by adopting by reference that certain document entitled PZ-25-000027- middle housing providing for repeal of conflicting ordinances severability authority for clerical corrections and establishing an effective date. All right, we'll see you on December 2nd for the adoption. Um, all right. And we're moving to consideration and adoption of ordinance number 2025-25.

And I will open the public hearing on this item. And we're lucky enough to have Tiffany Antl here. Thank you so much. Um, this is just really, really short. Um, previously there was a bill that created provisions for municipalities to review and approve subdivisions administratively. It was not a requirement that we pursue this. Um, but we did and we got that code revision done in December of 2024. So, the vast majority of our subdivisions are now reviewed administratively.

We did however include uh a provision that if they were using the plan residential development that would trigger that plaque coming to city council. You I believe you just saw two of those previous to this. Well, that would that is now in conflict with the new state provision which requires us to approve and review subdivisions administratively. So before it was by choice. So we were 95% of the way administrative.

uh we have this snafu so we need to make this change so you will not be seeing those PRD design options anymore um they will be back in the administrative pool do you have any questions charity are you going to submit a public comment yes great Go ahead and turn in the card. And we are going to take public comment at this time. And no pressure. Okay. I I had to come back up here to give additional kudos because this is a another move in the right direction.

Um, not that we don't want to see you and say hello and have you review our P+, but not having to come to council and just continue through that process, it actually saves a lot of time, it it really helps to expedite the entire process and help to move um and bring homes to the market is what we all want, right? So, I think this is a great step in the right direction. Thank you. Thank you, Charity. All right, I'm going to close the public hearing and I will entertain a motion.

I move that we read ordinance number 2025-25 by title only for the first time. I second. Any discussion? All those in favor? I I Any opposed? City clerk.

An ordinance of the city council of the city of Flagstaff amending the Flagstaff City Code title 11 general plans and subdivision chapter 11-20 subdivision and land spillet regulations division 11-20.40 subdivision procedures and requirements providing for repeal of conflicting ordinances severability authority for clerical corrections and establishing an effective date. Thank you. We're moving on to the regular agenda 12A. Consideration and adoption of ordinance number 2025-23.

This is regarding the acquisition and disposition of real property from the Flagstaff Unified School District. Good afternoon, Mayor and Council. Bryce Dodie, your real estate manager. If you'll allow me just to they they changed the software on this. I just don't know how to do full screen. So, just give me one second. I give up. Okay, I'll I'll figure it out next time.

So, this afternoon, we've got an opportunity um this ordinance is not only going to acquire a piece of real property, but it's also granting us authority to go turn around and sell that same piece of property in the same ordinance. What we're talking about is about 18.8 8 acres on the Sagua campus right now and this is right here just to the north northeast of the campus here.

Um we were approached by FUSD um about an opportunity um to you fund utilize a model that's been used in down in the valley where some school districts for land that they don't have uh specific needs of right now have found ways to um create affordable housing on those lands. And so FUSD approached us and said, "Hey, you know what? We've got this land.

Um, we think that we can utilize this model and this model actually requires the city here." And the reason that the city's involvement in in this is that FUSD, they have the right if it's for a public purpose to go ahead and convey property to a city or a county or m municipality if it's for a public purpose. And so one of the things that we'll be doing in with this ordinance is basically saying the affordable housing is a public purpose here. So that's why we're going to acquire this.

Um it might look like a an oceans 11 kind of convoluted thing that uh reason of steps to get to to the endline here. And I think that's kind of a good metaphor for how overall housing gets built if it gets built at all. But I just going to want to run you through this quick process here of here's what we're trying to accomplish. So one, FUSD, they would authorize disposition of the property to us. And then step two, the city would authorize acquisition and disposition of the property.

Um an industrial development authority, an Arizona one, which we've been con working with Cookanino Countyy's industrial development authority, they would actually create an LLC that would hold the property. And so we would sell that to that LLC and then what would happen is we'd have basically that whole stack of potential um potential transactions be sitting in escrow and a developer go take that um take that stack of escrow and apply for a litec um grant for this.

If they receive the LITC credits, then then they find out figure out how to do their financing and there's no financing gaps that they can't figure out other bridge funding for, then that entire escro stack would close and the property would go to the developer under a ground lease created from the IDA and the money for the ground lease would essentially be a the paid up it would it would be the paid up fair market value of the of the property that would go all the way back to FSD.

And so we're really just kind of facilitating this entire transaction and that would be the the city's involvement on it. Um we're shooting for the pre-application for LITC is January 15th. Um so that's why we're trying to get this in front of you without um the actual kind of agreements for you to look at. And that's really just because they need um a developer in order to apply for LITC needs site control.

And so having this authority to grant it, grant it and send it on through the chain would be one piece of that that they could use for that application. And so yeah, I think I've touched on a lot of these bullet bullet points. Um, so another important bullet point, this is at no cost to the city. So there, you know, there's going to be some transaction costs to do all this. Ultimately, all of those will be paid by that end developer.

So the we're really just sitting in the middle of that transaction pile. Um there's no no cost that's going to be borne by the city for doing that. Um and that's that's really what this is. We're just trying to facilitate FUSD finding a development partner to build affordable housing on this property. Um there's a lot of steps that need to happen and we're just trying to make sure that our steps happen um to make this uh reality. And so I'm happy to address any other questions.

I believe uh Mike Pensa is on the on the teams as well. He could address any or answer any questions as well. Thank you. And I just want to say quickly before I ask Superintendent Pensa to um to say any words that he would like to that I greatly appreciate FUSD for stepping up to try to be a um solution to the housing crisis that we're experiencing in Flagstaff.

And this is exactly what we were talking about when we created the 10-year housing plan is that it is going to take every entity in Flagstaff to put a dent in this problem. So, Superintendent Pensa, welcome. Hey, good evening and um first want to thank you for this opportunity to connect with you remotely uh from my office. Um, in about 15 minutes I'll be uh convening in a public meeting with my governing board tonight.

And so to save me some travel time, I appreciate your staff accommodating uh this remote participation. Um, and really want to thank you for considering the ordinance that's before you this evening. Um I think uh Bryce explained it well like kind of a lot of uh steps and partners that are um uh play a important role in this process.

Um and appreciate everyone's uh openness to consider um um a different pathway than we've used in our community, but one that has been successfully used by other Arizona school districts in their communities to um use underutilized land. um that's in the hands of school districts to eventually see that developed for affordable housing. And as I previously communicated to you, our school district is directly impacted by the housing crisis in our community.

It's impacting our uh um FUSD employees, our families and staff and uh you know um it's an entire community challenge and so I appreciate um exploring opportunities to take a small step in addressing uh this community challenge. Uh in the last year, our district has been convening a housing committee and through grant we've had a housing um a housing consultant who's helped us learn about this pathway that has been used by other Arizona school districts.

And um while the district has ability to to lease its own land, um state law places a limit of uh only being able to lease that for 20 years or less. that isn't a desirable length of time for most developers. And for those who uh are developing affordable housing, you typically need a much longer uh site control. Um also, the district could go out to its vote um to the voters and uh sell property. Um there's costs obviously a lot of time that that would add to the project.

And again, and then finally, the district doesn't have the authority to limit um the public purpose of that land like the city can through this ordinance. Uh you're able to designate this land be used to address the affordable housing needs of our community. Um you know, this is we're kind of lining up the pathway engaging interested uh and uh partners.

So again, it it requires the district with land, the city, uh um an industrial development authority, uh from our within our state, uh and then a developer. And so, um, if all of the partners, we can get everything to line up, it's possible that a developer could apply for, um, uh, start their low-inccome tax credit um application um, in January, um, those I think the final deadline is April and those awards happen would happen in June of 2026.

So again, all the what you're passing tonight, you know, is contingent on um the, you know, developer being awarded tax credits. Um but um again, it's an important step. We're we're trying to keep up with these timelines and uh appreciate your willingness to be a partner. Are there any questions? Are there any questions specifically for Superintendent Pensa? No, I I think that um we're good here on our end in terms of questions for you. I do see Oh, just a moment.

Vice Mayor has a question that's specifically for you. Sure. Thank you and thank you for being online tonight. I'm wondering um are these, you know, looking into the future, would this be available for all FUSD only or opening up housing for the community. As far as the development, is it does is you're are you asking um would the housing that's developed on this property be designated only for FUSD employees? Am I understanding the question correctly? Yes, you stated it much better than I did.

Thank you. Okay. Um uh it would not and there are um um anyone who's awarded my understanding and your staff might be able to more clearly explain it but um when you're awarded um low-inccome housing tax credits there are um I believe they're like fair housing laws. So there's only um certain protected classes of individuals that could get preferential um preference in this housing and teachers don't fall in that category.

Um and also you know when when the district has looked into could it develop something you hear terms called like a teacherage um right now we believe that um that's only available to school districts in rural communities and Flagstaff while we're maybe in a rural part of the state uh we're not considered rural so we're not able to develop a teacheridge that is only designated for our employees um and I'll let your staff better explain that um but the I think the short answer would be no.

This would the housing units that could be developed here would be available to any individuals who qualify um kind of in those income parameters um for these units. Thank you. Um that does help explain it and Bryce if you want to add on anything but um I appreciate your answer and again thank you for being online. I know you've got another meeting to get to, so I appreciate your time. He's got it right. Yeah, correct. Um, Superintendent, we do have another question for you.

Thank you so much, Superintendent Pensa, for um joining us today. And my question is kind of getting to the root of the inception of this idea. Um, how did this come about from your side of things? Yeah, I think um for several years u the district has owned uh the parcel of land that that 18 acre parcel that is adjacent to um you know the district's administrative offices in Sonawa Middle School and it the district has identified that we don't intend to use that for school purposes.

So, it's really been undeveloped land and um really just uh wanting to step forward and see if there's anything we can do as a public school district to help address this housing challenge that is impacting our employees, families, and members of our community. And so, um, we know desire, this would be desirable, uh, space, uh, for housing because it's located within our, uh, Flagstaff city limits.

Um, and, uh, you know, our hopes would be that through development, we may see families that also choose to send their children to attend our school district. So we think that um we're addressing a public purpose and need um and it's not land that we're going to need for school space or you know we have adequate fields and in amenities there on that Sona campus. So I've been talking to different developers for years sharing this parcel.

We had it kind of developed to understand how it's zoned uh some of the limitations of the site. Um and it's been hard to find um developers who can make it pencil out. Um but um by learning about this pathway that's been done um by other school districts and developers in the state um we're hopeful that we can find u willing partners uh for this process and and actually see it developed for housing.

Superintendent Pensa, thank you so much for um this revolutionary partnership that will without a doubt blaze a trail for future partnerships that think outside of the box. So, thank you for thinking outside of the box and um thank you for making these sacrifices for housing. You're welcome. Okay, I'm going to let you go so that you can get to your governing board meeting. Thank you very much. Good to see you. Have a great evening all of you. Thank you.

All right, going back up um Council Member Matthews. Thank you, Mayor. Um and Mike before he's he's signing off, but I learned about this effort a couple years ago through CCC and you guys did a lot of work with NAU and CCC and then realized there's too many government regulations and stuff. So, I really want to applaud you for you told me several months ago that you hired this consultant and you're going in a new direction.

So, thank you for just um not giving up when sometimes it seems just impossible to get through all the red tape of government work. So, um you and I have met on multiple other things and and I'm really impressed with with um your focus and direction to solve some critical issues in our family Flagstaff family community. So, thank you so much. Yeah, thank you for the kind words. So, Bryce, I had a question or just a question.

I don't know if you can answer it or not, but um you mentioned that um they'll go after a 9% LITC. Is my understanding that's a little easier? I know LITC is really competitive and there's not a lot of funds in there right now, but if I understand it correctly, the 9% program is a little bit more accessible because less people are competing for it. Is that a correct assumption or am I way off? My limited knowledge, which if we have housing in here, they might can help us out.

But my limited knowledge is that the 9%s are more um favorable. Yeah. Um it's going to give you more bang for your buck. I think if you win those awards versus a 4% lifetime. Thank you. Well, this is really exciting and I'm glad that the city was able to also think outside the box and work with them in a collaboration. As the mayor said, this is going to take um everyone to um approach this and come up with new ideas. So, I'm really excited about it. Thank you, city manager.

Yeah, mayor and council. I just wanted to make um just a couple of quick comments. Um first, um the action tonight is not uh specific to the end developer. Um I think um Superintendent Pensa mentioned that there there have been some challenges with um this penciling out. So, um, you know, the action that we're taking tonight provides the flexibility for FUSD to work with with other developers as well, not just the developer that they're currently, um, speaking to.

Um, the other thing I just want to mention is just how great our staff has been um, throughout this. I mean, we this came to us pretty quickly. Um, and you know, Bryce, our real estate manager, and um, our new real estate attorney, Matt, um, Michelle McNolte, our planning and development services director, and our housing staff.

Our housing staff has actually been talking directly with the developer on maybe some things that we can help provide some funding in bond funds or IPA funds to this project as well. So, I just want to commend everybody for for working on this and um it's just really exciting to see and I think again I think this is the first of many projects coming our way. So, thank you Council Member House. Thank you, Mayor.

I wanted to just add my thanks and appreciation to both our team and the Flagstaff Unified School District for bringing this forward and um for this partnership that's bringing a a truly significant solution um reflecting our shared values as a community and meeting a a growing need uh within our community for affordable and attainable housing.

Um, I know Superintendent Pensa said at one point that this was a small step and it may seem small, but um, in my mind it's really a a huge uh, impact that is potentially coming from this. Um and by making this land available and by working with our city team and with um uh potential developers into the future, um this is really uh providing that opportunity to create real attainable housing to meet critical needs in our community.

And as you said, Mayor, this is exactly the type of partnership that we need um in this time and moving forward to bring uh all sides of this conversation together, use the tools we have and create meaningful and long-term solutions. So, um when appropriate, I would love to make a motion on this item. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Thank you. Um, Bryce, I'm just wondering moving forward, what decisions and and what will be coming back to council? How will we stay up to date on this?

So, I think once a developer has been identified that's ready to submit uh an application for LITC, it'll all essentially we'll be back to you with a a purchase and sale agreement and that purchase and sale agreement will be part of that chain. Um, and so I don't know, we don't have specifics on if it's going to be a purchase and sale agreement between all the parties or if it's just going to be our piece, but um, that that's what will be coming back to you for consideration. Thank you.

And I too just want to thank you and the team for acting swiftly on this. Appreciate it. Uh, one final thought that I would like to share is um, Mountain Line was the first to step up in this realm and we're all grateful to them for doing that and now the Flagstaff Unified School District and um, as we've as we've all said, this is the perfect kind of partnership.

And I throw out that offer to any other land owners in Flag Staff who want to figure out a way to be a part of solving the affordability crisis in Flag Staff to um work with our staff and get something done. And that includes public entities um as you know all of our partners on the alliance as well. So, and Bryce is just waiting for your phone call. All right. Um, so Council Member House, you wanted to make a motion. Thank you, Mayor.

Uh, I move to read ordinance number 2025-23 by title only for the first 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 authorizing the acquisition and disposition of real property from the Flagstaff Unified School District in order to facilitate affordable housing development, providing for delegation of authority, providing for severability, authority for clerical corrections, and establishing an effective date. Thank you. All right, we're moving on to item B, which is consideration and acceptance of highest bid. Good afternoon, mayor and council.

Bryce Dodie. So, earlier this year, we brought to you a council council discussion item for the small lot that the city owns on 116 East Butler. Um, during that discussion, we explained our challenges with uh code enforcement on the property. We ch we discussed our challenges with trying to get development on it for affordable housing and and so we did kind of laid laid a narrative down to say you know what we think as staff is the best thing that we can do right now is to sell this property.

Um and so during that discussion you asked two things of you said yes you can sell it but also we want to know what those revenues can go back towards our affordable housing programs or to contribute towards affordable housing. And so right now I'm back to you with you to say we did step one and we did step two.

Step one was we went out to bid for this and we received one responsible bid and it's from the owner that owns the adjacent lots to our lot um which is those green cottages off of Butler and they met the appraised value of the of our our sale price. And so if we want to proceed with selling this, the first step would be to accept that bid.

Um the second thing is once we dug into the ownership of this lot further, we figured out that we actually purchased this lot with HERF dollars and HERF dollars are very restrictive that they can only be used for transportation purposes. And so one of the challenges that just kind of doubles some of those challenges of do we want to try to develop this for affordable housing?

um because if we wanted to do something outside of transportation, then we would have to essentially re um reimburse that fund. And so our ability to actually contribute or use these proceeds of any potential sale for that um are quite limited because of the way that we purchase this property. Um we do have since it is um transportation related um dollars.

If we do go ahead and sell this, those proceeds can be used in this vicinity in this area to fund those transportation projects um like the safe street projects that we have planned on Butler. Um but it's pretty li it's limited um to transportation uses if we do go ahead and sell this property. Um, so those are the two pieces of information I wanted to give you. Um, happy to answer any questions related to it. Council, do you have any questions for Bryce? You were so thorough last time.

All right. Um, I will entertain a motion then. We have public comment. My apologies. Dennis Given. My bad on that. Uh I live right there pretty close to that. I know it's like low economic status housing for those people. What's going to happen to those people that you guys now bought this property? Are they just going to get kicked out? Are they going to get like a square deal? Is it kind of like you a fend for yourself kind of thing? I'm just curious to address that question.

So, our lot is a vacant lot, so um there is no current development on it, so we wouldn't be displacing anybody on that. Um the the winning bid on this one, they do own that adjacent um property. And so I think the plan would be to increase uh inventory in our community um by bringing our lot and their and their lot together to increase the amount of actual units that we have in the city. Thank you. All right. Do we have a motion to accept the highest bid?

Madame Mayor, I'd like to make a motion to accept the highest bid for solicitation number 2026-40 by 112 East Butler LLC. I'll second. Any discussion? All those in favor? I I. Any opposed? All right. And a motion to read the ordinance by title only for the first time. Mayor, I will make a motion to read the ordinance number 2025-28 by title only for the first time. I'll second. Any discussion? All those in favor? I I Any opposed? City clerk. Mayor, just one moment.

I have the wrong ordinance here. Oh, and wait a minute. So, this acceptance of highest bid and then adoption of ordinance 25-28. The purchase agreement will come with the second read of the ordinance. So in two weeks. But so up ahead it says consideration and adoption of the ordinance but down below it says read ordinance by title only for the first time which pulling up the agenda. So mayor the first motion should be to accept the highest bid with 2640.

And you did that and that's what's on the table right now with the second correct or it was already approved. That was already approved. Okay. So, you'd read ordinance 25 or you made a motion to read ordinance 2528. Now, for the first time, she just needs to read it then. for an ordinance. Okay. Yeah. The actual adoption will still be on the second. Gotcha. Correct. So, city clerk. Okay. And I apologize. I had the wrong title here.

An ordinance of the city council of the city of Flagstaff authorizing the disposition of real property located at 116 East Butler Avenue. Providing for delegation of authority, providing for severability, authority for clerical corrections, and establishing an effective date. Thank you. See you on December 2nd. All right, down to C. Storm water utility cost and service and strategic plan updates. We don't see much of you these days. I know I've been hiding.

Well, it's not really true, but uh good evening or afternoon, mayor, vice mayor, council. Uh Ed Shank, the Storm section director. Uh this will be a two-part uh update. I also have Nancy Fan online from uh principal consultant with water resources economics. We're going to provide a midterm update if you will of two different uh uh projects I guess would be the best way to call it. So we have our cost of service update.

So this is based on our 2023 storm water utility rate adjustment um as well as our 2023 to 2028 um storm water strategic plan. And so we're going to provide the update for both. Um we're going to provide it in two parts. So the first part will be driven by Nancy uh and I'll be here just kind of driving the slides for her and then if we have questions on that cost of service update. Uh so that's the the rate study update if you will. Um Nancy will be online for that.

Uh once we're done with the questions on that section then we will move on to the stormwater strategic plan uh update. Um so with that just so some quick background stormware utility is a standalone utility created in 2003 uh mostly out of the community development division uh is to provide to enhance stormwater level service to the community uh in particular the Rio flag flood control project uh early alert warning network disaster response CIP etc.

Uh I already mentioned the first half will be uh led by Nancy. I'll lead the second half. Uh and both of these are midterms. So two and a half years into our five-year for the rate adjustment and also two and a half years into our five-year for the stormwater strategic plan. Uh water resources economics conducted the the prior storm water rate study that was in 2023 uh and has been brought in to engage that uh financial plan review study in 2025.

Uh this is at the direction of Shannon Jones when he was water uh services director. Um and with that uh Nancy, are you jumping off of this or am I still given this slide? I forget. It's been a month. This slide, but totally up to you. Okay. Okay. Well, I'll just I'll let you take it from here. Uh introduce yourself and then I'll I'll be in the background for the next handful. Thanks. Great. Thank you so much, Ed. And good evening, mayor, vice mayor, and council. My name is Nancy Han.

I'm a principal consultant at Water Resources Economics. I'm excited tonight to share the results of our study with you. This couple of slides. Um, so as mentioned previously, we did do uh the city's prior rate study back in 2023 and then we were engaged again this year to conduct a financial plan review. So in that 2023 storm water rate study, the city adopted uh new storm water rates from the period from April 2023 to January 2028 and that resulted in 12 year rate increases.

Is my audio still cutting out? It is. I got a comment a little bit. Okay, I'll move a little bit closer and then just let me know if you can't hear me. Okay. So, for this study that we conducted in 2025, city council requested a review of the storm water financial plan. And so, the purpose of this study is to compare what we project 2023 for the financial plan um and comparing it to what the most up-to-date data says based on the city's most recent five-year budget and updated customer data.

So, and the purpose of this ultimately is to evaluate uh the city's current financial position and see how close we were to what we projected back in the prior study in 2023. So, the change in financial position for the city's storm water utility uh is a result of three different reasons and well, I'll go over them in more detail in the next couple of slides.

The first uh which is related to uh revenues there were there was a change in the number of erus uh as part of the update is that there are some minor changes in non- capital expenses those are operating expenses as well as debt service and then the third and most impactful there were some pretty significant changes in CIE from the period from fiscal year 26 to 2020 28. Okay, that first there was an increase in number of erus.

So in the prior study in 2023, uh the projected erus for fiscal year 2026 were about 102,000 erus. Uh currently our fiscal year 2026 u in this study is 112. So there was an increase in the number of erus due to two reasons. The first being uh an internal audit which increased the amount of impervious surface area that is going to be buil for the water rate and the second is uh greater growth than what we had previously anticipated.

So all of this is to say there was uh an overall 17% increase in revenues uh in rate revenues over the three-year period. So fiscal year 26 to 28. and that is uh an increase in $4 million total over three years. The second point is that there are minor changes in operating and debt expenses. So operating expenses decreased slightly. Um that's an overall 3% decrease over the three-year period resulting in 300,000 or so uh less expenses overall. And then same thing the debt service cost side.

Uh there is an overall 15% increase over that same three-year period uh resulting in a reduction of $1.2 million total over three years. And finally I mentioned previously the most impactful here there were some pretty significant changes in capital expenses. I'll go over more of the details in the next slide, but um for the three-year period uh between 26 and 28, the rate funded or payo CIP expenses, those are going to significantly higher than the previous study projections.

So that results in a 32% increase in costs uh over the total comparison period or $5.1 million total. So there's some significant cost increases uh primarily due to the Rio de Flag project and that's due to changes in what it requires as well as unanticipated construction cost increases. Uh in addition to an increase in overall uh pay go the city also expects to fund a portion of its future cap expenses via debt proceeds and grant proceeds.

And so the fiscal year 206 2028 rate funded or PIGO CIP prior study uh in 2023 we expected 15.2 million and currently is $21.3 million. Okay. And this slide shows the detail of the prior study projections as well as the current study projections.

The the top part of the table here shows the total capital financing plan that was developed as part of the last rate study and that is a total of 16.2 million over three years um that is projected to be rate funded under projections um from the city's most recent five-year plan.

Uh the total capital financing plan is now increased to $61.4 million with 19.4 4 million of that being debt funded, $20.7 million of that being grant funded, and then as I mentioned previously, $21.3 million of that as rate funded. So that reflects a $51 million increase in rate funded capital. Okay. And this slide we tie all of those ingredients together those three pieces that I just mentioned.

The top part of the table here shows the prior study projections and for the storm water service charge revenue. So as I mentioned the increase in erus that resulted in an increase of storm water service charge revenue. So the prior study we projected $23 million over the three years and then under the current projections with the updated number of erus that's going to be 27 million. So that's an increase overall over three years of $4 million or 17% in total.

On the expense side at the bottom of this table here that's inclusive of the decrease to operating expenses debt service costs as well increase to rate funded capital. So the prior study we uh projected 37 million in total expenses and then the current projections uh based on this three-year period is now $40.6 million. So that difference is about $3.6 million over three years or a 10% increase overall.

So the net difference is the difference between the increase in revenues versus the increase expenses. So over three years things net out to uh a positive uh difference of $435,000. Okay. So summarizing all of that, we have the increase in storm water service charge revenues due to the increase in erus. That is a plus $4 million in revenue over three years. And then we had a decrease in operating expenses, decrease in debt service costs, but an increase in rate CIP costs.

So your net financial impact is 400,000 overall. Um based on the results of the study, $400,000 over the uh spread over three years, we would say that the city is in a very similar financial position between what was projected in the prior study and what is projected based on the current year projections.

um you know projections are just that circumstances do change but because we had the increase in revenues those are still being offset by some significant increases in capital expenses particularly for the Rio de flag project and so this presentation just showed kind of a brief summary of uh the result of study but more details are also available in the technical memorandum that we developed as part of the study deliverables so that is it for my slides I'm happy to answer any further questions or go back to any of the previous slides if we have any questions about this.

Council member Matthews. Thank you, Mayor. um on um that most of the capital expenses um we're projecting will be tied to the ROD flag project which I would love to see it come sooner than later but you know so where are we where are we calculating when those expenses will come into play because we are still trying to work out all the details with all of our um partners on just getting that started. Yeah, that might be a better question.

I know Rick Tatter's on online, but a portion of this needs to be debt funded in advance and that's that 16 million that you're seeing in FY2026 um is a portion of that debt financing um for the Rio Flag project. Okay. So that's just a requirement to our um grant agreements with because the Rio project is a 6535 match. We need to show that we have our 35% match at the city for the Army Corps.

Um so the project escalated in cost from approximately 121 million in 2018 to about 243 million uh this last year. So, we're expecting that we could actually be needing this in 2026 or 2028. That'd be a great question for capital uh and for Rick Tatter. I'm I'm not super involved with the project management side of the Army Corps project. Okay. All right. That's good. Thank you. And I have a question about the technical presentation or the technical memo that she that you mentioned, Nancy.

Um, I don't see that attached to our agenda. Is it available to the public or is it called something else in our agenda? It should be attached to the agenda. Um, so if it's not, I can send that along. Would it be included in one of the other documents? It should be a standalone document and it should be called Look it up real quick. I have to look it up. I don't have the name of it right off hand, but I believe it is like 2025 cost of service study. Uh, okay. All right.

It threw me off with the the use of the word technical. We do have the storm water utility rate adjustment study. That would be the 2023 rate adjustment study. So, that's the original. Yes, that is correct. It's not attached. Okay. Uh, I can make sure you get that. Yeah. Yes. That might be an oversight on my part. Yeah. Thank you. These figures come immediately that they come out of this memo. So, the figures we're showing here are the final figures um from that that tech memo.

But yeah, I'll make sure that um that's sent out. Thank you. And mayor, even though that's not attached, the public, if they're interested in that, can obviously request a copy, too. Thank you. and and when we receive it, will it be added to this agenda so people could go back and see it, too? All right. Thank you very much. Um, Council Member Garcia. Thank you, Madame Mayor. And I was not present for the beginning of this um conversation.

So, if you have already answered this question and made it clear, then I can you can just um email me off of line so not to be duplicative. But I was just curious, you mentioned something to the effect of debt service increase. My question was, what is debt service and why did it increase? Uh so you could pull back to the previous couple of slides. Uh so the debt service costs over the three-year period for um prior to the new debt funding on this slide that has actually decreased.

So we saw a slight decrease in current debt service costs and then we also have a piece here for future debt funded capital. So debt service is just you know it's what we pay for issues. So, it's like a mortgage or um you know an annual payment or or debt that we take out to pay for capital projects. Thank you so much for that question or that answer. And I just want to note that um Rick popped in and said that the technical memorandum is called the cost of service memo in the packet.

And I see that it is because inside the memo it's titled storm water financial plan review technical memorandum. So we have it. Okay. So, it is attached. Great. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. So, I hid it somewhere I shouldn't have. That's That's my probably my fault. Apologies. As long as Wasn't trying to be hiding anything. It's It's a really short memo. It's very simple to read and Nancy did a great job uh explaining it right now.

So, what we're looking at here are kind of the final figures. Um so, yeah, there's there's no big bombshell in it and it's not 500 pages long. It is intentionally short, concise, and lacking jargon, and something that we've already read. So, that's great. All right. Um, any additional questions or comments. Um, so this was just forformational only. You don't need anything from us. And, um, when will we be seeing something coming back?

And I'm I'm sorry if I was looking for this other thing while that was said. In what way? Something will we be seeing additional information about this? And if so, when I believe that tech technical memorandum uh does kind of sum it up. So the next time we would be re revisiting this would be in 2028. If you want to revisit it, it's going to be a question of whether you want to change the rates in 2028. Um so this was not intended to change any rates. This is just a checkup.

Uh, one of the questions that came about from that 2023 rate adjustment um was can we see how this is going forward since we were having 12% per year increases after that post wildfire flooding uh and the fact that the storm water utility was in the red pretty severely. So, the purpose of this was to to show that update to show that we are still on track. We are spending uh kind of appropriately, if you will.

It's a little higher than expected but we also have revenue that's a little higher expected as well. So we are tracking in the same way uh and are providing the same costs or not sorry the same level of service that we promised the rateayers back in 2023. So when this comes back in 2028 will the strategic plan also be updated when it comes back to us? That would be my hope.

Uh I know that we have a separate uh strategic plan for the water services division which oversees our utility uh which is grandfather or not grandfather it's suns setting this year in 2025. Um so we this 2028 and we'll get into this the 2028 storm water utility strategic plan is kind of dovetailed on that water services uh strategic plan is very similar look uh just slightly different uh take because we are a slightly different utility than water wastewater.

Um, so our hope is to adapt that through time. It is an adaptive plan. One of the reasons we're bringing it to you today is to show that it's not just sitting on the shelf and it's just dusty and you know, we came up with something that's great and hurrah and we never used it. So we are using it. We're we're moving through it. Um, we actually do have internal meetings on how best to to achieve the goals and objectives within that plan.

And yes, our hope is probably in 2026, so next year is start the planning for the next five years because it does take some time to move through it. Thank you, Council Member Matthews. Thank you, Mayor. Um and um Deputy City Manager Shannon Anderson answered this my this question via email, but um I'll bring it up here.

Um, I was inquiring to um our accomplishments of some of the projects that uh led to the rate increases in an update and she pointed me back to um you know a couple of news letters that covered it. But in our conversation when that discussion was being had um it was more at least my expectation was that we would do a public presentation so that the public could see what uh projects we have completed um what is still um pending and if there's any issues.

So, if I could just put a plug in for that, I know um I hear and I used to say it too all the time, you know, it's like, you know, you rate you increase these rates, but you know, then we don't ever see, you know, and we have capital projects that were approved 10 years ago and they're still on the shelf waiting and stuff. So, if we could put that on a future agenda and just so it is a public presentation, that would be really great. Yeah, definitely.

That's a that's a great great idea, Council Member Matthews. We'll talk a little bit about that in this up se up upcoming section, but it's not really a capital update. So, yeah, we can definitely do that. And um you know, I don't want to plug a staff, but maybe that would be another one be good to bring in the capital program as well because there's a lot of great things that overlap.

You know, we're just one small utility, so there's a lot of things that we overlap with water, wastewater, streets, um public works, um sustainability, etc.

So there there's a lot of these that are kind of tied together where you know maybe we're the champion for some of it with drainage related but some of the other ones we may not be the champion but we're also involved uh downtown Mile being a great example that really is a transportation project and grant but um we do have some skin in the game on that.

Uh and vice versa you know there's there's others that uh on some of these large projects that we have that we are doing streets projects at the same time. So it'd be good to kind of bring it all together. So, I remember we had a fairly specific list of projects and their dollar value back then that needed to be done. Um, some of them were, like I said, older, some of them were projected that we needed it just to keep up with our needs.

So yeah, if we could get an update on that for the public to see that their rate increase is accomplishing what you know, we had talked about it needing to accomplish it outside of projects that are grant funded and stuff, but just stuff that's paid for by the rate payers would be. Yeah, absolutely. Those are the fun those are the fun updates and you get all the really cool before and after photos and and whatnot. So yeah, we'll be happy happy to provide that. All right.

I don't see any additional questions or comments. So, thank you very much, Ed. All right. Thank you. So, I'll jump into the next half. And thank you, Nancy and Sanjay, who who couldn't be here today from water resources economics. All right, the second half here. And if you want, we have it online, but if you want a physical copy of it, we have lots of these uh storm water strategic plan um to to hand out if you'd like them. Otherwise, they're they're all online.

Um so again just to to go back into it, Stonewall became a utility in 2003. We're originally under community development and then have grown and uh went over to water services shortly after 2003. Uh in 2020, the acting water services director approved the development of storm water strategic plan to better understand the definition, guidance, and mission of the storm water utility.

So just to kind of provide a little bit more guidance to both the public as well as others in the city of what we do, why are we here? Because we are kind of a unique storm water um group if you will. Most storm water uh groups within municipalities are based on urban water quantity which would be your flooding as well as urban water quality. to dealing with urbanization. So the the increase in imperous surface um so those be hardcapes and how that changes water.

Uh we do quite a bit more than that. So this draft and I'll get into that. The draft plan was reviewed and revised in late 2021 after the postfire floods and then it was adopted uh by city council in 2023 as a five-year plan. So it took a little while to get that plan together as you can see. um you know really started in 2020 took three years to get off the ground but we got it there.

Uh this the following slides are just to provide a review of that strategic plan very high level you can read at your leisure uh and then include a midterm progress of where we're at and where we well I won't get too much in where we hope to go that's still uh being pushed but um we're getting there. Uh to find it online this is kind of a long a long link.

It's much easier to just go on your web browser, Google or whatever, Yahoo, and just look up stormwater strategic plan for Flagstaff and this should come up as the first document. Um, it does have a strategic foundation. So, we have a mission, behavioral values. Those behavioral values being integrity respect commitment responsibility collaboration and leadership.

Um, and then the business values that go with that, the sound planning and appropriate investment, flood protection and pollution prevention, which is the standard for storm water, protecting public health in the environment, exceptional customer service, sound financial management, increasing efficiency, which we've just talked about, and transparency and community engagement, which we also work on.

Uh, this is in that that stormwater strategic plan just kind of shows the growth of the utility through time. We were the first stormwater utility in Arizona, not the first in the United States, but the first in Arizona. There's now, I believe, nine in Arizona and about 2,200 uh throughout the country. So, most other storm water groups are funded either through general fund, property taxes, flood control districts, uh other ways of funding uh than a utility.

So, but as I mentioned, there's about 2,200 stormwater utilities now. So, it's it's definitely not unique. We started uh as a FEMA flood plane management group uh that actually was awarded back in 1983. Um so was in community development then came across as the stormware utility development review, construction inspections, maintenance funding and water quality in MS4 which is under uh the EPA clean water act were our founding documents.

And then through time you can see we increased our scope as we started taking over capital improvement um some of these larger regional studies the early alert uh gauges uh LID ordinance in 2009 so green infrastructure and rain gardens if you will uh regional wershed management the Rio flag flood control project some of these larger projects and working with other divisions like fire on uh forest health and forest thinning uh and then obviously the post wildfire realm home after 2019 which is we've been very active in and then most recently after 2022 uh individual direct assistance so working with sustainability on flood proofing for example and small grants and then also these large regional detention basin uh projects so we actually are doing more land management so kind of running through that quickly I know it's it's getting late so I'm just trying to stay on topic here and and be brief um what I'm going to go through is nine strategic objective objectives that were listed in that storm water strategic plan and where we are with those.

So, these are the nine here. I'm not going to read them because we're going to get into each one separately, but I'll give you an update on each one of these and then um hopefully we'll continue to to to get these completed in the next two and a half years before we we update the strategic plan. So, first one was respond to wildfire flooding risks and events. Again, this was written right after the flooding in 2021.

So, our accomplishments in the last two and a half years, we completed the Schultz Creek post wildfire capital projects. This is a huge win. So, we had over $10 million mostly of external funding uh either through the state for that state bill 1720, also through uh federal grants, so NRCS EWP for example. And with that $10 million roughly, we were able to completely mitigate the post wildfire threat for Schulz Creek going into Cookanino states. A huge win for a rather large team.

Uh we've also substantially completed most of the spruce wash suite of projects. These are for the museum fire side and huge kudos to a really hu big let's keep saying huge a big city group. Uh Scott Overton's been amazing um mo uh moving that project forward. uh Julie Lee, Trevor uh Henry, uh Eli Risner before he left the city was amazing.

Um I mean just a really large TAC so technical advisory committee that we've been meeting uh weekly uh and got that suite of projects almost complete that really wrapping that up this winter which is great. Three years to do $40 million worth of projects uh really shows a huge commitment by staff uh and our consultants to get that completed. Uh we've also assisted the the the county flood control district with some pre-w wildfire studies. Um so one being in the Rio Flag.

Um we've proactively dredged some of our channels now that we have a little additional funding for operations. Uh one of the big ones this year is the Rio flag in Cheshire. So the first time this has been dredged since that channel was engineered in the 1970s. Um so a rather large project there. Uh we're about about 80% done with a pre-w wildfire risk assessment for the entirety of Observatory Mesa for all the drainages that come off Observatory Mesa and Mars Hill.

Um we've began a larger study of Mount Elden and the south slopes that drain into a number of neighborhoods on the east side. Um that's being completed right now. uh Big Phil Lake, which is what we call that area of Continental Country Club, uh where it floods every once in a while because it backs up from BNSF. We have a complete design for that and working with BNSF on a grant um roughly a $15 million grant uh to get that addressed. Hopefully, we can get that through.

Uh we also designed a large detention basin um for the Shadow Mountain neighborhood. uh that's uh it's been shelved just due to lack of federal funding, but we do have that design ready if there is uh a need or desire for it in the future. Uh and then also of work on some technical work uh with the role of our storm water section compared to uh county flood control districts. So quite a bit of accomplishment on on the wildfire flood uh risk and events.

So quite a bit going on there and we'll still work through that. Uh next objective was clarify climate change characteristics and overall storm water challenges. So mostly dealing with climate change, climate ad adapt adaptation sorry uh and climate variability. Um so we are expecting that the community like most communities to become more uh vulnerable to high high uh intensity storms due to climate change and climate variability.

Uh so with that in the last two and a half years uh we're now maintaining over 30 rain gauges and about 15 stream gauges. Uh providing that data to the National Weather Service for their update of the Noah Atlas 15. Uh so we're at Noah Atlas 14 right now. This is for rainfall prediction. Um so they are moving forward with that even in the current uh federal climate. Um there is funding for Noah to complete this atlas 15 update.

So this will be helpful for the development community as well as our emergency management and risk management folks uh for determining potential risk for um different rain events. We've also completed a landscape scale so an entire uh city of Flagstaff plus the surrounding area model for rainfall runoff using a three-dimensional model uh called Mike Shei uh is funded by FEMA through a community technical partnership. Uh that was about a 10-year process.

So, it's been a rather large study and model and that is complete now and online. Uh, we've installed new uh flood alert gauges, so new alert early alert gauges on Freedelland Prairie Load R. We can't talk Freedelland Prairie Road and the Rio Flag in Fort Valley. So, these are out in the county actually, but they're city gauges. And the purpose is that uh we'll be able to have an early warning if there's flooding that comes from outside the city into city limits.

And then we've published numerous papers and reports on local hydrarology and climate. A third objective was maximize or optimize the storm water uh system maintenance. Um so we've done that. We have an annual maintenance report that's been expanded to include uh both open channel so the above ground as well as underground. So that be your pipes infrastructure. Uh you can find that online.

this really cool document that we update every year uh with a dashboard and it has you know all the different work orders that go into it uh either for our own staff or for our consultants and contractors. We've also updated our storm water maintenance SOPs and EPGs to allow our operators to work more effectively. Update our regional detention basin inspection forms. Uh completing inspection and maintenance on all of our cityowned green infrastructure that's LI low impact development facilities.

and then streamlined our resident complaint response through the use of CMS, which is our computerized uh maintenance and monitoring system. So, City Works is our software for that. So, we can actually look in real time at our resident complaints and how we're addressing them. A fourth objective was clarify service levels and enhance customer service. So, our accomplishments to date um we've provided engineering assessments neighborhoods. These are door-todoor assessments in areas of high risk.

Um, so that would be Cookanino Estates after the pipeline fire as well as Sunnyside and Grand View after the museum fire. Uh, we maintain those flood alert sirens you see in the Sunnyside neighborhood. Uh, we maintain and enhance the alert network, uh, which is one of the largest networks in Arizona. So, I don't know if people know that, but those 30 gauges that we have, uh, those are usually maintained by county flood control districts.

So when I asked our consultant Jay Fuller, I was at a conference a couple weeks ago. I said, "What what city has alert network as big as ours? What's the closest one?" And he sat there and he said, "Probably Dallas." So we are larger than most in the West uh and the use of our flood alert networks. And and we use them every year. We use them for for sending out street crews, for sending out our water service operators, for emergency management.

they set off that flood director alerts for the uh museum fire for example and for the and for the sirens. So it is a very much used network as well as by researchers after the fact. And then we continue to inform the multi-jurisdictional multi-hazard plan which is um housed over in county emage. So we help them as as do other divisions and sections within the city um with their updates as they are needed by FEMA.

Um, fifth objective was increase support for flood proofing of individual structures. This was this was new when we built the strategic plan. It's not something we used to do. Um, so it's kind of a new task or project, if you will, of storm water and we we lean heavily on sustainability. So, a lot of a lot of kudos to sustainability for their small grants here. Uh, they have completed 19 flood proofing grants in the last two and a half years.

Um, and then also a lot of kudos out to public works who has helped us a lot with seasonal sandbagging. Uh, so we have a seasonal sandbag station located at Thor Park. Uh, sixth objective was enhance the CIP process and update CIP priorities. So, accomplishments real quick. Um, we did do that that regional model, the landscape model using that FEMA CTP grant that kind of shows us areas of concern.

um that have I already mentioned this the observatory Mesa pre-w wildfire risk assessment uh which is mostly complete the Mount Elden South Slope flood study which is in progress um and then updates on the Schultz Creek and Spruce Wash flood models and hydrarology which we're using both for our CIP process but then also using that for updating flood maps. Uh I mentioned we have that CMS database for creating drainage investigations. So streamlining drainage complaints and investigations.

Uh and then actually the strategic plan itself is adopted for tracking staffing and funding needs. So this helps us understand our process and priorities. Um we continue to review the Rio flag flood control project and are moving forward um with one of the laterals uh that would be related to that Rio flag project. So this would be the Santa Fe lateral um that capital is managing for us that should start construction next spring.

uh spot improvements which are our smaller capital projects are now managed by our stormwater PMs. This allows us a little bit more flexibility um to manage something in house. Seven's objective enhance development review process and developer support. Uh so our accomplishments to date uh we've updated the storm water management drainage design manual sorely needed that. It was the last update was in 2009.

It was definitely out of date and uh we got a lot of complaints from developers developers and um engineering community that it was uh kind of rough coming from more updated code and other locations to our 2009. So having this update this last year has really helped us uh streamline that development process. Uh we've also updated in 2024, so last year our chapter 12 city code, that's our flood plane management code. Uh this allows us to also be in sync with the rest of the industry.

And then we updated the stormwater credit manual last year. This allows us to provide more uh opportunities for credits to your utility bill uh if you're able to provide uh value to the community. So if you're able to provide some value to your neighbors, if you will. So um these four things or three things, sorry, um have really kind of helped us move us in sync with that. Okay, we're getting there.

N the ninth eighth objective got a lot of objectives nine nine total so this is the eighth one improve collaboration and communications um so what we've done we've provide partial funding for the water services full-time communication specialist or Sarah Jablin if you haven't met her great person um so really helpful having a full-time communication specialist in water services and we provide part of that funding uh we do provide ongoing flood updates to water commission and city council you've heard some of those usually uh pre-monsoon and post monsoon sometimes in the middle of it if we have some rather large events.

Um ongoing community flood awareness communications. So those are both online on social media um news uh door hangers when we need to do them and then also meet in the streets like this picture here. Uh flood insurance workshops including external vendors. Don't want to get into that now. I know you guys had a meeting yesterday about wildfire insurance. Uh flood insurance that's a very interesting topic right now.

a very quickly moving industry which you never would say that with flood insurance in the last 50 years but the last two years have been extremely interesting I think that's a polite way of putting it um to see how flood insurance has evolved and will continue to evolve um stay tuned have some popcorn ready for that one um meeting the streets as I mentioned community meetings for the post wildfire impacted neighborhoods uh and then we've done a number of presentations and panels at regional and national associations to collaborate on emerging threats.

So, uh I do want to give a quick shout out to Lucinda Andriani. I know she was here yesterday from the County Flood Control District. She's also been great at coming out to these uh national events. Uh I really do think that Northern Arizona is well represented um at these post wildfire and flood events that we have um or symposiums that we have out there. All right, last one. We'll get in there. Uh objective number nine, addressing storm water section human resources needs.

Uh so our accomplishments since that rate study uh since the rate was increased, we were able to add two and a half full-time positions to our storm water operations group. And this has been huge. It really has helped us uh address a lot more uh storm water complaints as well as ongoing maintenance uh throughout town. So, uh, we've added that. Uh, and we're looking at staffing needs for project managers and engineers. Um, that will probably be our next step on that one.

Um, so hopefully you're still all awake. I know that was a whole lot really quickly, but um, uh, here for any discussion, questions on anything. Happy to go back through it. Uh, if you want to go thing anything here or if you want to take it on a tangent, I'm I'm here all night. I got coffee. Thank you, Ed.

And as you were talking and you were listing all of these accomplishments, I looked up to see what staffing looked like in storm water and listed here are just four people, three project managers and you. So you've also added the two and a half for maintenance. How how how many staff do you have? We like to keep you guessing. Um, so, so it's interesting who I oversee is is four positions. Well, three and a half.

So, obviously there's myself and then we have two senior well, we have a senior project manager, two project managers and then uh Doug Slover is now shared with water services engineering. So, he does development review for all of water services now. Um, so that's on my side of the aisle. And then on the operations side, that's actually managed by Patrick Okconor um on the operations section director for water services.

So under him, we have Lauren Samson, who is our supervisor for maintenance for storm water. So that is now a full-time supervisor. Uh when we came to you in 2023, that was actually shared with wastewater. So Joel Amandereas was doing wastewater, so all the sewer issues and all the storm water on top of that. And then we had two operators in storm water. So now under Lauren there are four positions.

Um like most things right it's it's hard to keep people so it's kind of all kind of wavering between one and four of how many operators we have at any one time. So right now I believe we have three. So all of these accomplishments and all of this work that you're doing um and then a couple of big emergencies in the middle of all of that. That's pretty um amazing. Well, well, thank you. And and it's we've had the same staffing other than maintenance. We've had the same staffing since 2003.

So, it's kind of interesting to see the change in responsibilities as we have the same number of people. Um but I don't I don't want to downplay the role of teamwork. I mean, we have a lot of great people that we work with in the rest of water services, in public works, in procurement, in legal, in, you know, you name it. Um, so we do lean on other sections and division. Sometimes they're grumpy about it, but we do lean on them when when we can um to get these done.

It really is one large community. So, I I can't say we're one silo all by ourselves doing it all by ourselves. It does take a larger group. Council member Garcia. Thank you, Madame Mayor. I'll be brief. Thank you so much, Mr. Shank, for the just amazing amount of information that you were able to give us and the community to help better better understand um something that's crucially important to uh our public safety um and public our personal property as well.

Um, I I was able to attend some of your meet in the street uh events, which is that that's why I love the city of Flagstaff so much is because while you guys are, you know, under underground, underwater, trying to smooth things out on a technical level, you're also meeting above ground on the street with the community and and making that community component, the discussions, the fact that the community is heard um and is able to ask any questions um share you know good and bad stories and then also have hope from um you know where wherever you guys are standing from you know about the future and how things are going to improve.

Being there to witness that, it made me feel um kind of whole inside um because of that community component and my attachment to the community. And to know that storm water, you know, is the ones that are also connecting to the community in that way just uh really um shines a light on your entire or on on the city of Flagstaff, the entire team, but more more so on this uh this particular program that you guys have for us. So, I wanted to highlight that and say thank you. Well, thank you.

I don't see any other questions or comments. So, um, you have our gratitude. Thank you, Ed. Hopefully, we see you more often, but not in the way that we saw you for a while. I'm hoping for a good snow year. Uh, if you ever have questions, doors open, emails a lot better in the door. But yes, anytime, send it along and we'll happy to do that. And yeah, we will work with uh other other divisions to figure out the best time to do a capital update.

Always happy to send cool pictures and um those are success stories. Those are really great to share. Um yeah, it's it's a hard field to be in. As you mentioned, a lot of times we get the complaints. So, it is always fun to share the the successes as well. And the complaints are great, too, because we really get to see, you know, it's a finger on the pulse. You really get to see what the community is thinking. And um you know, you have to have some tough skin out there.

And it actually is really great to to hear some of those sto I shouldn't say great. It's good to hear those stories and then work through them with with those community members. All right, we're moving down to discussion items. The first one is a fair. This is discussion and possible action regarding vice mayor selection process. And I believe it was um council member Spence who brought this to us. So would you like to kick it off? Thank you, mayor.

And uh I want to thank my fellow council members for um agreeing to put this on the future agenda. It's finally gotten around to our actual agenda after about three three or four months and uh our briefing material u put together by our city clerk is accurate but it does not use the word vice mayor elect. So I would like to make a brief statement that kind of uh introduces that term vice mayor elect. uh and put that into perspective of our discussion.

And so um in the time period from 1960 to 1992, the council's method of appointing the vice mayor was to appoint the council member who received the highest number of votes in the prior general election, effectively creating a two-year term as vice mayor elect. The obvious benefit of this two-year elect designation is an opportunity for the newly elected council member to learn the rules, the customs, and the norms of city government.

Then in 1992, the council voted to change the vice mayor appointment method to appoint the council member who received the highest number of votes in the immediately preceding election, effectively creating a 4-year term. And that method has persisted until today. In conformance with this existing policy regarding the vice mayor appointment after the November 24 election, the highest vote getter was, as it turns out, an experienced council member, Miranda, my colleague.

So the lack of experience that I'm referring to in this vice mayor elect designation uh uh Miranda had plenty of experience having served on the council and this lack of experience was not an issue in our most recent appointment of a vi of our vice mayor. But suppose that an inexperienced person such as myself had suppose suppose I had garnered the most vote votes instead of Miranda. In such a scenario, a two-year term as vice mayor elect would serve the city well.

I'll stop at this point and ask to give a chance for others to comment on this question and then I do have a motion prepared if if it's appropriate.

Council member um Garcia and then if I could clarify under the fair process this is where there's some sorry mayor for the interruption that this is the process where we discuss as a council you discuss as a council whether or not you want to move forward with an action on this but there is no action tonight it's discussion only um so there wouldn't be a motion tonight and I'm I apologize um maybe for all the council and the public the fair process is such that an item is requested and it's placed before the council to determine whether three council members want to move that forward for a discussion.

That happened already and that discussion is happening tonight. If during the discussion it's determined that action wants to be or that the council wants to take action, it can be moved forward on another agenda for potential action. So, I just wanted to clarify that for you, Council Member Spence, and for everyone else. Thank you. I stand corrected, Council Member Garcia, and then Council Member Matthews. Thank you. And I'll try to work through this quickly.

Uh, David, you mentioned effectively a 4-year term. Can you explain what you meant by that? Well, um, perhaps we can, if it's okay with, um, my council, member of Miranda, why don't we look at her case? November 24, Miranda got the highest number of votes. She come January became our new vice mayor and it's my understanding she will serve for four years as vice mayor. No. Do I need to be corrected?

Uh I I'll just uh mention that every two years we have the same top go vote getter to be the new vice chair, vice mayor. Um, and then I had a question for Miranda if you don't mind. Just go for it. Yeah. So, you were also vice mayor when you first got elected, correct? Not when I got elected, but soon after. Um, I I was and then when I resigned to run for mayor, um, vice mayor um took on the vice mayor role. Okay. Thank you for that clarification. That makes a lot more sense to me.

So, this question could really be for either one of you. Um, especially you, um, Mayor Daget, you were inexperienced on council prior to being on council, but you were elected vice mayor. Did you have any issues, um, like getting into the swing of things as a new council member that is also vice mayor? No, I think that could be partially because I had been so involved in local politics for so long. Um, but no. So, that brings me to a conclusion.

Um, so I've been pretty uh serious about local politics for almost 20 years now, coming to these meetings and watching them online and taking part in it.

So I've seen about nine elections and I venture to say that my so so I have a limited experience in that the sample size is only nine elections but it's also somewhat vast depending on how you look at it and I'd say the most I'd say least experienced but very connected person that I saw get elected and go straight to vice mayor was Adam Shimone who did a bangup job from the get-go.

So, I'm wondering if based on just that assumption that people aren't going to be able to u meld into the role correctly, if this conversation is even valid. And I I I back that up by stating that in my opinion, the vice mayor role isn't I mean, isn't that big of a job? I mean, it is. It's a huge job and it's a huge responsibility and it's a great honor. Most importantly, it's a great honor. But um maybe we can start with defining the role. U maybe maybe Sterling could help us with that.

Yes, Sterling does have a comment. Just that Stacy has a presentation that may answer some of these questions or at least provide a little bit of a some of the parameters around the vice mayor. Let's do that. Thank you. Thank you, Sterling. Um, actually, Council Member Spence really um hit on most of the points of my presentation um in terms of kind of that history, how we got to where we're at.

Um, you know, in 1960 after the initial charter of the city was adopted, um, really began this process of how we appointed the vice mayor. Um so up until 1992 um the vice mayor was appointed based on the highest number of votes received at the prior general election. So for example in 1960 the vice mayor appointed was actually elected in 1958. So there was a two-year period before they became vice mayor. Um in 1992 as council member Spence noted um that had changed.

Um there was some controversy around that change at that time. I think there was um some information that I provided you within the packet that kind of um shined some light on some of that controversy, but it was ultimately changed so that we're um appointing the person who received the highest number of votes in that current election. Um neither of these practices were codified at the time of establishment. Um so we it was really just a practice.

It was kind of one of those it's just the way we've always done it um kind of a situation. So in 2019 the council decided to actually formalize this process and put it in their rules of procedure. Um so if there was some direction from council tonight to make a change to that um what would happen is we would come back before you with a change to our council rules of procedure um to essentially codify any update that we um want to to see.

Um, this here is our current rule uh that talks about the selection of the vice mayor. This is what's included in the council rules of procedure. Um, I don't think I need to read this verbatim. We've really covered what that process is. Um, and so really tonight, as has been laid out, you know, what what does council want to do? Staff is prepared to bring forward um, you know, whatever it is that you decide.

One of the things that I wanted to just put out there is sometimes we hear a little bit about, you know, allowing the public to directly elect their vice mayor, which is not um permitted in Flagstaff just based on our code and our charter. So, um just wanted that to to kind of keep in mind and really that's all I had. So, again, um Council Member Spence really hit on most of those points. So, uh Council Sol Sterling. Thank you, Mayor, Mayor, and Council. And Stacy, I don't mind.

I don't know if you would mind putting it back up to the rule. I think one of the things that needs to be clear for everyone is that that language appointed vice mayor until the next general candidate election. That's why it's only a two-year um period of time that the vice mayor is in place because we have elections every two years, general election.

That said, um the there is likely a legal issue with potentially using the term vice mayor elect because it's not a vice mayor race at large, if you will. Not a vice mayor election at large. It is a mayoral election at large. So mayor elect is a proper term. Council member elect is a proper term. But until this council appoints the vice mayor, I don't know that vice mayor elect would be a a proper term. I I would like to look at that.

I'm just asking if that would be okay if if council wants to go that direction. I'd just like some time to look at that. Thanks. Uh Council Member Matthews. Thank you, Mayor. Um Council Member Spence, I know you mentioned that you waited several months for this to come up. I also put it on a fair um and it was I don't know, it felt like a year. I don't know if it was a year or not, but it it came up right before the election, so it made it more difficult.

Um and we had a robust discussion about it. Um and at the end of the day, um it was not it it just didn't seem to go anywhere. It was really a difficult conversation to have. Um I do want to comment on on Council Member Garcia's question about the roles of vice mayor. Um they seem to really I I'd like to see some uh more defined responsibility roles.

Um, I know Vice Mayor Suite is highly involved in uh different um events and she's there uh dependably to back up the mayor when the mayor has a conflict and um is there to just step in uh flawlessly. And I don't know if we have that defined, but um I I think where I was coming from a year or so ago was not only is some people that may be newly elected first time in office, it may be an issue. Um we don't always get a mayor dagot or a vice mayor suite.

Um, but I think that more importantly, it's really understanding if that if if Nick's election, that person who got the most votes understood the the um obligation and making sure they can commit to it um and and be the go to those events because, you know, for most of us, this is a full-time job. Um and but you know how much more can you know somebody go to all these events because we do have a lot. So I I don't know that I want to bring back the vice mayor how we select it.

It got really messy and there was some controversy on why it was changed to how we do it now. But it's it it we had just a really long long discussion about it not too long ago. But I think what I would like to entertain is defining that role um and responsibilities so that the elected person can know what they're agreeing to if that makes sense. Uh Sterling. Yeah.

Mayor and Council, I apologize for putting so many comments in the chat, but um the scope of this one is the selection of the vice mayor and getting into the duties and the role that the vice mayor plays. Um that's a different topic that others in the community may not have been aware that that would be discussed. So I I don't think it would be appropriate to go down that path tonight.

If there was a broader discussion that the council wanted to bring back on that later, it could be affair or the city manager could simply put it on uh for council to discuss. But the selection process uh and the selection of the vice mayor is totally within the realm of the scope of the agenda item. Let me throw something out. Um, what if rather than the highest vote getter, or maybe it could start with the highest vote getter, I don't know.

But what if it rotated to give everyone on the council an opportunity to be the person who fills in for me if I'm if I'm not available. So, think of that. Um, Council Member Garcia and then Council Member Alen. Okay. Thank you very much. And if this is straying too far off the topic, Sterling, please jump in because I'm pretty much talking to you when I'm asking this question. Um, I I remember uh a time I think it was 2014 or or something back there.

Were you back were you here back then, Sterling? Yes, as the deputy city attorney. I was not as the city attorney. Oh, cool. So, you might have remembered this. Um, the mayor at the time wanted to not give the top vote getter the seat. I remember it. Well, so my question is, did putting this into um into writing in 2019 kind of secure that from never happening again? It was very helpful. If I and if I could maybe just tag on to that the council defines and sets your rules of procedure.

So it it doesn't necessarily put it in place so it can never change again. It just really wrote down that the intention of the council was to do it this way understanding that you guys at any time could change your rules of procedure. So I just want to be clear that it's not set in stone. You guys have the ability to change it if you would like.

So, I I know that that that that's not what this part of this conversation is about, but I think that would be the in my opinion the most beneficial thing to have is so that we never see that again cuz that was a that was a scary and ugly situation. Council member Alen, thank you, Mayor. Um, so a couple points to add to this conversation.

Uh uh many of us uh as council member Matthews pointed out were involved in a similar discussion not too long ago uh and it was a lengthy discussion and we are starting to repeat on some of those points. I feel I need to repeat on another one of the points. Um, first of all, no one's mentioned what the role of the vice mayor is. And the only role that the vice mayor has is to replace the mayor in case the mayor is incapacitated or unable to fulfill their duties as mayor. That's it. That's it.

Um, otherwise, the mayor could ask anybody to take over for a meeting. Um, the mayor could ask anybody to go to a a ceremony for them uh to to to to cover uh if they're unable or going to be absent for a particular event or ceremony or something.

The role of the vice mayor is it's so that we have an avenue of direct knowledge of what's going to happen in the event of an incident and the vice mayor takes over as the mayor and we all move forward as a governing body with a clear set of conditions that we have already pre-aggreed to. Um I do not agree with making the vice mayorship a rotating uh situation. The vice mayor's only role is to take over as mayor if if required.

And the person who takes over as mayor should not be a round a random roundroin of one of six other people. It should reflect the will of the voters. And that's why I think it makes a lot of sense that the vice mayorship is at least somehow attached to the most number of votes in the previous election or uh the most recent election. I'll leave it at that for now. I appreciate this conversation. Thank you uh Dr. Spence for bringing this forward again.

Um clearly it's something that you know we're all still smarting from what happened in 1992 I think and the real what we're really grappling with is is how would you transition back to that uh in a way that's fair and the only answer I have for that based off of what happened before um is that we would we would all agree to appoint an interim vice mayor for the intervening two years. uh and that would mean someone coming in wouldn't get the opportunity to do that right away.

Um but they would after 2 years. Uh so I'm I'm still open to that concept. Uh but I I do think that the incoming vice mayor right after this decision is set um should be uh an interim choice that's not uh that's not a part of the the the pattern moving forward. I hope that makes sense. Uh looking forward to the rest of the conversation. Sterling, did you want to make a comment about the vote getter? it just that it's it's there in the rules until the next mayoral election.

It's right now it's two years. Um as council member Alen indicated that there would be a situation where it would it would make for a difficult transition. That said, that's up to council. Uh the only other comment I did want to make was uh back to the procedural side of affair. Uh it takes four council members tonight to give direction to bring something back, to take potential action, uh not just three. That's because it takes a majority of counsel.

Your rules of procedure allow for a non-majority to move affair forward for this discussion. But once uh you know potential action is asked for or requested for the future, it takes a majority. Council member Spence, I agree with um Council Member Alen's uh assessment of the role the uh the core role of the vice mayor is to become the mayor in the event of incapacity or death of the elected mayor. And it and that is precisely the reason that I am promoting this two-year training period.

If we don't call it the vice mayor elect, we can call it the vice mayor trainee. We can come up with any number of of terms for it. But essentially at its core, it's a period of of learning.

a a a newly elected highest vote getting council member in a in a general election has a two-year settling in period, a two-year training u a two-year internship if you want to use a term like that to, as I said earlier, become familiar with the the customs, the rules, uh the procedures of city government, the council and city government and I I have a hard I mean I apologize to previous council members who sat through hours of discussion before but the issue before us is do we want to have as our vice mayor somebody who's coming in green off the streets who ran a successful campaign and got the most votes but doesn't know squat about city government.

This proposal that I'm trying to put forward is to go back to the time before when a newly elected council member has a a settling in period for two years before becoming the vice mayor.

And the specific issue is what kind of experience would a vice mayor bring to the mayor's duties by having this 2-year breakin period versus coming off the street and becoming the vice mayor and then, god forbid, the mayor is incapacitated and two weeks later this newly elected, inexperienced council member is our mayor. Stacy, what would be the length of time? Um, because there would need to be an election held, right, if it was a certain amount of time after the mayor died or whatever.

Oh, you're putting me on the spot. Yeah, I mean, it would it kind of depends on the timing at which that would happen. Um, and and how that would play into the next election cycle. Um, Sterling might better know. I'm sure he's in the same boat I am, but sometimes what will happen is council can appoint essentially a a mayor to fill that spot until the next election. It's just something I would have to dig into on specifics. Thankfully, that has never been um an issue in my time here.

It does move into an appointment type situation depending on the timing. So, it wouldn't necessarily be the vice mayor. Not necessarily, but depending on the timing. So, Council Member Alen.

Yeah, just to respond to uh Council Member Spence's point, I do understand where that's coming from and I I think it's part of the reason why originally um last cycle it seemed to make sense to me that someone with a slightly more seasoning uh and an understanding maybe not so much of the policy, but at least of the culture um if they were to become mayor uh would have something more to go on and could hit the ground running a little bit better.

But a counterpoint to that is that there's there's nothing stopping us anyone from running for mayor, from winning the mayor's seat who hasn't never had any experience whatsoever themselves. And they uh enjoy the privilege of um getting to sit down in that seat with the gavl having had no experience and and bringing only what they know to the role.

So that's already a scenario that's very well built into um the system as it is and it's the system that we we've we all play by uh since the since the uh invention of the uh Arizona city charter.

Um, so there's that point and another, you know, I have thought about this a bit over the years and there's one other thing that wasn't mentioned before um that I find uh to be that could be relevant um in certain situations and that is uh if uh if someone's running for reelection um they if they're serving as vice mayor on the on the on the tail end of their service, the last two years of their service, they get an inherent little bump in advantage um during their next election campaign as running for office as vice mayor where other candidates uh and other um uh currently serving uh incumbents don't get that uh that notation uh to use during their campaign.

Um just something to keep in mind. I don't know, you know, I'm not going to suggest how people fall on that, but in general, um, it seems to me that it provides a slight advantage to one candidate over others. Um, and that's a scenario that we don't we don't have to deal with right now. Anyone any incumbent running for another term uh is is just a a council member Sterling.

So yeah, just a clarification on that vacancy in the office of mayor for whatever reason um death or illness or or anything along those lines, council appoints somebody to to take the mayor's place. Um so that's uh for that the remainder of the mayor's term. Um if it's within they have to do that within 31 days. So it is not necessarily the vice mayor. Thanks. Um, Council Member Garcia, and then I think I think I see where we're going.

I I I'm feeling that we are not wanting to move this forward to another agenda and see whether there's a better um selection process for um Vice Mayor. Please let me know if that is not actually what people are thinking, but Council Member Garcia. Well, thank you for that, Madame Mayor. That actually fits into to my riff here. Um, so I do appreciate you bringing this forward, Council Member Spence, and I would like to offer a solution.

If the direction that we want to go in is to follow your lead and um have that two-year grace period to fulfill that seat for two years, I would recommend that we have you do it since you're the one who brought this forward. So you could be the council member for those two years. Um and then I mean because we that would be the next question would be how do we fill that gap?

So that would be my suggestion is to have you be that just to get us beyond that point since you brought this forward um and and we can go from there. But if that's not the will of the the the um the body then um I'll stick with the will of the body and and just leave it as it is. Do we have four members of council who want to move this forward and figure out a new way to select a vice mayor? We have council member Spence. Okay. Thank you, Council Member Spence. All right.

Next up is a fair that I I suggested some time ago for the right sizing of our fleet. And what I was thinking when I suggested this was, you know, we have this goal of of electric vehicles, but as far as I understand the current process, there's no real um I don't want to say oversight, that's too strong of a word, but um we don't have a method for determining whether a vehicle outside of that division vision.

There's no um there's there's no looking at the vehicles that are purchased to make sure that they are the size and that you know do you need an F-150 or would a Ford Ranger do? I guess that's what I'm what I'm getting at here. So, please Jen. Perfect. Well, I have about four hours of discussion. Just kidding. Just kidding. Uh, no. So, thank you for having me here.

I know that it has taken a little bit of of time to get this here, but we've had some uh planning that's been taken place as far as a policy and a direct it's actually a directive and that included folks from fleet, folks from sustainability, folks from procurement, uh, city manager's office. So, with that, that's why it took some time because we wanted to present this to you because I think this will help to answer some of the questions.

Um, but before I really jump in, I wanted to share a little bit about my background. Um, my background is that I've spent over 25 years in fleet, not to mention the times that I've spent with my two older brothers underneath a vehicle or pumping the brakes. So, um, vehicles are kind of a little bit of my passion. Um, so I've served on the Ford Police Advisory Board for over eight years.

I've also spoke at uh multiple conferences around the country about fleet and um how we can always improve our fleet. I've also um been in the industry from gasling crown vix to our EV revolution that we're in now. I've learned that change only sticks when it's thoughtful and not rushed. Um that's exactly what we're approaching we're approaching with this in Flagstaff. Uh the city fleet isn't just about collection of trucks and sedans.

It's a lifeline for public safety, parks streets um, and keeping the city moving every day. So, my goal today is to show you how we're aligning our fleet with the city's carbon neutrality plan. We're keeping our services, um, reliable and our people safe. All right. So, uh, this is actually one of our EVs, uh, Chevy Silverado EVs that the mayor has actually been able to drive and get used to. And uh I think I might not have gotten it back.

Actually, I was a little worried that I wasn't going to get this vehicle back. Um so really the purpose of today is is relatively simple. It's about talking about how we're going to support the carbon neutrality plan while at the same time right sizing our fleet. Um we know that sustainability is part of the city's direction, but in fleet that also means that we need to make real operational sense out of it.

It's about doing what's right um for our environment, but also doing what's right for our city. So progress comes from a doesn't come from a single policy or purchase. It's a combination of smart data, teamwork, and steady steps. Um our new policy helps to standardize decision making for replacements, um purchasing across the departments, and allows for a way for us to ask difficult questions just like you were talking about. So, is it really do we really need an F-150?

Do we really need a sedan? Um, it's working with other departments and having those tough conversations of, you know, before about 10 years ago, it was let's replace like for like. Um, so I have an F350, which is a really big truck, and I'm driving 10 miles, and keeping it on idle for two hours of that. So, now what we're doing is we're focusing on asking those tough questions of can an EV work for this? do you really need to have this?

Um, so it's really interesting how it's been evolving, right? We're starting to think a little bit more out of the box and asking those tough questions with the entire um, divisions that do need a vehicle. All right, so this one is a fun this one is a fun one. Um, so this is a fleet. This is our fleet at a glance. So this is the city of Flagstaff fleet. In total, we have roughly approximately 769 pieces of equipment fleet.

And so what you want to think about is anything that has an engine, has wheels, that's rolling, that pretty much um our fleet management is going to be taken care of. Now, I also broke it down to a light duty class of 255. So what does that mean? Right? So 255 I think it's really important for us to understand is those vehicles basically sedans and trucks are the ones that we can really get our hands on for electric vehicles.

So, those are the ones that we're going to talk about and say we're going to question a little bit more, right? Um, I can go and ask for a greater. So, one of the big tractors that are out, I'm not going to be able to get an electric grater right now. So, it doesn't make sense for me to pose that question to sustainability, to public works, um, and harass them and say, "Hey, I know you can get an electric grater." There isn't that, right? Um, so this is how I broke it down.

uh the electric vehicles, plug-in, hybrid, and the hybrid vehicles. We have in our fleet right now, we have 31 vehicles that amounts up to 12.2%. That 12 2% is only including 255. So, because the other I believe it's like 45, I can't include those because either I can't get them or they don't make sense right now. Um and then the next level here is the all electric. So this is completely electric vehicle. We have 23 vehicles currently in our in our fleet which is 9%.

Um also we have ebikes and e- scooters which I'm proud to say that public works has one ebike and two scooters. Um but this is really important because it shows that we're right if you look at the industry standards and where everybody's going we're right we're actually above the curve. all the conferences that Nate and I have attended. Um, we've had these conversations.

We just went to a conference two months, maybe about a month ago, and we went to California and it was specific on electric vehicles. When we're talking to agencies in California and Nevada, Colorado, they ask us how many vehicles we have, and we're like, "Oh, we've got 23 all full electric." And they are astounded because we're ahead of the game, right? They're like, "Oh, we've only got five." I'm like, you're in California. How many do you have?

Well, we have them on order, but we're still word working on it, right? So, um I'm really proud of where we've gotten and where we're at as far as our electric vehicles. Um because I say that we have 23 electric vehicles, that also means some of my worry is infrastructure, right? So, do we have enough infrastructure to make sure that we're fueling these vehicles? We currently have working in working closely with sustainability. We have 55 charging points in city of Flagstaff.

Um that's level two and level two. We do not have any fast chargers, but uh we're working on it. All right. Um so when we talk about right sizing, it's not about cutting the fleet, it's about balance. So every vehicle should have a clear purpose and be the right fit for the job. We have been taking a hard look at what's in our fleet, how it's being used, and whether or not the piece of equipment still meets our needs.

So, sometimes that means sharing resources, and every division has its own vehicle. Sometimes not every division needs their own vehicle. Sometimes we can ask them these questions and say, "Hey, do you really need that truck?" Because we've noticed in our underutilized report that it's been it's had less than 5,000 miles. What can we do with that? Um, so that's a report that Nate, the fleet manager, works on and we, me and him both in the directive, we both work on it.

That's where we come in and have to have those tough discussions with the divisions and say, "Hey, do you really need that?" And then they're like, "No, I drive it every day." So then I pull it up to them and say, "Well, you've only driven 3,000 miles." There's special occasions, though, right? because you have the police department who drives um I'm thinking of old words. Patty wagon um but uh I don't know the correct word.

That's all that's in my head is but they drive from the police department to city court. That's about five miles and they only drive it twice twice a week, right? So there's going to be those special circumstances that you have to have one of those vehicles but they're not putting that many miles on it. But then you'll have another instance where another division is driving a vehicle and they've only got um the 4,000 miles and we're asking them those questions.

Well, why do you only have 4,000 mi? That doesn't mean that I'm going to ask you to go and try to drive it to beat the 5,000. That is not what we're asking. We're making sure that you're using the vehicle for the right purposes. If you're only driving 4,000 miles, can you possibly share it with another division? are your high times. There's some c some divisions that they need to use it during the summertime for special purposes because of the weather. That's their season, right?

Is summertime um well, if you're using in the summertime, can you purpose that re can you share it with another division? So now you're having one vehicle not sit in a parking lot all winter long. We can share it with another division. So again, it's thinking out of the box and being creative. Um, and then also just a special note of interest is I think it's really important that you know how many vehicles we replace every year.

We replace anywhere between 30 to 45 vehicles depending on the funding for that fiscal year. Also depending on what the police department needs, what the fire department needs. Sometimes the fire department will come up and say, "Hey, we need to replace an engine." Well, that's almost a million dollars. It is a million dollars. That takes away all of the funding for the general fund fleet, right?

So in this directive, we're working with the fire department, with the police department to say, "Hey, can you let us know when you're going to have a big purchase 3 to four years in advance so that we can start saving?" And it doesn't take the entire general fund. So then it takes away from public works, it takes away from pros. Um, so we're trying to plan a little bit more and get strategic on that.

Um, also a good note is uh with the EVs that we've purchased, we have saved we've gotten a tax credit of $41,000. Um, just the last one that we got in the nick of time before it ended September, I did some really cool magic. Um, and we were able to get one more Chevy Trailblazer electric vehicle for the city manager's office. So, but it's a really good win, right? We're getting we we use that. that we worked with sustainability to make sure that we're getting those tax credits back. All right.

So, right sizing, it isn't about shrinking our our fleet. It's about making sure that every vehicle has purpose and that we're using resources wisely as the city grows. So, this is about putting the right tool in the right hands. for example, um maybe a smaller kind of what you were saying, maybe a smaller hybrid SUV will work um to do the same thing as a halfton pickup truck. Instead of every division owning underutilized vehicles, we're creating shared um shared pools.

It saves money, reduces idle time, and keeps vehicles in use um instead of being parked. We're also following the EV first approach. Um so one of the things is is we need to ask those questions. Uh EV first approach is will an EV work for you? We have been really presently surprised that we haven't had very many people come to us and say absolutely not. We are not going to do this. We have not had that with the city.

It's it's been surprisingly awesome because we're providing them with the tools that they need. We're also providing them with the education. It's about learning how to drive an EV. It's about planning. So, if they're going to go to Phoenix, they can use one of our pool vehicles, uh, which we just got this really cool, snazzy um Chrysler van that is also a plug-in hybrid.

So, it's both, but they can come and use it if they have an EV and they're worried about not making it all the way down to Phoenix. We have uh, two, three really good uh, pool vehicles that people will be able to use. And it's also providing them education, sitting down with them and saying, "Hey, this is what you need to do. This is how you charge your vehicle." And um like I said, we've got all these vehicles and we've had really good success with it. All right.

So, uh we're tightening up the process and bringing more structure to fleet decisions. The fleet management committee reviews all vehicle requests. So everything that is transparent and consistent across the divisions. So the fleet advisory nope that's a different one. So I have facilities advisory committee and then I have the fleet management committee. So FMC is what it's called. Uh we get together every month and we go over and discuss the the fleet request.

Uh for the budget year what we do is request we we have the divisions send us their request. Uh we actually did it last month I believe and we have them tell us what they would like. What are they going to replace? Is there going to be any new additions and then we go through together collectively to talk about them. We also work with sustainability very closely. So part of this fleet directive that we have is the sustainability group needs to approve the purchase or the request of it.

So they will say, "Okay, we're going to um actually here's a perfect example because um Ed Shank was just here. We just discussed this with him about two weeks ago because they added those new positions. With those new positions, we needed to add a vehicle for them. So Ed brought up his he completed the form. The fleet committee approved the purchase because for one, it was an addition additional employee and then the budget committee also approved it. So, these were approved fundings.

So, then we talk to them and say, "Okay, exactly what what are you going to need to be able to to do your job correctly and they go up to the basin. So, they're going to need some clearance. They're going to need, you know, they don't go to the basin very often, but when they do, we need to make sure that they can go up there safely and I'm not going to have to contact Nate to go get the tow truck to bring them down the hill." So, it was a really good conversation, right?

It was myself, it was uh Nate and uh Da and Ed Shank and then Lee Williams as well. So we had this conversation. Ed had a idea of what he wanted. He wanted a truck that was all ICE, so internal combustion engine. And D asked the great questions, well why do you need that? You know, is there another vehicle that you could have? Chevy Silverado won't work because it does not have enough clearance. Ed did all of his um homework and said, "Well, this is the type of clearance I need.

I need at least six or seven inches. I don't remember exactly. Um and so he came up with the Ford Ranger. Okay. Well, it's still ice. Do you really need that?" Uh well, you know, and Nate did his he did his um homework as well and said, "Well, well, I don't think that will work because you're only gaining an inch. It's not going to be much, right?" So end result is we went with a 4xe which water services already has. So it's a Jeep electric version.

Um so it will be able to have all of the stuff that they need, all of the specs. Um and then you know one of the questions is I don't have enough infrastructure. Guess what? We can help you. I happen to work in facilities as well. Um, so it's about finding solutions really and having these conversations. And what's really been great is that people are willing to listen. People are willing to budge a little bit. And then sometimes you can't budge, right?

Sometimes an electric vehicle for a special a special instance isn't going to work. Um, so what have we done with that? Uh, so public works is a perfect example for streets. Sometimes they're going to be out on the road all the time. If you have a major incident, you have flooding and you're going to have that vehicle out 24 hours, how about instead of getting a full Ford F-150, let's get a hybrid.

So, it just goes down the line where we're still helping to protect um the carbon neutrality plan, yet we're still making sure that the streets department can go out and perform their job duties. All right. Right. This is uh one of my favorite slides actually. So um so we are looking at on the carbon neutrality plan. It sets a target for 30% of all vehicle miles traveled by city operations are from zero emission vehicles um by 2030. So we're making steady progress towards that.

We're intentional about it. We're intentional about electrifying our fleet and what we evaluate for each need of the divisions. We also ask whether an EV or hybrid can handle this workload. Um we're not chasing numbers. We're building a fleet that performs to the community while meeting the city's environmental goals. So we have this clear uh citywide target by 2030 and we want to get to the 30% of all the city miles driven to come from zero emission vehicles.

Obviously, that's very ambitious, but I really think that we can do it at the route that we're going. We just have to continue to be persistent, but we also have to be willing to acknowledge that sometimes the electric vehicle model is not always going to work. My goal is still to make sure that the city can operate and that we're growing with the city. Um, at the same time, we're also working on building out our infrastructure. I think that's really important.

I feel that we are also getting really close to our infrastructure capacity. So what does that mean? That means that I need to continue to work with sustainability and hope that DA can find me some money so that we can build out some more charging points. Right? DA has been really helpful in getting grants. Um we've got all the charge points, but we're getting to the point where we're going to start needing some more infrastructure.

One of the things I have my eyes set on is getting some infrastructure in Willlet Park, but uh also at the police department. We have a really cool um thing that I hope I can bring to you guys soon with the police department, but can't quite tell you. So, um but there's, you know, but I need to make sure that we're having the infrastructure set.

I don't want to get ahead of of everything and I I meet and buy a whole bunch more electric vehicles yet I have a whole bunch of electric vehicles sitting in the parking lot not are waiting to be charging right so I need to make sure that we're we're we're balancing it out right um so our fleet future I've already kind of spoke to this a little it, but we need to continue to identify any of the electrifi electrifiable vehicle classes.

So again, my purpose is to continue to stay with the light duty class and try to get as many of those as I can before I start hitting up the heavy duty class. The reason I say that is because the heavy duty class is not ready yet. Um we're not ready. Uh we're going to need some of the um fast chargers. They're really expensive and we also need to make sure that APS can meet those units. You know, we can be able to get and pull all of that.

I don't want to make the city dark because I got and that's just me joking around. So, um but uh again, like I said, we have 55 total chargers and then we're going to continue to um look at our utilization reports and right sizing with the reviews with FMC. And that is all I have for you guys. Any questions? Excellent. Thank you. Uh, Council Member Matthews. Thank you, Mayor. Um, Nate, how many times do you go down and tow people that don't make it up the hill?

So, we actually don't have a tow truck, but we will go on a service call. Um, I've been on I think for a a vehicle or a motor issue up to the inter basin probably three times in my career in 16 years. So, not common. Um, what about coming up the grade? You I hear that sometimes, especially if somebody's using an EV vehicle and they're not used to it, they don't charge it and they run out of juice.

I'm actually pretty happy to tell you we've never had somebody call and say they've been out of juice on an EV for a City of Flagstaff piece of equipment. Um, and I think that speaks a lot to our outreach with programs and education on the EV. Um, making sure that people are planning routes and choosing the correct vehicles. Um, we haven't had that happen with the city of Flagstaff fleet. Maybe they're calling somebody else. Um, so then that was all for you, Nate. Thanks. Um, thank you.

Um, so you talked about some vehicles don't are not utilized a lot and you have that 5,000 milei kind of benchmark. So, um, it made me wonder um because I know EV vehicles are more expensive than um, fuel gas fueled vehicles. If they weren't, I would have one now.

Um, so you know, I'm I'm wondering if it's such low usage, like is there any calculation to are we just going after just saying we can all have all EV vehicles or are we saying look, you know, this division, they only put 2500 miles on a car, it's not worth the extra $40,000 or 20,000, whatever it is. Is Is there any thought to that or No, there is.

Um so it's it's all based around funding as well right so um we have a limited amount of money that we need to make sure that typically you know the 30 vehicles how do we do this um for the last two years three years we had an electric vehicle fund um which helped to offset so one of the biggest things was with the Chevy Silverados it was $80,000 um we allocated 60,000 to be taken out from from the general fund and then the remaining would be taken out of that electric vehicle fund.

That electric vehicle fund is now zero. We have no more in that fund. Um but as far as deciding what's best, I think that it's really important that we evaluate what their need is. Um if they're going to only need it for 500 or a,000 miles, come talk to us. We can see if we can find you a shared vehicle. we can see if you can use the pulled vehicle. Um it's about really evaluating what's out there.

Um and not just buying a vehicle because you want one because the division thinks that they need one. Um again, those are the tough discuss discussions that we have to have and it's not very fun. Um because I understand their importance. I it's a priority for them, right? I have lots of priorities, but sometimes I get told no a lot. Um but it's about making sure that we provide solutions for them as well. Thank you.

And and I just wanted to say I'm glad to hear that also you put into the consideration capacity. You know, what our charging stations are, how many we have, what the need is, what APS's ability to meet the demands and stuff because I know that's been a topic of conversation just on a more statewide level. So, um I'm glad to to hear that you have all these checks and balances and are just not going out there blindly just filling a quota. So, thank you for for that. You bet.

And also just as a side note, when I worked for the county, I towed three vehicles back. So, Council Member House, thank you, mayor, and thank you team for the presentation. I wanted to go back to just the one slide back um where you mentioned um the future plans to expand the EV charging infrastructure. Can you talk a little bit more about the timeline that you have for that expansion? I wish I could. Um, really it comes down to funding.

I think that we did a really good job and I'm going to give kudos to sustainability and to DA for um getting the charge point uh program out there. So that charge point program happened about four or five years ago and we were able to get a lot of these chargers out there. So right now what we're doing is we're planning on figuring out where where do we need those chargers. So some of these chargers we just do a standard plugin and it's just you just plug it in. There's no electronics.

There's no data that's coming from it. For me that's not good, right? Because I want to be able to see how much data we're use or how much electricity we're using. However, it allows us so at the Cookanino facility which is just a block here, we just have a standard plugin for your vehicle. So, um, Reggie, where does Reggie work? Code enforcement. Um, he's just able to plug it in, but for me, I'm not able to see exactly how much data he's using, how much electricity is coming out.

Um, our plan is to continue to work with sustainability, see if there's any grants available, and then our biggest goal right now is sustainability actually has a little EV fund charge account um that they're kind of saving up for one of those big ones. Um, so we're looking to get a fast charger and then we need to continue having those conversations with facilities, with the other divisions to see, hey, is it okay we can put a charger out there?

Um, if it is, then we need to plan for that in the budget and request for that funding in the budget. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mayor. Council member Garcia. Thank you, Mayor, for bringing up this discussion. This is quite impactful and such a great presentation by the team. Almost leaves us with no questions to ask. That's good. I was searching, man. I was searching. And um and then um I want kind of wanted to expand on on um Council Member Matthews point.

What I was what I was hearing there was electric versus gas powered vehicles. So I was wondering if there's any um studies on cost upfront over cost over a lifetime. The difference between the two. I just think of like oil changes to start off with. I mean, but it goes way deeper than that. Do you have any information on that? I don't have information on it. I can give you kind of a glance of um the savings.

You can't you will save you will save some money because uh when I was driving the Silverado, I went in to take it for preventative maintenance and I'm like, hm, what am I going to do here? You know, so any regular preventive maintenance, it's going to be you're going to check the tires, you're going to check for fluids, you're going to check all the belts.

And when I went to take it to the shop and I said, "Nate, help me out here." and we did some studying and said, "What's what's the best practice for a PM on an electric vehicle?" Well, there wasn't much. It was to make sure the tires are good, to make sure that so that the windshield washer fluid is topped off, do a walk around the vehicle. That's about it, right? Um but but my concerns are is what's going to help happen in 10 years.

And I see my partner in crime here popping in because I know she's done that research. So, I will let her take on Greetings, mayor, vice mayor, and council. Um, love this discussion, my favorite topic. And kudos to Jen and Nate for all the hard work they do. Um, they're really amazing to work with on uh incorporating our climate goals into our fleet and operations goals.

Um, I did want to just touch base that uh or remind the council that the city of Flagstaff was the first to work with APS through the fleet electrification assessment and that looked at that total cost of ownership. And I can send that um that those findings out again. But the quick highlight is that the total cost of ownership if we were able to like snap our fingers and transition um all of our EV feasible vehicles to EVs today came out to an estimated $11 million over a 25y year period.

And so there are significant cost savings primarily from the the fuel costs are about a third the cost of gas. Um, and then those maintenance, as Jen is mentioning, there's there's just a lot less parts. Uh, there's about 200 parts in an EV compared to 2,000 parts in an internal combustion engine. And so there's a little bit simpler design. Uh, and they're a more efficient technology.

Uh, and so we we get to see those benefits not just on the emission side, but also on those cost savings for fuel and maintenance. And thank you for that question. Yeah, I appreciate the prediction and the, you know, all the work that it takes to assume those type of things. And I'm really looking forward to the actuals, you know, in in our fleet and what those numbers are. And I know you guys are keeping as much tabs as you can on that. And I think that'll be useful for future conversations.

I'm talking a decade out. But it basically just goes back to you can't talk about vehicle fleet without talking about vehicle maintenance. So on that behalf, it makes me wonder, you know, how many uh how many of our maintenance technicians are electric certified?

And we don't need to you don't need to necessarily answer that question because it uh makes me also think about when I think about vehicle maintenance about how many vehicles are currently being held on by held together by the maintenance team because we can't afford to replace all of them. And again, we don't have to answer that question now either unless you want to go there. But I think that you can't, like I said, you can't talk about vehicle fleet without talking about the maintenance.

Mayor and Council Member Garcia, I love that question. Um, actually, it was in part of my presentation in my notes that I was supposed to talk to you about. Um, we currently do not have any technicians that are certified for electric vehicles. Um, it is a whole different type of beast. Um, another one thing that keeps me up at night is to try to figure out how are we going to keep those vehicles safe, right?

So, um there's policy going to be need to be in place for our fleet if we have an electric vehicle that is down and needs to be serviced and there's going to there's going to be some things right that um we need to make sure that we're take keeping tabs on um but I can't have that vehicle be in the bay while we go home at night um because I don't know if if a fire happens um we lose the entire fleet shop and that fleet shop is probably one of the nicest shops in the state.

Um, so, so those are things that Nate and I are starting to work on and trying to get some training for our technicians. Um, they they have training in they're ASSE certified. They they've gone to the schoolings, you know, but they know how to work on regular ICE vehicles. Um, so that's stuff that we have to work on, too. It's really important with the maintenance. And you're exactly right. Where are we going to be at in 10 years? What's going to happen with those batteries?

Um, we need to make sure that we can still continue to maintain those vehicles. Thank you, Council Member Alen. Thank you. Uh, this is a great discussion. I think it's one that uh, well, we're having it on occasion and I think it's definitely one we need to continue to revisit with frequency. Madame Mayor, I uh appreciate you bringing this up as a fair and uh was very much in support of moving the conversation forward.

I am very curious to learn from you uh more about what your thinking was in bringing this up and uh to hear your advocacy behind it. Before you do that though, I'll have my um say on this. Um, you know, I I just I want to start out uh by saying that, you know, I understand there's a lot of practical considerations that are um uh on on Fleet's mind about uh this this mandate, this prerogative that that council has has given down.

Um, and Jen, I think you're doing a great job of uh, you know, taking the first steps towards that transition. And it seems like you're the perfect person to have out there thinking through all these things. And I want to la and appreciate uh, the enthusiasm that I am hearing um, and the adherence to council's directive. Um, I I I think we are making good steps.

Uh, I'm going to pivot now though and I'm going to talk I'm going to push back a little bit and I'm going to talk about how when I look at this presentation, what I hear a little bit is uh some alarm bells going off. Um, this this this presentation feels on the defensive side to me. Um, it, you know, we're talking about the things that keep us up at night instead of uh the attitude of how do we get to yes. And I just want to make sure to keep the foot on the accelerator here.

Uh notice I didn't say gas. I said accelerator. Um I want I want fleet to know and I want our divisions to know and I want our uh leadership and city manager to know that we really do want a electrified fleet. Um here's a couple things. Uh our community has come to us with petitions in the past asking for us to electrify the fleet.

I think uh Mayor Daget's um fair item is sort of it's already a a nice um compromise to that because we know and and I I can see by this presentation and I know from the conversations I have with folks around the city that a full you know blind electrification effort doesn't make sense and how do you turn that into a policy directive? Um uh but I see what what the mayor's coming up with here, and I don't mean to put words in your mouth, mayor.

This is really just my my take on it, is that this is a nice uh uh uh step down from that, um you know, that prescriptive approach. Um and this is just an opportunity for us to to to to recommit ourselves to a stronger electrified fleet. Um, we we I I I I don't think those numbers are high enough. Uh, 23% of vehicles or to 12%. Um, if you could go back to the slide and and help remind me of what those numbers actually are.

I'm uh I'm I'm of the opinion that we need to be much further along than than that. Uh, and you know, when we talk about cost and stuff, I'm glad to hear that that over the long term, as with so many things with electrification and uh, carbon neutrality, you end up saving money handover fist in the long run. Um, I'm very disappointed to hear that we don't have anyone on staff uh, a certified uh, EV um, mechanic or technician. Uh, we should be well past that by now. We really should be.

uh council after council after council has mandated and pushed and given a directive for fleet electrification and this is very much backed up from a groundup effort from the community that has made it very clear they'd like to see more city vehicles electrified out there and I don't want to see uh excuses or um you know nightmare scenarios uh and and spending lots of time talking about what are the reasons why this can't work.

I understand that we are in a reality and that we have to uh be grounded, but I'm in a position to move the conversation forward. And uh I just have to use my time here um to make sure that I'm extremely clear that my intention is that we go full throttle on this. Um, I'm disappointed with the number of times we call things out of consent and have conversations around why we couldn't have an electric vehicle.

I think most of the time those conversations end up making sense and again I do have a practical side and I I just want to, you know, uh, uh, um, articulate that balance there. But I I want to see less conversations like that. I want to see more effort going on in the background and behind the scenes to get to yes before these things even come to council. And uh that's just my enthusiastic um avid opinion on this.

And again, I'm one of seven, but I've also been one of seven for three or four councils now. And this mandate has not changed and I'm hoping to hear from others on council who agree with that. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Thank you. Um, just real quick, I wanted to thank you, mayor, for bringing this forward. I think it's a good conversation to have, I know that, um, I when we talk about our fleet and the audience often is asking us these questions.

So, I'm glad we have it all in one place and I just wanted to thank you for for your work on it. Um, I do agree, you know, we want to keep moving this forward. We've heard loud and clear from the community. Um, and I know you're being realistic in giving us kind of where the bumps are in the road, and I know you know where we want to move with it, and I just appreciate all of your hard work. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah.

And as I said in the beginning, my reason for bringing this forward was more to make sure that there's some rigor in the process in terms of when someone requests a vehicle. um that it's not just if someone says they need a I used an F-150 or whatever um that there is some analysis as to whether that is indeed the vehicle that they need to have. Um, so I was thinking more just in terms of buying the vehicle that we need for the job and that there are other eyes looking at it.

So, I'm very appreciative of this um of the presentation and and knowing all the different sets of eyes, I guess, that are on it and all the analysis that goes into to purchasing um the vehicle. As for the electric, um I mean I I think you're I mean you're in a interesting place, right? Because we have all of these needs that are not just simply it's not like we just need vehicles for driving down to Phoenix and coming back, right?

we need vehicles for um heavy duty stuff, fire trucks and everything. And so I completely understand those constraints about switching to electric. Um and I also understand the constraints of getting the electric vehicles.

And so if there are some creative and I I know that you're already exploring all the creative solutions, but I just encourage you to um you know if there are pools that we can get together with or if we can um as you said with the fire truck know a couple of years ahead of time if we can do that so that we can put in orders for electric vehicles down the line.

And um so so this has um this has satisfied me in terms of what I was looking for in the fair and that's just that that I wanted to see that we had a policy and that um and that there were various people and and departments looking at the purchases. is. And you're right, I did love that that vehicle. That was I do know that was fun to drive. Yes, it is very fun.

The the electric vehicles are very fun and um you know something that that we are continuously looking at solutions and the directive is is a huge step forward, right? because it provides us with a procedure um and it's it's clear for all the divisions. This is what we're following. This is how we do it and it has to go through um all the other divisions, all the other divisions that are on this fleet committee.

We go through all of the requests and we make sure that it's ready to be replaced, that it has met its life. Um and it's time to to think outside the box, right? So, uh, facilities is a great example. We have three electric vehicles and at first, you know, I got here, um, I returned back to the city about two and a half years ago and that's where it started and they were a little nervous, but all it takes is getting out there. It's my commitment to make sure that we continue to move forward.

Um, we now have three electric vehicles in facilities and it works flawlessly, right? because they don't take their vehicles home. They can charge it and they don't have to charge it for the entire week because they're driving in the city of Flagstaff. They're driving to every single facility. At the end of the shift, they plug it in at public works. Um, so you have my commitment that we're going to continue working towards this goal. Thank you very much.

Uh, I don't see any additional comments or questions. Oh, Council Member Garcia made the little like little I think little comment really quick. U since we're talking about right sizing vehicles and we're talking about um cars and trucks mainly, I just wanted to make a quick little shout out. I know he's not the only one at the city of Flagstaff doing this, but every time I turn around, I see our director of water services, Lee Williams, on a bike.

So, that's his preferred method of uh moving around the city, and it's uh not even a car or a truck. So, shout out to Lee. Thank you, Jen. Thank you. All right. Open call to the public. There is nothing here. And um soformational items two from mayor, council, and staff and future agenda item requests. Let's start with council member Spence. Um nothing tonight. Council member House. Nothing tonight. Thank you, mayor. Vice Mayor, tomorrow we are, or I guess the NEU band will be at Buffalo Park.

We're doing a sendoff. And if you're watching the Thanksgiving Day parade, look for the mayor and I. We will be there um rooting or cheering them along. And um as an alumni, I'm just very excited for this once in a-lifetime opportunity. Thanks, Council member Alen. I'm good, Mayor. Thank you. Council member Garcia. Thank you, Madame Mayor. I just wanted to give an update on um my participation in civic craft, which is uh it's a program with the League of Cities of Arizona.

Uh we're in our fourth session was down in Tucson this last week and I thought it was befitting of um the cander and conversation that we had on the dis tonight. Um, our topic was leading with respect, trust, and civility in public discourse, which this council has seemed to master, and that's why I'm so proud to be a part of it.

Um, civic craft will uh is um is for local leaders across the state and is an excellent opportunity to make those connections with people that are in your same seat, but in a different city. We can and it it's amazing how many similarities that we actually have. The good news is you'll be able to meet all 50 of those characters come springtime because while we traveled to Tucson here in the fall, they will be traveling up to Northern Arizona here in the spring. Thank you.

Thanks for taking the time to do that. I know that that's that's a lot of time out of your schedule and that's great for the whole city that you're doing it. Council member Matthews. Thank you, Mayor. Um the last couple of days I've been cooking to help um a nonprofit that's feeding um the clients over at the shelter services some turkey dinner for tomorrow. I'll be up till midnight finishing up tonight. Hopefully my husband is not burning the last turkey.

Um um we just got notification and I remembered we discussed it last week at um CJCC, but just to let the community know that the justice bus will be in um loop chapter house next or on Thursday, December 11th. And what the justice bus does is they can expune warrants. Um and Paige Cookanino Flag um Williams, and every every other city in uh county court is there to process the paperwork. They also expunge marijuana charges because uh possessions of marijuana are not illegal anymore.

So if you have those pending, they can remove those for you as well as access eligibility and other things. Um also um you know we've had all of us have received a lot of emails and we've had a lot of discussions with community members, different stakeholders on the noise. Um well right now it's the party or ordinance that we were hoping would kind of just work itself out. Um boy, that was just a really robust discussion a year or so ago. Um and we had a lot of community input.

There's a lot of um emotional opinions about it. Um and I've listened to um all the different perspectives and stuff. So it pains me a little bit um to say this, but I'd like to request that we actually um revisit the noise ordinance. Um and and tonight kind of nailed, you know, put the nail in the coffin that uh citizens are taking their own action to they think that they need to um do it on their own and that can get really dangerous.

So um I'd like to request I don't know if it be a fair item or just request it. Um does that need to be a fair item? Sterling, I I think just put that on. It was um mayor councel council member Matthews it was mentioned at that meeting a year ago that it would be coming back at some point. So and I know that the handouts they had a couple of requests and some of it I'm assuming um is either not possible. I know the law enforcement enforces it when they're called with a complaint.

They don't just patrol it. We don't have that kind of uh capacity to just put a officer patrol officer to sit down there um in these areas all night long waiting for an incident to happen. So um but just want to recognize the request. And then lastly um I just want to make again this is kind of a comment um trying to understand our working calendar um and I know Michelle and Joanne responded to this request. I have three fair items that I've submitted this last year.

Um, two of mine since June and July don't have a a date yet assigned to it. But my most important one, which was decoupling the site plan and andor a concept planned away from resoning request, has been taken off the the working calendar. And when you look at the whole working calendar, I don't even see um many of our council requests on there.

Their their other staff members and Michelle um was really gracious and emailing me and saying, "Well, it's probably probably because um we're coming uh with a report by the end of the year, early January um that may address this um May. You know, it my expectation would be that it stays on the agenda, the working calendar until it e either is addressed and that council member is asked, you know, did that satisfy what you were looking for or do you mind?

We're going to take it off because we're going to discuss it in a different way. But all three of mine have to do with housing and our declared emergencies. And um to council member Spence's comments about you know it took a couple of months um you know I have a couple that aren't even assigned yet and they've been six months.

So, um, I just like some better discussion on how that's processed and who makes those decisions and who takes them off when a council member, you know, I'm I'm been getting frustrated the last couple of months just hearing how budget team made this decision and this person made this decision and I keep wondering where where our authority really lies.

And when we do a fair item, I expect it to be something that um if three other council members say yes, let's discuss it, that stays on the working calendar and we discuss it because it's important to the seven of us that are elected to represent our community. So, I just wanted to make that statement and um I look forward to getting some conversation on those things. All right, I've got a couple of things.

Um, congratulations to Ballet Folklorico Decolores on 20 years of um, performances in Flagstaff. They had a wonderful event Friday night at Poente um elementary that I attended with great food that was prepared by the families there and um some great performances. And also LOL Observatory just had a daylong celebration on Sunday celebrating 30 years of their Native American astronomy outreach program which was started by Amanda Bosch who's the current executive director and Dedra Hunter.

Um, so for 30 years they have been inviting teachers in and going into classrooms throughout northern Arizona, including onto the Navajo and Hopi um nations. And it's just a phenomenal program. And yes, tomorrow at 4:30, join us at Buffalo Park and see the cool um Route 66 wraps that um the city ordered for uh the tubas in the band. It's pretty cool. So, see everyone there. Um, city manager, mayor, council, I just have a couple of um updates and and comment and um related to fair items.

Um, we will work through those and some of the items we we are in the process of getting those before council, so it may just not be noted. Um, and then just making the point that this fair process is very clunky and um, I think we would all agree with that and you know, just give me a little time to figure out a better way to do this. So, just a little It's been two weeks. Two weeks. That's it. Um, so, so thank you. I appreciate the grace. Um, you're here.

So, uh, I I do want to just make a quick announcement and I'll be sending something out to the organization this evening that, um, I did put out a request, um, right after I was appointed for an interim, uh, deputy city manager to fill my role. Um, and I received eight um, very qualified applicants who were interested in serving the organization. And I made the selection to select Kevin Fininsell uh, to serve in this role. Um, you all know Kevin well.

He's uh worked with every division in the organization and has been with the city attorney's office 11 years, nine of those as a deputy city attorney. Um, and we're just really excited. Um, just with Shannon and Kevin, I just feel like we have an excellent team. Um, and just looking forward to the future. So, just wanted to pass that on. Thank you. Thank you so much. All right, we are adjourned.