City Council - Regular Meeting

All right, if I could have everyone's attention, we are ready to get started. Today is Tuesday, May 12th, 2026, and this is the city council's work session. I'm calling this meeting to order and giving notice to the public and to the city council that at this meeting the council may vote to go into executive session which will not be open to the public for discussion and consultation with the city's attorneys for legal advice on any item listed on the following agenda. Can we have roll call?

Mayor Daget here. Vice Mayor here. Council member Alen present. Council member Garcia here. Council member House here. Council member Matthews here. Council member Spence here. Council member Spence, would you lead us in the pledge of allegiance? Please stand to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Council member House, would you read our mission statement?

The mission of the city of Flagstaff is to protect and enhance the quality of life for all. Thank you. and vice mayor.

The Flagstaff City Council humbly acknowledges the ancestral homelands of this area's indigenous nations and original stewards. These lands still inhabited by native descendants border mountain sacred to indigenous peoples. We honor them, their legacies, their traditions, and their continued contributions. We celebrate their past, present, and future generations who will forever know this place as home. Thank you. Next up is open call to the public, which enables the public to address the council about an item that is not on the prepared agenda. Comments related to the agenda must come at the time that they are discussed. And you have three minutes. There is a clock here. And we have one public commenter. And forgive me if I mispronounce your last name. Mark Howitt.

Howitt Howitt Howitt Howitt Yes.

Hello, mayor, council. My name is Mark Howitt. I've served on various commissions at various times, but I'm coming for you today talking about um the city's in the process of updating the building codes, uh our residential code, our commercial code, and all of that right now. Uh it's working its way through committees, and um I've got several concerns about that. Uh, not the least of which is the new codes are going to significantly impact affordable housing in Flagstaff. Uh, the new codes I predict as a builder, I've been a builder in Flagstaff since 1997. I'm expecting about a 20% increase in cost uh due to the new codes that are going to be adopted. So, the new cost uh to build a new home I'm expecting to go up about 20%. Uh, of course, it'll vary depending on the home. A lot of that is driven by the international energy conservation code and also by the wildland interface codes. Uh currently uh we have an IRC book for residential. It's about this thick. On top of that we've got a fire book, an electrical book, uh international energy code. We've got a stack of books about this tall just to build a house um that we have to work through in codes. And the new codes are significantly stronger than the previous codes. And you're probably going to hear over the next couple months several presentations about how much energy could be saved by moving to the 2024 codes. We're on the 2018 version right now. However, you need to be aware that those studies were not done in Cookanino County. We as Cookino County residents are in climate zone 5. Now, climate zone five by the code extends all the way to Canada, upstate New York, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Chicago, and other extremely cold areas that get very dark uh winters where the sun is very low in the sky. The days are really short. We're not like that in Cookanino County. We have longer winter days because we're a southern latitude and also the sun's higher in the sky. And so even if we get a twoft snow or a

three-foot snow, you all know it doesn't last that long. If you've ever lived or spent time in upstate New York, Milwaukee, any of these farther north latitudes, you know, if it snows, it's there till July 4th. I mean, it's there for a long time, right? We don't have that problem, but we're stuck in that climate zone. So when you hear studies about how much energy we're going to save, those studies were done in places like Milwaukee, places like Albany, New York, places like Upper State, Washington State along the Canadian border. They were not done in Cookanino County. So do not expect to get the savings that are going to be presented to you uh from the International Energy Conservation Code. It's just not going to happen. It's not practical. And what we're going to end up doing is driving up the cost of housing in Flagstaff even higher than it is currently. So that's my concern. I just want to make you aware of those facts. Thanks, Mark Howitt.

Thank you. All right. Next up, we have proclamations. We have four this evening, and we will take them in order. And typically what we do is invite anyone who's here for a certain proclamation to join us at the edge of the deis. And that includes all of you when we get to it. And you know who you are, right in the back. Okay. And um and then we'll take a photo and if someone from your group wishes to speak, you are welcome to do so. So we'll start with Jewish Heritage Month. Please stage. Whereas the city of Flagstaff joins the Library of Congress, the National Archives and Records Administration, the National Endowment for the Humanities, National Gallery of Art, National Park Service, and the United States Holocaust Morial Museum in paying tribute to the generations of Jewish Americans who have helped form the fabric of American history and culture and society. And whereas Jewish American Heritage Month has been observed each May since

2006 when President George W. Bush first proclaimed its national recognition, affirming the vital role Jewish Americans have played in play in shaping the United States. And whereas JewishAmerican Heritage Month celebrates the rich history, traditions, and vibrant culture of Jewish Americans while also serving as an opportunity to promote understanding and stand against anti-semitism in all its forms. And whereas Flagstaff is home to vibrant centers of Jewish life, including Congregation Lev Shalom and Shabbad of Flagstaff, which provide cultural, educational, and community- centered programming open to all. Now therefore, I, David Spence, on behalf of Mayor Becky Daget, Mayor of the City of Flagstaff, do hereby proclaim May 2026 as Jewish American Heritage Month. And we encourage residents to celebrate Jewish American Heritage Month by learning about Jewish history and culture, participating in local events, and fostering a community of respect, inclusion, and understanding. Thank you.

We'll take a photo. Council Okay.

Thank you. Those that are here for the proclamation for Asian-American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islanders, please come up to sit with council if you are here to join us for that one. Anybody? Anybody namely you? Welcome.

Keep keep on trucking. Yeah,

thanks for coming up here. All right. Office of the mayor's proclamation. Whereas the city of Flagstaff recognizes the importance of celebrating the cultural diversity and contributions of Asian-American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islanders, AAHPI community. Whereas, AANHPI Heritage Month provides an opportunity for our community to honor the rich heritage, traditions, and history of Asian-Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders who are greatly enrich who have greatly enriched the fabric of our society. Whereas by celebrating AAHPI heritage month, we honor the resilience, perseverance, and achievement of the AAHPI community and commit to building more inclusive and equitable social or society for our future generations. And whereas the Federal AsianPacific American Council has announced that the theme for the 2026 Asian-American Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander Heritage Month is power in unity strength strengthening communities together which honors the hard work of the AA and HPI leaders who established a foundation for future generations to thrive and adapt to change with resilience. Therefore, I um on behalf of Mayor Becky Dagot, Mayor of the City of Flagstaff, Arizona, do hereby proclaim May 2026 as AsianAmerican, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander Heritage Month.

Take a photo. Okay.

So, I don't have anything. Uh I had no time to put anything in chat GPT. But um thank you guys again for uh um using this time to to recognize our AA NHPI folks in our community. We're small but mighty. Um uh but definitely appreciative of this time just to for recognition for for the folks. Um you know, this is a this is meaningful for for future generations, my kids, um the folks that are up here, uh Roger's kids. Um there's representation here and uh it's good to be acknowledged and good to be seen. So thank you all. Uh, I will be reading the proclamation for mental health awareness month. And before I do, I believe we're going to have some special guests with us. Um, but anyone who's here for that proclamation, if you want to come on down, we would love to have you join us up here.

And you're special guests, too. Oh, yes. You're very special, as well. It's a puppy parade.

Come here, Bubba. Yes. Good, good, good, good. Anyone else want

Now, don't bark because I'm going to be on a microphone. And will you tell them?

Yeah. So, one of the special guests joining us this evening is Bear, who is a new uh wellness dog that's been added to our police department. The rest of these beautiful puppies that you see up here are also all up for adoption, and they were part of a mental health awareness month uh event that we had here at city hall today. Whereas mental health is essential to overall well-being. And whereas one in four adults and one in five youth ages 13 to 18 experience mental health challenges. And whereas 60% of adults and 50% of youth do not receive the mental health treatment necessary due to limited knowledge of the need barriers to care or stigma, fear, and shame. And whereas adverse childhood experiences or ACEs including physical, emotional and sexual abuse or neglect, household dysfunction, untreated mental illness, untreated substance misuse, separation or incarceration of a household member, and domestic violence are traumatic experiences that can have a profound effect on a child's developing brain and can result in poor physical and mental health through adulthood. And whereas creating safe, stable, nurturing relationships and environments for all children prevent adverse childhood experiences and help all children reach their full potential. And these relationships and environments are essential to creating positive childhood experiences. And whereas isolation, sickness, grief, home instability, change of routines, and community trauma have increased the

need for mental health services. And whereas mental wellness leads to higher productivity, better educational outcomes, lower crime, stronger economies, lower health care costs, and improved quality of life. And whereas in recognition of the importance of mental health and in support of our community members who face mental health challenges, we invite residents to join us in the events of mental health matters month. The listing may be found at nahalth or nahalth.comfanthropy. Now therefore, I Carara House on behalf of uh Mayor Becky Daget, Mayor of the City of Flagstaff, Arizona, do hereby proclaim May 2026 Mental Health Awareness Month and call upon all city residents, government agencies, public and private institutions, businesses, and schools to recommmit our community to increasing awareness and understanding of mental illnesses, reducing stigma, and discrimination and promoting appropriate and accessible services for all individuals.

But then I'm going to use Yes, please.

Good afternoon. My name is Mara Klroy. I'm vice president of philanthropy with Northern Arizona Healthcare. And we are just delighted to be here. And as you hopefully know, we are doing a big push for mental health matters. So, if you see these amazing shirts around Oh, nice. Yeah, that's what they're for. Uh, we really wanted to uplift the work that Flagstaff's already doing in this space and bring awareness to that. And there's a special part of it that is uh mental health matters for our first responders. So, we are doing events throughout the month. Please look for them on the website. Grab a shirt, support your first responders whenever you can because we expect them to show up for us on our worst day and we want them to be feeling their best and get through, not take it home like a lot of them do. So, thank you so much. We I'm honored to have members of our behavioral health at Northern Arizona Healthcare up here, including our new director, Jamie Sers, and our clinical manager, Monica and Priscilla, as well. I thought you should have come up. But um we are honored to be in this space and grateful for all the support that the city has done for us to make this initiative possible in its first year. So thank you so much.

I was going to say my husband's in the audience and I don't think four dogs is enough. So we could have a fifth. But thank you to Councilwoman Matthews who adopted a dog this afternoon from High Country Humane.

Okay. Um if law enforcement could come and join us down here. Hello. Thank you as well. So, make sure you behind as well. Nice.

What's going on? There's plenty of room. Just keep coming.

And you can also make a row down here as well. Not just

I appreciate you all being here. The men and women of the Flagstaff Police Department dedicate their lives to safeguarding the residents and visitors of the Flagstaff community, upholding the law, and protecting the rights and freedoms we hold dear. National Police Week is a time to recognize the courage, professionalism, and steadfast commitment of law enforcement officers who serve with integrity, often under challenging and dangerous circumstances. 111 law enforcement. 111 law enforcement officers lost their lives in the line of duty in 2025. We honor and remember those officers from across the nation who have made the ultimate sacrifice in the line of duty. And we extend our deepest respect to their families, friends, and colleagues who continue to carry their legacy. The city of Flagstaff recently experienced the tragic loss of DPS pilot Robert Stany and trooper paramedic Hunter Bennett. Critical incidents in our city and nation serve as a solemn reminder of the unpredictable and life-threatening dangers law enforcement officers face in the line of duty. Underscoring the extraordinary bravery required to those who required of those who serve. The city of Flagstaff is strengthened by the dedication of its law enforcement officers whose daily efforts contribute to the well-being and security of our neighborhoods, businesses, and public spaces. Now therefore, I, Mayor Becky Dagot, mayor of the city of Flagstaff, do hereby proclaim the week of May 10th through 16, 2026, as National Police Week, and encourage all residents to join in honoring the service and sacrifice of our law enforcement officers, past and present. Let us express our gratitude and reaffirm our

shared commitment to fostering a safe, just, and united community. What's this? Is she somewhere?

Who wants to My name is Sean Connley and I'm honored to be your police chief. Uh mayor and members of council, thank you. Uh this is a really important and poignant week for us. Um I think of four words that start with the letter R. Remembering, reflecting, recognizing, and recommitting. Um, I think remembering for me is there's 24,755 names on the national wall. There's 400 names on the state wall. And most importantly, um, and with an abundance of humility, there's two names that this city recognized in Officer Jeff Merittz and Officer Tyler Stewart who made that call and went to work and were murdered by gunfire. And so this is a week for us to remember uh not only them but the families and the burden that that family carries for their lifetime. I think the other part is reflecting um there's 737,000 police officers in America in 18,000 police departments that are going to take 240 million calls. Um sometimes we focus on a small percentage of that. I think there's less than 310 of 1% that go to internal investigation. Um, and so that's a really important conversation. What would this country, what would this state, what would this community look like, uh, without that service, without the 911 service and the honorable men and women of this police department? We took 70,000 calls last year. Um, and and I'm so proud of them. And so I just want us to reflect. It is

the undergurt in the fabric that allows us all to have a community at the end of the day. Um, the other thing is when we talk about recognizing, I want to speak directly to you all. Um, and on behalf of myself, uh, the mayor, council, community, city managers, other staff, we see you. We see you. We know what you do matters. At the end of the day, um, your schedules are messed up at times. You miss holidays. You miss sporting events. um your wives and spouses and husbands and daughters and sons don't know sometimes when you're going to come home or if you're going to come home, whether that's a 36-hour shift on a critical incident. But I just want to let you know um we we recognize you and and we and we love you. The the last thing is um recommitting. Um this is a week for us to recommmit to our oath of service. It's an opportunity for us to recommmit to our virtues and our values. um wisdom, temperance, a sense of justice, and being courageous at the end of the day. All being elite and professional. So, I just wanted to look you all in the face and say thank you. Thank you, mayor. And thank you, everybody. Have a wonderful day. Thank you so much.

Good to see you. All right. Thank you everyone for affording us the time and space to do that. I think it's very important to recognize these um groups and milestones in our community. Speaking of groups and milestones, we have a presentation now um from creative flag staff and city staff. Thank you. Uh greetings, mayor and vice mayor, who's maybe still out with the puppies, um and council. Um I'm Janna Weldon. I'm the beautifification arts and sciences program manager. I'm here today to introduce the annual report by Creative Flag Staff. It was only a year ago, last May, that we entered into a new five-year contract with Creative Flag Staff to carry out some important um scope of work for the community. one

as a the grant making agency for our pass through nonprofit grants for the arts, sciences and culture community and one for the arts, science and culture leadership. One unique part of this contract is that each year with the budget that is approved, a certain very detailed set of work is set out in cooperation uh between staff and creative flag staff. It's been an exciting year. Um we have seen many education workshops. We've seen a revamp of uh uh the grant protocols, the criteria, uh the calls uh for the nonprofits to apply. and we've seen as spectacular exhibitions and um other events, but I'm not going to go into detail because I would like to introduce to you uh Julie Comnik, the executive director of Creative Flag Staff and she is here. It is her obligation under the contract to give you this annual report, but I do know it is her pleasure. Julie,

thanks. Thank you, Janna, and thank you for the opportunity to present to you all this afternoon. On behalf of Creative Flagstaff's board and direct board of directors and staff, I want to extend my sincere gratitude for all of the work that this city council has done and continues to do to support arts and culture in Flagstaff. We're delighted to continue our partnership with the city with our renewed contract as lead arts and grants agency to provide arts, science, and cultural services in the community. occurs to me I should do the slides today. I'll share how fiscal year 2026 ongoing funding provided a foundation for our services over the past year and the impact that the additional funding has had on events and activations as well as the leadership investment that has set momentum for expanding our opportunities and offerings in the coming year. Creative Flagstaff's mission is to provide and support arts, science, and cultural opportunities that foster an engaged, equitable, and imaginative community, as demonstrated by Cookanino Center for the Arts 10 exhibitions over the past year that respond to interests and issues relevant to Flagstaff and Northern Arizona. Our combined total visitation this year was over 8,500 for exhibitions, workshops, and presentations. And so here's uh the the year in review, the past year in review. Here we go. Starting with Parched, the art of water in the southwest, which was produced in at CCA back in 2020, but it's had the opportunity to continue to travel. The exhibition was invited for a year-long show at said Vaky Museum, the city of Phoenix's archaeology museum in downtown Phoenix. It's an example of the ongoing and far-reaching impact of CCA's projects on issues relevant to our regional community.

Oops, back. There we go. Uh we launched the Route 66 Centennial last summer with documentary photographic perspectives by Edward Keading and Wes Pope with programming presentations focused on why it is important to study this history now with relevance to culture and diversity. The exhibition shifting topographies extracting the landscape responded to potential threats to the preservation of our national parks and monuments which of course are a draw for Flagstaff's residents and tourists alike. artists provided unique insight based on their individual geographical and cultural perspectives. While local artist and NAU professor Neil Galloway with tin can conversations explored the fragility and complexity of interpersonal uh communication in the digital age and the return of four with a focus on audience development. Artists created miniature golf as a community favorite that brings new faces to CCA. And city support enables the continuation of the annual youth arts exhibition. This year's show featured a record 510 art pieces by over 300 regional youth artists. While it brings new families to CCA, this show isn't just for kids. One adult visitor reflected, "I come to this exhibition every year. It brings me hope." Currently on display is everpresent with GMO Galindo and Joseé Luis Setero offering the timely perspectives of two Mexican artists whose work reflects upon their experiences of migration. And we'll wrap up the fiscal year with the upcoming night visions Amber. In its ninth iteration, this collaboration with the Flagstaff Dark Skies Coalition coincides with the 25th anniversary of Flagstaff as the first international dark sky city with a focused thematic exploration of amber lighting, aligning with a critical role that amber spectrum

lighting plays in Flagstaff dark sky conservation. With city funding, we have significantly expanded our youth offerings. In addition to the annual youth arts exhibition, free youth workshops were offered with each ex exhibition yearround along with exhibition specific curriculum for youth and family engagement and free field trips for K through2 schools. We know that oftentimes field trip costs are passed on to families and many students would not be able to attend if it were not for CCA's free field trip opportunity. Over 800 children participated in CCA's youth programs this year. We also launched creative camps, week-long summer day camps led by professional arts educators. CCFA's upcoming June sessions are full with a weight list and scholarships were provided to every family with need. In the coming year, we look forward to continuing to expand our multi-generational programming. We are investing in infrastructure to provide year-round opportunities with a dedicated interactive gallery space for hands-on engagement and interpretation. And I'm happy to announce today that we are partnering with the Arizona Commission on the Arts to offer creative aging programming opportunities for older adults with Flagstaff identity identified as a priority community for wellness and aging. And our uh and several of our staff members participated in a neuroarts conference in Phoenix just last week. And just this morning, we heard news reports that re research shows that arts and cultural engagement is linked to a slower pace of biological aging. We think we already knew that, but it's nice to have some proof. So, we're excited for Flagstaff to become a leader in the developing field of creative aging in both visual and performing arts. Speaking of performance, with CCA's recent facility upgrades, the refreshed theater offers a comfortable and contemporary venue for a wide diversity of concerts and

performances. And we hosted over 50 performances um with 3,500 attendees to date in fiscal year 26. With a focus on creative workforce development, this year we offered professional development workshops on four new topics relevant to arts and science grant applicants and recipients, reaching over 300 participants with paid professionals serving as workshop presenters. And most recently, we saw the impact of the additional funding for events with the transformation of Flagstaff into an immersive art experience with ArtX. Projects were selected by a panel that included city of Flagstaff Creative Flagstaff board and community representatives based on criteria for projects that were arts and science focused, a unique experience and enlisted community engagement. Of 22 funded projects, 19 were local Flagstaff artists and three nationally representing the Bay Area, New York, and Oregon. Six additional projects were selected to be aligned with the ArtWalk season. A brief ArtX testimonial. The Northern Arizona Book Festival describes their experience of ArtX with the presentation of their Biblio Trail in Buffalo Park. They say, "Typically, we create an event hoping intergenerational groups will find us, but it rarely works out that way. This time, we put our programming in the way of intergenerational groups, and they interacted with us in such authentic ways. Mothers and daughters walking the trail found books that they plan to read together. A Hopey elder and linguist encountered an anthology by emerging indigenous women and she is now in touch with the editors. Students from an alternative high school collaborated on story cubes making a public-f facing project that they are proud of. The truest sign of a program success. We want to do it again and even better. So

looking forward, Creative Flag Staff has resumed oversight of ArtWalk in close conversation and collaboration with the downtown business alliance. The upcoming ArtWalk season will fe feature an expanded footprint, artist open studios, enhanced business engagement, and a continuation of ArtX projects for meaningful activations on Aspen Street for the summer season and yearround business engagement during the winter months. and of course the 18th annual Viola Awards where we continue to celebrate excellence in art, science, education, and collaboration in the Flagstaff community. Creative Flagstaff's role in arts and science grant making I believe has the greatest direct impact of our services in our community. But first, let's talk about need. Nonprofit arts and cultural organizations are vital contributors to the region's economic, civic, and educational fabric. They create jobs, stimulate dialogue, and improve quality of life. The report here represents data from cultural data profiles for arts, science, and cultural nonprofits in Flagstaff specifically for the past three years. You can see that of 591 organizations by discipline, well over 50% are in performing arts, visual arts, and museums with relatively low budget sizes in comparison. And here are the number of paid jobs in the same period. For context, in the three previous years, there were over 800 arts, science, and cultural nonprofit organizations with 85,000 jobs. That number has dropped significantly which shows us that there is an increasing need for our support and services to arts, science, and cultural nonprofits. to expand to the to respond to the increasing need and to retain and build our existing nonprofits. This year, we

focused on overhauling the arts and science project grant and general operating support applications and processes for applicant and panelist efficiency and accessibility while integrating grants into programmatic areas by offering ongoing professional development opportunities targeted to grant processes, supporting mentorship for applicants, and fostering long-term relationships to track, support, and showcase grantee projects. Creative Flagstaff's grantmaking committee is comprised of seven arts and science professionals residing in Greater Flagstaff, including a representative of the city of Flagstaff and a Creative Flagstaff board member. The committee reviews and ranks applications based on criteria including alignment, impact, resiliency, and financial data. We hope that you recognize the commitment of Creative Flagstaff and Cookanino Center for the Arts to serve the interests of Flagstaff residents and visitors with programs that provide and support art, science, and culture in our community. We also hope you'll join us next week at Creative Flagstaff's community partner Summit on May 21st, and we look forward to that opportunity to share more about what's ahead. Thank you again for the support of uh Flagstaff City Council, city management, and BPAC. We look forward to continuing the collaboration and I'd be happy to answer any questions.

Thank you, Julie. Uh, Council Member House.

Thank you, Mayor. Thank you so much, Julie. This was a a wonderful presentation and um I just wanted to thank you for the amount of detail and and detailed information that you provided um that I I don't know that we've seen at least presented this way before. So, it's really helpful to see not only the the breadth and depth of the work that you all are doing, but also its uh its impact on the greater Flagstaff community and just how connected our community is to the arts and sciences. Um to see that on display through this presentation and uh other information that um the organization has provided is really really helpful. Um I did have I think just one question for you in terms of um in the introduction um or it might have been part of the intro of what you were saying um there was a reference to changes to grant protocols and criteria and I'm wondering how those changes have impacted um the work of creative flag staff or um the partnership that you've had with agencies that have relied on those grants in the past.

Yeah, absolutely. Thank you, Council Member House. Um, yeah, so uh when I came into this role, one of the um uh pieces that I was most excited about getting into was the grants application process. I think over the years it was added to without refining. Um and so there were a lot there were um uh there there was the number of questions was burdensome to the applicant and also very challenging for the reviewer to spend enough time you know really thoroughly reading the responses and I think there was a lot of duplicate questions throughout that. Um so essentially we distilled the questions and turned the what was you know um 16 to 20 depending on the application of questions into four questions with prompts so that there were more narrative types of responses and I think more authentic responses um feedback we've heard through both the project grants and we've currently heard we're still in the review stage of the go grants but from the applicants is that they are um they they feel relieved on the time constraints and that they are pro able to provide more accurate and authentic responses and um also from the reviewers that they just feel like it's a more efficient process and they can um you know adequately spend their time um with a a thorough understanding of the projects based on fewer more comprehensive questions.

Thank you so much. Thank you, Mayor, Council Member Garcia.

Thank you so much, Madame Mayor, and thank you, Julie, for the um for the presentation. it. Watching the evolution of creative flag staff, you know, every year seems to be um like more nuanced changes that'll really just benefit in the success of the of of the organization. And you can see that in um like the depth and dynamics of this presentation and also in how succinct it was, which I really appreciate to be able to tell the same story with the same impact with um little less a little more time for us to ask you questions, I guess. I could say. So, thanks for that. Um, my first question uh relates to the event that we both attended this last week that you invited me to. And if you could just kind of speak to the successes of um the folks within within the organization as well as those who you help support and who we help support and how that is being recognized at the state level.

Yeah. Thank you. Um thank you council member Garcia for also attending um to represent um Flagstaff for the creative excellence award. um last week. That was last week. Yes. So um it was really exciting to be nominated or not nominated um be a finalist for um the UNA award for uh organization uh collaborative organization. Um the successful winner was an organization out of Globe um that really started like uh almost a mini art X experience in a much smaller community with great impact but also to be there to represent um uh Creative Flagstaff's grantee theatricos who won the um the Arizona Arts Award this year. They were the winner, the big winner. Um, and so it's really great to be able to go and represent Flagstaff and represent a grantee of Creative Flagstaff and see how far that organization has grown with the support of Creative Flag Staff in the city.

And to see it being recognized at the state level with the governor's award was uh illuminating and a long time coming that we're finally getting our dues and we're finally getting noticed for who we are as um I like to say the upand cominging uh hub for southwestern art here in the United States. Uh my next question may be for you, it may be for staff. You had mentioned that creative flag staff has been successful in garnering the growth of not only grant participants but more over the quality of grants written that you guys are obtaining year-over-year, which is awesome and exactly what, you know, I like to see. um when it comes to our creative culture u and the dynamics of Northern Arizona, it's it's almost like we're getting the word out to the right people and they're starting to come up to to show us what they got. Um my question I guess is u is there like a a metric or a benchmark that the city uses to acknowledge what the current grant needs are and is there a recess like a a reassessment period to increase those through that metric? um uh how how do we as a city um determine what the appropriate amount of grant funding is for uh a third party organization?

Answer the first half and you do the second. Okay, great. In terms of Thank you for that question. Um in terms of the the metrics, um you know, we've seen a record number of applicants for the project grants um this year. I don't have those numbers with me, but I can follow up with you if you'd like specific. Um but qu that's quantitative qualitatively um you know I think um we in consultation with BPAC we've really identified the needs for the professional development workshop so we offer really specific workshops on documenting your artwork to writing your artist statement to grant application writing and those types of things and we have seen a direct um correlation to the the increased quality of those applications particularly in those narrative responses in the work samples. So, that goes a long way. I'm hoping um that David McIntyre here can help me out on how the city identifies financial support.

Yes, I can. Hi. Uh David McIntyre, community investment director. Uh thanks for the opportunity to pop up here for a second. Um we at uh and and for allowing me the opportunity to to speak for the city on this one. the um the way that we actually help identify what the grant amount is going to be each year is is less based on need and more based on the budget that comes in for the BBB. As uh all of you and hopefully the audience are aware, the grants that we provide uh Creative Flag Staff come from the BBB arts and science fund. There's no general fund dollars in here at all. And so what we do is each year we sit down with Creative Flagstaff and talk about um the right way to invest the funding that comes in through the BBB. Uh we work with finance to understand the fund's capacity to make sure that we are using it effectively and appropriately and in a way that's going to be sustainable over the next few years. And then we work with creative flag staff to help develop a scope um that's going to both uh honor the the work that they do as a lead arts agency and also provide um hopefully continuing growth in the amount that we provide for grants. Uh there were a number of years where the city provided a basically a fixed amount uh in order to make sure that we were able to do other projects. But each of the last few years, we've been able to add a slightly higher amount of ongoing funding or one-time funding towards those grants because we know that some of the federal and state funding sources have become harder to um harder to get uh or they're less available, less present. And one thing that I'm very proud of is uh we did a study recently and what we found is that the city of Flagstaff provides through our partner Creative Flagstaff provides more grant funding uh than most other Arizona and even national cities uh as a proportion of population. We are really uh out in front in trying to make sure that our nonprofits are really where a lot of the arts working. And so uh I can't say that we have a specific metric that we target. It is more based on resource. Uh, but we work with Creative Flag Staff very intentionally to uh find a way to make sure that that number continues to grow as much as

possible while maintaining that lead arts agency piece. And and I'm very proud of what we're able to accomplish with that. And I think what's most important is seeing the nonprofit community thrive. And if you're out there seeing it, which I know all of you are, uh, we have some very incredible stuff that happens throughout the community because of these grants. Um it's it's really exciting and and I know it would be hard for them to achieve that same level without the city support. So thanks for offering us that opportunity

and thank you for answering that question so concisely and it also brings up a point that u it's not necessarily us having more money to do more with I mean in a perfect world it is but since our BBB numbers are tied to tourism and that fluctuates and we have no control over that. What you're saying is you are very diligent and and uh intentional when it comes to working with our partner organization to do what we can with what we have and have the most impact for those dollars. So, thank you for that and thank you for helping increase the quality of life, something that is kind of untangible but very real when it comes to the city of Flagstaff and our cultural needs here.

It really is our pleasure. This is a fun program. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Thank you and thank you for the update tonight. Um, I was able to attend some of the ArtX events that happened and I I just love the creativity and what it brings throughout our city. So, good job and I can't wait to see what's next for that. Um, I'm wondering kind of on the the lines of what council member Garcia was asking, what is our mechanism to ensure that the grant recipients are meeting their stated objectives?

Yeah, thank you. Um, so yeah, so we uh there's there's two grants. is the project grant and the general operating support. But to summarize the two sort of combined um there's um the the payment system is divided in the final payment as accompanies a final the requirement of a final report. So the projects are closely tracked and um responded to and there is an opportunity for the recipients to explain if they had any changes throughout um if there's a significant change we go back to the city um um our city representatives to discuss and detail anything that the panel would need to weigh back in on. But for the most part it runs pretty smoothly. Um and people uh the recipients are regularly reaching out to our staff for support. And I think that's a good thing that they feel comfortable picking up the phone um and making those phone calls to make sure they're on track, but we do closely scrutinize those final reports.

Great. Thank you. Um yeah, just keep up the good work. I think that um it's this is an important partnership and I I just really appreciate what the arts have brought to Flagstaff, especially as of late. I just it just keeps getting better and better and I appreciate that. So, thank you. Thank you, Council Member Sweet.

All right, I don't see any other questions or comments. So, just thank you for coming down here happily to um present to us. I'm glad you didn't have to be dragged here under duress and um and we enjoyed the the update. We enjoyed the update very much and appreciate your work very much. Thank you. And we appreciate the puppies, so we're all good. Thanks.

All right. So, flood mitigation is every bit as much fun as arts and culture. So, next up, we have Spruce Wash flood mitigation project completion update. You know, I thought it was going to be hard to beat puppies, but I guarantee you tonight is going to be worth your weight. I'm serious. All right, everyone. Welcome. Um, thank you for having us. Scott Overton, I'm your public works director. Um, we are here with really our final presentation on the Spruce Wash mitigation projects. Um, yes, it will deserve an applause. Um, but not quite yet. We want to get through a few items here this evening, get it buttoned up, but we have been here a lot over the last three years and we've lived through as a community five years of history since post wildfire flooding has occurred in the burn scar um of the museum fire from 2019. Um, so most all of you have toured the site. You've seen it. You've understood it. You've dealt with it. You've lived it with us. You've packed sandbags. You've moved material. Um, you've been on tours. Um, this is really a milestone. And I think when people have asked me, "How in the world did I get involved?" Um, I've said it to you before. Um, this project was unique as we were just wrapping up response from the 21 and 22 seasons and public works had a very intricral role in cleanup of the neighborhood with storm water, water

services and parks and we really quickly recognized we could not sustain that effort for a whole lot of years while the forest recovers in the burn scar. So, we kind of took it upon ourselves as a mission to make sure we found a way to mitigate our way and engineer our way through a very difficult situation. And as you all know, we've concluded and we're kind of here to report out what that looks like. And I will be remiss, but I have a small group with me this evening um that represents um probably the more engaged or most engaged of a team of about 45 really dedicated professionals. um they're from the consultant in the private sector world as well as city staff. Um I know I love to um say everyone's name and call them all out, but I forget one or two and then I'm in really big trouble. But as you all know, it is about 45 people that are actively engaged on this project. Um but we have now dwindled it down to a handful. We're kind of working through our final presentation here tonight and our final um ceremonial pieces. So, um, just wanted to come back this evening, get through a couple items with you all. Our main objective, very, very different than in the years past. Tonight, we're here to provide you insights as we have completed the Spruce Wash suite of projects. Um, and it of course addresses those wildfire impacts of flooding in the museum scar. Looking back, why the urgency? Um, this has been one of the fastest projects I've been involved with. It's been a fantastic project from the aspect of urgency. We knew our response efforts, as I mentioned, were not sustainable, and they were extremely challenging. I think it's most notable for our residents that were living there, working there, and learning in that path. Um, we understood there were hundreds of businesses and community members, a couple schools that were

impacted. um and as you know a very very dense urban environment and this was not a great place for anyone that literally lived in the flood path. So our goal in this urgent mission was to design the construction of the best possible urban infrastructure with the strongest of benefits to homes, businesses and schools. This was essential for this team and they took on the task. You've seen this slide over 20 times in all of our presentations. It's a fantastic slide. As you see, we are in the final orange box in the bottom row. We are at final closeout. It all goes back to 2022 where we had the voters approve Proposition 441. Um that was a fantastic bond election for the city and for the residents. We invested um in the infrastructure. The community understood the need and this was of course on the heels of response and flooding within 20 and 21 and then 22 again. 21 being our biggest season. The day after that election, the team met and I remember the meeting vividly. It was in the public works west conference room and I think I remember T. Henry the best. And uh we had a whiteboard and kind of a flip chart and we had just completed the Spruce or excuse me the Schultz Creek Basin projects as a city and that was done in record time about 45 days and we said we can do this again but on a much much larger scale and it was almost insurmountable and I think it hit us hard that now that it was funded it was real. You've seen the map. It comes all the way through Paradise, Grand View, Sunnyside, a suite of projects. Here was the math problem. This is what the team was challenged with today. It's very much in the format of talking points. We'd like you to memorize these as best as possible. Write them down, find a way to post them, but these are the things you will all want to understand. They're really good for you

to remember when you have to talk about what you went through. For us, modeling was key. The science was key. We've said that over and over. We'd had a number of summits. We'd had a number of engineering sessions. We'd have a number of modeling programs that had run through. JU Fuller did that fantastic work for us that showed us what was going to happen. We had rain gauges installed. Ed did a great job with cameras so we could watch in real time for response using all this data, the flowcharts, um the hydrograph. I've learned all sorts of new things. Manning's formulas. I can keep going for hours about long division. I do not understand. But it was impressive work. It was fun to learn. But the flood response was real. It was significant. That modeling was key for us to understand it. And that's what turned into all of our studies, all of our work, and eventually all of the infrastructure. So today, we also had to understand how much water are we trying to move. 1,150 cubic feet per second. That's what we saw in 21. That's 5,000 516,000 gallons of water a minute. Half a million gallons of water going down the channel in the street. Lot of water as we can tell. Remember, we had to consider the mitigation as a system. It was important for us to work with our forest service partners on forest at the burns car, our county partners in the flood control district. You all toured the aluvial fans that were constructed north and into Mount Elden Estates. All of that infrastructure impacts what we do. We wanted to make sure every bit of debris and soil and sediment and stump, anything that was on the forest burns guard did not wind up in the urban infrastructure downstream. Without all of that work, there was really no reason for us to build better infrastructure downstream. It all had to work together. So credit to those teams that delivered another set of very very difficult projects upstream um to protect not only

the county neighborhoods but our infrastructure downstream. They were considering flow capacity, storage, timing, velocity, the detention basin has a reason. All of the separation of the waters kind of moving through the system all had to be understood so we had no adverse impacts to any community member. I think the highlight for me, of course, collaboration and efforts of the best professional minds and partnerships in the community were pulled together to mitigate the problem. Um, they did it and I I I say it and I I don't know if I can explain it well enough, but to understand the level of commitment that we had five engineering teams working together with the same modeling math and for them to understand that they had to know which break line and which page changed to a different firm is pretty unusual, but it was pretty unique. They all knew each other. We all understood each other. They were all speaking the same language. That collaboration made us accelerate that timeline. Actions and efforts. Flood response equal the engineering summits turned into long-term mitigation delivery. The five on call firms. We had a Seymar procurement while we were designing the project. Nine council amendments, seven GMPs, five separate utility providers that were a whole different set of meetings. dozens of trade partners and literally hundreds of skilled professionals not only to design and engineer the project but to deliver the project on the ground. This is an exciting part. I think one we're very proud of. Um this was a lot of diligent hard work by project managers and all of our team in finance and management services. Total project cost right at $40 million. We had $6.6 million of leveraged grant funding. $26.2 million was our bond. That was that 22 bond that triggered all of the work, but we were able to use that money to leverage other costs and funds that were available. We used 419 monies. We

used road repair, street safety money, water services contributions. And it's not that we went over budget. I think that's really important to understand. We didn't say the bill was 26 million and we spent 39. We expanded scope. We expanded infrastructure. We changed things that needed to be changed. You saw sidewalks added at Cedar. You saw water lines that were replaced under roadways, sewer lines that were moved. All of those efforts were done because the flood mitigation needed to occur. But while we were there, we could do some really good infrastructure work. We of course also made new roadways. Prior to all of this great work, while we were designing this system, we were responding. Please don't forget and overlook the siren system, the alerting systems, all of the infrastructure that was placed on the mountain, the rain gauges, those cameras, the Kilip basins in the FUSD agreement where you're able to take those playfields and lower them and use that for a detention opportunity at the new Kilip Elementary School. Paradise widening of that channel at the top of Paradise Street. The parkway basins that capture all the debris before it enters into our underground system at Linda Vista. The Doratha crossing was one piece in the middle that we got built really quickly. Um that alleviated some real close localized impact, but then we knew it was going to have to be a part of that bigger system. And then of course we had channel improvements in between the crossings which we'll talk about by the numbers. Another fun slide. I know this is a kind of a geeky one, but it's kind of a fun one to think about. Remember, water has to be conveyed safely and quickly. back to that number of 51,000 gallons per minute. We split that water up. So those engineers did a fantastic job saying in the channel it can handle 750 cubic feet per second. And that really is dictated along the entire spine of the channel system. Remember those crossings, they have some

capacity. We can't over top the road. We don't want to destroy the structures. So 750 CFS goes down the channel. We sent 200 200 CFS to the Wedge. Uh that is the large detention basin just to the west of the Cedar Safeway. You'll notice there's a small concrete structure at that location today. That is the future gate. It is one of the last remaining elements. I'm happy to report the mechanical pieces for the gate were built in America because it's a federal project and they were delivered yesterday. So we have them. They are in hand. Now the challenge is can we get it in and done at that location? But we believe we can. So really exciting to report that that wedge will take 200 cfs. That pulls pressure off of the channel and off of the street. The street is still a conveyance down Grand View, but not nearly what you saw in years past. We inverted that crown. All that water will drain down to the bottom of the system through a series of underground channels and get back to the channel itself. I mentioned earlier the timing and the velocities and how they move the water. I think it's really impressive how they were able to sit down, sort out the map of the water going to different locations and then taking the timing piece. So maybe you hold the water in the wedge just long enough to where it can enter the channel as the other water passes it. Really fun math. Joe will give you a clinic on that that I can just simply highlight. Ponderosa Park um that is of course the large park in the middle of Sunnyside. We have a location just before the park where we have an underground system and it will stay above ground. So it will split 350 CFS stays underground and then the remaining 400 in a large event would then surface flow to the east side of the park and then it'll wind up in the kilip detention basins before it's more regulated and released south into sixth and south sunny side. So really complex

system and those are the numbers on how that water moves. Impressive numbers here. 26 acre feet of storage. We have 15 feet at the wedge, eight at Kilip, and three at the Parkway basins. That is 8.5 million gallons of water or 13 swimming pools. So that clearly pulls pressure and time off of that system. Just about a mile of hardened and improved channel, open channel, so we can get that water moving through the community. And then of course you have the crossings at Linda Vista, Cedar, and Dorotha. Now, check this out. This is a highlight right here. Stand by. You guys ready for this? Yes.

Me, too. This is going to be a fly over. Here you go. And I'll answer any questions, but it's a pretty cool video. It does have tunes. I kind of want to watch it again, but I'm just kidding.

Okay. Thanks, Council Member. Let me Let me get out of the council member, please. I was just curious on the couple of scenes on that road that was the channel underneath the road.

No. Um there's a couple places it crosses the road. So, I'll let you go back and watch that. Sarah will get that posted to YouTube and we'll post it on the social channels um this week. Uh this is the first time it's been seen publicly, but um there are a number of locations where it crosses the roads. Um but the new road surface like Grand View that was shown with the concrete valley gutter, that was that conveyance that ships water down Grand View. And then a couple other surfaces like you saw Cedar. Um you'll see the new roadway that runs from west all the way to the roundabout at fourth. Uh but you'll see the crossing and the culverts and um if you if you just kind of pause that video now and again you'll be able to see really good examples of the inlets and the outlet structures. Um you will find some pine needle debris in the channels and we were all kind of scratching our heads but you know that's just over time you know because some of those channels have now been a year year and a half old. They've got some pine needles and all that'll wash out during a flood event but um you'll get the idea. The scope and scale was pretty impressive. Then there were a couple little elements and clues in there of things we have to continue to finish and I'll touch on those in a moment. We also wanted to get a perspective um from the neighborhood and from some of our business owners and residents and this was one really nice video that was sent in um from one of our business owners right on the corner of Cedar and the channel. Um they own a small travel agency and they were clearly impacted not only by the construction project but by the flooding. Um and we asked them to do a short video. Unfortunately, it's a little hard to hear in the video and it was just easier to pull a couple quotes from that video and their nice image. Uh, they actually happen to be in Switzerland. Um, so they sent in this video this month to kind of help us. But I think they're very nice quotes and I think it reminded me that without prompting them and without writing a script, what did they think was important? And I think those are what we're starting to get feedback from the residents on. And the testimonies are pretty powerful that um they were fairly happy and impressed with the efforts and all of the things that went through. And

I think what I liked about this one, of course, is the um communication piece um that we worked together, the funding came together, and we all communicated. And it wasn't always easy, but they also have some stories that maybe aren't as positive um because we did impact their businesses and we did impact homes, but they were all good sports about it. Now they're super happy. We've had, of course, over 20 council updates. We've been here a lot. 11 notic not notification flyers to 950 properties along that property zone and the channel. We've had over a couple dozen press releases, the formal ones that Sarah might send out, 35 door-todoor visits just about the project, six community meetings, various meetings in the streets. We had obviously a lot of delegation tours. We had a lot of federal, state, and local delegation tours, which I think was powerful for them to support this project. And then, of course, weekly updates, some of our uh beta PR partners and the folks that would provide you good information as well to the residents through the email chains and all of the ways that we could get notices out. So, our ability to communicate and share progress did build trust. It established relationships that we could address any concerns. Um, we knew that there were days there were going to be bad things happen. We would hit a gas line. there would be a utility conflict. Maybe we wouldn't have a situation of access that was most clearly available or marked. Having that ability to communicate was key. We could find a way to solve or resolve some of those issues. And I think this was one really strong testament to getting that feedback and assisting. Um we really do sincerely thank all of our residents and business owners. We weren't easy and this was not an easy project to deliver in the urban environment for you all to consider. There are community benefits. Obviously, successful delivery of this project by the city. Fantastic effort. Um, it was on time with a leveraged budget. I don't call it balanced. I don't call it less. I don't call it more. It's a leveraged

budget. We leveraged all that money to do as much scope as possible. We get to reduce the short-term mitigations. We don't use the word eliminate, but we know we are substantially reduced. We have over a million sandbags in this region, probably up to a mile of barrier. Most all of that has now been removed or is in the process of being cleaned up. Um that is a huge win for that neighborhood. We do not want to walk over three-foot BMS going down Grand View. Expanded Ponderosa Park. That was a great benefit. Rebecca and her team will now get to plan a new community park. Um it's about 140% increase in that park footprint just to the north of the pickle ball courts. 2,000 ft of sewer and water manes that replaced aging infrastructure. And then of course, new road surface enhancements on Linda Vista, Grand View, and Cedar. Coming up right now, these are our final loose ends and items for you to be aware of. Cedar final striping occurs just after the Memorial Day holiday. It'll be a three-day closure. They are going to close Cedar one last time over a weekend. They got to stripe it. They got to put in the bike lanes. They got to put in the markings. It's a fairly extensive project. Trevor's communicating that with the team. Um, and that is now our final element on Cedar. The wedge controls. There's an image of this vault on the right side of the slide. That gate that was delivered yesterday is the mechanism that will close off the basin when it is full. Um, so that'll be an important piece to get into place and working properly. You saw in the video image the turf that was all graded with water truck treatment. um that will be solded at the Ponderosa Park. Our sod is expected early next month. Uh so as soon as it is here, it'll get planted. Uh our nursery contractor will have the turf installed and then we will have nice green grass at that location. There is one public art piece at the corner of West and

Cedar um that is in design and procurement processes today and will be installed likely next spring. It is not really related to this project other than it's near the same location and I think going to be a nice piece to complement the wedge uh detention basin mitigation cleanups towards the end of the month. You'll see correspondents and press releases about cleaning up sandbags that are remaining. Kind of a community effort to get it cleaned up and looking good. Then there's some seating and some clean up on the drainages, but generally as you can see final items and we're kind of down to the loose ends. On June 23rd, uh, storm water section director Ed Shank will be back to present his monsoon update. He'll also talk a little bit about how we will respond or how we'll think about this area in the future and other floodprone areas in the community for this upcoming monsoon season. But to this team's efforts, uh, this one is not as urgent or as concerning as it has been in years past. Very important here, we're going to have a ribbon cutting celebration. We know this is a milestone for the community. Um, you might have seen two separate invites. There are actually two short programs that are scheduled. They are both on Friday, June 26th. We're going to have it at the Ponderosa Park. So, it'll be right there on that newer parcel or maybe one of the older sections of the park right there next to the pickle ball courts. Friday, June 26th at 2 o'clock, there's a very what I would call somewhat delegationheavy or maybe a little more ceremonial type event um for the partners and the stakeholders uh our delegation um representatives from state and federal government. Um that will be a more focused presentation. Of course, the public is welcome to watch that one. Um but I think it might be a little bit uh more probably focused on some of the legislative efforts. Then at 3:00, 1 hour later, we will repeat a couple short pieces of that program for the public's awareness, but we really want to have the community to have a small celebration, to be able to get together

to see you all. We'll have a place for you to make some comments. There's a nice program that's coming together, and then we'll be able to have some food and some drinks and just be able to visit in the park. And then that really is our official turnover. Um, we then get to kind of hand the project back to the community. I get to kind of step back as a public works director again and hand this all over to Ed and Lee in water services um short of response. But I will tell you on behalf of the team um we are really grateful and I I was honored tonight to just get through the presentation with you um with that one voice. But I I think it demonstrates the commitment of a community um the struggles we've lived through, but we understood the pains and we understood what it meant to live there and we understood how hard it was going to be to get through. But we did it and the team did it and it was a great effort across the board and uh each member that contributed in one fashion or another really should be proud and they were arduous long Monday afternoon meetings but um it did what we wanted it to do and uh we thank you for your support through this time um for the funding especially from the community and their patience. Um but I'm going to stop there. Make sure we answer any of your questions. I have do have the technical experts with me that can help answer any questions as well, but we certainly hope you all can join us on the 26th and um congratulations. Good effort on this one.

Thanks. I uh we were all in a panic for a couple of years there. Um, and I know for the residents who were experiencing it, it couldn't come fast enough. So, it felt slow to them. But knowing all the steps that went into this and and getting the funding and that coordination of the entire project, it is really astounding at how quickly it all came together. and I'm so glad to see you all still standing. Thank you,

uh, Council Member House.

Thank you, Mayor. Um, thank you, uh, to everyone that's been part of this project. this has been huge and is deeply impactful to the community in both the ways that you listed and I think in in several more um that just touch um the needs of the community in different ways and and addressed a very um what was an an emergency situation for so many in the community. Um to see this coming to completion is is really a huge milestone. So, it's it's a wonderful thing to be able to celebrate um and to hear all of the work and brainstorming and just creative energy and and uh creative problem solving that went into this over a very again um relatively short period of time is just remarkable. So, just very very grateful for that. I wanted to offer space for you or anybody else with the project to share um a little bit about um if there are replicable lessons learned from this project that we can take with us into the future of of uh meeting these types of needs for our community or solving these types of problems in our community. I think um you clearly showed that a lot of of that thought went into this and a lot of uh innovative work happened through this project and it's always hard to learn those lessons through an emergency situation. But I'm just curious about what you or the other team members see as things that we can now carry forward into other things to either speed up processes or um address these types of needs in that more emergent way or or any other types of lessons that you're

carrying forward.

Yeah, thank you. And I might ask Julie to tag on to me at the backside of this comment, but I will tell you, um, it's not insurmountable. It's effort. It's showing up. It's working hard. It's asking people to do things that maybe aren't as easy as they thought, but it's also seeking that collaborative effort. It's finding a way to get to the correct answer, and it's finding a way to solve the problem. And you nailed it. We overcame hundreds, if not thousands of problems. And never did the team say, "We're done. We just can't do it." You find the workaround. And um I the technical professionals, the common sense that came into play. Sometimes we were overthinking it. We'd step back and go, "Wait a minute. This is the best path forward." But I I think you have to set some very clear objectives. I think you have to have clear values. You have to have kind of a framework. And I'm going to talk a little bit more about that framework at the grand opening celebration because I can tell you where it started and what it looks like. And I don't want to blow that surprise tonight, but it's shocking how simplistic we thought about this early. And we just knew that if we could get this done and this done and this done, it would start to snowball. And that's exactly what happened. Um, but for me, it was dedicated professionals that just stuck with it and it was just pride and work that they do. And we're all busy. We all have a lot of things going on, but um that tenacity and then that commitment to showing up, talking it through um was really pretty spectacular. And I I don't know if you ever get to work on these all the time. Um this was a pretty unique project even for me and I think I get to find my way into a lot of good ones, but this one um just had this unique blend of public and private tension pull back and forth and we all knew we had a commitment to it. And um thinking back to kind of those harder conversations with residents that went through every gamut of emotion on the street um you couldn't help but try to just try to figure out how can we get

through this and figure out a way to solve this problem um with a mitigation that is not even thought of yet. But you you really wanted to try to resolve the issue and I think everyone committed to that. Um Julie, what about from the private side? Like I think this was unique and different and the project delivery looked different. Um we tracked things together. Um which is pretty unusual. Sometimes it's very orderly. This one was like four different tracks all at the same time and that was unique. Um please I've given you enough time to think it through. Good afternoon, mayor, council, city manager, um Julie Lee Peak Engineering, and um so many unique things about this particular project, but it's um it is having clear focus, clear purpose, working in this community and having an opportunity to help that brings everybody together. And we maintain that energy, we maintain that momentum for the duration. There was a ton of enthusiasm. I think having consistent leadership um you know, city manager Clifton, city council, deputy city manager, now city manager Keen. Um that was consistent leadership throughout and that's that's essential for delivering these projects successfully, including your support. Um,

we also had an ice cream social. We had some barbecues, dinner with a fire. We had dinner. We had dinner at the holidays. The ice cream social was the best. 40 plus toppings if I recall. But those were the little things, right? That's what kept that team coming back and motivated. We had some shirts. We had some simple tokens of appreciation. But man, it it became a kind of a meeting I'd look forward to every Monday. Um, it was good to see. and we held them in person, which still wasn't super popular in 22, but we had a lot of fun in those meetings just really getting together and diving into the math. Man, that's a great question. We could go on and on for that one for a while, but poor Kate Mortley's waiting patiently.

Thank you very much. And I won't put you on the spot uh because you said that you already couldn't remember 40 plus names, but I do want to ask what those 40 plus toppings were for that ice cream social. Oh, I remember those.

But thank you again. And thank you again to everyone that's been involved with this at at every level. I know it it took a lot of um work from different departments and um communications and and all of that relationship building just made a huge difference. So um not only for this but for for other things as well because I think some of the trust and relationships that were developed because of this suite of projects has also positively impacted a lot of other work that the city has been doing. So again, very very grateful. So thank you to you and thank you mayor. No, thank you. Thank you for the comments. Vice Mayor,

thank you and thank you Scott for the update. Before I do my um thank yous, I did have a question. Can you go a little more in depth on the sandbag removal event that's happening in Sunnyside in June, I believe? Yeah, Ed, do you have detail on it or much detail? You know, so this is being handled by um water services storm water section public works is assisting to a degree, but I'm going to have Ed speak to it. We may not be the experts on it, but we certainly can get more information and followup. It's becoming public this week.

Yeah, definitely. Good afternoon, Mayor, Vice Mayor, Council, Ed Shanks, Stormwater Section Director. Um I should have prepared a little bit better for that one. Um John Morris, our senior project manager, is managing the sandbag cleanup operation for Sunnyside. So there will be uh a period I believe the press release already went out uh a period where we will be uh removing it from uh your curbside. So basically your right of way uh and that will be provided by a mix of public works uh wonderful operators as well as water services uh will be helping as well assisting with the bulk uh removal. Uh if you're really gung-ho, you can actually take your your sandbag debris right now to Cinder uh Hills to to the landfill and you will have that uh landfill uh fee waved as as long as you can show that you uh have a utility bill from the city. Uh if you have functional needs, uh reach out to the number that is in that press release. Uh and for those folks, we will work with them to get a cooperative agreement to get on their property. And I believe we have two volunteer days in June for that. So, we'll be soliciting some volunteers uh from the city and from the community uh to help with uh removing those sandbags um from, you know, next to the house, for example, to uh the waiting, you know, uh bobcat or whatever we have out there on the curb. Uh but yeah, most of that detail is in the press release and if you have specific questions, I can definitely uh ping John and get you some answers for that. Thank you. I have a couple of business owners in that area that need some help and um I did call one of them today actually with some information, but wanted the public to be able to hear that we are doing that.

Yeah, I think it's been a great kind of effort for them to think about. I will tell you a lot of it has been either reutilized as landscaping or it's been repurposed on property or it was moved and relocated as part of the construction projects, but we know there's still some debris that people would like to get rid of. It's not extra bulk service. This literally is for sandbags and sandbag trash and debris. Um, but I think we're going to have a much much smaller effort than what we've had in the past probably. There's just not as much. But we know there's some cleanup that needs to happen. So, yeah, we can get those details back on that. And that press release is pretty good. It's got a number and I saw it. So, it looks good.

Thank you. And, uh, I would be remissed if I didn't also offer my thanks to you and the team. The mayor and I were newly elected when all of this happened. And I know this sounds weird, but this event and watching you and your team showed me what I wanted to be as a council person. You were communicative, thoughtful, engaging, you listened, you cared. We were out there every day in rain boots and mud and slinging the slbags along with the community. And I think that's something I will never forget. I know the community will never forget. And I really took my cue from you all on how to handle this. It was very unexpected. I didn't think this is what I was going to walk into, but I just appreciate your leadership and your commitment to the Flagstaff community. So, thank you.

No, thank you. And I remember we were in response mode at that time and we're talking hundreds of individuals across all divisions and meant everybody pitched in. That was total chaos. Um, and this is why we did the project. We can't keep doing that. Um, that was our goal. But, uh, yeah, I appreciate you all being out there. And to the teams that shoveled and shoveled and shoveled and shoveled, um, my job was easy to communicate cuz, man, for residents and business owners and employees that had those tasks, that is hard work. So, yeah. Thank you. It was a tough time, but we all got through it. So, thanks,

Council Member Garcia. Thank you so much for the presentation, Scott. Uh I I have some thanks and all those things too here in a second, but I guess I'll follow vice mayor's lead and ask the question first. Um and maybe I should just ask offline. There's so much celebration going on here today. The last rain event that we had maybe a week, two weeks ago, I went ahead and walked the whole channel and there was everything looked perfect. You know, it was it was it was a a small rain event. Wasn't that big of a deal. I didn't expect flooding or anything, but I wanted to see how things flew flowed down downstream and where where things pulled. And I noticed that they they pulled in places where you'd expect them to. And I think that was by design and they flowed fairly well beyond that. Now, there is a place that I was wondering um if it was just by design where I saw it uh it pull in a place that seemed a little unnatural and that was right around Dorotha Street just east of Maine I believe. uh where the just before the grid takes it back under underground so to speak. Um right in that area underneath Dorotha if if that's correct. It could be on Cedar 2. I walked the whole thing and I'm having trouble remembering exactly where. Uh it just has standing water there after that event. Uh did you design uh portions of places to have that standing water for an effect? Um or or is it just the way things work when it comes to um construction? Again, Tint, our experts are behind me. And I think you actually bring up a really good question about the burn scar and how we deal with water coming down the channel. What we're looking for, um, my suspicion is if you saw a ponding or a puddle, that's probably localized water in a low spot within the concrete. Um, not what we're dealing with. Um, but maybe there's something there. My suspicion is it's probably just a low spot and it's going to collect a little water, but generally this system will drain out over time,

right? So even the wedge and the killip basins, those will not drain quickly. They take a little bit of time to get all that release of those waters. Did I answer that fairly? I think it might be that we reserve a little bit of space. Do you want to explain it?

Yeah, please explain that. That's I think that's what you saw, Council Member Garcia, is that um at the outfall of the box, we have it's a little bit lower than the pipe that exits and so we leave a little bit of extra space there so we can get debris or trash or whatever flows there. We catch it before it goes into the pipe. It's a lot easier for water services team to clean out. So, if that's what you're talking about, that was intentional. Thank you for clearly explaining that to me because that's exactly what what what I kind of thought it was. I had no way of of understanding how to explain it. The good news is the rest of the walk was uh flawless

and that was by design. So I'm really encouraged by that. Well, Scott, u I'm a Sunnyside neighborhood resident and uh as you well know, dealing with the type of flooding that we were having in those years, it was dramatic for the neighbors. I mean, we were seeing flows come down streets they don't normally go because of the way things got blocked off. I mean, you were there. You saw what was going on. But in the neighborhoods, it was it was attack it was attacking parts of the neighborhood that that didn't normally have to deal with it. People were getting flooded out and it was traumatizing. And I got to tell you, man, uh the, you know, incrementally year-over-year, the amount of work that the team has put in has built a confidence in that neighborhood to where now that we're talking about, you know, the the the end result, which is, you know, now we can redesign the park. Now we could look at other amenities in the Sunnyside area. Um, you know, at at one point where there might have been some apprehension, there's none now by the neighbors. Everybody's on board. Everybody's thankful. everybody's grateful and and there's a sense of confidence in that neighborhood now that um uh you know we're we're I think on really the precipice of a of a resurgence for the Sunnyside in a lot of different ways and it has everything to do with your team and the efforts um the quick response from the city and the in uh intentionality and followth through from the city um wi in the quick response that you did. So, um, coming from the folks that I talked to in the neighborhood, it it looks like brighter days are are here to come, here to stay for the neighborhood and, um, I expect a whole whole lot more of enthusiasm from the neighbors. Um, we're where in at one time, you know, the neighborhood was left a little aside. I don't think that's the same feeling we're getting anymore, and it has a lot to do, if not everything, to do with this project. So, thank you for that.

You're welcome. I appreciate the comments. And I think uh you know this synergy started with the road development projects, the sidewalks, the curb, the gutter 20 years ago and then that investment in the school property and now the investment in this infrastructure. You were all last week for the most part um attending the Montavo STEM education center. I mean there's just good stuff that's in good spots and it's citywide. It's all over the community. But um you're right, this was a disaster that turned into kind of a cool story of a positive spin at the end of the day and we're really grateful it's going to do its job. Council member Matthews,

thank you, Mayor. Um Scott, I just I when I'm watching your presentation, I was thinking back at just what all went on with the flooding there. um my agency that I had on 66 and seeing cars and trash dumpsters fly down float down the river um that was 66 um and looking going up to Graham View and looking at the sandbags that people couldn't even get to the front door

and they had I remember this one neighbor had one of those uh ladders that go up and down just that was their new way to get into their front door. I mean it was just so horrific. And then to fast forward and see that we took the opportunity to fix the the drainage on Graan View, which you know had always caused problems and flooding and and I saw where the floods, you know, I went on that tour and saw the flood waters that ripped through um from the mountains through that one neighborhood and and just the the force and the the energy behind it and stuff. And now to see the Ponderosa Park expanding and and just the fixing some stuff that may not have been on our uh list of repairs for a couple of decades from now and now it's fixed and and it looks so good. So I just want to compliment you and the team and all the partners that we had um pull together and get this done. It it is faster than I usually claim speed of government. Um, even though it took a couple of years, it was really fast and I know the the neighborhood and the community there is appreciative even though they went through some traumatic times are thankful for what it looks like today. So, just thank you all to the whole team.

I think appreciate the comments. All right. Thank you all very much.

Thank you all. We'll see you next month. Next up, we have our safe streets master plan presentation. Oh, it's all you. Oh, shoot. What did I do to you? It's right there. All righty. Thank you. Good afternoon, mayor, vice mayor, council members, and staff. My name is Ben Markard. I'm a project manager for the city and capital improvements in the city engineering division. I'm excited to be bringing you today an introduction and discussion of the safe streets master plan which is a coordinated multi-year initiative of partner agencies metrop plan city of flag staff mountain line and Cookanino County that is just kicking off. The plan will provide clear direction for implementing the city and county regional plan and metrop plans regional transportation plan policies, including those that pertain to multimmodal transportation, safety, housing, and affordability, climate, and accessibility. With me today in the audience, from the project team are David Wessel, planning manager from Metrop Plan, Kate Moley, Metrop Plan executive director, uh, I should mention Mandia Gonzalez,

project manager from Metrop Plan, cannot attend today. Uh, Jackie Lenners, deputy general manager from Mountain Line. Uh, Paul Mood, the city engineer. Jeff Bowman, city transportation director. Michelle McNelte, planning and development services director. So, the safe streets master plan is funded through FHWA safe streets for all uh planning grant which was awarded to Metro Plan and the consultant selected is KDson and Associates. I would like to now uh hand the presentation over to senior principal planner for KDen Vampi Yelisi. He'll take us through this presentation. Thank you.

Thank you, Ben. Mayor, vice mayor, uh council, thank you for having me. My Bamshi Elisi with KDSON Associates. Uh I want to start by saying we are super excited myself and my team to be doing this project to be uh for you all to have the faith in us to do this project. We know this is a three-year project and a lot is packed in this one single project and uh again thank you for choosing us. Um so what I'll I'll start off with providing uh you know what the purpose of this project is and then we'll transition into uh you know we'll pose only one question for you all today and then uh while you're thinking about that question we'll move on into providing more details on what the project's about and then we'll come back to that question. Um so the safe streets for master plan again this has been a long time coming a lot of the city staff and metrop plan staff have been at it trying to develop the scope and then we're here today. Uh so the primary goal is to develop a blueprint for this city and the greater metrop plan re greater flax staff region uh to develop a blueprint that basically is really implementable. It creates safe streets and multimmodal streets. Uh not just that, you know, not just developing the plan per se, but it also includes uh making sure that all the city policies, standards, and uh developer expectations are all aligned and there's some teeth to it once the plans actually finished to make sure that everything can actually be uh truly carried forward. Okay, with that said, u we want you to think about this one question. and we'll come back to it at the end of the presentation. Again, you know, we want to hear from you. You know, what are from your perspective, what are the most important issues that the safe street master plan should address or what kind of outcomes do you want to get out of

this at the end of the day for the city of Flagstaff. Okay? And keep thinking about this and then we'll kind of provide you a little more detail on everything that we'll be doing or plan to be doing as part of this project. you the safe streets master smash plan doesn't you know the plan just doesn't come in uh you know there's a lot that goes into this you know it's informed by everything that has been done to date including the recently completed regional plan the active transportation plan carbon neutrality plan and the housing plan as well and several other city studies in addition to this we also make sure that all the regional plans that have been completed that are relevant are included in this and then above all uh we make sure that the community and the staff feedback is taken into consideration as we develop the safe streets master plan. Once the plan's complete, we want to make sure that you know it's aligned as I mentioned earlier with the vision that you all have established as part of the regional plan and all the other plans. Uh and make sure that we lay out some strategic steps on how you can carry it forward. In addition, we want to make sure that uh if we do it right, this kind of serves as the stepping stone for preparing your the city's transportation improvement program. And then uh it also makes sure that it lays the foundation for you to pursue additional funding grants u u you know for a lot of the projects that we identify as part of this. also want to make sure that this lays the foundation for any future mobility studies that may be needed uh as part of this uh project. Okay. Um sometimes we always get this question you know there's a lot of plants always get done where what really happens with those where you know for the in the case of Flagstaff you know all the plans that have been done recently and in the past have really

kind of set the direction in terms of making sure that uh safety and multimodal travel is prioritized. you know there's a need in the north south connectivity has been identified as a key need uh from the previous plans and then you know uh there's been uh calls for expanding the uh trail bike and transit networks as well and then there's also a lot more emphasis on uh developing complete streets and complete corridors but more than that I think the plans actually have resulted in the Flagstaff area some real big meaningful projects these include the lone tree overpass pass and corridor improvements in our Lawn Tree U and Butler quarter upgrades, the downtown mile project, the Ford Street overpass. Then think about all the mountain line routes that are currently in operation, the Flagstaff urban trail systems expansion, and then it also kind of creates this coordination between all the entities within this region to make sure that you're all working as one single entity that's looking for the best interest of the community. So again, plans do result in uh have resulted in real meaningful projects in the region. With this safe streets master plan, we want to kick that up a notch, take it a step further. Uh and then basically wanted to make sure that we're not just focusing on individual projects, we're more focusing more on a connected system of projects. So that's going to be our focus and that's a big differentiator for the upcoming project. And then we also want to make sure that the design is consistent across all projects and uh all corridors not each we don't we're not using a hodgepodge of uh design standards. And then we also want to make sure that again the policy the plans and the funding and implementation all are addressed uh as part of this project. And there's been a lot of momentum and we want to make sure that we build on that momentum to be able to deliver you real long-term results. Okay. Um, as the safe streets master

plan was being developed, there's been a lot of thought put into this. Staff from the city and metrop plan have done several stakeholder interviews. I'm assuming a lot of you guys were also part of those interviews as well. Um, so they've shared all of that information with us to make sure that we clearly understand what the expectations are from the community, from the stakeholders, you all. So, five key things really stood out to us. So one, you know, it's great to develop a vision, but we want to make sure that it needs to be looked at it from real implementation standpoint. So that's something we'll be focused on. Uh also from a development stand development standpoint, the current TIA lacks multimodal guidance. So that's something we'll be looking to make sure that the updated TIA includes that multimodal uh guidance and also uh you know provides more consistent guidance for both city staff as well as the developers together. And then I can't emphasize this enough you know developing a plans one thing want to make sure that the policy standards are there to be able to support that plan for implementation. So that's a key aspect that was brought out to us is there's a lot of gaps in these policies that we want to make sure we address. And then we want to make sure that the streets are designed based on the street context that's adjacent to them that supports all all users. So this is a key aspect of the plan that we will be developing as well. And then we want to make sure that this is developed in coordination with all the groups that need to be involved including the public you all as well and make sure that we end up with an implement implementable plan as well. So these are some things that were we we heard from the interviews that staff has conducted prior to uh you know putting this study out and we want to hear from you as well similar topics in terms of what you would u expect from this project and then this is a three-phase project.

The first year we're focused on trying to identify what the gaps are in the system, what the needs are. Uh so we will be developing a state of the system assessment. We'll be doing a community engagement as well. And then once we have a pretty good understanding or baseline understanding of what the needs are, what the issues are within the community, then we'll move into phase two. That's in 2027. That's where we run a lot of future scenarios to identify, you know, what kind of projects makes the most sense. And then in during this phase as well in parallel we will also be developing the complete streets guidelines and the city's transportation master plan and the metrop plans uh regional transportation plan as well. In the last year 2028 our focus would be to make sure that all the policy updates standard updates that we do uh we can help the city uh make sure that uh they're uh go through the adoption process. Okay. Um I'll run through some key outcomes that will come out of this project. Um so the first one is going to be a policy design practices inconsistenc inconsistencies audit. As I showed you in the earlier slide this was brought up as a key area of concern for staff and from the stakeholders that the policy standards don't align with each other compared to what the plans are uh wanting to do. So what we are doing is we are reviewing all the city's codes standards policies and uh the plans as well. And then we're doing an audit of like where is where are conflicts existing? Is one uh standards saying to do this versus another standard saying to do something else. So once we have all of this audit complete that serves as a baseline for us for the last step of this project is to update these policies. And then another key outcome of this project is the transportation master plan for the city. So this will be a city focused transportation master plan. So some of the key steps here are we

will be doing as I mentioned a state of the system assessment. So this is a multimodal state of the system assessment. We will be looking all modes and then based on that we'll identify gaps and needs uh for the entire network and also safety issues, access issues and where there are multimodal deficiencies. Then once we have all of this then we will start testing out future improvement scenarios and then come up with a prioritized uh improvement plan uh and then come up with real uh implementable uh strategic uh uh you know roadmap that you can and take it forward after that. A second outcome is the regional transportation plan for metrop plan. So the city's transportation master plan and the uh metroplan's regional transportation master plan have a lot in common uh except that the metrop plan focuses on the greater flax staff area. So because we are doing the city, we will also be using all of that information to able to generate a metrop plan transportation plan as well. And metrop plans required to do this every 5 years to meet federal requirements to make sure that they get their funding. And another key outcome of this is going to be the complete streets guidelines. So for the complete streets guidelines, we're not just developing guidelines. We want to make sure that the guidelines are customized for the community of Flagstaff. So as part of this, what we are doing is for each mode, we will be developing complete networks and the complete networks in association with the complete streets guidelines will help us identify how our streets need to look from all from a multimodal perspective. And then last but not least, once everything's done, we want to make sure we come back and identify all of those policies, standards, and codes that need to be updated to make sure that they are in alignment with the plans that we with

the safe streets master plan that we prepared in terms of the transportation master plan, metrop plans, regional transportation plan, complete street guidelines um and all of those as well. And we'll help the city go through the adoption process. U at the end. Okay. Um again, as I mentioned, this is a three-year project. There's a lot packed into this project. Um typically, this is uh you know, when other cities are doing this, this is almost four or five separate projects. But here, everything's kind of done in in one single project, which is sort of unique and uh you know, different in the sense that you're going through the whole nine yards from uh planning all the way to implementation. But in all of this, you know, this is going to be based clearly on the community, what they want, what they want to see. So, we will be engaging the public three times through, you know, three during three different phases of this project and we'll be using several tools to be able to get to the public. Uh we are getting ready to launch the project website soon and then we will be doing a lot of online surveys and mapping exercises with the public and and stakeholders and then as I mentioned this is a three-phase engagement process. In phase one, we our focus is to make sure to listen to what the public has to say, what their needs and concerns are. And then in phase two, we'd go back with solutions, options for them to consider, hear what they have to say, what they like about them, and then make sure that in the final phase, we include all of uh this as the recommendation before we finalize it. We get them one last chance to make sure that they review and uh approve of what uh we've developed. And uh as well as we also have several stakeholder workshops that we'll be conducting and we seek a lot of support from you all and other um groups as well within the city to help us reach out to the right people. Um and then then we'll also have internal city

department meetings and also meetings with regional partners as well. Again, as I mentioned, the path to adoption, uh, we will be coordinating with several departments. Um, as you can see in this, this is a a short list of all the different types of, um, groups within within the city that we will be engaging the stakehold uh, the pedestrian advisory committee, bicycle advisory committee, um, mountain line board of supervisors, uh, AOT, uh, and then, um, uh, Coconut Board of Supervisors as well. Now we'll internally uh our sounding board is going to be a technical working group that is made up of regional partners plus the city departments and then we have a project management team that Ben just talked about that will be guiding us through this and specifically for the complete streets we have what is called a complete streets task force. So this task force will help us make sure that every chapter that we develop for the complete streets is being thoroughly reviewed to make sure that we are meeting the requirements of the community. And then last but not least again will help with the adoption process. Okay. Um there's several ways we all we want you to be uh engaged throughout this project. As I mentioned uh during the three-phase public uh public outreach process, we want you to be our u eyes and ears to make sure that we are getting the right kind of feedback. U help us put in touch with the right people that we need to be talking and then also give us feedback that we need to be uh including as part of our um uh plan development. At the end of the day, we want to make sure that you become our uh project champions once we're done with this project. Okay, with that background, I'll come back to the original question that I posed. Uh, you know, what are some of the most important issues you would like to make

sure that the safe streets master plan addresses? And are there any outcomes or deliverables or anything that you'd like to see come out of this project? Thank you, Council Member Matthews.

Thank you, Mayor. just uh for clarification and maybe Michelle will need to answer this. Um you mentioned a couple of times reviewing codes and policies and standards to see if they're in line. We're in the middle of a last cap analysis. Is that two different codes and standards or Yes. And um so it's it's kind of an extension of last cap and that's why I'm on the project management team is to make sure that the analysis and all the work done through the code analysis project is carried forward through with this safe streets master plan. So um where we are now with the code analysis is more with zoning code. This will be where the recommendations like that first report that identified the diagnosis and the barriers that will be what this starts to to tackle is those issues. If you remember we were also partners with Mountain Line uh for the last cap um as well as engineering and so they've always had a part in this. So this is an extension of of all that work.

Okay, good. I just want to make sure we were all on the same page there. And then um just a technical question. Um you mentioned do we have a Flagstaff pedestrian committee? I'll speak to that. Um and then um what was my other question on the safe streets master plan? Is this um mainly for our main thorough affairs like but uh Beaver Street or Butler I'm sorry and just the main corridors or does this master plan would this also impact um connector roads and roads within communities that are being built?

Um it doesn't include every local street per se. um any city streets that's of significance include that carries a significant amount of traffic is what we would do typically we tend to include your arterial network your collector roadways and then community streets neighborhood streets are probably one that we do not go to the level of detail for planning purposes uh but if there is any specific issues that we need to address we would take that feedback as well so okay thank you that's all I had council member house.

Thank you, mayor. Thank you so much for the presentation. This is uh been great and and actually um inspired a lot of of different thoughts about um to answer this question that you're asking us here. Um, so I think one of the top things that I see as most important um for this to address is making sure that um our transit and transportation system is connected, safe, and practical for everyone that's using it. So that's including pedestrians, cyclists, our transit writers, people with disabilities, families, and especially in my mind, um the communities that haven't always been front of mind when it comes to infrastructure or transit access in our community. Um I I really want to see this providing um some clear implementation tools. So how we can make these things happen within our community. um and uh ensuring that this is providing a a sense of system alignment that supports goals for uh across some of the different systems. So I I believe you mentioned housing. Um, I'm thinking also in mind um or keeping in mind transit and transportation needs that are impacted or informed by some of the situations that our community faces when it comes to wildfire, flooding, other emergency situations that um could uh result in like emergency evacuations that are not always um easily keeping in mind some of those those different communities that are impacted. Um, I think touching on a little bit of what Council Member Matthews was starting to address right towards the end of of her

comments is making sure that this is a plan that really brings these safety improvements and uh considerations to all areas of Flagstaff, not only the most highly visible corridors or neighborhoods. Um, for me this is a question of a couple of different things including um, equity, meeting our goals to protect and enhance the quality of life for all in Flagstaff, um, sustainability in our infrastructure and connectivity, um, while acknowledging the realities that we face in terms of winter weather, wildfire evacuation needs, transit access, um, and the needs of communities here that have been historically disconnected from easy transportation uh access or transportation planning conversations. Um the last thing just in terms of the list that you showed of of who you're reaching out to, some suggested um engagement might be the League of Neighborhoods um which is made up of three different community or neighborhood associations. So, it's the Southside Community Association, the Sunnyside Neighborhood Association, and the La Plaza Vieja uh Neighborhood Association. Um those are particularly three historic neighborhoods that are not always part of the conversation. Um or part of the consideration when it comes to transit and and transportation and connectivity needs. Um, so those would be the groups that I would recommend also bringing to the table and and having that conversation with.

Definitely. We'll make sure to uh engage those groups for sure. Thank you. And thanks for all the other feedback as well that and a lot of what you said aligns with what we were planning as part of the safe streets master plan. So thanks. It's really good to hear. Thank you so much, Council Member Garcia.

Thank you, Madame Mayor. And moreover, thank you, Council Member House. Uh, after your comment, I really don't have much left to say. Perfect. And well said on top of that all uh th this is this is something that I've just been kind of throwing out there every chance I get to be in front of folks that are planning u for for these type of things in the future uh for multiodality and and stuff like that. I recently came back from DC where I was in a you know heavily populated car centric area where I felt more safe than I've ever felt walking, biking, scootering uh around and I it all came down to one thing and that was that the pedestrians had the right to move from a traffic light prior to the traffic which made the traffic have to watch what the pedestrians were doing. um wherever that could be implemented in Flagstaff. I see just a um a lot of our goals and what we're focusing on could be eliminated with like one fell swoop of the pen on this deal in my opinion because I looked at every every aspect of why I was feeling so safe in a very car centric, you know, at rush hour, you know, hundreds of people passing you in traffic and things going on and and why I didn't feel that in Flagstaff. And that was the one output that I think that we could focus on and that is putting pedestrians first and putting those um you know pedestrians, bicycle riders, scooter riders, those outside of the car first. Thank you,

Council Member Spence.

Thank you, Mayor. Um I serve as the council liaison to the transportation commission which is as you all know uh has two uh uh advisory committees uh under the transportation commission. The bicycle advisory committee and the pedestrian advisory committee. And uh I am here to state since none of those citizen volunteers are here today. I I don't see anybody from our two advisory committees, but I am here to say on their behalf that they will be enthusiastic in working with you on this uh safe streets master plan um uh and the other planning um activities that are going on with regard to uh pedestrian, bicycling, multimodal um transportation. So, you're going to have an enthusiastic group of citizens that are uh contributing to your plan, to our plan, and um looking forward to the the good that'll come from it. So, thank you for your presentation and uh we've got a couple exciting years ahead of us as we plan for the future. Thank you.

Thank you. And we'll make sure we get to them. Vice Mayor,

thank you and thank you for the presentation. Um, I serve on the Metrop Plan and Mountain Line board, so I I've been kind of following this and and getting um briefs in our meetings. And for me, what I really appreciate with this the alignment with our engineering efforts. I don't know if that's always been the case, but I feel like we really are having um a good conversation with everyone kind of talking the same talk and I think that's very important and this plan definitely fosters that. So, I appreciate the focus on creating a plan that's not just visionary, but is actually something we can implement. And it's very important for for us as we move forward in this community. And I know everyone's been working hard on this. It's it's hard to get everyone on the same page, but I think this plan gets us there and it's very meaningful and um it does help us align our our priorities of the community. So, thank you. appreciate it. Thank you.

Among the groups that you do outreach to, I think the Commission on Inclusion and Adaptive Living who uh focus mostly on access for people living with various disabilities. I think that they would have a lot of input to give. Definitely. Thank thanks for saying that. And again, this is the sort of feedback that we want to hear from you on the types of groups we want to be reaching out to and we'll be looking for this sort of feedback from you all, the pet bike committees, the transportation commission and others as well. So

wonderful. Thank you for the presentation. Thank you for all the work that has gone in thus far and for the work that's going to happen after right now. Um, appreciate the update.

Thank you so much. All right, we'll move down now to green business boot camp. Good evening, Mayor and Council. Well, I'm D Presler, the climate program manager with the sustainability office, and I have the honor and the true delight this evening to present uh along with this wonderful team an overview and update of the green business boot camp. This program is a partnership between economic development, sustainability, and the nonprofit local first Arizona. This evening, you'll hear briefly from each of us and then uh we are excited to have three boot camp graduates to share a little bit about their experience. We will keep things brief, but if this presentation leaves you wanting more, there is an executive summary in the staff summary um that local first put together. And of course, we will be happy to answer any questions or take any feedback. Let me make this As mentioned, this program is a collaboration between Flagstaff Economic Development, Sustainability, and Local First Arizona. By leveraging each of our areas of expertise, we aim to help

Flagstaff businesses and nonprofits with their bottom line by strategizing ways to reduce utility and operational costs. We know that our business community and nonprofits face numerous challenges to keep going and operating smoothly. Through this program, participants gain the knowledge, skills, and tools to implement ongoing efficiencies and long-term cost reductions, freeing up dollars for other critical needs. We also support sustainability initiatives that make sense for them. Businesses are a crucial part of our climate solution and to and are key to creating a sustainable community. The green business boot camp helps businesses identify and develop projects that reduce waste, conserve water, improve energy efficiency, and or choose cleaner transportation options. And last but not least, it connects businesses with financial and technical resources tailored to their needs. By participating in the boot camp, our business partic our graduates received one year of technical assistance from local first Arizona and access to their lowinterest green loan fund. They also connected with city staff and resources from sustainability, economic development, water services, and more. You'll hear more on this shortly. But one of the most rewarding and organic outcomes of this program are the connections and collaborations that are formed between the businesses in the cohorts. For example, last year Laura with Culinary Concepts Southwest and Grace with Restoration Soils were in the same cohort. They teamed up and now Culinary Concept Southwest provides zerowaste catering events where the organic material goes to restoration soils for composting. This year, Betsy with Cula connected with Nackard Pepsi to identify a recycling solution for their plastic packaging problem. Um, which was something they have a lot of and they

used to have to landfill. And so, these are just a couple uh examples of many, but I did promise to keep it short. So, I will now turn it over to Craig with the economic development team to share how this program has evolved.

Thank you, Den. Mayor, vice mayor, council members, thank you for having us. When we first partnered with Local First on the Green Business Boot Camp, the goal was to create a hybrid model that maximized accessibility and flexibility for local businesses. We wanted to make it easy for busy business owners to participate while still engaging in sustainability and business development discussions. However, as we worked with businesses and community partners, we found that in-person sessions created much stronger engagement, collaboration, and peer learning. Businesses were far more likely to build relationships and share ideas, stay connected when meeting face tof face. Because of that, our preferred direction moving forward is an an is an in-person first approach while still maintaining limited virtual access as a supplemental option. We all know life happens. We would like everybody to be there in person, but we know stuff can happen. So, we want to make the the virtual option available. We also explored how to integrate innovate green funding directly into the program through a mini grant component. The idea was to connect education with implementation allowing participating businesses to apply for small grants that support that support sustainability projects such as energy efficiency upgrades, water conservation measures, or waste reduction efforts. This will help businesses move from simply learning about sustainability to actually putting projects into action. It also creates visible success stories within the community and helps maximize the impact of innovate green funding. As DA touched on, we will have a few examples after Local First does their their reporting. And we would like to introduce Local First as a strategic partner for this program. They have extensive experience supporting small businesses, sustainable initiatives, and community-based economic development programs across the entire state. They

excel at outreach, workshop facilitation, technical assistance, and program measurement while also bringing additional expertise and credibility to the effort. Most importantly, this partnership helps strengthen support for Flagstaff businesses while aligning with council goals around sustainability, economic resilience, and local businesses. So, it is my honor and pleasure to introduce Nick Schiffka and local first. Hello. Hello, Mayor, Vice Mayor, and Council. Thanks so much for having us. My name is Nick Shiffka. I'm the senior sustainability manager for Local First Arizona and that gives me the honor and pleasure of working with small business owners across the state and I have enjoyed it immensely coming up to Flagstaff. Um I'm actually based in Phoenix, but we we have staff up here in Northern Arizona that support local businesses on their journey through the green business boot camp. So, we're going to do a little mini report out on this last cohort of business owners that took their time to come learn about sustainability and implement sustainable solutions. Um, just a little bit about Local First Arizona. We've been around for about 23 years. Uh, we're a nonprofit. We are an economic development and community development organization that works statewide. Uh we're also happen to be the largest local business coalition in the whole United States and we happen to serve Arizona. So that's really exciting. We're also the state's federally designated rural development council. Um we have been appointed by the federal government to be kind of this go-between for funding uh that comes from the federal government to states to tribes and to rural communities in Arizona. Um and we started in Phoenix but again we have

staff and we are growing here in Flagstaff which is really exciting. Um just some of the things we do as an organization we assist local government and tribal nations to secure resources and grant funding. Uh we do this through the uh economic resource center. We have been able to connect uh nonprofits, towns, communities in Cookanino County in particular with about $6 million in grant funding over the past three years. And I think about a million of that has been uh pulled into Flagstaff in particular. We do small business education programs for startups all the way up to mature businesses with hundreds of employees. Um, we help businesses identify solutions and funding to reduce their environmental impacts, especially impactful when a city like Flagstaff has a carbon neutrality plan so the small business community can contribute to those goals directly. Um, we do a lot of food work. Um, if you haven't checked it out before, check out the Good Food Finder in Local First Arizona. We connect people to farmers, distributors, and make sure people are buying local food. Um, I mentioned we're the largest local business coalition in the US, but we also educate consumers about about the profound impact of their spending choices on the local economy. Small businesses are twice as effective as creating jobs as any chain retailer and are about 10 times more effective than uh Amazon is at creating jobs. So, that's why it's so important to be spending our dollars locally. Um, just a little bit more about the broader work for Local First Arizona. I don't want to get off too much on a tangent, but we started the Northern Arizona good jobs network and trying in Mojave, Cookanino, Navaja, Na, Navajo, Apache, and Yavapai County, and we provide a lot of technical assistance to

uh employers to retain talent in these communities. Um we've also engaged in the building resilient economies in coal communities program uh to ensure that you know communities and can retrain and retain uh talent and we have really appreciated the close relationship working with the city of Flagstaff, working with Dave, working with D and Craig um who by the way showed up for every green business boot camp session and really supported the entrepreneurs and was super appreiate appreciated. All right. So, what is the green business boot camp? This is a sevenweek workshop series for locallyowned businesses. We work with all kinds of businesses. We work with restaurants. We work with tourism companies. We've worked with uh we've worked with auto repair shops. We've worked with consultancies. There's no business that we can't work with because every business in their operations at some point deals with energy, water, waste, and transportation and all take up a significant part of their resources, their money, and their consideration. So, we help businesses by reducing their impact in these areas by at least 20%. Sometimes more. And we're going to hear from a couple of businesss today that might even be exceeding those targets, which is really exciting. Uh we also provide access to capital so businesses can implement these projects that they're planning. Uh we connect them to grants. We connect them to utility incentives. Uh we work really closely with City of Flagstaff Water to make sure businesses are taking advantage of your amazing water rebates that you offer. Uh some of the best in the state, by the way, if you haven't heard that. So very much uh kudos to you for that. Um and we also provide uh access to really low interest loans around 3% for small businesses which is really tough

because banks don't usually want to lend to a small business. So we fill a gap in that area. And since 2024 we've had 27 businesses from Flagstaff graduate from the green business boot camp. Um, this is in the report that we're providing, so I don't have to read them off to you, but you might me, you know, you might recognize some of your favorite businesses up here and just recognize that there is a huge diversity uh in in what they do, uh, the communities they serve, the customers they serve. Um, okay, so this is really exciting. the participating businesses were able to apply for two different exclusive funding opportunities for this green business boot camp. So, by the end of the seven weeks, each of these businesses has come up with a project plan that they're going to implement over the year next year. uh city of Flag Staff, the Innovate Green grants, which you might have heard of. Um businesses were able to apply up to $10,000 and we also connected them to grants through in it, which um in it are the Turboax folks. At Local First Arizona, we love to go after money so that we can pass it down to small businesses. That is what we're really good at. So, I went after a grant that uh awarded Local First Arizona $40,000, which enabled us to award 20 $1,500 grants to businesses who were coming up with sustainability solutions. Um, and this is just a summary of some of the businesses and their awards and how much they were able to win. So, uh, anywhere between $700 and $2,800 for the Innovate Green grant awards. This is really important. Small businesses again do not get the kind of access to funding that large corporations do that they enjoy. So it's so important to be able to provide this access to funding and

financing so that they can do these projects so they can scale their business and can grow their business and establish that credit and then they can go after even more money to scale their business. This is just another summary. Uh this is the INU energy efficiency award rebates. So these are businesses that were awarded money to do specifically energy efficiency projects. Um I would love to take this opportunity to call up three different businesses who have participated in the green business boot camp program. I'll let them introduce themselves, but Sarah and Leslie, Jessica Vanzil, and Kyle Winfrey all are business owners, and they took time out of their busy schedules to participate in this boot camp because they knew it would be helpful for their business. Sarah, would you like to come up?

You got a slide.

Great. Hi everybody. I'm Sarah and Leslie. I own Chocolita Chocolate. I've seen some of your faces before at my ribbon cutting and I'm big. I got the beautifification grant. So, thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much for that. And thank you to Local First. Through Local First, I've actually secured $23,000 worth of grant funding. Um, which is incredible. Erin, who is our lo local local local first representative, is so helpful with so many different things. Um, my partner and I bought land and we're starting a farm and and that's not even connected to this chocola business, but he's been like, "Oh, check out this grant and that grant and this grant and that grant." They are so helpful and I recommend them to absolutely everybody, including yourselves. If you know of anybody who needs support with sustainability or food or anything like that, um they've just been really great. I've received the in it grant twice now. Um I've worked with I did the green business boot camp three years ago. Two, three years ago. Yeah. Two and a half years ago. It's been quite a while. Um but they don't let go. They keep helping you. And that's I think a very valuable asset that Local First offers is that they don't say their job is done. They continually follow up if you need something no matter how long it's been. They do offer a year of support and they continually offer support after that through their connection with Saka and different events that they're doing. They've, you know, I've actually gone down to southern Arizona and done different events with local first and

Saka is like this southern Arizona arts and southern Arizona arts and something something something arts and creative alliance. They actually changed the name to something a little bit easier recently. Um my point is they are connecting my business in so many ways with so many different resources that even starting out as a green business I didn't know were available to me and that's big you know my my ethos is sustainability and it always has been and they've opened my eyes to things that I wasn't even aware of which is incredibly valuable. So yeah, that's my that's my two or three or four or five cents. Thanks.

Thank you.

Hi everyone. Good evening. Um my name is Jessica Vanzyle. I'm the owner of Elevated Camping Experience. Thank you so much for having me and thanks to Local First for the invitation. Um, I focused on really these are the two I'm highlighting, but three main elimin uh sources of waste that were able to be eliminated in my business. So, I rent out camping trailers and camping gear um in Sunnyside neighborhood. It's where my office is located. Um, but depicted here are some of the biggest sources of waste that I identified with the help of local first through this boot camp. So, every customer that I send out goes with a minimum of 10 gallons, sometimes up to 50 gallons of fresh drinkable water. Um, and then when they don't use all of that, it comes back in these containers that you see here. Um, and I have no way of knowing if that's still usable, right? If it's been um contaminated in some way. And so, um, with a this grant that I received, I'm now able to purchase this LifeStraw filter that you see on the bottom left so that I can pour those containers, be filtered, and then send them back out with the next rental. So, um, this was a conservative estimate, but last season, um, April through October, I identified at least 200 gallons of water that I had to dump. Um, so now I'm hoping to eliminate that going forward, which is really exciting. And then also paperwork. So there's a lot of liability when you're towing a camping trailer. Obviously, a lot of forms you need to sign before I can send a customer out on the road. Um, and so as part of this $700 grant that I received, I'm able to purchase this water filter as well as an iPad and stylus that I now can convert all of those printed documents to digital documents. um which not only increases security um but also eliminates a lot of

cost in ink and paper that I spend every year as well as paper waste. Um and the third area that I didn't depict here was the Inuent grant for 1500 or yep $1,500 that I received um that I've already purchased two EcoFlow generators um battery backups to go with my current generator that I provide for customers. So that now I've been able to eliminate my gas and propane generator that I would typically send out, especially in those cold winter months. Um, so they're rechargeable by solar panels. I don't need to use any more gas and propane for those. So um, thanks again to Local First. Really excited. And, you know, these are all sustainability um, efforts that I can communicate to my customers, both local and visitors coming to Flagstaff and why we, you know, value sustainability in our town. So, thank you all.

Thank you.

Good evening. So, my name is Kyle Winfrey. I'm the owner operator of All You Need. I appreciate this opportunity to speak with you about my experience. Forgot to advance that. My experience in the green business boot camp. I consider myself to be a fairly green person, right? For example, I've got rooftop solar and water collection. However, the green business boot camp experience challenged my views of what was both reasonable and also what was possible. Now, sure, you might suggest that I could have just read up on making my business green and I'd have been then I would have been motivated and would have the clarity to make the improvements that I did or I am. But I think you'd be wrong. There's a reason we teach so many in-person classes at NAU. It's a shared experience where we get to discuss topics at hand in real time and that made a big difference for me. Over the course of the boot camp, we all went through the process of brainstorming and solidifying a green improvement for our business. For me, this was a decision to move away from fossil fuel powered water heater to an electric on demand system and a water circulation system for cleaning my fermentation tanks with a fraction of the water of traditional cleaning methods. This experience also led me to form the Arizona Meadmakers Association. Through that association, I've begun to encourage and support other Arizona meteries and their efforts to be more green as well. The funds the city, thank you, have awarded, aren't staying with me, right? To make my project happen, I hired a local electrician and a local plumber. Your money money made a difference for me, but it also made a difference for these other locallyowned businesses. I feel so strongly about the benefit of this program that I I will be contributing back. I will provide additional funds to support the broader impact focus efforts in addition to the business's main projects for the coming year. The program is about more than just achieving a green goal. It's about

challenging business owners to think bigger than a single goal. Business owners may be ambitious, but it's the additional perspective that that sparks scale. For me, it was the right support at the right time.

Thank you. And now I'm sure everyone is hungry and thirsty, but if you have any questions, uh, we're or or feedback, we're happy to take those. Having the testimonials is really powerful and hearing how this all has um impacted our local businesses is really wonderful. Thank you, Council Member House.

Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, D. And everyone who presented, um I am hungry and thirsty after those testimonials. Um, but I I really appreciate having um, as the mayor has just said, the the testimonials really make a difference in understanding the the impact of this program and particularly um, the last comments about, you know, not only this funding supporting your work, but then also being able to pay that forward um, both figuratively and literally um, I think is really uh, the proof in the pudding of the I should not have used a food metaphor, but uh really shows us how this program works and and the benefits of it. Um so I'm I'm really excited to learn more about this program and see it um continue to grow and and have this positive impact. I wanted to go back to I believe Nick um you made a comment about um the supporting resilient economies and I'm wondering if you can speak a little bit more to that terminology and what that means because I know there's or I assume there's a difference between resilient economies and economic resilience. So I'm hoping that you can maybe speak to that a little bit.

Sure. Can I ask for some clarification? Was that in In there was two times I had mentioned that there was that local first Arizona we support resilient economies by being present in cities and towns and by preventing or by presenting these programs. Um there's also uh something that Local First Arizona did back in 2017 called building resilient economies in coal communities and that was something that we had done in uh across Cookanino County as coal fire plants were being uh decommissioned and that we were coming in and being able to provide technical assistance to employers, to cities and to funders and to make sure that there was training programs available for people who wanted to be needed to be retrained.

I think I was speaking more or referencing more the former Yeah. example. So, um but I'd be also curious to hear if there's a difference between those two references.

Not I mean with local first Arizona I think a big I think resilience is kind of this undercurrent of what we do as an organization and making sure that we're helping businesses to futureproof themselves. So, um, right now there, for example, there's a rate case going at the Arizona Corporation Commission where APS is going to be perhaps raising their rates again. And so, what do what do small businesses small businesses are the ones that are getting hurt there. So the biggest thing that we can do is help businesses to futureroof themselves and to help them absorb these shocks by helping them to reduce their energy and getting in there and asking them, hey, what are you paying for energy and are there ways that we can help you lower that? Because there's a lot of things that are out of your control right now. There's going to be rate cases. There's also the climate crisis. There's increasing temperatures. Uh there's groundwater depletion. uh they're thinking about the impact of pollution and heat on on our businesses. So what we really try to do is help businesses to think about what are those shocks. Um also with the supply chain too I think supply chain ever since co has come into consideration something that we love to do is make sure businesses have are sourcing locally if they can so they're not relying on these global supply chains that have that have um failed them in the past. Does that answer your question?

It does. Thank you very much. Yeah, no problem. Vice Mayor, thank you. Thank you for the presentation. I guess my one question as a small business owner, I'm wondering how how do you you get the word out to others about the boot camp?

Yeah, we go doortodoor. Uh we do a lot of social media. Uh we work with the city specifically too on getting the word out there to more businesses and I think probably our best our best way of getting the word out there is word of mouth. So businesses business owners that have gone through the program and have benefited from that program are telling other business owners about it and it's really cool. Um, I also love to I'm so happy and privileged to be able to present this to to directly to you as a mayor and council uh to get that word out broadly because I think you know this information that you being armed with this information is super important too.

And I imagine you're going to like the chamber and the downtown business alliance and doing doing all the business advis advocacy groups. Yes. And we also uh as local first Arizona, I think we probably have over a hundred members in the Flagstaff community itself and do lots of community events. I know Aaron um Aaron Suzuki does a lot of community events here. He gets the word out a ton to businesses. He's doing mixers. He's making sure that businesses are connected into the into the local first network. But yes, we are so happy to be working with other chambers and other economic development organizations to make sure they know about our offering.

Great. Well, I just want to say thank you. And it being a small business is tough. I mean, in this day and age, it's really tough to just even get your door open, to maintain your business through thick and thin, and then to entertain sustainability goals. And I love that this program helps small businesses do that. Um, and the amount of um, support that you offer, I think has got to be much appreciated by those going through the program. So, I really do appreciate it. I can't wait to see how this program expands through the years and just thank you for all that you do. Thank you.

Any additional questions or comments, council? Thank you so much and thank you to all of you for making the time to come and um tell us about the impact to your work. All right, we're down to open call to the public. Nothing. Nothing. Okay. Then we are down to announcements and updates. Two from council and city manager. And I'm going to start with council member Matthews.

I have nothing tonight. Thank you. Except for I have a puppy waiting for me at home. Peanut is what we're going to call it.

Council member Garcia. I have some a brief update on uh the happenings of last week and and I haven't been sharing this update enough, I don't think. So, I'll I'll continue to do do that from here on out. Last Wednesday, Mayor Daget and I hosted um one of potentially uh the may possibly the final um Fallout class that visited the city hall for their model UN tour. The city hall tour was unique in that the students from Fala had a mock presentation on global issues and were able to speak to topics as if they were speaking to the United Nations General Assembly even though it was just me and mayor and staff in the audience. Um they uh they they quite they had quite the skill set and um taught me a thing or two. Um the group also learned about fire and housing and um some other departments that we have here in the city. And all in all, I think it was quite an inspirational tour for all involved. Um while the kids were saying that they were inspired, I don't real I don't think they realize how inspired um the adults of the room were to have them here with us. Directly after that, I kind of ran into a unique situation where I was able to welcome the first two finishers of the Coca-Cola 250 um being in the right place at the right time, I guess. And um at the finish line uh Rachel N enrechen um which is a befitting last name for the type of work that she does won the race uh by setting a new course record and outpacing her challenger u by over five miles in that race. Uh Rachel Rachel Rachel also set a precedent for women in um in the sport, breaking through boundaries that had been placed before her and kind of um sending it

straight through the glass ceiling, so to speak. Um ta tailing Rachel by about an hour and a half was Killian Cor who finished number two and was the first men's finalist to come in that day, who um came in running on a on a bad leg. So, I'm just happy to see him finish the course without uh on his own. Um the uh this event brought runners from all over the globe and has proven to be a success year over year for our running community and our um visitation in Flagstaff as a whole. On that Thursday, let's see what happened on Thursday. That Thursday, uh, Mayor, Vice Mayor, Council Member Matthews and I had an impactful lunch with our Senator Wendy Rogers to discuss some funding that she had provided for the city and also just to get to know our local our uh, regional leadership, which was quite nice. You'll probably hear from others about that. Um that meeting was followed by my monthly uh contribution to volunteerism at the Flagstaff Family Food Center. Uh with uh I usually once a month pick a nonprofit that I'll join forces with and just go help feed the hungry. And it's become there's been such a synergy that's been built behind it, such a foundation and an interaction that has kind of went back and forth between the folks that show up there to get um their their dinners and you know folks like myself who are there to serve the dinners that it turns into quite the discussion after we get done um serving the food and everything. So, I think it's uh pretty impactful for myself to listen to, you know, uh putting my ear to the curb and hearing what the street has to say about Flag Staff and then also for the participants there who don't normally interact with uh government officials because they're busy working and doing other things. Um

that gives them that time to to hang out. So, that was fun. Um that Friday, let's see, on Friday, I was invited to sit alongside uh Arizona for the Arts Governor's Award recipient, Theatricos. Big shout out to some of our lo our local theater company who got that huge award. Um, yes, our very own homegrown Theatricos Theater Company was representing Flagstaff in a big way in receiving the Governor's Award and um at the Citizens for the Arts uh award ceremony. And as fate would have it, I was seated right next to Julie Comnic, who we saw earlier with Creative Flag Staff, who is also nominated for statewide recognition on this very, very proud day for Flag Staff down in Phoenix. Um, this Monday Monday I had the honor to attend the Cookino County the Cookino Community College commencement celebration and breakfast. And it's always a pleasure to see folks walk across that stage and onto their next phase of life. Congratulation to all graduates or all folks that graduated um this last week and this season. Best of luck in your future endeavors in life. That's it for today. Thank you,

Council Member Alen.

On the Wi-Fi. God damn it. Yes. Vice Mayor,

thank you, Mayor. Um, wow, it was a very busy weekend and I too was at the Coca-Cola race on and off, but I'll tell you the person that came in last and I can't remember his name. It was the most emotional thing I've seen. I mean, I've run marathons. I've done an Iron Man. This was something else. And the determination and grit that this human being that is just extraordinary had really blew my mind and and brought me to tears. Um, very emotional to see that. Um, and inspiring. Uh, it was NA graduation as well, so we had a lot of um, NA parents in town shopping downtown. It was a very fun fun weekend for sure. Um, tomorrow I will be doing some metrop plan and NikoG um discussions on transportation and um it let me see what it is. It's a Nikko metrop plan um gosh why can't I find it federal transportation reauthorization panel discussion. try and say that three times fast. Um, so I look forward to that. And this weekend, I know I have some things going on. Oh, the alliance meeting is on Friday. I will be attending that. We have um and some people will probably touch on this, but our there's some um great events this weekend. I'll let someone else talk about it. And other than that, it's just been a very busy time. I know all of us on council are going from thing to thing and it's hard to keep up, but so so happy to be in the community doing doing what we do. Thanks,

Council Member House.

Thank you, Mayor. Um, I just want to share that this weekend on Saturday the 16th at 8:00 we will have the um mobile Mexican consulate event um which is a wonderful event to um connect a number of members of our community with uh important resources and um primarily the issuance of documents like birth certificates, voter ID cards, passports um and provides information about different services offered by the consulate. This year's event will happen at Kilip Elementary School. Um it goes from 8 to 8:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. and um looking forward to joining that event again and connecting with our community. And that's all for me. Thank you.

Council my response.

Thank you, Mayor. And my one announcement is to remind everybody uh further in the day on Saturday, Saturday, May 16th, coming up at 11:00 a.m. at Our Lady of Guadalupe Chapel, there will be a mass and a fiesta uh a big celebration of their hundredyear observation. So, uh, I'm sure there'll be several of us as well as the entire community, uh, celebrating, uh, from 11 until early afternoon probably. Thank you, Council Member Alen.

Thank you, Mayor. I guess you guys heard me struggling with the mute button. Um, I don't have anything to report. Uh just to say that uh apologies for missing the meeting today. Uh my wife and I are home. She's recovering well and nicely and we're doing well. Thank you.

Thank you. So I think that um 1926 must have been a very busy time in Flagstaff because we have the Route 66 100th anniversary, Our Lady of Guadalupe 100th anniversary. That event goes 11 to two. And last Saturday I was at the Flagstaff train station. And I didn't realize this. It was Flagstaff. It was uh train day. And um it's the hundth year of the Flagstaff train station, which is where the Flagstaff Visitor Center is. Uh if you want to volunteer to help with sandbags, which are being picked up May 26th through June 8th, um the volunteer days are June 6th and 20th. And everyone, whether you're a resident who needs help with the sandbags on your property or you want to volunteer, information is at museumfloodpro.com. Um, so recently we sent a letter with 32 mayors signed on to the governor uh asking her to support rural low-income housing tax credit funding um in the FY27 budget. And I just want to thank the entire Flag Staff team. I want to thank mayors from all around the state who signed up signed on to this letter as well as the mayors of the Greater Arizona Mayor's Association who voiced their support while this was going through the House and the Senate. Um it did stall in the Senate and um so we're hoping it can be included in the budget.

So potentially good news, but it was a great effort regardless. City manager, uh, mayor, council, just one update. Um, the leadership team will be, uh, retreating. We will actually be having our leadership team retreat on Thursday of this week from 8:30 to uh, 4:30. And the topic of the retreat is the art and science of making hard decisions. So, we'll start with a um facilitated discussion with Julie Lancaster and then we have the afternoon where we work through some scenarios and we'll be at the Rio Flag Plant. So, very excited about that. Um and I don't think I have any other updates. Thank you.

Thank you. Can we get a summary of of the making decisions? Um of course, hard decisions. It would be um I think useful for us as well. So, we'd love to see what came of that.