City Council - Regular Meeting

Let's call to order the Spark City Council meeting for August 10th with a roll call.

Mayor Lawson.

Here.

Council members Abbott.

Here.

Vanderwill. Here. Anderson. Here. Bybee. Here. Rodriguez. Here. City Attorney Duncan. Here. City Manager Lawson.

Here.

We have a quorum, thank you.

Thank you. Let's have the invocation speaker, Pastor Brian Smith from Summit Christian Church.

Last time I was here, I spoke on wisdom real quick. This time I was thinking about joy and the decisions that are made here, the things that are brought for our community and then how that pours out in our community. In Psalm 16, it says, you make known to me the path of life. You will fill me with joy in your presence. Or Nehemiah 8.10 tells us the joy of the Lord is our strength. And so let's pray for joy in this gathering. God, we thank you for your presence in our community. We thank you for your presence in our lives and in this chamber today. God, would you give wisdom here? And would joy permeate the decisions that are made and how that impacts the lives in our community? As we pray for joy in this gathering right now, we pray your protection upon property and lives as fires are raging just north of us. God, would you... shift the winds god would the fires go out and would you get the glory in that as well and would joy permeate even in the midst of tragedy so we give you this time and a move in this council we pray this in the name of christ amen mr rodriguez

All right, we're going to move on to public comment, but I want to give you a slight warning here. We were notified by NV Energy that depending on wind conditions, they may be shutting off power in North Sparks. So be prepared for that announcement. If it comes as of right now, it's not happening, but. things could change that would affect you. So if you have a generator, I might get it out and get it tuned up, because I don't know when they would turn it back on after that. So just as a public announcement, since most of you I know are from that area, I just wanted you to be aware. Okay, with that, we'll move on to public comment. And we'll start with Tom Suszynski, followed by Jim Brake.

For the record, my name is Tom Sosinski. I'm a resident of Wingfield Springs and also with the Wingfield Springs Preservation Group. Mr. Mayor, members of the council, I'm here today to say simply thank you. Thank you to city staff for their expertise in reviewing the foothills and Wingfield applications. Thank you for the planning commission for asking tough questions and voting for denial of these applications at the most recent planning commission meeting. Thank you to the city attorney and his office for the work that they're doing on these applications. And thank you to the city council for your patience with our community. We know we're a lot. And I'm sure you're tired of seeing us. And I'm sure we're tired of being here. But this has been a very challenging situation for our community. So thank you for your patience with us. And thank you for the decisions that are coming your way. Have a good rest of your meeting.

Thank you. All right, Jim Brigg, followed by George Lee.

Good afternoon. My name is Jim Brake. I live at 6637 Fabric Drive. Just a short walk from the open space item, item 9.1 on the agenda today. And I enjoy walking around there and taking photos of sunsets and wildlife. But I wanted to clear up a little bit on... open space because a lot of people are using that term kind of loosely is it's open space, it's private property. And just to clarify, that piece of property is zoned open space as part of the master plan for development of that area and all the homes that were built around it. were built knowing that was gonna be open space. And so they'd have a view in their backyard and they have a view fence and they weren't planning on having any houses built behind in that open space. The other things you hear term open space used is, oh, there's a vacant lot next to my house. So it's open space. Well, it's not really open space. That's private property that is zoned for development and it will be developed. And then there's common areas in some of the subdivisions that are maintained by the HOA, and that's also called open space. That's a different type of open space that will be maintained. In this particular case, it was zoned open space, and then it was developed with a three-hole golf course a long time ago. And that didn't work out, so they abandoned it. And it hasn't been maintained ever since then. But it's still open space, it's zoned open space, and it should stay open spaced. Thank you. Thank you.

George Lee, followed by Darla Lee.

George Lee, 3506 Brassy Drive, Sparks. I'm here to talk about several items, but I don't know where Sparks stands on the use of Tumwa and Tumwa's connection to the city, but metals from mining, in the river and in these reservoirs are a concern. I'm not quite sure where the city stands on that. Computer remote operations. Are they hardened? Because we've heard about back east, they had whole cities in Michigan where they were knocked off by being hacked because they used remote computing to control functions in their cities and their municipalities. Effluent water being used, and I know it was used at the golf course and it managed to eat the pipes and the pumps because the bacteria is corrosive and that's kind of a bad thing, I guess, because it means that the people that start using it, like they were going to use it for other projects. I heard another project was going to have effluent water and, or being sold to data centers or whatever. Is there any kind of a indemnity for those people who are using it because it isn't, clean, pure distilled water, which is not corrosive. It still has oxygen, but it's not corrosive, the same financial advantage. Is it a big advantage to sell? This is for Tumwa. Big advantage for Tumwa to sell the affluent water, because they only have to partially refine it. Is it worth the damage it does? Or is it, I mean, I'm sure it's on their, Bottom line, it's helpful because they don't have to finish doing it. They can pass along. Oh, how do we stand in SPARCS with controls? Controls for various things that are electrically controlled remotely. because those are the things that were being hacked back east. If we had somebody who had that intent, they could get into the network. I don't know what kind of a network the city uses and I don't personally wanna know, but if it's internet or if it's some sort of comm system that's over the airwaves like a cell or something like that, that's a problem.

Darla Lee, followed by Sean Sullivan. Which item? There won't be a public hearing for 9.1. It's just a reading. You should take advantage now.

Yes.

Yes. Hi. Good afternoon. Darla Lee. So I basically, I just wanted to say that when we first moved to this wonderful area, we had what we considered open space across from our HOA. Well, that open space is now Hug High. So I really feel... a sympathy for people that have bought homes near a golf course and have now been told that there's going to be a huge building project in their backyard. So I would just encourage the council to please, you know, go with the denial of apparently the planning commission and others that have said no to this project. I would encourage you to do all that also.

Thank you. Thank you. Sean Sullivan.

I'm gonna keep it brief as well, but all these things are quite connected. Unfortunately, You know, the Wingfield development, I don't live there, but just from the outsider perspective and knowing what the developer said, or hearing rather what the developer said and what they're trying to do now seems kind of like a bait and switch. And we all know, or it's been said as well, that they aren't really supporting our roads or any other infrastructure. And of course, this plays into the Fire Station 5 issue. Perhaps they're planning to share people over to Fire Station 5, but I would say I'm pretty skeptical of that with how what I've been seeing. So that becomes a safety issue. I hope you all have a plan for that. Certainly not my job, but yeah, that's all I really got to say today. I am going to be leaving consistently early to pick up the kids. It's not meant to be disrespectful.

Thanks, Sean. Anyone else in the public wishing to speak? All right. Seeing none, I'll bring it back to the diets. We'll move on to approval of the agenda. Any additions, subtractions, corrections? Mr. Anderson. Move to approve the agenda as submitted. Ms. VanderWaal.

Second.

Got a motion and a second. Any further discussion? Seeing none, please vote. Who didn't vote? There we go. Motion carries unanimously. All right, looking for approval of the minutes. Any addition, subtractions there? If not, I'm looking for a motion. Ms. Spivey?

I move to approve the minutes of the Spark City Council meeting for July 27th, 2026.

Thank you. Ms. Vanderwill? Second. We've got a motion and a second. Any further discussion? Seeing none, please vote. Motion carries unanimously. Okay, let's move on to 7.1, Boards and Commission Vacancy Announcement. Mr. Manager, do you have that or is the clerk? You guys are tricking me today. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. This is for the Building Code Board of Appeals. There are two vacancies on the Sparks Building Code Board of Appeals, each for two-year terms ending September 30th, 2028. There is one vacancy for a registered professional structural civil engineer and one mechanical engineer or a mechanical plumbing contractor with at least 10 years of experience, five years being responsible charge of work. Applications will be accepted until August 28th, 2026 at 5 p.m. Persons interested in serving on any of these committees should complete a community services application online at the city's website, www.cityofsparks.us forward slash get involved. Simply complete the volunteer application form and click submit. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Thank you. All right, 7.2, presentation from Truckee Meadows tomorrow. I'm on down.

Good afternoon, Mayor Lawson and members of the Spark City Council. Thank you so much for the opportunity to be here today. My name is Nick Sheeker, and I'm the Executive Director of Truckee Meadows Tomorrow. And my focus of the presentation today is to tell you a little bit about what Truckee Meadows Tomorrow TMT does, and also share some tools that we've created that compile hyper local data on a ward by ward basis that will hopefully be helpful when it comes to city planning or other decision making. But just as some quick background, some of you may already be familiar with TMT, but our mission is to enhance our quality of life by providing timely, accurate, and objective data as the basis for community engagement and dialogue. And really with this, in other words, we're trying to answer a couple different questions. And you can see here, I really think of TMT as being the bridge between, on one side, what are some of the issues that matter most to our community? And on the other side, how are we doing and what's really happening? And we use data to tell that story. When we often think about data, you see all sorts of rankings that you might be viewing through the media or through social media. And I've compiled a list of these are some of the common things that we start to see. Just some headlines within the last couple of months as far as how do we rank? How does City of Sparks compare to the state? Or how does the state of Nevada compare to the United States? And while a lot of these kinds of pieces of information have some value, What oftentimes is lacking is the hyper local data. And really, that's where TMT comes in. I do believe that you can make the greatest impact at the most local level. And momentarily, I'll show you some of the data points that we have. But I think what's really important as a data organization is that our data is being used. And so we know if we just compile information, but it's not used for decision making, then really, what's the purpose of TMT? And I will give one use case example of one of your fellow council members, Council Member Abbott. And we have a photo and quote of Council Member Abbott that's going to appear in our new version of the 2026 Community Progress Report. But I wholeheartedly agree with your comments, Mr. Abbott, about government happening at the local level. And you've seen one use case before where Council Member Abbott used our data for assessing the economic wellbeing of his ward and making a decision. We host most of our data on a really wonderful website called nevadatomorrow.org. And you can see the breakdown of all the different categories of data that we have there. There's more than 500 different community indicators. And I'll give you just some examples of ways that it may be helpful with city planning. So one of the first ones is that we have some really neat tools that there is a score. It's a proprietary index called the Mental Health Index. And you can see based on zip code, where are some of the areas in our community that have the greatest mental health needs. But then what I'm really excited about is that we do have an interactive ward map and I will pull this up just separately from the presentation. And I'd like to invite my colleague, Dr. Luis Chavez, who's our data architect and storyteller, who will be telling us a little bit more about the ward map. And I will just go ahead and pull this up. And Luis, if you could speak to the methodology that we used.

Will you turn the microphone on for us, please? Got to kind of push it hard. There we go. Perfect. Oh, you had it. There it is.

All right, as my colleague and my boss here does that, just some basic background. A lot of the data we use for this roadmap was obtained for the American Community Survey five-year estimates. So that's from the census. It's an ongoing survey they collect from various parts of the United States. They send it out, collect it, and throughout the five years, they basically aggregate the data together to get the most accurate possible without collecting everyone in the country's data, like the census. So basically what this map does is you have the option to select wards over here. It's a little condensed. I do apologize for that. And I'll give you a basic breakdown of some demographics you can select. We have the age, anything related to the HUD income and poverty statistics, tenure and cost burden related to housing, how many people live in those homes, how many people rent those homes, the total amount. some basic information on the families, basically how many households have kids, don't have kids, and households with kids under the age of 18 and under the age of six. And not to take up too much time, but that goes on with other indicators related to seniors who live alone, public assistance, and language proficiency within these areas. And if you want, you can also compare by going over here and selecting the second ward and say number two, and you can more or less come, oops, wrong side. compare how these differ or are similar. And how this was done, we essentially downloaded this data from the census along with the world maps that you guys provide on your website, and essentially did what I like to call the cookie cutter method. So we use census tracks, which is the smallest available level of data, overlaid those onto the wards, and any tract that was in said wards was allocated to them. Those that were split between, say, ward one and two, those that had the most of that tract got that census tract into its ward. It's not the perfect method, but based on the available data we have and how detailed the census collects the data, I think it's one of the best ways we could without spending money on gathering a localized data survey. And that's it. I want to continue. We'll go back to...

And we're happy to take questions at the end of the presentation, but just a few other things I'd like to cover as well, going back.

Yes, please. Is this available for anyone to look at?

Yes, we do have it publicly available, and then I can send the link out maybe through the clerk as the next step, and we'd be happy to broadly share the information.

I want to say what your link is so that we can have it in the record. Yes.

The easy link for access is tinyurl.com forward slash TMTSparks for the record.

I'm sure everybody wrote that down, so... Thank you.

Thank you Mayor Lawson. And just a few other pieces of information on Truckee Meadows Tomorrow. As a data organization, it is obviously very important for us to be transparent about data. And we recognize that within our region, we do have many challenges that we're facing. But also, it's just as important to celebrate the good that is happening. And one of the ways we do so is through our Accentuate the Positive event that's coming up on Wednesday, September 23rd. And we recognize a variety of organizations and individuals who are making a difference, doing good things to improve quality of life. and would love for some of you to attend if you are available. We will also be releasing, you may have seen our older copy of the 2024 Community Progress Report, but we will be releasing a new version of the 2026 version. And this will also include council members Abbott's story for our civic and neighborhood engagement category, along with a variety of other stories of how TMT's data has been used for good. Just as one example, the Domestic Violence Resource Center has used some of our data points for their fundraising campaign for their new shelter on Vassar Street. There'll be many other stories available. And with all of that said, I would be happy to answer any questions. But in closing, I would also have a question for all of you. And I would just love to know what kinds of data would be most important in your roles as elected officials or perhaps data for the city. As Luis pointed out, we pulled a lot of different indicators from the census. There's about 800 different indicators that we could compile. So we just wanted to do a little bit of a sampling to give you an idea. We'd be happy to serve, share any data that may be helpful in your role as elected officials.

Okay, questions from the council? Mr. Abbott?

Thank you all for being here. I wanted to give you a shout out for the ward map. That's been a fabulous help. When I had to put my numbers together, I had to manually do it all by zip code and get it, you know, so you're already doing better than what I had to do. And so I appreciate you guys doing that. Very helpful. And then I just want to highlight the Accentuate the Positive. Could you maybe just elaborate to all of us? Because I didn't really know about it until maybe a year or two ago. What that is, how many nominees we had this year. I got blessed to be a part of the judging. That was fun. Thank you. But if you can maybe just let us all know what that all is.

In total at Accentuate the Positive, we issue 22 awards. This week we'll be making a public announcement on who the awardees are. The most prestigious award is named after our founder, Lynn Atchison, and we have the Lynn Atchison Lifetime Achievement Award. I will just share broadly on the process side. We haven't announced the winner yet, but the selection committee narrowed it down to two finalists. And just today, Lynn selected her awardee named in her honor. Additionally, we have the data champion award, and that is for an individual or an organization who has done outstanding things for our community with a data informed approach. And then additionally, we do 20 awards based on a variety of categories. And we have our quality of life awards, which are for organizations and then Silver Star Awards, which are for individuals. but they range from arts and culture, poverty and homelessness, mental and behavioral health, land use, housing and infrastructure. So a variety of awards that really show what's involved with quality of life. And I think what's so important where TMT comes in is that oftentimes we look at these issues in isolation. So if you're exploring poverty and homelessness, that's oftentimes viewed just through that lens, but also how does mental and behavioral health affect poverty and homelessness? How does economic wellbeing influence that? And that's one of the ways that we're able to share a little bit more information. So accentuate the positives coming up on Wednesday, September 23rd. Thank you. That's all I have.

Mr. Anderson. I want to thank you for the presentation and thank you for the work you're doing. You were talking about those important questions on data. I mean, it just depends for us what the topic is, what the time of the day is, but it's constantly that we're making decisions based on data as well as all of our staff. But it's also businesses, individuals trying to decide where they want to live or where they want to start a business. It's incredibly informative and great information you have. What I'm wondering is how are you founded and funded to be able to keep this going? I think it's wonderful.

Thank you for that kind words, Council Member Anderson. We're funded through a few ways. So we are a 501c3 nonprofit organization. Historically, we've largely been funded through corporate partnerships and also sponsorships for things like our events. We do a small amount on individual philanthropy, but then we also do some contracted work fee for service as a revenue line. So for example, we have partnered with Renown Health and also Northern Nevada Public Health on compiling the community health needs assessment. And then we've also been contracted by One Truckee River to create a Truckee River dashboard and exploring a variety of other avenues as well. One of our newer partnerships is with a small new up and coming nonprofit that's doing great work called the Doula Co-op. And they're providing birth doula services primarily for women who may be going through a pregnancy alone at Renown. And Luis is doing some quarterly analysis and building a dashboard that's tied back to maternal health indicators. So in short, it's primarily through corporate sponsorships, private philanthropy, and then also fee for service activity for data analysis.

Thank you. I wanna say thank you and thank you for the presentation. And I have met with Nick and got some statistics for specifically my ward. So I'm excited to see all of this information. And this is my second year judging for Accentuate the Positive, which is a wonderful, wonderful event. And our HOPE team received an award last year. So thank you guys for all the hard work that you're doing. Thank you. Ms. Bybee.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So because you're so, it's data is what you're all about. Do you work with Truckee Meadow Regional Planning Agency and with Dr. Smith, who is all about data? And it would seem like a really, good relationship to have. And I was kind of curious, and you just mentioned a few of the uses of the data you collect. I think it's phenomenal. But then where does it go? How do people get it? Who are you sharing with to use that data to benefit everything from housing to mental health or whatever it is? Where do you take it from then? Collecting it is amazing. And then your uses and then collaborations, I guess, is what I'm asking about.

Mm-hmm. Thank you, Council Member Bybee. First, we do collaborate extensively with TMRPA, Truckee Meadows Regional Planning Agency. Jeremy Smith has been our past board president, and we have an ongoing relationship where we typically have one of their staff members on our board. We currently have Nate Kusha from the TMRPA who's serving on our board. And their data is very complimentary, particularly when it comes to our land use, housing, and infrastructure category. But we also share other data points that TMRPA would not normally collect, like arts and culture, for example. Regarding sharing the information, this is what's really important to me. I've been the executive director for Turkey Meadows Tomorrow just shy under a year. And I do think that it's really up to TMT to do a better job and more proactive outreach of sharing the kinds of data that we have available. So doing more presentations like the one today, As far as the organizations or kinds of organizations that would use our data, I think we can make the biggest impact most immediately in the nonprofit sector, where we know that nonprofits are having increased funding expectations and have to demonstrate the measurable impact, but oftentimes there isn't funding for capacity building related to data and evaluation. So that's really where TMT can come in. So collaborating extensively with nonprofits, also with government agencies as well. We're exploring currently with the City of Reno how some of TMT's community indicators could be complementary to the City of Reno's strategic plan, just to give you an idea. Does that answer your question? Okay.

You got anything, Joe?

Thank you, Mayor. Councilman Anderson actually asked one of my questions. I guess my other question would be, would you also like do this with like the tribal communities as well? Or is it just Sparks or Reno or? Mm-hmm.

That's a great question. So we are open to collaborating with tribal communities. One of the ways that we've currently done so is through our Truckee River dashboard, and we track a lot of different water quality indicators, and some of them have been used by the Paiute tribe as well as collecting some of the data that they compile. We're really focused right now on Washoe County, so that would be inclusive of tribal communities as well.

Awesome. Okay. Well, thank you. Thank you for that.

Thank you, Mayor.

All right, thank you guys, appreciate it. You guys do good work, thank you. Okay, move on to 7.3, presentation by Northern Nevada Public Health, Chad.

Should be right there, okay. Good morning, Mayor Lawson and City Council. Dr. Chad Kingsley, for the record, District Health Officer for Northern Nevada Public Health. Here is part of this biannual process of transparency to be able to provide information and overall just the services and looking at the past six months of what Northern Nevada Public Health has been doing as well as providing the information to you. So prevention strategy for impact advocacy. So we are looking at 70 years of this regionalized public health services that we have been provided. So for my office, We have developed what I attached here, our next strategic leadership and governance plan from fiscal year 27 through 30. That plan is provide to you both objectives. One point that we emphasized on it today with this plan moving towards is that we've collected a lot of data and we've done a lot of objectives, but are we making the impact where we need to make? So we're taking those objectives and... and really seeing, okay, what is the impact? Where we're putting our efforts at, is it making a difference in our community? So looking forward to continue to measure that and increase that, but it's us planning for the future to have a sustainable future that we continue to develop those services for our community. Just a few points to highlight there. Continuing towards delivering and improving our EHS relationships with our stakeholders. We had significant interventions in respiratory, whooping cough, and recently cyclo. Sporiasis were really just two cases there. But continue with budgetary alignment for this year. We did receive an annual increase or annual transfer last year, one million. Continuing to work with the county on that point just to stabilize us. We did save $1.6 million through vacancies last year. We continue towards that goal and finding stability for our future. We aligned our WIC funding to sustainability within the grant, and we continue an ongoing budget Congress to address our shortfalls. We did do a WIC marketing campaign. The offices are located over on Moana. We did close those, but we actually increased the number of participants through this process, being able to maintain that in our services for community. There is a WIC office located here in Sparks, a tribally run WIC, but anyone can access those. And then as well as we met our digital accessibility compliance. So I know that deadline was extended, but we are in compliance now as we move forward. So currently right now out of our FTEs, eight of our 13 FTEs are filled and our administration health services continue fully staffed. For air quality management, 21.4, so just one FTD down there, but we did open a birdie monitoring station. Member Anderson did attend and participate within that. We have, going off the past two days, but we have remained in good moderate. Ozone was our highest AQI pollutant that we've noticed. As for our permitting, as those go, 99% of the time we're within our timely completions, usually within 3.2 days. These are the number of permits, dust permits and wood stove certificates. And just DC Circuit upheld the PM 2.25 NACU's data for that just on the federal side. Community and clinical health services, 51, we're currently at 51 FTEs out of 61. Vaccines for children and vaccine for adults was, funding was decreased for that. But in 2026, we delivered over 4,700 doses. Continue with our tuberculosis control. We had six active cases are ongoing currently right now during this year. On average, our latent cases, we have about 26 per month. So six will be completed. Six just completed in June and three were initiated. We have seen an increase in our uninsured. So we're now about 50% of individuals come in. Again, we continue to be the only same-day walk-in for reproductive sexual health or women's services here within our community. We have about 40 spaces a day. We usually fill those on a daily basis. Maternal child care, these are the programs, again, that we continue to offer. Newborn screening program, lead screening, Cribs for Kids, fetal and infant mortality review, and then I already mentioned WIC. infant children services that we continue to provide, so. Environmental health services, 40 FTEs at this time out of 48. We managed, I believe this, 400 inspections of the nugget rib cook-off. We're slowly going into that and 70 plus hot August nights. And the great Italian festivals, we continue forward and those are beginning to start in hot August nights right now. And then we have our nugget rib cook-off coming up this year. AMC courses, 25 to 31 established monthly that we are doing with those courses. We have a great success with that. On our foodborne disease complaints, we have about eight per month up to 14. We have started a new program. We are testing wells as well as for PFAS. We have out of the 39 residential wells we've tested, we had found 13 positive results. So once we have that data, we'll be able to provide that to our community. But it is something of interest that we were able to pursue a grant for and be looking at our community and PFAS and how we're affected. Mosquito surveillance is ongoing. Due to the drought, we have less mosquitoes currently what there is. So our seasons have been mild. We have seen an increase in septic and our wells on a year to date, which is sometimes a good indicator, a small indicator of increase or individuals moving into our communities. This year we did meet our inspection for pools, hotels, fuel sites, waste facilities, land and land liquid waste trucks. I threw a lot of stuff in here, just gonna pass over it. And it's kind of smaller point, but just wanted to be able to provide those points on where we're at on our inspections and how we go and what we do each month. Population health, 38 out of 45 FTEs. So we did close at our respiratory season, 509 flu hospitalizations, 70% were unvaccinated with 26 deaths. We had 120 hospitalization, eight deaths. In COVID-19, we've noticed majority of all those 120 were 65 plus. Then RSV were about 1700 confirmed cases and eight deaths. We did have a big problem with whooping cough compared to previous years. We're hoping, that this year with school, with the break that we just had, that we won't see that come up again, but we can only tell once school's back in. So previous cases, again, we only would have one, maybe seven a year. 2005, we had 31. By June, we had 33 cases. So it's something we're continuing to monitor there. Outbreaks, 10 to 14 a month, which is average. It's usually gastrointestinal or GI, which we say they usually occur within schools. One small trend that we noticed is that even outside of the two cyclo cases or the cyclosporiasis that's happening within our nation, we've had seven cases since May, which already last month. So other states are having, and the sources are not being identified. So other states also are having epidemiological problems in the sense that the diseases are now moving across states or the infections and so it's something we're going to monitor and nationally we're looking at it too if we're seeing a possible increase with outbreaks between states. We've had an increase in animal bites too, from six to 11%. We're continuing to monitor and watch that and working with the Washoe County Animal Service at the time on how to address that. We have with, due to the volume cases and the decreased workforce capacity, we are suspending chlamydia treatment verifications to focus on the more high priority other infections that we're facing within our community. Preparedness, IHE, the inter-hospital committee, wonderful organization that we have, extends out nationally. But we had three major exercises here within our community, 46% assessment response rate and 22 partners supported. Wonderful preparedness makes many times our responses to our fires here within our community that were well-planned and being able to prepare and respond to those. Oversight, we did have a priority one compliance, but looking at that 90% in zone A, 93 in zones in B, but continue to address EMS oversight. Chronic disease prevention, these are the programs that we have here that we offer to our community. And then just the cyclosporiasis, Ebola travel monitoring in coordination with animal services already mentioned. So overall priorities we're looking at, we did with our tuberculosis building that we completed on time and under budget, we had some money left over and we asked the state. So we're able to improve our building from 1980 to be able to do for our staff and actually been able to find some more room to kind of spread out and be able to provide improvements there. continuing forward to our government affairs for session 27. We're really looking to identify the unfunded mandates that exist, if there's possibility funding towards those. We did have our back to school vaccine clinic this past Saturday, went well, met all of our appointments. We had a lot of walk-in and then we have a respiratory season starting here again in September. We are to continue to maintain a sustained disease surveillance to the points. Title 10 funding is we're continuing to watch that and continuing forward with our budget process. I also say the OMB policy changes that are current at the federal government have high concerns for us as well. But continuing forward to look at our fiscal year 27 end balance and then fiscal year 28 sustainable funding as we move forward. And then just the insurance premiums cleft, there's the continue to watch for demand for increase in services. Overall, just here, just kind of over on the report and also same thing as the sense in Truckee Meadows, is there anything that you would like us to focus on over the next six months or take attention towards?

So thank you, take questions at this time.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I guess maybe going back to slide 14, the EMS oversight, the priority one compliance zones, ABCD, can you kind of elaborate just a little bit more about like, what does that mean? Just, you know,

zoning zoning is set up that they have to respond with eight minutes and 59 seconds within that if they not then they're penalized zone B and D tend to be a more rural areas as they go out so it could be up to 11 or 12 minutes depending on those zones that we've set up they have a compliance of 90 percent that's the average on overall for zone A they've hit 92, 93%. But what we do in oversight is then look at those times and point. One thing that we are doing moving forward is there is called image trend, which we haven't had a complete access to with the state, but we're going to be able to fund and have image trend. And image trend is the actual record of when phone call received, phone call picked up, when they're inside the rig, when the rig leaves, when it arrives, when it leaves. And so just trying to tighten and transparency towards data to make better informed decisions. But zone A is basically the priority one where it's at time-wise.

And I guess kind of like, again, what is zone A? Like what is going on?

Zone A is usually more highly dense to where it's at and where they position ambulances off. It's also determined through a committee that we're still with. There used to be joint advisory committee. Now they're changing, moving towards joint operational work group. But those numbers are taken. And so an example here in Sparks then. So looking at a zone B and D. So, and I'm not gonna have the name correctly, but is the newest subdivision that sits up on the hills? E Ridges? Yeah. So Ridges, so if you look at that, when you have data with that, and I believe that's in a zone B looking at that. So that committee then takes those numbers from there. When construction's ongoing, EMS is a bigger demand, but the minute construction is done, then you see those demand go down just because it's better roads, usually younger families, less of those points. the committee will then look at those numbers and determine, is there an increase? And if there's an increase, then does it need to become a zone A or zone B? So it's just about the timing that the ambulance needs to arrive there. And so there's a breakdown and it can have, if you need to over our oversight, come to be able to discuss these zones or whatever, but have been addressing it and working with manager Luthan, as well as representation from Sparks on address these points in these areas. And maybe just one last question.

So you're talking about like working with the state as far as like call time, take when the call is made, when it's answered, and all that. So how is it being measured now if that's not happening?

So we don't have access to PSAP. So we have the actual PSAP, which is 911. We don't have access to that point. And so just always trying to address that. We address it through EMS records. And I We'll need to get the exact name for you and follow back towards that, just on the accessible data. But we have geo mapping as well as we do provide that previously. I can provide those links to you, but it is the EMS oversight does provide those zones as well as the numbers and verification of those phone calls, of those transportations.

Thank you, ma'am. Mr. Anderson. Dr. Kingsley, thank you very much for the presentation, great information. Those of us that are on the board get to hear it for hours and you did a whirlwind job here, so thank you. For those that want to dig into the information that you presented and be able to get a better look at it, can you explain to them how they can find that?

We are very accessible when it comes to any requests from the public. We actually have very great numbers on being able to respond. You can go into 311 to ask for information and it will get to us and we'll be able to respond to it. On our website, so when it comes to like respiratory disease, you go to our website, we actually have the last five to seven years of all our respiratory diseases when they were the numbers in our community and laid out there. We are moving as many of the governmental agencies as well as we move into our AI space. modernization, slowly providing those dashboards that provide more transparency, but overall and information requested us we can provide, I would first go to our website, they can't find it on our website, and then contact those numbers that are for air quality for environmental health. clinical services are in those points and we'll be able to provide that data. It's also provided to the District Board of Health so that any information that is there in our annual report, as well as our strategic planning, those records are on there. But again, having a person go and try to find that specific month that there was presented to the District Board of Health, it may be easier if they just call to facilitate, and especially my office, and I'd be able to connect them to any of that data or information.

Awesome, thank you. Yeah, it's so important that folks understand when the department that you oversee touches every single one of the lives here in Washoe County, literally every day. And the work that you guys are doing is awesome. Whether it's my favorite restaurant, wanting to know how well they're taking care of the food to air quality. And I just want to say thanks for all the work that you guys are doing and appreciate the presentation. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Fenderwell.

Thank you for the presentation. I have a question regarding, are you guys collaborating and working closely with Street Reach out of UNR?

So that was the School of Orvis, just for clarification?

Yes, because when you're saying on your sexual health, focus on high priority infections, that team, because they're working straight with homeless, are dealing with these things. So I guess what my question is, is, Are we making sure we're not duplication of services and are we collaborating with each other to have the most efficient out in the community?

The quick answer is yes. So their mobile van that they just received was from us. We provided that at no cost to them. So that was an ARPA funded project. It has it, it's a great. And so we are continuing to coordinate and actually meeting with them tomorrow with Chair Reese, just to be able to define out where we can provide the services as well as connection to the services we do provide. And I'm also working with Dean Muge from the School of Public Health to also align any public health align there. So yes, it's a wonderful initiative. We have one spot right for people to come to us, but if we can go to individuals out in the community and do that street reach, doing medicine where it's at. So yes, very much involved in that. Thank you.

Yeah. Anyone else? Anything, Donald? Good. Okay. Well, thank you, Dr. Kingley. Thank you, Matt. Very informative as always. All right. Let's move to consent items. Anyone wishing to pull a consent item? If not, I'm looking for a motion.

Mr. Anderson. Move to approve consent items 8.1 through 8.7 as submitted. Mr. Rodriguez.

I got a motion and a second. Any further discussion? My mouse not working well today. Seeing none, please vote. Motion carries unanimously. All right, 9.1. Madam Clerk, I've passed over during public comment, but how many comment cards did you have for this item in particular?

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. We did receive 16 public comment cards in opposition to item 9.1 that did not wish to speak.

Okay, thank you. So I leave this for you to do the first reading as that's a book.

I thought you were going to do it for me, sir.

The way my mouth is functioning today, I'm not sure I can do it.

All right, this is the first reading of bill number 2861 to amend a final approved plan for the foothills at Wingfield Springs plan development. The foothills at Wingfield Springs development standards handbook to one, change the foothills at Wingfield Springs land use designation for a 34.75 plus or minus acre site generally located northwest of the intersection of Vista Boulevard and Black Hills Drive, APN 526-01004 from open space to... Builder lot to facilitate the addition of a proposed Village 16 that allows up to 158 residential lots. Two, increase the total number of permitted residential units in the foothills at Wingfield Springs from 2,260 to 2,418. Three, generally update text and figures throughout the handbook to reflect the proposed edition of Village 16 and associated technical studies. Four, generally update text and figures to reflect development and procedural changes that have occurred since the initial adoption of the handbook. And five, modify and or remove various figures and texts throughout the handbook to comply with the federal rule regarding accessibility of web information and services for state and local government entities. The Foothills at Wingfield Springs plan development consists of 690 acres generally located south of La Posada Drive, north of Golden Eagle Regional Park and west of Voyage Drive in the NUD New Urban District, the Foothills at Wingfield Springs Zoning District. A public hearing will be held and bill 2861 will be acted upon at the regular meeting of the Spark City Council on Monday, August 24th, 2026 at 2 p.m. at the Spark City Council legislative building. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Thank you very much. All right, 9.2. I'll read this. This is two sentences.

Thank you.

Consideration and discussion of possible adoption of a resolution number 3500, implementing the dogs in the workplace policy.

Good afternoon, mayor and council members. I'm Nancy O'Connor. I'm the parks and recreation director. Normally Emily Pate would be here, but she's fighting the fire. So she's in the evacuation zone. Yeah, she's a little bit occupied right now. So I'm here to present a resolution 3500 for dogs in the workplace. And at the July 27th city council meeting, council member Diane VanderWaal requested that staff return at the August 10th city council meeting with a policy regarding dogs in the workplace. In April of 2026, the Washoe County approved a formal dogs in the workplace policy focusing on service dogs and training and foster dogs. This resolution mimics that policy for consistency. In certain cases, employees may be working with a qualified public service organization to benefit the United States veterans or other persons with disabilities in fostering a dog or a puppy. And this resolution intends to allow for that public service. The ability to bring a dog to the workplace is a privilege and not a right, and the owner must accept the responsibilities and liability that come with it. Approval is subject to suitability for the specific work function, setting, and location, and on the condition that the dog must be well behaved and not disrupt business operations. Approval of any dog may be suspended or revoked at any time if the policy requirements are not met or if the dog's presence in the workplace creates a disruption, disturbance, or safety concern in the sole and absolute discretion of department heads or their designees. It is the owner's responsibility to ensure the dog's presence does not distract the owner from work responsibilities and does not create a safety hazard. This is not a pet therapy program in which the dog and owner are working to provide therapy services to people at the city. Under this policy, employees in the workplace will function in their capacity as employees and not as service providers. Additionally, the city reserves the right to unilaterally change the standards set forth in this policy for any reason in its sole and absolute discretion, including the revocation of the policy altogether. Such standards may include, without any limitations, restrictions on breeds, on locations, limitations on dog size, and a cap on the number of animals at a work site or city facility at any given time. The City of Sparks seeks approval of the policy reflecting the City of Sparks organization and our structure. Some of the guidelines to this policy are the eligibility applies to employees working with recognized service dog organizations to bring foster training dogs to work. the standards which involves strict behavioral rules for the dog and the person, owner safety duties and operational protocols to prevent office disruption, the goals of the policy to design to lower job stress, assist socialization for future support dogs and boost workplace wellness, And then the status, which is participation is voluntary and separate from the standard ADA job accommodations. If approved, staff will work closely with the city manager's office, HR department and city attorney's office, as well as city employees to ensure the policy is welcoming to all. We anticipate a rollout date within the next few months. And this concludes my presentation and I'm available for questions.

Questions from the council.

Mr. Anderson. I wanna say thank you very much for your work on this. And thank you Council Member VanderWaal for doing a great job of recommending that we push this through. We all got to hear the presentation on Liberty Dogs and the wonderful work they're doing for men and women that have literally put their lives on the line for our country. And now we're suffering through the mental side of that. And specifically, what we wanted to be able to do is assist that program by allowing employees within the City of Sparks to have these puppies that are being raised up and trained to be able to assist these heroes that need care. And with that, I wanna say, this is timely in the sense that I'm actually gonna be honored to have the first puppy, which is gonna be the City of Sparks mascot. And we're slated within the next two weeks. I can't tell you if it's a he or she, but we're gonna have a puppy that will be representing the City of Sparks under the Liberty Dogs Training Program. So I want to say thank you for that. With that also, I want to say to everyone that is listening, we're looking for names. We actually have naming rights to this puppy. So help us pick a wonderful name for this pup that's going to be representing our city for the next 12 to 18 months, and then we'll be assisting a hero. There's only one name you can pick.

It's Marcus.

I think Sparky is already taken by PD, one of their detection dogs, perhaps.

Fire dog, Sparky the fire dog.

Mr. Rodriguez.

You're up, Jeff.

Thank you, Mayor. And thank you for getting this together. And I also want to thank Council Member Vanderbilt for this. I think it's fantastic. I'm looking forward to seeing Dal Nations in our fire stations now. I just want to make sure... I understand that it was Liberty Dogs that kind of spearheaded this, but I also want to make sure that this also would have worked for like the Guide Dogs of America and stuff like that. This policy would also cover individuals with the city that are training guide dogs for the future.

And that's a great point. And that's one of the reasons why we were excited about putting a policy in place so that we could represent not just Liberty Dogs, especially because they were just here, but there are so many other, well, I shouldn't say that. There are... other service organizations that are also doing this kind of work for people that have disabilities. And we would love to be able to work with them. I know that, again, the county and the city of Reno are doing the same type of thing. So this opens it up. I think, in a sense, the Liberty Dog will be our guinea pig. But hopefully other service organizations will reach out to us and say, hey, you know, we've got a puppy that needs raising or a foster dog because in case there's not enough puppies, they are going into the shelters and getting fostered or getting shelter dogs that potentially meet those rigorous requirements to be that type of service animal.

Wonderful. All right.

Thank you. Thank you, ma'am.

Thank you, Nancy. It just is an amazing program. A lot of us have been out to Liberty Dogs Campus, which will be opening shortly here to, I think September, to the public. So if you see that, I really would encourage you to go out and check out. the campus they have out there it is um amazing the the programming uh what they will do for veterans the dogs themselves just the duffield foundation that is financing the whole thing is amazing but what i love about this besides supporting an amazing program and other you know other guide dogs and other possibilities is that it's, it's a, it's another win for us in the workplace because it's proven that animals and dogs can lower stress, can create like positive environments in a workplace. Uh, so they can help benefit, um, the city and our employees by lowering stress and kind of changing your environment when you've got an animal there. So it's really a benefit for the city as well as us helping Liberty Dogs. I just see a double benefit there that is going to be just an amazing, amazing thing. So thank you.

Thank you.

Anyone else? Well, so we're looking for a motion?

We are.

There we go. Mr. Rodriguez.

You go first, go.

You want to switch them around? We can take the time and switch Diane since she proposed it. Let's squeeze this, switch them around.

He was just moving faster than I was. Well, go ahead and make the motion, Ms. Vanderwill.

We'll get the paperwork straightened out.

I move to adopt resolution 3500, implementing the dogs in the workplace policy.

Now, looking for a second, Mr. Rodriguez. I'll second. Now we got our ducks in a row. All those in favor, please vote. Motion carries unanimously.

Thank you.

That's the hard one to vote against. 9.3, CONSIDERATION DISCUSSION OF POSSIBLE APPROVAL OF A RESOLUTION NUMBER 3499, GOVERNING EXECUTIVE MANAGEMENT EMPLOYEES FOR FY27 THROUGH 29, WITH AN ESTIMATED COST IMPACTS OF $45,402 IN FY27, UNDETERMINED IMPACTS IN FY28 AND UNKNOWN COST IMPACTS IN FY29. MS. MCCORMICK.

GOOD AFTERNOON, MAYOR LAWSON AND CITY COUNCIL MEMBERS. FOR THE RECORD, I'M ALLISON MCCORMICK, YOUR ASSISTANT CITY MANAGER. I'm seeking council's approval of a new resolution governing executive management employees, which we commonly refer to as department heads. Currently, all department heads are on individual employment agreements. Some of the older agreements include substantial payouts up to 12 months worth of salary in the event of termination without cause. Newer agreements don't contain those provisions. Other benefits including longevity pay, variable compensation, annual leave accrual, and sick leave cash out at retirement are also all over the map in these individual agreements. In addition, for all other employee groups, the city has shifted toward a total compensation approach based on labor market comparisons. In a dual effort to make compensation packages consistent among department heads and to make the compensation approach consistent between department heads and other employee groups, city manager Laufen gave direction to staff to develop this resolution. The resolution attempts to balance the needs of current employees against the need to recruit highly qualified department heads from other agencies for some roles. Key terms of the resolution include section one, article C, which states that the resolution would take effect today, August 10th of 2026 and run through fiscal year 2029 in alignment with the management professional and technical employees resolution or MPT. Section one, article E clarifies that department heads are employed at will subject to the terms of the resolution. Section two, article A establishes pay rates Like other employee groups, the resolution ties department heads compensation to a labor market analysis that considers total compensation, not just salaries. Upon approval, the pay rates for the remainder of fiscal year 2027 would be adjusted based on that labor market analysis. That analysis was conducted by the same consultant that the city used for several of our bargaining units. To align with the MPT resolution, another labor market analysis would be conducted in fiscal year 28. And in fiscal year 29, a 3% general wage increase would apply, which also aligns with the MPT resolution. Section two, article C replaces the historical city practice of longevity pay with variable compensation based on performance for department heads. This is intended to compensate all department directors, both internal and external candidates. Section 2, Article D provides for longevity pay for a very limited class of employees. Variable compensation is not subject to PERS contributions, but longevity pay is. This provision was included to mitigate post-retirement impacts to that limited class of employees. Section 2 Article G provides that the city manager may terminate a department head's employment without cause with 90 days notice. This eliminates the significant long-term liability of costly severance packages and improves the city manager's ability to manage the city's operations into the future. Article G's application is limited by Articles H and I. Under both of those articles, in a qualifying circumstance, The separation benefit would be the greater of the employee's salary for the remainder of the employee's first 12 months in the department head role or six months of the employee's salary. Article H applies that package to employees promoted into the department head role from within the city and Article I would apply that to all department heads within 12 months of a new city manager taking the helm. Section three, article A provides that the city will pay 100% of the health insurance premium for the employee plus spouse, except for employees hired before June 30th of 2006, who will continue to have 100% of their health insurance premiums for employee and all dependents covered by the city. That is consistent with other employee groups at the city as well. Section 3, Article B provides for post-retirement health coverage of 36 months upon completing five years as a department director. For each additional 24 months of city service in any role, employees can accrue 12 additional months of coverage up to a total of 120 months or 10 years. Police and fire employees currently receive an additional post-retirement health insurance benefit. Therefore the resolution provides an additional 12 months of coverage for every 18, as opposed to 24 months of city service in any role up to a total of 180 months or 15 years. This section also allows a retired employee to keep their children on the city's health plan by either paying the premium or reducing the length of the post-retirement benefit by one third. Section 3, Article E, maintains one of the few existing consistencies among the individual employment agreements, which is that the city matches 100% of the employee's contribution to deferred compensation. In addition, if and when the city establishes a separate 401 plan, we currently only have a 457 plan, the resolution would allow employees to place those matching funds into the 401 plan which allows employees to increase their own contributions to the 457B plan at no cost to the city. Section 4 governs various types of leave. Article B sets the maximum annual leave accrual at 800 hours, exempting employees who are already at 800 hours as of today's date. The accrual rates are identical to the MPT resolution with one key difference regarding eligibility. For department directors, full-time service would include service with any other government agency within the United States. That would help attract external candidates with service in other government entities. Article C sets sick leave accrual at five hours per pay period consistent with other employee groups and provides for a cash out of sick leave at defined percentages based on years of city service. Unlike other groups, the resolution allows cash out at 20% of the value at five years of city service to help attract external candidates. Other groups of employees at the city set the minimum at 10 years of city service. For employees hired before July 1 of 2005, the cash out would top out at 100% of the sick leaves value at 25 years of city service. For all other employees governed by this resolution, cash out would be capped at 75% at 20 or more years of service. Article F provides for 80 hours of personal leave for department heads, recognizing that these employees are often expected to work after hours and on weekends. Up to 40 hours of personal leave may be cashed out each fiscal year, and personal leave hours expire in the pay period that includes June 30th, like other employee resolutions. No employee currently on an individual employment agreement will be required to move to the resolution if it is approved. However, the individual employment agreements don't provide for the labor market adjustments. Only general wage increases in line with the MPT employees. Individual agreements also generally provide less personal leave and annual leave. Current employees may opt into the resolution using a form developed by the city attorney's office. Future department heads who have not been hired or promoted into those roles yet would fall under the resolution and not be offered the option of an individual employment agreement. If all employees currently on individual employment agreements move to the resolution today, anticipated cost impacts are approximately $45,000 in the remainder of fiscal year 27. Staff submits that this resolution balances the city's interests in financial stability and predictability with the need to recruit and retain talented leaders from both within and outside the city. Staff recommends approval and I'm available for questions.

Questions from the council. You got that contract memorized. Okay, if there's no questions, I'm looking for a motion.

Mr. Abbott. Resolution number 3499, governing executive management employees for FY27 to FY29 with estimated cost impacts of $45,402 in FY27, undetermined cost impacts in FY28 and an unknown cost impacts in FY29.

Mr. Anderson. Second the motion. Yeah, I've got a motion and a second. Any further discussion? Seeing none, please vote. Motion carries unanimously. Thank you, Alison. Thank you. 9.4, Consideration and Discussion of Possible Direction Regarding the Fact Finders Report and Recommendations Related to the City of Sparks and Operating Engineers Local Number 3, Skilled Workforce.

Thank you, Mayor Lawson. Again, for the record, I'm your Assistant City Manager, Alison McCormick. This item fulfills the City's statutory obligation under NRS 288.200, subsection 8, requiring a public meeting to discuss the fact finders report regarding negotiations between the city and operating engineers local number three, skilled workforce collective bargaining agreement or CBA. NRS 288-200 requires the City Council to address three specific things. One, issues submitted to fact finding. Two, the fact finder's findings or recommendations. And three, the overall fiscal impact of those recommendations. Consistent with the statute, this is a discussion item, not a request to relitigate the fact finder's report in detail. For background, OE3 represents the skilled workforce bargaining unit, which includes positions across public works, parks maintenance, Truckee Meadows water reclamation facility, emergency communications, client relations, and several other divisions within the city. The prior three-year CBA expired June 30th of 2025. The parties have been in negotiations for a successor CBA, throughout the spring of 2025 and until quite recently. Those negotiations were not successful, and the parties proceeded to fact-finding under NRS Chapter 288 on April 15, 2026. The fact-finder issued the report and recommendations on June 29, 2026. So going through the statutory requirements, first are the issues submitted to the fact-finder. Those issues included base pay within the context of total compensation, including the city's proposed total compensation and labor market analysis methodology. Increases to annual leave accrual, increases to longevity pay, and the duration and effective date of the agreement. The fact finder's recommendations included the city's wage proposal, including labor market adjustments for qualifying classifications, plus general wage increases across all positions using the city's proposed methodology. The fact finder also recommended increasing annual leave accrual by one half hour per pay period for employees with five or more years of city service. That is in alignment with the current OE3 supervisors unit agreement. The fact finder also recommended a two year agreement effective upon ratification through June 30th of 2027. This is shorter than the city's proposed three year term. The fact finder did not recommend longevity pay increases, reasoning that the city likely would not have proposed those increases under the recommended shorter term agreement. Last but not least, the fiscal impact of those recommendations is estimated at $143,000 in the general fund and $386,000 in all other funds in fiscal year 2027. Staff recommends city council receive the report as required by law, but no formal action is required or recommended. I'm happy to answer any questions. Questions from the council.

Seeing none, do we need a motion to receive or just- You do not. Sit here and look like we know what we're talking about. The latter, please. Perfect. All right, then we'll move on to 10.1, public hearing. Madam Clerk.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. This is public hearing consideration discussion and possible approval of a successor collective bargaining agreement, AC6213, between the City of Sparks and Operating Engineers Local Union No. 3, Skilled Workforce Unit for FY26 and FY27 with estimated cost impacts of $143,167 in the general fund and $385,663 in all other funds in FY27.

Thank you, Mayor Lawson and council members. For the record, I'm still Allison McCormick, your assistant city manager. I'm seeking your approval now of a collective bargaining agreement or CBA with operating engineers, local three skilled workforce or OE3. The prior CBA, as mentioned in the last item, expired on June 30th of 2025. The parties started negotiations in the spring of 2025, met regularly over several months, but were not successful in negotiations. Ultimately, as mentioned in the last item, the parties pursued non-binding fact-finding under NRS 288-200. After the fact finder issued the report discussed in the last item, the parties negotiating teams agreed to accept the fact finder's recommendations as the new CBA, along with several other changes that the parties had tentatively agreed to over the course of negotiations. The resulting proposed CBA before you today contains the following key changes. As mentioned in the last item, the term would be upon ratification through June 30th of 2027, or the remainder of fiscal year 27. Section two, article A memorializes the new total compensation and labor market approach to pay rates. The city identified comparator and competitor agencies in our regional labor market, including the city of Reno, Washoe County, Carson City, RTC and Tumwa. For certain wastewater positions, we also included several Southern Nevada agencies to provide a broader look and more comparators. Through a consultant, the city then identified jobs at these other agencies that closely compare to jobs at Sparks. The city then gathered data on these other agencies' total compensation packages for those similar jobs, including base pay, certification or education pay, longevity, health insurance premium contributions, and PERS contributions. The analysis indicated that the city's total compensation packages were under market for several jobs in this bargaining unit. the parties agreed to labor market adjustments and general wage increases effective upon ratification as follows. All employees would receive a minimum of 1%. Pay ranges for under market jobs would be adjusted to the market up to a maximum of 7.5%. These pay increases were initially anticipated to take effect upon ratification and then have initial increases take effect beginning in fiscal year 2027. However, due to the length of time that has passed during the negotiations and fact-finding process, these increases will all take effect at the same time as the increases that I will describe momentarily. In addition to the increases I just mentioned, for fiscal year 27, positions that were under the market by more than 7.5% will be adjusted to the market, again, with a maximum of 7.5%. and all employees will see an additional wage increase of 1%. So just to summarize how that math works, some employees may see roughly 2% effective in this pay period, and other employees may see roughly 16% based on their labor market. And some employees will be somewhere in the middle. All together, those changes are anticipated to increase costs by $108,835 in the general fund and $309,737 in all other funds in fiscal year 27. Section 2, Article C regarding overtime has been amended to remove overtime for hours over 10 per day, instead defaulting to overtime rates for over 40 hours in a work week. That provides additional flexibility both to employees and to the city. That article has also been amended to require that special event overtime be paid at double time instead of time and a half. Employees will be paid for special event overtime instead of taking compensatory time in exchange for that concession, which leads to that compensatory time can lead to a lot of time off after special event season ends, which can cause operational challenges. There are no direct cost impacts because special event overtime is typically built to event producers. Section two, article D, would increase bilingual pay from $50 a pay period to $150 a pay period in alignment with other bargaining units. This would increase general fund costs by $7,002 and other fund costs by $16,338. This article was also amended to add a certification pay of 5% for certain mechanic certificates. The cost of this change at this time can't be determined because this information isn't something that the city currently tracks. So it will depend on which employees turn those certificates in. Section three, Article E increases deferred compensation matching from $75 a pay period to $100 a pay period, increasing fiscal year 27 costs by $27,330 in the general fund and $59,588 in all other funds. Section 4, Article B would increase annual leave accrual for employees with five years of service by one half hour per pay period. Similarly, Article J would increase personal leave from 16 hours to 24 hours each fiscal year. These changes don't have any direct cost, but do increase the city's liability for accrued but unused paid leave. Additional language changes and clarifications with no direct cost impacts have been made throughout the CBA. In sum, these changes are expected to increase fiscal year 27 costs by $143,167 in the general fund and $385,663 in all other funds. I would like to thank the negotiations teams for both the city and OE3. It certainly took us longer to reach this point than I think anyone would have liked, but I do think we've reached an agreement that serves all parties' interests. Staff recommends approval of the agreement. I am happy to answer any questions, or if there are none, I'd remind Mayor Lawson, although it looks like he may not need it today, that this is a public hearing.

For me. Questions from the council? Go ahead, Joan.

Thank you, Mayor. For the mechanics, I know you kind of touched on it a little bit, like what does an extra cert look like? I mean, I guess I'm just, can we kind of give an example? Like, I mean, if I'm a smog tech guy, do I get an extra 5%? Or, you know, honestly, I'll get down to like, I think there's a difference between working on a vehicle as opposed to a snowplow or a fire engine or something like that. I'm not gonna pretend to be, but I imagine there would be some sort of certification differences.

Yes, so the agreement language lays out which certificates qualify. And that certification pay is available to Equipment Mechanic II or Equipment Mechanic Lead positions. And then the qualifying certificates are ASE Master Automobile Technician and ASE Master Medium Heavy Truck Technician.

So it sounds like we're kind of getting there. Sounds like.

Yes. Yes.

Thank you, ma'am. Thank you.

Anyone else? Okay. This is a public hearing. Anyone in the public wishing to speak on this item? Seeing none, we'll bring it back to the dais. I'm looking for a motion.

Mr. Abbott. I move to approve the successor collective bargaining agreement AC-6213 between the City of Sparks and Operating Engineers Local Union number three, skilled workforce unit for FY26 and FY27 with estimated cost impacts of $143,167 in the general fund and $385,663 in all other funds in FY27. Mr. Rodriguez. I'll second.

I've got a motion and a second. Any further discussion? Seeing none, please vote. Motion carries unanimously. We have no planning and zoning public hearings for this item. Comments from the public. Madam Clerk, do you have any comment cards?

We do not, Mr. Mayor.

Okay. Announcement for the Mayor, City Council, City Manager. Mr. Manager, you have anything?

I just want to say thanks to all the fire crews that are out there doing the work that they're doing. Can't say enough how important it is and the work that they do, how it impacts all of us. So we thank all of them, want them to stay safe, and we support them. So thank you.

Thank you. Joe?

I just want to echo that. I did find some time to stop by a couple of our stations today, and there's a lot of tired firefighters out there, so I just want to echo the manager's comments. Ms. Blybee?

I'll just stay on the same theme and basically praying for the safety of all of those firefighters that are out there in extraordinary conditions with that wind and the heat and the danger. We forget until... We have situations like this, really how dangerous it is. And then obviously, you know, what they're doing for the community and for those communities that are having to evacuate and have animals and have elderly and just, it's not an easy situation for anyone, but I think working together with our regional partners to do the best we can, but praying for everybody's safety.

Thank you, Ms. Vanderwill.

I want to, of course, echo everything and then also share, we lived out in Cold Springs for 23 years. So I want to thank all the firefighters for the safety. I have two daughters that still live out in the North Valleys, but outside of the zones right now. So I want to say thank you very much for all the hard work and all the collaboration between all departments to keep our residents safe.

Thank you. Anyone else? So from me, I wanna welcome Chief Cochran to his first Spark City Council meeting. Welcome to the Sparks also as our new chief. We had a good meeting today getting everything kind of figured out for where we're going in the future. And there's a lot of efficiencies we're finding already within this last week that we didn't anticipate. And I think it's going to work out well. And then Chief Cochran's relationship around the community has opened some doors that were previously not open to us. So I want to thank you for that too. But other than that, praying for our firefighters. With that, we're up to my favorite subject. We're adjourned.