Board of Supervisors Addendum - Regular Meeting

Good afternoon, and welcome to today's study session for the Board of Supervisors meeting on September 8th. We'll start with the roll call.

Supervisor Connell.

Present.

Supervisor Christie. Here. Supervisor Hines. Supervisor Scott?

Here.

Chair Allen? Here. Let the record show Supervisor Christie is participating remotely. Supervisor Hines is not present. All other board members are present.

And then item two is agenda adjustments.

Okay, on the study session agenda, page two, item four, executive session. The Pima County Attorney's Office requests this item be removed from the agenda. It is regarding revisions to the Merit System Rule 14. And then under county administrator, page two, item five, presentation by Tana Salvarita and Arizona Center for Nature Conservation. The county administrator requests this item be removed from the agenda. It will be rescheduled for a future meeting. Thank you.

Thank you. We will move on to item number three, which is a recognition of the retirement of David Amash, Engineer One in Development Service Department for 20 years of service. Pass it. Thank you.

Let me know how this thing goes.

Thank you, Ms. Lesher. Members of the board, Carmine DeBonis, you know. David Amash, 20 years of service. Congratulations. That's super. I'm going to turn it over to Dan Ice for some prepared comments. Dan is our Deputy Director at Development Services and our building official. I've worked with David over the time that he's been with the county, both in development services and Department of Environmental Quality, and just thankful for your service, all you've done for the county, for the residents of Pima County.

Thanks, Carmine. Chair Allen, member of the board. Hold up. Okay, thanks. Today we honor Dave Amish, who's actually worked 23 years with the county, almost 23 years. He's just one month short. Fourteen years of it was with the Department of Environmental Quality and nine years with Development Services. His career with Pima County has been marked by unwavering commitment, exceptional work ethic, and genuine care for his colleagues and customers. From January 2003 through November 2004, he worked as a civil engineering assistant with the Department of Environmental Quality. In 2004, Dave passed his professional engineer's exam and took a civil engineering job with Westland Resources. In 2006, he got his common sense came back and he accepted a civil engineering position with Pima County Department of Environmental Quality. and he worked there until July 2017. He started working as a civil engineer for development services after that. During his time with Pima County, David has reviewed numerous projects, mentored many staff members and the public. His collaborative nature and commitment to customer service is admired and will be missed. For those 23 years I've worked with David and it's been very enjoyable. I appreciate my time with you. As you start This new chapter, spending more time with your family, fishing, barbecuing, smoking meat, making wooden toys to sell. We wish you the best of luck with future endeavors. David's even said he may eventually start designing septic systems. If he does, we expect perfect submittals every time. But most of all, we wish you smooth sailing and happiness.

Thank you. Congratulations.

say it has been it's amazing that's gone this fast but uh i'm really grateful for the county and uh the support from all of our you know upper management the board members people i've worked with like dan other people in the past who have since retired and moved on and especially my new colleagues since development services since 2017 and my wife for all the complaining that I would come home with when I was a civil engineering manager for being there with me and talking it through. I'm going to miss my work, but the biggest thing I'm going to miss is working for the people. I mean, that was my biggest joy. Someone calls on the phone, they're distraught, and we can sit there on the phone, figure out what they need to do, how to get their problem fixed, and hear them praising and saying thank you for the help. That was my biggest reward. And I have to figure out how I'm going to replace that. My wife says I'm going to have to start volunteering. So that should be a big thank you, and I'm always going to hold this as a special place that I work at.

And next on our agenda is item six. This is a presentation about a new board policy related to consultation with tribal nations and proposed revisions to our land acknowledgement statement. Director Chris Gade and Ian Milliken.

Good afternoon, Chair Allen and members of the board. Today we're presenting two related items, a proposed board policy on consultation with tribal nations and a revised Pima County land acknowledgement statement. So you have the policy and the revised land acknowledgement already in your materials. So rather than walk through those, I'll just give you a brief overview on why we're bringing it forward, how we got here and how it fits in our broader conservation efforts. Next slide. So we see this policy really as an evolution of the Sonoran Desert Conservation Plan. For more than 25 years, the Sonoran Desert Conservation Plan has shaped how Pima County approaches conservation. And one of its most important innovations was bringing cultural heritage preservation and biological conservation together within a broader landscape scale strategy. So over that time, the county's made some really significant public investment in acquiring and protecting our conservation lands for biological, cultural, historic, scenic, and other values. And so as our stewardship of those lands has matured, a natural next step is really to broaden how we think about stewardship and who we engage as we work. Tribal nations have maintained relationships with these landscapes for generations, and they bring knowledge, perspectives, and cultural connections that can help inform how the county understands and stewards these conservation lands. And so this policy builds on the Sonoran Desert Conservation Plan by adding a consistent framework for government-to-government consultation and collaborative stewardship with tribal nations. Next slide. So that brings us to the two items before you today. The land acknowledgement is fundamentally a statement of recognition and respect. At the request of county administration and Chair Allen, we reviewed the existing statement and developed a more inclusive version, recognizing the tribal nations, indigenous communities, and descendant peoples with enduring relationships to the region. But the land acknowledgement by its nature is mostly commemorative and educational. And so the consultation policy that we're also discussing today goes farther. It establishes an ongoing framework for how Pima County engages with tribal nations as sovereign governments and how those relationships can inform county planning projects, conservation and stewardship. So together, these two items work as recognition with sustained engagement. So now, for the rest of the presentation i'll turn it over to Ian Milliken the county historic preservation officer. Chris.

chair members of the board oh sorry chair members of the board, thank you. I really want to emphasize how this Paul can we go to the next slide please. I want to emphasize how this policy was developed. From the outset, we wanted the process itself to reflect the principles of meaningful consultation. So rather than presenting tribes with a finished policy, we engaged them with a policy that was still being developed. We initiated formal government-to-government outreach, met directly with tribal representatives, worked through the Four Southern Tribes Cultural Resources Working Group, circulated drafts, and revised the policy based on what we heard. That input led to substantive changes, including stronger treatment of cultural landscapes, confidentiality, tribal knowledge, cumulative effects, early consultation, and tribal consultation preferences. We then circulated the revised policy at the end of June and received no further requests for substantive changes. So the policy before you today is the product of a genuinely collaborative process with tribal nations. Next slide. So having talked about how the policy was developed, I want to turn briefly to how it works in practice. The policy establishes programmatic consultation, giving the county and tribal nations a regular forum to discuss conservation lands, long range planning, cultural landscapes, cumulative effects, recreation, and stewardship priorities. That means we don't have to wait until an individual project is on the table to begin those conversations. When a county project may affect cultural resources, the policy also provides for project-specific consultation, coordinated with our existing cultural resources review and compliance process. Importantly, this does not create a new permitting system or replace our existing compliance framework. It simply commits the county to a consistent process for earlier communication, better information, stronger government-to-government relationships, and better stewardship decisions. Next slide. With that background, staff recommends approval of both the proposed consultation with Tribal Nations Board policy and the revised Pima County Land Acknowledgement Statement. Together, these represent an important next step in the evolution of the Sonoran Desert Conservation Plan, pairing recognition of tribal nations' enduring relationships with these landscapes with a meaningful framework for ongoing consultation and collaborative stewardship. Subject to any direction we receive today, the intention is to bring both items back to the board for formal consideration at the September 22nd meeting, and we've intentionally kept this brief, so we're happy to answer any questions. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Director Gade, Mr. Milliken for your presentation. When I was looking at the proposed policy, I had a lot of interest in the concept, especially as it was defined of traditional ecological knowledge. and knowing the the long-standing commitment to this area and everything that they have done to survive over millennia and thrive over millennia in this area looking at this definition it says traditional ecological knowledge may inform county planning stewardship conservation and recreation practices consistent with the tribal confidentiality preferences. Now, I know you said in your presentation, Mr. Milliken, that may be project specific, but just in general, when are we thinking that tribal ecological knowledge might be of benefit to and perhaps guide the operations of your department?

Chair Allen, Supervisor Scott, in our discussions with tribes, traditional ecological knowledge is so broad and encompassing that there are techniques that have been employed for millennia that we can't even begin to understand and how we approach not just the conservation of cultural resources, but the treatment of our biological landscape that we manage. So individual invasive species treatments, not the first time in history that invasive species have been as prevalent as they are today. They've had other times in which they've had sensitive agricultural areas that foreign grasses have come in that have competed with those agricultural needs. So It's broadening our understanding of the management responsibilities that we have in conservation lands and resources. There's far more expertise out there than just the science that we understand from a westernized approach. And it's really identifying that broader understanding of how Indigenous peoples have managed to thrive on this landscape for over 12 millennia, combating some of the same challenges we're fighting today. So, for example, in recreation, we look at understanding trails and especially our social trail system as providing a benefit to visitors of the park to engage and see different things. But we also may be unintentionally leading people through very sensitive landscapes that have no material culture. We need to understand what that meaning is in order to incorporate it into our planning without necessarily divulging what makes those spiritually important as defined by tribes. So it's that kind of balancing act that goes into it.

So recognizing the benefits to your department's operations, have we talked as an administrative team about how this new policy might have benefits to the operations of other county departments?

So, Chair Allen and Supervisor Scott, a recent example, Chair Allen just forwarded an item that she's been copied on with our Valencia Road widening project that the Department of Transportation is doing. Advancing and and so that has resulted in the association coming forward and raising items that need to be addressed. And so in that particular example, while the Department of Transportation has been engaged with the tribal leadership, this poses another opportunity and at supervisor. excuse me, Chair Allen's suggestion, we have now engaged both Chris and Ian to be of assistance in that. So I think that's one example that we can build upon. I think that the foresight of putting together this consultation policy allows us to have a conversation about how it will be applied and how it can be of assistance to those other departments. So your request or your ask is in line with what's being envisioned as we go forward.

I appreciate that, and my colleagues and staff will also remember that we're continually looking for more ways to involve our indigenous partners in the Prosperity Initiative, and hopefully some of the discussions about this policy might bear fruit in terms of getting more engagement in that arena. Thank you, Chair Allen.

I first want to just say thank you for such a thoughtful and robust consultation policy. And I think connecting it to the Sonoran Desert Conservation Plan, I think it makes sense, right? It is about land, and it's sort of an overgeneralization, but about landscape. It's about region. and all people, right? And here in our histories and sort of structuring that communication and that respect and that government to government relationship. I really appreciate the distinction between sort of the programmatic approach and program approach and project specific approach and creating the space for there to be consultation understanding around that sort of landscape scale. understanding of places and uses and things that are important and acknowledging that there might be sort of traditional cultural knowledge, ecological knowledge that we may not see, hear, touch, but is there. And I think naming that is amazing. And it is not something that I think a lot of, in my experience, that government bodies have taken positions that if you can't see it, then it doesn't exist. And so then I think the concerns of, Indigenous communities often get swept aside and places of significant importance get lost. I did have a question and it's kind of about this, it's just about the role of other organizations, right? Organizations that are within the nation but is not necessarily a government entity and sort of how the consultation process does or does not work with those other entities.

Chair Allen, the policy was originally identified to really focus in on our conservation lands, as well as the project specific consultation when effects to resources of tribal significance, specifically cultural resources. However, what we've learned through practice since I think the county really began earnest consultation following the Sonoran Desert Conservation Plan on a project specific basis, is that even when there is no federal requirement under, for example, the National Historic Preservation Act, Pima County has always been a model leader in engaging tribal nations on projects that may or may not have an impact on an identified set of values that we may not necessarily know and that we want to engage in that conversation. I think that framework that is being built through this policy allows it to be broadened, right? And I think from our standpoint, we have a pretty good understanding of how each nation responds in their own way of how they approach consultation. So our lens is we go through the Tribal Historic Preservation Office because that is what at least the four southern tribes as well as Pascua Yaqui have identified for us. But there are other tribes in which we go directly through the chairperson's office. And building that framework of consistent and early consultation regardless of the issue that is the basis and foundation of this policy the topic cultural resources being and traditional ecological knowledge being at the forefront of this policy but it could easily be expanded to be a a model for how we approach consultation on a variety of issues and engagement with tribal nations prosperity initiative among them But our intent was to at least put some modest guardrails on it because of CLR's approach and our office's approach to it.

Reser Scott.

Thank you, Chair Allen. Mr. Milliken, your last comments prompted another question from me. You've been at the vanguard of expressing the county's concerns about the important role that the State Historic Preservation Office plays in ensuring that there is a stable source of state funding for that office. How can this policy help us to better inform staff in that office of how they can work with both the county and with our indigenous partners on historic preservation efforts that are led by the state.

Chair Allen, Supervisor Scott, throughout this process, while the State Historic Preservation Office has not been directly involved in the drafting or language of this policy, they've been aware of it. What is going on nationally right now is an unprecedented scale back of federal preservation law that is actively trying to remove tribes and the consultation framework in which they're built into federal law. Slowly removing them. There's a real change before the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation right now that actually, if it goes through, will actually weaken the ability for tribes to participate in the federal process. And so the State Historic Preservation Office, their primary role is in federal law. It does have some ability in state law, but the way that Arizona was set up, the counties and municipalities are exempt from the State Historic Preservation Act because even though we are subdivisions of the state, it was determined not a state agency. However, SHPO has always been integral to a partnership from our landscape vision and an understanding that the mishmash of lands that are within Pima County, many of them federal, there is overlap and we can't just manage with hard boundaries of who owns what and where. So when it comes to the partnerships and how we can strengthen that for Pima County for the Board of Supervisors to adopt a policy that says we, we believe in our indigenous partners and communities from a stewardship and conservation model for our region. That is absolutely an incredible opportunity now because of what is going on federally. The majority of actions that affect tribal resources significance happen by local governments. Their federal undertakings are a very important but smaller scale when it comes to the impacts that are occurring on a landscape perspective. And so for us to kind of take a more leadership role in our region and say that you tribes, regardless of what's going on in the federal, are going to be partners in Pima County's regional planning, I think it's a testament to who we are and we continue to be a national model for what local government should do.

Chair Allen, given what you just said about us potentially being a national model in terms of honoring the roles that tribes should play in any local community where they've been a presence, would there be value in drafting a cover letter that could accompany this policy to send to the members of our congressional delegation?

Sorry, Chair Allen, Supervisor Scott, is that a question? Because I'm all for it.

Yes. It is a question, and I'm glad you're all for it. Yes. I'd like to know if we can follow up with our D.C. lobbying team about that so that they could follow up, not just, Ms. Lesher, with the members of our congressional delegation, but perhaps with agency staff where this might have some kind of effect. And I'm betting Mr. Milliken might have some suggestions.

Chair, I would love the opportunity.

Wonderful. Thank you. Thank you, Chair Allen.

Yes, Supervisor Christie. Yes, thank you, Madam Chair. Mr. Milliken, could you kind of define what kind of protections are going to be installed with this type of activity, and what is it that you are most fearful that as things are going, there might be some detrimental ramifications to the the efforts that are being made with this collaboration. What is it we're trying to protect, just so we have that definition?

Chair Allen, Supervisor Christie, I'll split the question and say the first part is the policy very clearly does not try to create any new regulatory process. It complements existing policies that have been established And to answer the second part of your question, what it is doing is actually bringing and identifying a process in which to engage with our indigenous communities in a greater understanding of. a cultural identity that is being lost. And when we hear from our tribes, they have internally a lot of challenges that they're faced with in terms of their cultural continuity, in terms of the way that they're approaching youth, in terms of the loss of generational knowledge. And what is important is that We are partners in lands that we are stewarding for public benefit, but their sovereign status provides them a unique role in that process. And so this policy helps to form a commitment by the county to provide a forum to engage in that process because of their sovereign status. I hope that answers the question.

Pretty much, Madam Chair, Mr. Milliken, but you did make some inferences that the current administration is removing safeguards or threatening elements of the relationship that we have. Is this designed to be some sort of a break front, prevent further erosion, or how is that going to be implemented if what you're saying is is indeed actually happening, that we're looking at the erosive cultural and environmental issues. How does that, what we're doing here, protect us from what you are saying is happening from Washington?

Chair Allen, Supervisor Christie, so the proposed rule change at the federal level is really bundled together to help streamline development. In that streamlining, every historic preservation professional, national organizations have all said that they're definitely opportunities for providing more streamlined ways in which the Section 106 and National Historic Preservation process can play out. But removing voices is not one of them. And when you remove voices, you remove engagement. And public engagement, public investment in publicly funded projects is imperative. And so for the county, we host a variety of projects. We have over 250,000 acres of land in which we've committed to public stewardship. But again, the sovereign status of these nations should be recognized and strengthened, not weakened. And so that is the overall intent of the policy. It's in no way meant to combat what's happening federally. It's to say that our local region believes in this partnership.

Thank you, Mr. Milliken. Thank you, Madam Chair.

I'll note for the record that Supervisor Hines is now with us. I just had a question about and it's not the most well-developed question, so that caveat is out there, about co-management of lands. We have amassed, I think I can say, a large conservation land system that is part of traditional lands of the Tonolatum, Pascua Yaqui, and others. And I think it's somewhat unique. I did a very cursory search to see if counties have some co-managed lands. Did not find any. Of course, there's state and federal co-managed national parks and national monuments. And so I just wondered if that has come up before, if we have looked at co-management of any of the county lands with the nations. And I guess that, you know, so the step beyond that is also just part of the supporting the land back movement and returning land back to the nations. And I'm just curious kind of if that has been anything that we've looked at, thought through.

Chair Allen, members of the board, that is not something that I've heard discussed specifically in formal co-management agreements. It is very informal right now, and I think part of the reason for this, or a lot of the reason for this policy is to establish these relationships in regular meetings in order to facilitate some of those discussions. We have discussed, and Ian could give more detail, potentially returning some of the conservation land we have to the control of our partners instead of us, if that's appropriate. Again, a lot of it has to do with management expenses and is it contiguous, those kinds of things. So Ian, did you want to add anything?

Chair Allen, members of the board. No, the only thing I'll add is that I think co-storage ship is the initial start. And then the programmatic consultation provides an opportunity to explore co-management. And there's a distinction right now being kind of discussed in the federal arena about what the definition of co-management and co-storage ship are. And we have been, I think, in a co-stewardship informal process for a long time, this just formalizes it.

Thank you.

Anyone else? All right. Well, again, thank you for new policy and acknowledgement. All right, we are gonna move on to item number seven. This is the, obviously the study session discussion of the Pima County Economic Development Strategic Plan. And I believe we have slides that will be shown with Director Viscovi-Chiorti.

Chair vice chair members of the board a good afternoon, thank you for having me so we are going to discuss the strategic plan update and I believe we'll have a discussion about. The accompanying industries that are associated with the plan itself that have been proposed for the twenty six twenty nine so without further ado I actually didn't know I was going to be giving this full presentation so let's run through it together. So what we're doing right now is we're updating our 2023-2026 Economic Development Strategic Plan. It had a life cycle through 2026. It was accepted by the Economic Development Administration. And what we sought to do was update this with brand new data to ensure that the existing plan could move into the 26-29 cycle. And with that, maintain the EDA standards that allowed it to be approved and accepted by the Economic Development Administration in June of 2023 when this was approved was approved in April of 2023. So effectively, what this does is takes into consideration that new data as well as changing conditions and really focusing on the fact that we have effectively fully emerged from COVID. And we're also taking into account additional new advents of some industries that are booming across the globe. Next slide, please. so we had a four-phase process for this plan you can see them right up there we initiated the assessment and we had stakeholder holder engagement we had multiple forums in which we engaged with individuals throughout the community the second phase was the economic and demographic data analysis so like i said brand new data was one of the focus areas for us in supplementing this plan and moving it forward for the 26 29 recommendations We then had strategy refinement within the existing framework. So effectively what we did was we took the existing 2326 framework, recorded all of the information and feedback that we got into that structure, and then went through and refined it to make sure that it was as crystal clear as possible while not deviating too significantly from the structural framework of the existing plan that we have now because it was accepted by the Economic Development Administration. and then we developed an implementation roadmap and had final deliverables that were associated with that plan which you have seen in memorandized form before next slide please and so this is just a quick snapshot of the timeline we did take this to the board of supervisors for consideration in august for the initial consideration but it was continued and you can see up there a couple of notable i think items or areas November of 2025 was our regional leaders stakeholder forum, and we actually had two of those in conjunction with each other, November 2025 and January 2026. Those individual forums brought together regional leaders throughout the community so that we could have a forum discussion. Those were actually propagated by Supervisor Scott to move those items forward and get direct feedback from the community and from those that play a critical role in economic development within the region. We also did go through a couple of other pieces of gathering information from the community. We had stakeholder engagement surveys that we deployed digitally. We also had many one-on-one meetings set up with the consultant that discussed with other partners throughout the region, which would include entities like the University of Arizona, Pima Community College, our tribal partners, and a lot more.

There's a pretty exhaustive list there. Next slide, please.

And so the stakeholder engagement is really one of the cornerstone pieces of the plan, just like our first plan, not only rooted in data, but understanding where the feedback is from the community at large. And again, it comes from a variety of those engagements that we held throughout that time. You can see up again, effectively a reiteration of what I just mentioned, community partners and regional leader forums, our county-wide online survey, our one-on-one interviews and our conversations, and then not noted earlier, but our internal working sessions with county staff, wherein we gathered county administration, um the senior advisors and our directors throughout the entirety of the county ran the plan by them through a process directly with the third party consultant gathered feedback and then subsequently integrated that into the plan that you had seen the draft of and so you can see below there just kind of the general areas of the the groups that we engaged with community organizations tribal partners municipal partners and more next slide please So do wanna highlight one of those specific forums. Like I mentioned, Supervisor Scott in the very beginning had requested a couple of these. And so these ones were very, very powerful simply because it allowed us to have effectively a tabletop round table, if you will, to talk about the existing plan, what worked and what didn't work, but also more specifically, what was truly representational of each of the municipalities that were present in those discussions and those organizations that were present. We also use this as an opportunity not just to solicit feedback on the effectiveness of the existing plan, but whether or not it was effective, where we could bolster those areas that might have been perceived deficient or that might have been perceived very successful. So we used it as a two in one, if you will, to figure out what was good, what was bad, but on either front, how we could make those things a little bit more robust. As you can see on the right side with the community partners forum, we had organizations like U of A, Pima Community College, our regional chambers of commerce, and our utility partners that were present there as well. Next slide, please. So we heard a lot from the community feedback that we got. And you can see these key thematic elements here. I'm not going to go through every single one of them. Some of these are directly related to how the existing structure was a positive one that was received well by the community. And others of these kind of talked about the roles and the accountability components that were included in the first plan, but that got ported over into the new plan. So we went through all of these and we just kind of boxed them into these areas so that we could continue to understand which areas we needed to focus on, which areas that we got very good feedback from, and then effectively which areas led us to reconsideration of either certain recommendations, certain goals, certain KPIs, certain strategic content within the plan, and then to alter, update, or fix those things. Next slide, please. And so we also did a significant amount of work with county-wide policy alignment. So really, we took to heart the planning documents that we have for the county, the strategic plan for the county, One Pima, the Prosperity Initiative, Sonoran Desert Conservation. We looked at all of these things and talked about how they actually fit into this economic development strategic plan itself. uh where we can more closely align and where there might not have been alignment before at all so that we could include those county specific plans to make this really a holistic plan that addressed the vast majority and reconciled a lot of those things with economic development is kind of the key focus area obviously for our department Really one of the driving forces here is the Prosperity Initiative. The reduction of poverty is obviously a critical component for county operations, countywide, and one of our key components in the Economic Development Strategic Plan is to create upward economic mobility for the people in this region and create long-term prosperity, which effectively does translate to reduction in poverty and increasing wages, earnings, and other assets for individuals throughout our community. Next slide, please. And so from all of this information gathering and data consolidation, we have our suggested industry areas and strategic pillars. Those strategic pillars at the bottom should not be a surprise to anybody. Those are carryovers from the original plan. They serve their purposes very well, so we ported them over identically. And then what you see on the industry alignment component, we actually did add a new one, and this was based off of feedback that was given to us by the community, as well as our partners throughout the region when we held the two forums, and that is tourism. It's very clear that we have attractions and tourism here within the county, and then Visit Tucson, and City of Tucson has a lot of partnerships with them as well. So tourism specifically for us would be primarily a support role to make sure that we're ensuring attractions and tourism receives adequate support from economic development and that we're also partnering with them more actively, as well as visit Tucson in specific areas that are directly related to economic development, primarily talent attraction opportunities. But those individuals that do visit this region through Visit Tucson, through attractions and tourism or any other means, our potential attracting people to live here as well, which eventually turn into workers here as well in some form or fashion. Outside of that, the other ones are pretty straightforward and direct carryovers from the previous plan into the new one. Next slide, please. And so this just talks about how the fact that we just took all of these different inputs and we're translating them to specific impacts for the community and for our economic development department. I think the two most critical components of this are the two on the bottom, the 16 carried forward or evolved for the recommendations, as well as the 15 new initiatives. So a lot of these things that we have worked on, we've begun in earnest. And in economic development, there's rarely a time where you say your job is done, just like a lot of different departments throughout the county. So what we did was we carried those forward, we updated them, hence the evolution term, and we're continuing to have those as ongoing recommendations to execute within economic development with our partners throughout the county. And then we have 15 new initiatives that we identified. And this reason is because some of our previous recommendations we did accomplish. And so because we have additional bandwidth this year, as well as some of the prerogatives that we felt from our regional contributors, we decided that these 15 new initiatives are directly responsive to what their input was, especially based off of the data that we received. And so we effectively formulated those to reflect all of the input that we had received from everybody that we had chatted with.

Next slide, please.

So here we are hoping to move forward, and part of this discussion is obviously how we will do that. And we're talking about implementation and accountability. We'll continue to implement the plan, the new plan, just like we have with the old one. We have designated work plans for each one of our individuals within our department. As I mentioned before, we have additional bandwidth with two new individuals that will serve business retention and expansion, as well as FDI and general attraction. So we're adding to our ability to execute a lot of those different recommendations underneath those two areas. And we will continue to do that. But not only will we continue to execute in those areas, but we will be delivering quarterly reports and an annual report as we normally do. I know that in the interim from the first continuance up until this point, we have received some additional feedback on KPIs as well as reporting structure. So we also have integrated those into some new recommendations that will eventually come to this board for consideration, I believe on September 22nd, if I'm not mistaken, assuming there are no additional components that we need to integrate as a result of this meeting. Chair Allen.

Supervisor Scott.

Just a clarification question, Director. Under annual reporting, the third bullet, what are at-risk recommendations? I don't remember that term coming up before.

Yeah, I think those are the ones where, I can give not a specific example off the top of my head, but when we had the first plan, we were tasked with creating these four different groups that we would consult with specifically, and we ended up starting that process but really only doing three out of the four, really only accomplishing three out of four. So when we consider something at risk, it's something that either got waylaid or something that we were not able to apply the appropriate amount of attention or bandwidth to at that time. So those are the kinds of things where, as an example in the new plan, as a suggested one, what might be considered at risk for us is not necessarily having the ability to directly address homelessness, right, as an example, but to support it. Is that really specifically our role? That could be considered an at-risk recommendation simply because it might not be specifically within our purview to address that specific recommendation. However, it is included as a recommendation because we heard that as a result of the stakeholder engagement that we had through the approximately year-long process. I hope that answers the question.

It did, yes, thank you. Thank you, Chair Owen.

Thank you, Chair Owen. Let me bring that back up, if you don't mind, as much as I love looking at myself. Thank you. And would you go to the next slide, please? Oh, that's great. And I will take any questions if anybody has any. Thank you. Yes, County Administrator Lesher. So we do have a couple of documents for you. I believe there was a memo that went out, not only that has the slide that shows the proposed industry focus areas, but we also had a matrix or a chart, if you will, that talked about how we came to selecting those industry areas and how they became a part of the original plan and how they got ported over to the new one. And then we did a little bit more work this afternoon and we included a couple of pieces of information on the two new suggested industries, tourism specifically, and then I'm gonna read this one verbatim, specialized mining engineering and technology as a subsector of the advanced and emerging technologies or manufacturing. So with that, I'm gonna hand out this document for you all because we just drafted this this morning. And I am here to entertain any additional questions that you might have.

Chair Allen and members of the board, the other thing we hope you got was the regional priority sector matrix, which again, the design, a lot of great background information about the plan, knowing that a purpose of today was to really do a deep dive and understand what you all felt were the appropriate targeted industries for this area. We've given you the idea of what all of our partners in the region are doing and focusing on as well as some of the additional information as Heath just described. Thank you.

So thank you for this. Thank you for the chart. And then the additional one today. You know, I had a lot of questions, I think just about how kind of how the list came to be right and and to just understand why And I think as this first chart shows, the one that has the comparison between us and other municipalities and other economic development entities, there are some in which everybody is involved. And there's some in which very few are involved. And so my thinking and looking at it is like, what is the rationale for putting on, including sectors, industry sectors, that I can sort of say that they probably got it covered. And just to be honest, our department is not as large as the efforts of the U of A or as Davis Montham or Ray Theons. I think efforts to be able to advocate around expansions of the defense industry, for example. So is there a reason, some other reason that is not on the surface that I may not be seeing for trying to include a broader list of sectors that we may or may not make a dent on ourselves. But anyway, I'll stop rambling and let you answer.

No, that's a great question. So Chair, Vice Chair, Supervisors, I think a couple of things to take into consideration. The way that the industries were originally identified, right, is through a twofold process of data, right, and that community feedback. so what we hear from the community right reflects those specific industries being recommended but it's not only just the feedback that we get from the community at large it's the data that backs it up so when we go through that process of you know data acquisition and under understanding what our assets are throughout the region there's a lot of things that are done to take into consideration and identify these industries so You're looking at the identification of major employers in the region that give us a competitive edge. You're looking at the size of those industries, right? You're looking at the amount of employees. You're looking at what their average pay is. You're also looking at kind of surrounding institutional support systems that exist. To your point earlier, the University of Arizona, Pima Community College, they're doing things in these industry areas that really truly bolster them and do support them. And I think to your point right there might be a couple of companies in the region. If you're taking aerospace and defense as an example that don't necessarily need our assistance in a direct form or fashion. Right. But when we talk about recruiting other smaller companies underneath that industry focus area, we actually do have a very active role to play in bringing them here. not only having a 14,000 person employee or right in aerospace and defense as kind of a critical mass that attracts more. But we're also looking at the spin off components to that really touch on other technologies and things like that that we're focusing on, like optics and photonics. And that also kind of pivot into things like space, space exploration, life sciences and things like that. So the umbrella of that industry really makes us competitive in our ability to attract small and medium-sized enterprises as well as supporting those that already exist within the region to a certain extent.

Thank you, Chair Allen, Administrator Lesher, and Director. I appreciate your inclusion of early childhood education in the updated language for our 26, 20, 29 economic development strategic plan. I'm having trouble understanding where you put this new recommendation because it's not a sector that we're going after, but I see you put it in the list of recommendations. So of the seven, where would you generally put an education-related priority. I don't see it in the current structure.

Sure. Chair, Vice Chair, Supervisor Cano. So the recommendation itself does not necessarily have to be specifically tucked under an industry, if you will. If you look at the slide that's on the screen right now, you'll also see those pillars that we have. That recommendation very specifically fits under one of those pillars. And you could really truly place it in probably three out of four of them, if you look at it. I believe that we ended up putting this under pillar two, which I think is either, it's advocate or amplify and connect and support. Can't remember how we have them ordered in there, but we're effectively, all of the 2026, 2029 recommendations are ordered by pillar, not necessarily specifically by industry.

Okay, that makes sense. And Chair Allen, as a follow-up director, the recommendation includes a childcare and early education economic development impact assessment. what is the status of us collecting that data and what is our estimated timeline?

Sure. Chair Allen, Vice Chair Hines, Supervisor Cano. So we can actually kick that off really truly at any time. We do have the financial capability within the department to move that forward. However, what we are doing right now is we're actually undergoing a bit of an additional review to see if there are existing resources that exist within the community with some of our community partners to see if something already exists so that we can take a look at that and if that might suit what the request is and that recommendation, be able to transmit that information to this board for consideration to then help this board make a decision on whether or not that recommendation needs to be included as is or if it needs to be edited, altered, or updated in some form or fashion. But long story short, we do have the financial ability to kick that process off at any time, truly. If it is a recommendation within the new strategic plan, then I would imagine from a process standpoint, it would stand to reason to kick that off as soon as the strategic plan is approved.

Chair Allen and Supervisor Cano, We've had conversations in the past about looking to expand our current contract with Rounds Consulting to do an economic impact of early education. In discussing with the department over the last week or so, we learned that Rounds Consulting, the group with which we were going to expand the current contract, had conducted the exact analysis for first things first. So before we took that next step, we're wanting to just look at what that data showed. Because if what we're trying to get to is an understanding to the business community and those in the community, what is the return on investment for every dollar we're spending in early education in this community? We think that may have been conducted. What we want to just make sure we're understanding and working with our consultant is how recently was it conducted? Does it really fully reflect Southern Arizona? and not other portions and then how can we use the dollars from pima county to perhaps expand on that rather than just starting again from whole cloth so we can get an update on what the current report has shown very quickly

Thank you, Chair Allen, Administrator Lesher. My last comments on this, Director, will be that I am hopeful that you will work in partnership with the PEEPS team and county administration to figure out the holistic impact of four plus years of investment. Right now, our current model structure really doesn't do justice. It's an annual report and it's not aggregated in a multi-year effort. and what I'm hoping the economic impact assessment will figure out is the economic gain to our community when you have parents working, being able to save upwards of $12,000 per year, which is what childcare costs right now, and the aggregate of that is more than 4,500 students. That's several hundred thousand, if not millions, hours of instruction time, so I'm hopeful that we'll be speaking the same language fairly quickly and also want to thank my colleague from District 1 for his engagement on trying to figure out how we can make a strong argument of early childhood education as economic and workforce development specifically.

Thank you chair Allen director viscovic you already one general question and then i've got three more more detailed questions with the general question is this with regard to the targeted sectors, what are the most important criteria that factored into their selection.

Chair, Vice Chair, Supervisor Scott, great question. So it really does boil down to what the ecosystem within the community looks like. And then again, the reconciliation with the community feedback and our natural resources here. So as an example, using aerospace and defense is kind of the flagship. We have a really deep aerospace and defense ecosystem here already. The reason that it rose to prominence is because we have around 170 different companies that are in the aerospace and defense ecosystem. There are varying sizes, varying types of employment strata, if you will, and profiles. understanding those different pieces, right, specifically the number of those companies that create that kind of fulcrum, if you will, of strength and competitiveness in the region is absolutely one of the cornerstone components to that. The same thing goes with kind of the advanced manufacturing, health and health innovation, clean and renewable energy. Not only is it about the companies that exist here, but I mentioned the support systems as well. So we have a lot of the support systems that have been designed not only around those industries, but to help attract them already. So when you look at the University of Arizona leading in healthcare research and development, and you already look at the robust kind of healthcare ecosystem that we have down here, that's one of the joint components that you see in the deciding factor for the identification of that. You could say the same thing for advanced manufacturing, but more specifically with Pima Community College and their credentialing programs specifically that have allowed advanced manufacturing to move forward very significantly in the region.

But the two key components are, to use your language, the ecosystem within the community and the feedback that we got from our stakeholders.

Chair, Vice Chair, Supervisor Scott, yes, that is correct. Okay. They were reflective of one another, if you will.

That's perfect because that leads into my second question, which is drawing on some language from the plan itself. If you look at page 10 and where we're focusing in on stakeholder feedback, what stood out for me was The central theme was differentiation. Pima County's competitive identity should be built on its distinct assets rather than positioned as a smaller or secondary vision version of the Phoenix Metro. And then it gets into some specifics further in that section. But then on page seven, There's the table that looks at strengths and weaknesses and specific to sectors. Some of the strengths are a globally distinctive optics and photonics cluster and established aerospace and defense base. strategic U.S.-Mexico border position for trade, foreign direct investment, and nearshoring. Pima Community College's Centers of Excellence offering industry-aligned workforce development programming, and then a strong regional preschool to K-12 CTE programming, including partnerships with JTED. So how vital is it to build on those foundations and strengths, and also to take into account the stakeholder input with regard to the importance of differentiation.

Chair, Vice Chair, Supervisor Scott, it's effectively pivotal. One, I think, wonderful piece to this is that we are not necessarily having to choose. So the alignment between what the community has suggested to us is directly aligned with what our strengths are within the region, right? So if we continue to address those strengths and continue to build those things up, my understanding is that it will continue to be reflected in the community feedback, which effectively it was this time around for the 26-29 meeting. plan as we have suggested those industry sectors be carried forward. So when you look at, as an example, optics and photonics, globally renowned, we quite literally have the number one Hawaiian College of Optics here at the University of Arizona that is number one on the entire planet. That is globally recognized. That allows us to build up that continuum of workforce development and industrial development attraction here. But really, again, not just specifically focus on the large opportunities, but the small and medium-sized ones of existing and new so that we can continue to build that ecosystem here. And optics and photonics is a unique opportunity here because that technology umbrella really touches on a lot of different types of industry. So when you look at it from a technology perspective versus an industry perspective and the assets and the community feedback, again, we're lucky not to have to choose, but it's critically important to continue to do what we're good at and to make sure that everybody knows we're good at those things.

So. Staying focused on on the targeted sectors in the introduction to the plan on the very first page, it says. what evolved this is the last sentence last really long sentence by the way what what evolves is the application more specific sector strategies is the first first phrase in that that sentence more specific sector strategies so my question is is that tied in with what we see in recommendations seven and eight under pillar two, which as you remember, I attach a great deal of importance to along with recommendation nine, specifically conducting a comprehensive market assessment for target industries in Pima County and developing individual sector strategies for each of the county's seven priority sectors. That's under number seven. And then under number eight, develop and sustain a comprehensive, unified business attraction and marketing campaign for Pima County. So it sounds like the sector-specific strategies that are mentioned in the introduction are really fleshed out in those two recommendations. Is that fair to say?

Chair, Vice Chair, Supervisor Scott, I think two things. Number one, leave it to you to catch a run on sentence. And second is yes. So we've already performed an asset mapping ecosystem kind of development component with aerospace and defense. That's how we have identified all of the different companies that we have here. From that, we will take that and we will create that sector-specific strategy. And then to your point on the second recommendation with Nazar fully integrated into our department, he will be creating that larger umbrella business attraction and marketing strategy. So effectively, we will go through every single one of those. We will do those asset mapping studies. We will create those strategies. And then we'll have all of those strategies feed up into that larger attraction component. It is directly related to those industries. And we've identified the functional element of doing the asset mapping to create the strategies to then execute those things.

Thank you. And my last question, Chair Allen, goes to what I think is for the vast majority of our constituents, the greatest measure for the success of this plan, which is, as you described it in your presentation remarks, upward economic mobility. In other words, more jobs with better benefits. And on page five, You talk about manufacturing and that this sector at 7.1% of employment exceeds Maricopa County's 5.9% share and is concentrated in aerospace defense and advanced manufacturing. It's expected to, projected to grow 12.9%. through 2034, adding approximately 3,714 jobs. And then below that, you talk about employment projections in other areas like trade and logistics, leisure and hospitality, professional science and technical services. As we're developing the comprehensive market assessment for the target industries. Can we get some more information on projected employment growth in each of the sectors, including the new one of tourism? Because again, I think that's what is going to be most important to the people that we represent.

Sure. Chair, Vice Chair, Supervisor Scott, yes, we can provide that information.

All right. Chair Allen, thank you. Madam Chair?

Supervisor Christie.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Director, can you touch briefly on one of the areas that you're specifically focusing on in your plan of business retention? I'm assuming you're talking about local business retention. And how is this plan poised to retain the businesses we have and help them be nurtured and grow as well?

Chair, Vice Chair, Supervisor Christie, thank you for the question. So, as you know, we do have a new individual within our department, Amber Folkman, who is working on business retention and expansion. As we speak, and over the next couple of months, she will be developing a cumulative strategy for BRE. to your point about it being local business support. The answer is yes, it'll be more of a regional approach, obviously because we're a regional entity, and that does not limit ourselves to the urban areas, but we're also talking about how we can support businesses in the rural areas, which are lightly touched comparatively in many forms and fashions. And this will probably be a combination of multiple different resources that we identify and bring to bear. You may also be familiar with the fact that with that business retention and expansion position, there was allocated approximately $125,000 for support services underneath it. So what we're looking to do is operationalize that through identifying where there are gaps in information, whether that is or services i should say whether it's you know related to business planning human resources if they need financial assistance or identify financial resources help with banking to provide those resources to those businesses hopefully free of charge so that they can more thoroughly and robustly develop what their overall business plans look like for success but not only that we'll also integrate some of the work that we've been doing on the attraction side because these two are inextricably linked and we will try to connect some of these businesses with the supply chain and the manufacturing chain strengthening programs that we've been working on. So that may touch actually doing import export training controls and things like that. So effectively identifying a suite of services that is not duplicative, providing that to those businesses for them to utilize, and then continuing to guide them through the use of those services so that they can actually bring to bear the resources that we are providing for them as a county. And I should iterate, we will not do that alone. We will absolutely be working with our regional partners. City of Tucson, Pima Community College, you name it, will likely have some type of relationship with all of our primary partners in executing business retention and expansion. I hope that answered your question, sir.

Madam Chair and Director, I'm sure you have access to information on the number of businesses to say over the last three to five years that have started in Pima County that are no longer in business. Do you have data on that type of information?

Chair, Vice Chair, Supervisor Christy, we do have access to that type of data. We actually will utilize that data for a variety of things. One of the things that we'll do that we try to do even on the attraction side is effectively what we term maybe morbidly a postmortem to understand why they closed, what the circumstances were that forced them to close, and see if we can use our resources to identify how we can mitigate those types of circumstances for businesses that we're seeking to assist as well.

Thank you, Director. Thank you, Madam Chair.

I'm curious about the sectors that don't have a whole lot of overlap with other areas. So energy and transportation are the two that pop the most. And I mean, I guess, why? Why do you feel like that? It's just us? U of A? Is it no PCC U of A? Why is that?

chair allen vice chair supervisors so i think if you look at this chart and as it is right now as an example transportation distribution logistics or energy specifically there are some entities that do not specialize in those so as an example taking transportation distribution logistics um looking at university of arizona center for innovation tech parks arizona and the u of a they're not necessarily very specifically engaged in those areas because they're not necessarily their area of expertise or what they're focusing on so they're not represented by those those specific entities but those that do focus on those like the county like the city town of marana it's because we have I think a couple of different assets that we can leverage to continue to facilitate those things. Number one, in general, it's our proximity to Mexico and it's our proximity to the port in Long Beach, as well as our multimodal inland port here. But it's also the fact that we have the 10 and the 19 And we also have, as entities, land that are adjacent to those for development simultaneously. So if you look at it from that perspective, those specific entities that have that kind of accumulation of resources along those critical paths for transportation distribution logistics are really the ones where we are supporting that very specifically. County's benefit is we're a pretty wide and expansive area. And so with our land that's designated for economic development, it is really quite literally along some of these major thoroughfares that give us the opportunity to take advantage of those.

And then for, I guess, what is the thought with energy and clean energy?

Yeah, so for us, that's one of the ethos, ethos, ethai behind what we do in clean and renewable energy for the county specifically. It's also a direct tie into advanced manufacturing. So when you look at battery energy storage systems and things like that, that is a clean and renewable energy industry, but it also has crossover with manufacturing and or advanced manufacturing. Couple that with what's happening from a utility perspective in enhancing solar, as well as those battery energy storage system installations throughout the region, and then take into consideration the natural resource of sunlight that we have. We're seeking to leverage all of those things to attract those companies here specifically. On the University of Arizona side, they are number one in many instances in research and development of energy, specifically clean and renewable. And then, as you might know, they really are focusing on the advent of fusion energy and what research and development looks like in developing new forms and new types of energy. So in that particular situation, we play a bit more of a support role because fusion is beyond me and my department, for lack of a better term.

I guess I'm wondering, so in my world where I come from, less is more, right? Like in that you under-promise and over-perform. And some of that is that it is tied to, in the nonprofit world, it's tied to funding, right? And we've got to be really clear about what our goals and our expected outcomes are going to be. and then you don't just hit them but you exceed them and that's how you get continuity of funding. For me, I look at this and it is a lot given that the department is six staff? seven um and who and and that it's not all seven focused on this and so i i think for me it's just are we spreading ourselves too thin and and coupling that with just the question of the you know what are we what are the outcomes that we're trying to hit like realistically within this time period because the plan has got two and a half years left and so you know how can we set ourselves up for success? And not necessarily success that a wise person sort of shared the idea of sort of shooting at everything and counting what falls, but intentional success, right? Because that's how we learn. When we do X, it results in Y, and so how can we continue to do more of X to result in more Ys, for lack of a better thing. But... So, yeah, I guess I'm just, I am curious and have been curious with my colleagues of the, if the spreading thin, which it feels like it's spreading thin, given the size of the staff, makes sense or is it more, is it smarter to hone in? and that we say that over the next two and a half years, we're gonna dig in to focusing on clean energy, right, because there's not a whole lot of other, of our partners who are invested in that. We know that there is a ecosystem that supports it and need for it, or transportation distribution and logistics, again, because there aren't a whole lot of our other partners that are rolling their sleeves up on that. So I guess I'm curious, because there's different ways to go, and it seems like we've chosen the path of going sort of spreading out and doing a lot.

Chair, Vice Chair, Supervisors, so I think the answer to that question, at least from a bandwidth perspective, is that we are less spread thin than we were before with the previous iteration of this plan. And I wouldn't even say we're spread thin. We do a lot, even with relatively minimal staff. But now that we have the additional two in here that has significantly increased our bandwidth, the only addition here from an industry perspective really is the tourism component, which we would end up playing a support role in primarily if that does move across the finish line in the final plan. But really, when all is said and done, we actually do have adequate staff to go after all of these industries in some form or fashion. I will say, too, right, there are a few different types of mechanisms where it's not just our staff that we're reliant on. Economic development throughout the region is done by many of us, right? And so sometimes there are shifting focus areas for regional institutions like the university or perhaps the chamber or whatever that looks like. And so we tend to pick up one another's slack in those areas also. And so we spread the work, we spread the load to whatever extent we can. I would also say, with the idea of going through the asset mapping study for each one of them and identifying where the highest and best use of our time is, there will likely be a hierarchy of focus right for us to really focus our attention in some of these areas very deliberately and that might mean that perhaps in the next iteration we'll have a much more thorough accounting now that we'll have individual strategies and individual documentation for the resources and for those industries about which ones we were most effective in and which ones we weren't and i think that might actually help us refocus right when we have a new plan that comes up for whatever the next cycle is So I think there's a lot of different ways to look at it when all is said and done. From the content of what I've seen my staff able to do and what they have executed, I don't think that we're lacking bandwidth. I think we've got more than ever right now, and I think we're well-placed to be able to address these and not only do we work with the chambers and the regional entities right but we also work with the state who funnels leads to us in some of these areas so sometimes it's as simple as submitting a request for information response to them to throw our hat in the ring when we're actively seeking these companies out we're likely speaking to many companies across these industries all at once and so our value proposition if you will covers all of these industry potential areas too So it's not like I'm going or we're going industry to industry. We do blanket kind of attraction opportunities as well.

Supervisor Connell.

Thank you, Chair Allen. I'm not sure, I kind of heard your question directed a bit to the colleagues, to our colleagues. I'm comfortable with this plan as presented. I do encourage economic development and administration to let the board know what additional resources are needed in terms of people power within the department. We are already, as you said, director, headed in a good direction where we have very wisely added to your team. It looks a lot different than the position we were in last year. I'm also taking a little bit of a deep breath because part of the One Pima plan includes an additional 250,000 for small business. I know administration is working on that particular recommendation to come before the board. We've gotta focus on those who are already who are locally born and bred, and that to me is encouraging. I know we've also upped our regional support to our chambers in the area as well, but most importantly are deferring a lot of our economic development decisions. I shouldn't say deferring, but the Chamber of Southern Arizona is also in the lead as a partner area. and frankly as a county contractor on our behalf. And so I'm optimistic that this plan will go into the right meetings to bring more jobs and more resources to Pima County.

Supervisor Scott.

Thank you, Chair Allen. I'm gonna follow up on your question by going back to recommendation seven, because I think when we're looking at bandwidth within your department, when we're looking at, to follow on the point made by my colleague from District Five, the contractual relationship that we have with the Chamber of Southern Arizona, And to follow up on a point that you made, the work that's done by other economic development practitioners within other organizations or the other jurisdictions, when you conduct first a comprehensive market assessment for target industries and then follow up that comprehensive market assessment with developing individual sector strategies for each of our priority sectors, flush that out what might that look like and how might that then um determine how much time is devoted within your department with the chamber with our other uh partners towards each of the seven sectors

chair vice chair supervisor scott so much like our strategy presented in front of you today kind of lines out all the specifics the recommendations right on how we execute our broad strategy right that's aligned with all of the other strategies for the county these individual sector strategies will be relatively similar in how they're formed so really taking that asset mapping information identifying the assets that we have to bring to bear are the ones that we need to bring to bear And if we don't have those right, engaging the right organizations that do so that we can, I think, you know, present that unified front and that team effort on execution. So as an example, again, if you look at aerospace and defense or health and, you know, health innovation, when we do the review of the asset map study and we figure out what the assets in the region are, that will inform that strategy. That strategy might be maybe we're not attracting new companies in, traditional healthcare, if you will, but maybe we are attracting small startups that are doing research and development in pioneering healthcare technology development or something to that extent. It actually might say that we need to continue to focus on the workforce development component of which there is a component of that in this plan as well. and continue to seek out opportunities for how we can either attract talent here how we can supplement talent here how we can engage in additional training opportunities and things like that for that industry specifically and it'll also help us drill down to the very specifics of that if it is talent attraction or workforce development uh you know what job profiles need the most support what does that support look like and then how do we bring that support into that ecosystem right to help build them up so i would say each one of those asset mappings uh kind of processes and the associated strategies will not look identical to each other industry. They're going to be different based off of the needs that we find in each one of those industries.

So following up on that, and I hope this is a logical question, we've got seven priority sectors. In terms of first the comprehensive market assessment and then developing individual sector strategies, of those seven sectors, Because this is one of the evolved recommendations carrying forward from the last three-year plan. Looking at each of those seven sectors, where do we need to do more work in terms of the comprehensive market assessment and sector strategies? And where...

do have we already come a long way like if you can break it down sector by sector uh chair vice chair supervisor scott so from the county's perspective in each one of i'll say at least the existing six right within the existing plan not taking into account tourism because it has not been approved yet necessarily we have work to do on every single one of them because we don't have asset maps done for them we don't know all of the specific assets that we have and we don't have the strategies created underneath them from a county perspective However, what we do have right are take aerospace and defense and the work that's been done at the University of Arizona. We understand what they've been doing and how they've been doing it. So to your point earlier, Chair Allen, we likely will have to put less effort towards aerospace and defense attraction because there is an existing ecosystem here that is thriving, especially because of the large employer here. However, we certainly will continue to address it in some form or fashion, likely small and mediums that we'll look to attract. we'll likely have to do less in that area because the University of Arizona has done a significant amount of work there. When you look at advanced manufacturing, we probably will have to do a lot of work in advanced manufacturing because there's a significant umbrella of different types of manufacturing underneath that. But likely, we won't have to do a lot of work on the workforce development component underneath advanced manufacturing simply because we have organizations like Pima Community College that absolutely excel at training and credentialing in advanced manufacturing. Specifically, they have a center of excellence that's purely dedicated to that as well. So these are just kind of my initial thoughts off the top of my head. Those will be codified when we do develop each one of those strategies. And I will reiterate that we're only able to do those strategies and these asset mapping processes because we now actually have the financial capability underneath each of those new positions to be able to go ahead and do those things.

So you touched on two of the seven sectors, aerospace and defense and advanced manufacturing. With regard to the asset mapping that needs to be done in the other five, are those – and then the –

strategies that come out of that asset mapping is that the kind of work that the board can expect to get in those quarterly reports that are referenced in one of your earlier slides chair vice chair supervisor scott yes i think progress updates on the process right of going through each individual asset mapping process and study and then figuring out what the strategies underneath them effectively updating on incremental progress on each one of those initiatives uh we have not fully decided yet whether we'll try to run all of them contemporaneously or relatively individually kind of one right after the other i think ideally it would happen contemporaneously because likely there will be overlap among those industries right um and that will probably give us the clearest picture uh but the strategy development underneath i still think would be relatively unique for each one of them but that's a really long way of saying yes you would see updates on those types and then it

Make sense to me that as we're going through the mapping and strategizing process that we would draw on the resources and knowledge with our contractual partner with the Chamber. So, you know, I'd also want to know how are they participating in in that? in that work consistent with what we have asked for when we negotiated the contract, because I know that was something that we talked about, not just in the current contract, but the previous years, was alignment of contractual goals with the work of the Economic Development Strategic Plan. Okay. Thank you, Chair.

I would just reiterate, I would be interested as well in seeing the asset maps as they come together. There's a couple of the pieces that I'm just not a fan of. I've struggled with having the appearance of mining being within our target industry sector, given this body's near three decades, I think, struggle to try to stop the formerly Rosemont, now Copper World mine. And that those can be seen as conflicting, especially when that involves doing things that has us, you know, arm in arm or posing along with our colleagues from Copper World. And then, you know, I'm just not ever going to be a fan of expanding sort of the defense industry. And just not... I don't aspire for my son to have an engineer job building more bombs, which is, you know, we have an industry here and now, but if you're trying to expand that, I think we can do better for ourselves and for others around the world. Those are kind of two pieces that, yeah. but more investment in trying to build out clean energy. I think as we have an agenda item later in the day from our joint code committee who has identified that workforce development and workforce is an issue as an obstacle towards greater expansion and integration of energy efficiency and clean energy into commercial industrial development. But from the whole stretch or continuum of the development sector, right, from architect to engineer and so forth, of thinking about how we integrate in and have that expertise that can help up our capacity as a community to be able to more effectively be energy efficient and utilizing renewable energy in projects. in areas that have high emissions. So I think that there's a lot that could be done there, and given the fact that there is not a lot of other partners that have prioritized that, my hope is that the county can lead the way in that.

Chair Allen. Supervisor Scott.

I want to go back to something that I referenced earlier in terms of the, and this is why I engaged in the dialogue with the director about building on our foundational strengths. And we have an established aerospace and defense base within the economy in southern Arizona. I think it's appropriate and right to build on that base. I think we can do that while also being consistent with our values as people and as policy makers. And then I would ask the county administrator with regard to mining and mining technology, if you could, get to the board because I can't remember if this was written when chair Allen and supervisor Kano were with us, but there was legislation that was proposed by Senator Cortez Masto from Nevada, and it was cosponsored by then Senator Sinema. That would have undermined the if it had been passed and signed and thankfully it hasn't been it would have undermined the federal judge's decision that would have prevented the. depositing of tailings on federal land next to the Rosemont property. And we oppose that legislation, but Ms. Lesher wrote a letter to our congressional delegation that pointed out all of the other areas of mining and mining adjacent industries that the county has supported. in areas of the county where mining is more appropriate. I'm always going to look at something that's going to, with regard to mining, I'm always going to look at something that is going to strike a balance between economic development and environmental protection, which is why I oppose the Rosemont proposal. plan, which is why I will continue to oppose the Copper World plan. But I think there's a lot we can do within mining and mining adjacent industries that are consistent with those positions, which I share with you, but that can also bring in the kinds of jobs with good benefits that our constituents are looking for. But so if we could get that letter again, because I can't remember when it was written, but I just thought it was extraordinarily persuasive. And your chief of staff probably can find it within five seconds. Thank you.

Supervisor Hines.

Thank you chair Allen and I just to echo some of that I within the mining sector, just as as our colleague from district one mentioned. I think we're all most of us are quite opposed to copper world and hud bay frankly very uncanadian they're kind of being jerks there. I don't know, probably not a very good government word, but yeah, that would, they're definitely, and granted, we're being jerks to Canada, or at least some of us in government are not really sitting here. But like, so the making advanced mining stuff and manufacturing, that's all great. But when you are lying about how much water, well, when you make a commitment to charge a certain amount of groundwater and you don't do it by about, I don't know, 55% or so and still wanna push on ahead, when you say you're gonna use 6,000 acre feet of water when your own documents internally say it'll be more like 9,000 to 13,000 acre feet of water when you're fully operational, when you want to blight the northern edge of the Santa Rita Mountains, which nobody wants, and seem to not have all of your plans together, but keep telling your shareholders and your board of directors that you do, you're a bad actor so that's hud bay that's copper world that is one very bad actor that 80 of this board opposes and i will continue to do so as well but i don't want to confi i do think there's there there are much there are better actors and even good actors in the mining sector that we have good relationships with who are truthful and who are doing what they say when they say they're going to do something so i just don't want to i don't want to like You know cast too wide of a net there, we have one very big awful lying company that is that is not doing what it should be. And is trying to just like bulldoze through and then a lot of others that are not doing that, so I don't want to like I don't want to like you know use too broad of a brush.

I just have to add that I would be more of an advocate, I think, around support for some of the corollary industries related to mining. If I saw, right, like even doing the survey of some of the work being done here, that there is indeed a lot of advances in mining technology, right, in terms of extracting the ore with the minimal damage to the earth, but there has not been a commensurate investment in the health and safety of mine workers, right? The... disproportionate spending on the technology of the machinery and the software, etc., it is just mind-blowing. And if that sort of investment was also put in place for how to ensure that mine workers are not being exposed to silica and other dust particles, and then as a result dying of respiratory illness, um that would be a different game that would be a different conversation but i do not see that and it's not happening here and i don't see it happening elsewhere um so that you know when that when those chess pieces change then you know then we can then like happy to talk about it any more i will not seems like oh

Chair Allen, just wanted to note for the board's information that the staff has been working since the prior Board of Supervisors discussion in those areas that were identified by you, Chair, related to small business, rural, ties to prosperity initiative, looking at KPIs, looking at the number of recommendations. So we're still going through a process to see if there's an opportunity to collapse some of those, also to group them differently, take the ongoing and push them into a table and then show what the sort of new initiatives are. So you can expect prior to the 22nd when this item's back up for your consideration, more information on that work. And just like the previous communications on the questions that Supervisor Scott had or the focus on early childhood education from Supervisor Cano, that there will be more input coming in, some realignment of things in the plan document itself.

Thank you, and I appreciate everybody's discussion on this. Thank you for presenting.

Thank you all.

And correct me if I'm wrong, but I think our last agenda item is adjournment. So we are adjourned until we reconvene at 5 o'clock for our regular meeting.