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.

And then item two is agenda adjustments.

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.

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.

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

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?

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 th

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, 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?

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.

Wonderful. Thank you. Thank you, Chair Allen.

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

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.

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.

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

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 t

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.

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

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 stre

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 tar

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 t

All right. Chair Allen, 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?

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

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

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

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...

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 –

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 fa

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 wh

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 wat

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

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

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.