City Council Formal Meeting - Regular Meeting

It was the first airline to announce international service between Asia and the city of Phoenix. Welcome to Phoenix. The friendliest island and the friendliest airport are now connected. Taipei could not be a more important partner to us and the country of Taiwan.

We're incredibly grateful to you all, as you know, for your commitment to connecting our two great cities and our communities for a vibrant future. International flights contribute more than $3.4 billion to the local economy each year, and this flight is expected to generate over $170 million each year statewide.

This is more than just a new route. It's also a meaningful milestone in the close partnership between Taiwan and the United States. Arizona has become one of Taiwan's key partners in the global semiconductor industry. And Phoenix is now a cherished second home for many Taiwanese families.

Phoenix actually offers very strong potential in both business and tourism. It has emerged as a major hub for innovation. Starlux Airlines helps to further strengthen business and tourism ties between Phoenix and Taiwan. We look forward welcoming you on board very soon.

We have formed not just a partnership, but a friendship. And I think the people in Phoenix are going to see just what a wonderful, wonderful carrier Starlux is, and they're going to love flying the airline. This new service is a win. It's a win for travelers. It's a win for all the airlines here today. And it's a win for the communities that we serve.

Starlux is a new airline with brand new planes and great friendly, friendly staff. So we look forward to filling your planes and to this deep, deep partnership. It's time to start thinking about your next vacation and Taiwan should be at the top of your list. So Starlux, welcome to Phoenix.

We all want to get to our destination safely, so be aware of everything happening around you whenever walking, riding or rolling along our streets. Most pedestrian and bike crashes happen when drivers are turning. Scan the street for Wilson feet when turning or entering intersections.

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Welcome to the city of Phoenix. Welcome to South Mountain Park and Preserve on this beautiful morning. This is an exciting day to culminate years of planning and construction and community outreach to get to a point where we're ready to open this amazing facility. On behalf of the Parks and Recreation Department, I want to welcome you to the first and therefore oldest mountain preserve that we have in the city of Phoenix. This is South Mountain Park and Preserve. In 2024, we celebrated 100 years of stewardship of the city of Phoenix of this amazing place. Thank you all for taking time out of your busy day. We know you have other things you could be doing, but you being here means a lot to us to have stewardship of this land, and it means so much to us. So thank you. I want to acknowledge that we have many people here visiting that we want to make sure that you are aware of that. We've got Mayor Kate Gallego, who's always been an amazing advocate for our preserves, Vice Mayor Kesha Hodge-Washington from District 8. We have City Manager Ed Zerker, who's a frequent user of our mountain preserves as well, Parks Director Martin Whitfield, Deputy City Manager Cynthia Aguilar, Assistant Parks and Rec Directors Brandi Barrett and Todd Shackelford. As well, we have some visitors from other agencies, including Sundae Isalt from the Salt River Pima Maricopa Indian Community Tribal Historic Preservation Office. Thank you, Sundae, for being here, as well as Barnaby Lewis from the Gila River Indian Community, who will be providing a blessing as we get started in a few minutes. I also want to acknowledge we have several members of our Phoenix Sonoran Preserve and Mountain Parks and Preservation Committee. We have John Furness and Scott Covey. There may be others here. If you're here, I apologize if I didn't see you. We also have some educational exhibits that are available in the back to kind of learn more about our Sonoran Preserve, including the Office of Environmental Programs, the Phoenix, sorry, also Central Arizona Conservation Alliance and the Phoenix Mountains Preservation Council. I want to take just a moment, others will also acknowledge them, but I wanted to, as somebody who worked with the design team and the construction team, I just want to say thank you for all of your hard work and professionalism to make this project a success, specifically J2 Environmental Design. The contractors were Valley Rain with Caliente Ironworks, Kimbrough Electric, Rummel, Sierra Signs, and Avstill, among others. My name is Jared Rogers. I'm the Deputy Director of the Natural Resources Division within the City of Phoenix Parks and Recreation Department. A few years ago, while walking around on this site, we were struck by the amazing views that you can see behind me of the valley. As the ground drops away from where we are now, it reaches its lowest point at the Rio Salado Habitat Restoration Area, where the City of Phoenix has stewardship of an amazing restored riparian habitat. From there, as you continue to head north, the land rises until you see the distinct peaks in the Phoenix Mountains Preserve, the Camelback Mountain Preserve, and Papago Park. A key feature of what you'll see if you walk around the site when we're completed here is bands of pavement that point to those peaks. And on the t-shirt, you'll notice that same motif. We worked with the Gila River Ending Community and Salt River Pima Maricopa Ending Community to make sure that we were okay using those symbols. And we're very fortunate to be able to point out those other views that you can acknowledge and see the city and then beyond that the other preserves that we have in our system. We do have a great relationship with both the Gila River Indian Community and the Salt River Pima Maricopa Indian Community. I wanted to take a moment to read our land acknowledgement statement and following that statement we'll have a blessing from Barnaby Lewis, an elder from the Gila River Indian Community. The Parks and Recreation Department acknowledges the City of Phoenix is located within the homeland of the O'odham and Peeposh peoples and their ancestors who have inhabited this landscape from time immemorial to present day. The landscape is sacred and reflects cultural values central to the O'odham and Peeposh way of life and their self-definition. This acknowledgement demonstrates our commitment to work in partnership with the ancestral indigenous communities to foster understanding, appreciation, and respect for this heritage. So now we'll have a blessing by Barnaby Lewis. Thank you, Barnaby.

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Good morning, my name is Barnaby Lewis. I'm from the village of Blackwater, located on the east end of the Isla River Indian Community. I'm pleased to be here this morning in this way, to help in this way, to ask the Creator for His blessing for this gathering today. And I hope to see this in the language that the Creator gave us, the O'odham language. He gave me a piece of wood, and I said to him, if you don't give me a piece of wood, I'm going to kill you. He said to me, if you don't give me a piece of wood, I'm going to kill you. He said to me, if you don't give me a piece of wood, I'm going to kill you. . . . . . . . . . .

Satsang with Mooji Satsang with Mooji . . . . . . .

Thank you. That concludes the activities for this morning. Thank you.

Thank you, Barnaby. We love having you here and appreciate your willingness to come and bless these events. We'll now get to hear from Mayor Kate Gallego, followed by Vice Mayor Kesh Shahad Washington against from Council District 8. And then following Councilwoman Washington, or Vice Mayor Washington, we'll have Parks Interim Director Marty Whitfield, the mayor.

Good morning. It's such a pleasure to be with you in one of the most special places in the City of Phoenix. To Barnaby Lewis, thank you so much for the very special blessing to start this event on the right note and to recognize the heritage of this area. This is a really special day for us at the City of Phoenix as we share with all of you this beautiful new space in our city. We are under a pavilion that is about a half an acre and it is one of the most beautiful spots in our city and a really a new way for people to enjoy a beloved park. As Jared mentioned, we just in 2024 celebrated 100 years of the city's involvement in South Mountain Park and I like to think this is like a belated birthday present for the park. South Mountain Park is a favorite for so many of us. For me, it is the first park, mountain park I took my son to when he was still in a stroller and he did so many of his hikes here. This is the park that got us through COVID, but a really special place. Many people have celebrated graduations, done their photos here. or we've had some movies filmed here, we've had weddings, and now we have a really special place for so many incredible events or family picnics to come together. And we're so excited to celebrate the South Mountain Activity Complex. This very special park the city bought for $17,000, so I think a great investment. We are able to do these type of investments because of our wonderful voters. The voters overwhelmingly supported our Phoenix Parks and Preserve Initiative, and I gotta say, we have very smart voters here in the city of Phoenix. This new facility has everything you would expect from a world-class facility, including ramadas, restrooms, and lighting, but also some amenities that are very unique to our wonderful desert environment. We're really excited to invest in so much shade. We know that helps people enjoy our parks for more and more of the year. And there's a beautiful breeze blowing today, so really creating a nice space for community gatherings. I had a little bit of fun yesterday on April Fool's Day, where I announced I was going to be the new bachelorette. We were joking we would continue with it and have the wedding here. What do you guys think?

I am not the new bachelorette.

But we do try to create a space that will make sense for people's special events, but also just to get to know more about our city and to see how you can manage well in a desert environment. This park is intentionally designed with water harvesting features. There's a terraced tree bosque and a cactus garden. We have a beautiful pollinator garden behind us. I'm part of the Mayor's Monarch Pledge where we try to make sure we create habitat for monarchs and pollinators. And this is a wonderful example of that habitat. It's one of the few places in Phoenix where you can see an elephant tree. So thank you to the Desert Botanical Gardens for partnering with us to make that possible. And again, you can learn more about water harvesting and how to take advantage of rainwater. There's also a chance to learn about our other beautiful mountains in the area. So as Jared mentioned, there are bands that point to the different mountains and you can figure out if you don't know which mountain is also known as Iron Mountain, you can learn from the signs here. And then the signs also celebrate the Odom names for the places and help us learn that history. I want to do a huge thank you to the Parks and Recreation Department, to Marty Whitfield and his team, including Justin Olson. Thank you to Todd Shackelford, to our Partners from J2 Design to Valley Rain, thank you for bringing this vision to life. And I understand Valley Rain will get to celebrate here very soon. So very, very important. A ton of work taking out lots and lots of asphalt and concrete and creating a beautiful space, but I think we can say that it is absolutely worth it. And now I get to introduce to the podium one of my great partners who represents District 8, the north side of the mountain, our vice mayor, Vice Mayor Hutch Washington.

Thank you, Mayor. Thank you all for being here. I'm Vice Mayor Keisha Hodge-Washington, and I have the honor of representing District 8 here in the city of Phoenix. And for me, South Mountain holds a very special place. When I first moved to Phoenix, I was trying to get oriented as to where everything was located. And at night, the advice that was always given to me is, if you can find South Mountain, you'll see the red lights, you'll find your beacon. It was my compass on how to navigate this city. And I think it's a great way to kind of talk about the importance of South Mountain to our community. It holds such a valuable space. Many of us hike it. Many of us have had events here or just had the opportunity to engage with some of the educational things that are out here. Or for others, for me specifically, it's a place to come unwind. Just come on the mountain, take a walk, and just forget that I'm in the... fifth largest city not that you need to forget it but it's a reminder that in the midst of our urban area we have such wonderful preserves here and i think this new complex represents a major investment in the people of district 8 in our community it continues to give our community a place to gather to continue to do that to celebrate and to connect with the natural beauty of south mountain in a way that feels welcoming and accessible to all. As the Mayor mentioned, this is almost a half an acre. This is a 14,000 square foot pavilion, which creates a gathering space that truly belongs to the community. And with the trailhead to Holbert Trail right here, residents can step directly from their neighborhood into one of the most iconic experiences South Mountain has to offer. That connection to nature, to culture, to one another is the heart of what makes this project so special. This redesign isn't just about new buildings or new pathways. It's about creating a space where families can come together, where residents can build healthier lifestyles, and where the community can take pride in a park that reflects who we are and what we value. This space was truly built for the community, and I'm excited to see what it will be utilized for for years to come. I want to take a moment also to recognize the incredible staff who make this possible. Our Parks and Recreation Department team, our designers, our construction crew, and the many, many employees who work behind the scenes who put their hearts into this project. Their dedication ensures that this community and our district and our residents from across the city have a gathering space at South Mountain that does not only serve them, but it serves them across all generations. I want to take a quick point of privilege to take a shout out for the preserved rangers here. One of my first opportunities as I started this concept called Keisha on the Job, one of the first jobs that I did was being a preserved ranger. i've learned how much goes into keeping the preserves beautiful keeping our residents safe and just making sure that we continue to be great stewards of this land so thank you to our preserve rangers for all that you do not that all the departments don't reckon don't deserve it but i just want to give a special thank you because they are the ones that make sure that this park continues to be accessible and usable by all of our residents And with that being said, I get to welcome Interim Parks and Director, Parks and Recreation Director Marty Whitfield, who will share more about this project.

Well, good morning, folks. Like the Vice Mayor said, I'm Marty Whitfield, the Interim Parks and Recreation Director for the City of Phoenix. And wow, this place is amazing and such a remarkable day. I was a little concerned the last couple of weeks with our increased temperatures, but what a great day. I'd like to thank Mayor Gallego and Vice Mayor Hodge Washington for your attendance today and your continued support for the Parks Department. So please give them a round of applause. The mayor did mention our voter-approved Parks and Preserve Initiative programming funding. We are so grateful to have that funding, and the voters did it, right? We have this funding through 2038, and without that funding, we'd be unable to build great amenities like this and keep our maintenance up as well, so. A lot of great amenities at this location. We've added more than 250 new trees to expand shade and comfort, and we carefully salvaged and replanted over 40 mature trees to preserve the site's character. Alongside those, more than 700 new shrubs and native plants now fill out the landscape. And another three acres have been hydro-seeded and desert-appropriate vegetation, so great stuff out there. I know Jared mentioned our team, but I am very thankful to lead an amazing team on a daily basis, so I cannot close without saying, talking about our amazing Park and Recreation team. My Assistant Directors Brandy Barrett and Todd Shackelford are here. I'm sure Todd is in the back someplace. Natural Resources Division Deputy Director Jared Rogers and the incredible South Mountain team. I also want to thank our partners on this project, J2 Design and Valley Rain Construction, who are also here today. We are very grateful for your partnership and a job well done in this beautiful new facility for the community. I would also like to thank our amazing communications team that does an amazing job on a daily basis and got us ready for today. That's Talia Galevez and Stephanie Chavez. Thank you for being here today to celebrate the opening of the new South Mountain Activity Complex. And without further ado, let's cut the ribbon and officially open the space. Thank you.

Yeah! Woohoo!

I think when you consider the Seneca Pre and the impact it had on Phoenicians and Phoenix and society around this area, you've got to stop for a second and really understand where Phoenix as a city was at that time. I mean, in the early 60s, Phoenix had just come from about a 10-year span where the population of our city increased 400%. So Phoenix has always been associated with growth, but especially in the early 60s, we just reached a point where we're almost about 500,000 people, so it was really growing like crazy. The downtown had shifted, shopping had moved from downtown, places like Biltmore, where the Senate Capri was, were really booming, the whole Arcadia area, all of that was really, really growing at a very rapid pace movie theaters in town with it just on the leading edge of what we're called multiplexes where they're very common now where you go and there's 10 or 12 theaters in one shopping mall or something you have all kinds of choices Well, that was just beginning. The majority of the theaters were still the single screen, like the Fox Theater, the Orpheum, the Palms Theater. They were single screen theaters. Paramount Arizona hired a guy named Ralph Haver to design the Seneca Pre Theater. They really wanted a one of a kind, massive, very ornate, luxurious theater that rivaled theaters anywhere in the country. And that's what they wanted. They hired Ralph Haver, who at that time was a very prominent architect in Phoenix. He was primarily known for designing homes and residences and different kinds of retail buildings. He wasn't really known for designing and drawing a theater and so they hired him and building it starting in about 1964 and the building itself when it was finished 16 000 square feet 17 000 square foot theater had a big arc curved entryway a portico as you came into the lobby there was Italian tile everywhere. There was a 24 foot high stained glass window that the stained glass that had been imported from New York. One of the things that when you talk about people who went to the Senate Capri on a regular basis in those years, they remembered the curtain. And the curtain was just a massive piece of material and it was gold and it swept the back and opened up and just to display and present the movie theater. But there was 4,000 inches of gold metallic material that were purchased to create this massive curtain. gorgeous curtain. So on March 31st of 1966, the theater opened. And the following day, Charlton Heston, who was a star of the first film there, The Agony and the Ecstasy, he came in person and did a little workshop for high school kids in the theater and introduced the first movie at the Seneca Prix. And it was a big hit. The thing about the Cine Capri, which rivaled a lot of the other theaters, and I can remember as a kid, you would decide which movie you were going to go to, and then you would go see which theater was showing it. Well, with the Cine Capri, the Cine Capri just going there was an event in itself. People went to the Seneca Prairie just to experience the luxury of it and the beauty of it. It was a destination in itself. People would go there for celebrations or first dates or some special kind of event. The Santa Capri, primarily in the early years anyway, ran just big movies. Movies like Agony and the Ecstasy, which opened the theater. The Godfather was the only movie theater in Arizona that was showing The Godfather at the time. The Titanic, unfortunately, was the final theater, so Seneca Creek kind of sank right along with the movie Titanic at the same time. Star Wars opened there in 1977. Star Wars, the first Star Wars, actually showed consecutively for a full calendar year. It was the longest run of Star Wars in the entire country. It was a very profitable movie to be shown. The whole theater was an event in itself. They actually had, at one time, they had a dress code, if you could believe it. They didn't allow anybody to wear jeans. Females could not wear shorts. And sandals, you could not wear sandals. I actually had a published dress code to attend the Santa Capri movie theater, which sounds kind of odd today. For the opening, I actually saw an ad. You could send in money and pre-order tickets for that opening. opening movie of The Agony and the Ecstasy. So as years went by, the total of Seneca Pre was open for about 32 years from 66 to 98. It changed hands several times, different owners ran it. The final owner was a guy named Dick Harkins who still, there's a lot of Harkins theaters around Phoenix and Scottsdale.

Good afternoon. It is Tuesday, June 9th, 2026, and I'll call the meeting to order. Will the clerk call the roll? Councilwoman Guardado?

Here. Councilwoman Hernandez? Here. Councilwoman O'Brien? Here. Councilwoman Pastor? Here. Councilwoman O'Brien? Here. Thank you. Councilman Robinson?

Here.

Councilwoman Stark? Here. Councilman Waring? Vice Mayor Hodge Washington. Here. Mayor Gallego. Here.

Thank you so much for joining us. We have two very important items today. If we have budget items from the city manager or council information follow-up requests, we'll do that after agenda items one and two. So we'll go straight into the 2030 Phoenix Food Action Plan. I want to thank everyone who's been working on this, including our voters who got this started with our 2015 general plan. And then we had a Citywide food action plan that we approved just before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, which set us up well for really important work we did during the pandemic when so many food systems were disrupted. With support from Federal CARES Act, we got to partner with community organizations to use commercial kitchens that might have otherwise gone out of business and deliver hot meals for families who needed them. More than five and a half million meals we delivered with our partners and another 22 million pounds of food. The plan also addressed food waste and supported conservation. By our count, nearly 100,000 pounds of food have been diverted from the landfill and nearly 900,000 gallons of water saved. Overall, more than 90% of the goals in the plans were completed or are in progress. And we've had some fun, too. One of my favorite programs is Project Reduce, and many of you might have gotten to try some of the wonderful recipes that our kitchens created through that program with food that might once have been thrown away. Testal's tacos are a real favorite of mine. And then I love our programs with our kids. Some of our cutest programs involve kids in local gardens and school cafeterias. So today we will move forward with the 2030 Food Action Plan and build on those successes. Thank you to Assistant City Manager, Ginger Spencer, and the team at the Office of Environmental Programs, Nancy Allen, Roseanne, Maddie, and the entire team for all the work you do to strengthen our local food system. And although she's not here today, I wanna give a special recognition to Rosanna Albright, who has been an incredible champion for our food systems and brownfield programs. She will retire from the city of Phoenix later this month. And lastly, I'm so thankful to the many community organizations, farmers, chefs, and restaurants. Thank you for your commitment to making our city healthier and more delicious. And now I'll turn it to Ginger Spencer to introduce the item.

Mayor Gallego, thank you for that introduction. Mayor and Council, thank you for the opportunity to be here today to talk about our 2030 Phoenix Food Action Plan. Today we want to celebrate the successes from the 2025 Food Action Plan, the first action plan approved by Mayor and Council, and then also set the foundation for our 2030 plan. Mayor, I want to thank you for that recognition of Roseanne Albright. I'm sure she is watching from home. And as you mentioned, Roseanne will be retiring, but it was Roseanne who built the city's brownfields program and also the food program that we're celebrating today. Along with me here, I have Nancy Allen, who is our Environmental Programs Director, and then also Maddie Mercer, who is our Food Systems Environmental Program Manager. And so Nancy and Roseanne have been able to pass the baton of leadership on to Maddie, and so she's one of the newer members of our team. I ALSO WANT TO THANK THIS TIME, MAYOR, TO THANK YOU FOR YOUR LEADERSHIP ON THIS ON A NATIONAL AND GLOBAL LEVEL BY YOUR PARTICIPATION AND LEADERSHIP IN THE C40 CITIES. I ALSO WANT TO RECOGNIZE THE CITY DEPARTMENTS THAT WE PARTNER WITH IN THIS EFFORT AS WELL AS ALL OF OUR COMMUNITY PARTNERS. AND SPECIFICALLY, I DO WANT TO JUST GIVE A SMALL SHOUT OUT TO CARLA DE LA CHAPA, OUR SUSTAINABILITY OFFICER WHO SERVES ON THE URBAN SUSTAINABILITY DIRECTOR'S NETWORK. I KNOW SHE'S WATCHING AS WELL. And then to Felipe Moreno, who he and his team have led our partnership with the Ellen MacArthur Foundation. And with that, also just a quick shout out to the vendors from Project Reduce who are with us today. Mayor, as you mentioned, Testal Mexican Kitchen. We also had Irma's Kitchen and Ola Ola Crepes. So thank you all for being here today. And with that, I will pass it on to Nancy Allen.

Thank you, Ginger, and thank you, Mayor and Council, for having us today. There's been a lot of work done to bring us here where we are today. This slide in front of you shows some of the significant impact that we have been able to have through the food work that we've done with the City of Phoenix. With the passage of the 2025 food plan back in 2020, that gave us a roadmap and let us be very effective and efficient with implementing the COVID relief funds that we've received as that significant disruption happened to our food systems. This slide has got a significant number of very big numbers on it. We have impressed a lot of our peer cities with these numbers. And with your leadership and guidance, we were able to, as the mayor said, implement most 90% of the 2025 Food Action Plan. This plan aims to continue that work. We want to be a more resilient tool. This plan is going to help us be a more resilient city. The following video is a trailer from a 40-minute documentary that the Office of Environmental Programs put together called Cultivating Food Resilience. It covers work that we completed through 2024 and was highlighted as part of the Sky Fire Environmental Film Festival.

Whoops. Sorry.

Sorry.

We're a city that really values our food system. Our roots are agricultural.

The residents have asked us to create an equitable, affordable, sustainable local food economy. Our food system here is broken in the middle.

We have a lot of producers, and obviously we have a lot of chefs, restaurants, grocery eaters. And in between is the area where we most need investments. We look at challenges like water use. as well as making sure we have local production and we're finding solutions.

Without that program, we won't be here today.

Our farmers are some of the best farmers in the country. We really wanted to inspire a new generation of food producers and growers. The city is the first in Arizona to really invest in something like this. And this is what we have here now, an acre of food forest, all edible.

And today we're starting to see more projects like this that create these pockets of vibrancy outdoors.

We've grown from 500 seniors to now serving this year 30,000 seniors and veterans.

I love it when doing the right thing also improves the bottom line and the taste of the product. Everyone has some sort of personal connection with it.

This work is personal to me because I grew up in Phoenix.

To see the commitment that we as a city have made has been so rewarding.

Seeing people benefit from these programs that remind me of my friends and my family is very rewarding.

It's just fantastic to see all the different kinds of impact that we have. I get that chance to do that every day.

So the food system has changed significantly since the first food action plan was adopted in 2020. Since then, we've seen increased rates of food insecurity, continuing hunger, less land available for food production, plus we've had increasing pressures of drought and high energy demands. This plan addresses those challenges. So what does a future food system look like? The people and organizations that we deal with have changed significantly since 2020. We've identified new partners, and our existing partners continue to grow and to expand. Having a thriving and resilient food system requires more than just a city. This plan was co-created with our community partners, our residents, farmers, and local businesses. This slide illustrates the timeline that we worked for for the Climate Action Plan. Beginning in January of 2025, we offered a variety of activities to engage folks, and that included workshops, open houses, tabling events at community events, having lunch with seniors, and providing opportunity for our youth, including an essay contest and art contest. We also had focus groups, along with local businesses and farmers. All of that input formed the foundation of the plan that's in front of you today. And now I'd like to introduce Maddie Mercer, and she will detail the community engagement, the framework of the plan, and what is in it. Maddie.

All right, thank you, Nancy, and thank you, Mayor and members of the council. We're very excited to present this plan to you today. It's been a labor of love for my team and the many residents and community organizations that have been participating in the process. So I wanted to start by sharing some of the engagement outcomes and then I'll go more into detail in terms of what's in the 2030 plan. So like Nancy mentioned, we intentionally participated and had a variety of activities to reach residents, local businesses, and farmers across the city by making our outreach accessible and making it fun. And we did that by always ensuring to provide live interpretation into Spanish and into Mandarin. Here you can see the Chinese Senior Center where we had over 100 individuals join us for lunch. We always provided childcare for our attendees. And of course, we provided food because we can't talk about food without giving people food. You're going to get hungry just thinking about it. So at our events, we worked also closely with our community partners like Unlimited Potential. They're pictured here in the second image. while working with the resident to go through our investment menu that I'll zoom in on in the next slide. And then on the far right, you can see the winner of our youth art contest. The hope for this plan was to work closely with community partners and our city departments. We had an interdepartmental team comprised of representatives from 18 departments across the city. And we worked especially closely with the Office of Sustainability's energy access plan and our office's climate action plan because they were being developed at the same time. And we know that these are really interconnected issues for our residents focused on affordability and resilience. And throughout that 10-month engagement process, we engaged over 2,300 community members through the development of the 2030 plan. And one of those tools that we used to reach residents and make our engagements interactive was our investment menu. And this intended to make the food system world a little bit more relevant for people's everyday lives. And so this was an activity where we had residents vote for tangible solutions that the city and our community partners could implement together related to five different categories, growing food, accessing food, buying food, learning about food, and getting involved in the food system. And so people were able to vote for their favorite solution in each row, or if they had another idea that wasn't represented here, they could add that as well. And like I said, the hope was to make this food systems work more relevant for people's day-to-day lives, and that's why the categories reflected ways that people interact with food on a daily basis, because we talk about the food system every day, but everyone is part of it, even if you don't think of yourself as being so. We're all eaters, so we all touch this work, and it's relevant, and we wanted to make that clear. Now I'm going to share some of the outcomes from the community engagement. I'm going to start with some of the challenges that we heard. So in our surveys that we conducted for the Food Action Plan, we asked some questions around food access and food insecurity to understand the current state of need in our community. The first question we asked asked about barriers, and if people experience barriers to accessing fresh, healthy food, and if so, what barriers were they? 70% of respondents to the survey question said that yes, they did experience some barrier to accessing healthy food, with cost being cited as the most common challenge. We also heard challenges related to transportation, especially among our seniors, folks that may no longer drive or own a private vehicle, and knowledge of existing food access sites. In another question, we asked one of the typical food insecurity screening questions, have you or your family worried about running out of food before you have money to buy more? And 37% of respondents answered yes in the last 12 months. So these specific numbers were from our surveys, but these sentiments were echoed across the workshops that we had, the community events, our conversations with youth and seniors, and we heard similar findings from our community partners, especially our food banks and those providing direct service. However, we didn't just talk about the challenges and the barriers, we also talked about the solutions and tangible ways that the City of Phoenix and our partners could help to address some of these food access challenges. And so these are the top 10 voted solutions from that investment menu in order, starting with neighborhood food production, community kitchens, gardening education programs, food prescription programs, mobile produce markets, health and nutrition classes, grocery store shuttle services, community food resource maps, food systems directories, and farmers markets. And so these were the top 10 solutions that emerged from our workshops and surveys and events where we all used that investment menu so we could aggregate that data. And you can see kind of three themes emerging with this list. The first are ideas related to growing food. The second are ideas and programs related to learning about food. food production, health, nutrition, cooking. And then the third category here are all ideas related to expanding food access for our Phoenix residents. And so now we're going to go into the contents of the plan, and I wanted to start with our vision and guiding values. For us, the vision of an equitable, sustainable, thriving system where everyone has enough to eat and has access to healthy, affordable, and culturally appropriate food is our why. Why do we do this work? What are we working towards? This is something we developed with Phoenix residents, our community partners, our farmers, and our businesses. These guiding values of equity and justice, health and joy, community connection, partnerships, and sustainability and resilience, those are our how. These will shape how we develop programs to make sure we're making progress towards this overarching vision. And these strategic priorities are the what. What will we be working on over the next five years? So we have 10 that emerged as key themes for our residents and our community partners. I'm not gonna talk about all 10 today, but I'm gonna highlight three that align with those categories I mentioned in the earlier slide, food access, education, and food production, and one more that reflects the work and learnings that we had from our efforts with the 2025 plan. food system resilience. So the first strategic priority I wanted to highlight is food access. And while those 10 weren't necessarily in order, food access was the most common thing that we heard from our Phoenix residents. We put that as number one. This section includes actions related to increasing the availability of food. So creating and promoting more food access sites and points in neighborhoods so that they're easier for residents to get to. And then focusing on addressing that transportation challenge to promote the accessibility of food, helping people get to and from the locations where they can get food access. The Farm Express Bus is a great example of a partner already leading in the space, and they're pictured here. Education and training is the next priority that I wanted to highlight. This builds on some of our most popular existing work and includes actions like expanding gardening education, health, nutrition, and cooking classes for Phoenix residents. This is one of our current backyard garden Phoenix residents and she's clearly learning a lot because her garden looks a lot better than mine. And this section focuses strongly on working with departments across the city to embed food and food elements into existing programming that's happening, whether it's through our human services collaborations or our work with Public Works and their zero waste team. The next strategic priority to highlight is food production and this section was shaped with feedback from our Phoenix residents and our local farmers. Like Nancy mentioned, we had some focus groups for farmers and we actually got 47 producers to get out of the fields for an hour and come and talk to us about the challenges they face and what they wanted the city to invest in in the food system. This section includes a focus on expanding area of land in the city for people to grow food. We heard from residents, especially those that live in apartments that might not have space in a yard, but are still interested in coming together with community to learn how to grow food for themselves and their neighbors. And then there's also a strong focus on providing resources for sustainable food production to make sure that we're continuing to grow food for this generation while maintaining the water and other resources we need to keep feeding them into the future. And then the last strategic priority that I want to highlight today is food system resilience. As we saw during the pandemic and the delay in SNAP benefits last fall, the food system can experience disruptions that quickly impact food security for our residents. This section includes actions related to emergency preparedness planning with our internal partners in human services and other departments and our community organizations so that when there's future disruptions, we have the collaborations and resources and plans in place to respond to them to quickly promote food access. This section also has ties to our climate action goals and includes actions around long-term funding and monitoring the progress of the plan to ensure that we're making headway towards our goal of healthy, affordable food for all. And with that, I will hand it over to Nancy.

So thank you for listening to us today and thank you for recognizing Roseanne Ginger and Mayor. And with that, I would ask for approval to adopt the 2030 Food Action Plan. Thank you.

Thank you so much, Vice Mayor.

Motion to adopt the 2030 Food Action Plan. Second.

Wonderful. We have a motion and a second. We have several members of the community here to address the council. So we will go to public comment now. And we'll start with Dr. George Brooks, who was there when This all started, and he will be followed by Ginger Sykes-Torres.

Good afternoon. I had asked for my presentation to be canceled, but I am here, and I'm pleased to be here, and I can talk about what I want to. This plan that you are considering is a groundbreaking effort. It was begun in 2015 with the 2015 general plan. It went on through the tremendous work of the office's environmental, well, the office that Roseanne led with tremendous success. And now what's going on to today? 20 seconds. I got one minute left. That's good for me. Those of you who know me. But now I encourage you to put as much effort as you possibly can. I have flown around the world, well, not the country. I have joined a number of organizations regarding food. We've got PhD in food. And there's nothing more than our urban populations need that's sustainable, healthy food. And you have taken a leading step to make this happen. Please continue. I thank you for the time. And I thank you for everyone who's been willing to work in this project.

Thank you so much for your leadership and you have gotten international recognition that certainly reflected well on us in Phoenix. So thanks for partnering with us, including during COVID. Thank you. We'll go next to Ginger followed by Roland Harris.

Good afternoon, Mayor Gallego and members of the Phoenix City Council. My name is Ginger Sykes Torres, and I am Vice President of Resiliency Programs at Local First Arizona. On behalf of Local First, I'm here to support the City of Phoenix 2030 Food Action Plan and its vision for an equitable, sustainable, and thriving local food system. Local First Arizona is dedicated to inclusive economic and community development across Arizona and building a food system that fuels opportunity and well-being. We operate community-based programs focused on entrepreneurship, food access, and sustainability for farmers, food businesses, and community members. We recognize the critical importance of coordinated local action to improve food security, environmental sustainability, public health, and economic opportunity. As we all feel the costs of food rising, agricultural land is disappearing at the fastest rates in the country right here in Maricopa County, and extreme heat and water challenges become more common. A long-term strategy is needed to strengthen our local food system and ensure residents have access to healthy local foods. This plan is the blueprint, and in its initiatives will catalyze critical health, economic, and social benefits for our city. I am particularly encouraged by areas where we see alignment and opportunities for ongoing partnership with the city in the areas of community kitchens and urban agriculture. These priorities create opportunities for entrepreneurs and strengthen neighborhood economies in three key areas. First, we operate four community kitchens to help small food entrepreneurs launch and grow their businesses, offer commercial kitchen space, and provide nutrition education for families and youth. Two of those kitchens are in Phoenix, in Maryvale and Eastlake. We are currently working to develop a new one. Second, we invest in local producers and community garden initiatives. We offer garden beds to local residents, and our Garden Education Center is a community anchor for entrepreneurship training. We congratulate the city for this important milestone, and especially the whole team at the Office of Environmental Programs, including Nancy and Roseanne, for their critical contributions to moving this forward.

Wonderful, thank you. Do you have time for a question? Yeah. So you previously served our country as our state lead for the Arizona Farm Service Agency. Could you kind of put this plan in the national and state context?

Yeah, so this plan is a leader in terms of our state planning efforts to address food security. Making our entire food system in the state more resilient is critical to national security at the national and international levels. And this plan makes Phoenix a leader in that area. The risks to food security include, like I mentioned, worsening drought, corporate ag consolidation across the country, rising operational costs for producers that are getting worse from tariffs, and our increasing resilience on imported food. So working to build a local and regional food system, as demonstrated in this plan, will address those risks, and then we can turn those risks into opportunities. For example, Phoenix has the opportunity to lead the world in building a more resilient and sustainable agricultural future right here in the desert. We can show and be the example for other countries that have similar climates that are also facing food insecurity. And then we also have an opportunity to prepare for worsening drought by strengthening the entire food system supply chain. And so that includes stuff like building more refrigerated transport systems, providing more cold storage, providing shared processing kitchens and centralized food hubs to make sure that the food that is grown right here in Arizona can be consumed by the residents right here in Arizona.

Wonderful, thank you so much. Yep, thank you. Roland is next, followed by Kenneth.

I'd like to thank everybody for the hard work on the type of program needed in the city. But the program does fall short. These children do need healthy food, but at this point right now, they need food, period. We had our annual basketball tournament there, and we had a bunch of youth from the community that we fed for free. And we actually, the coalition gave out so many meals that we actually bought the food vendors out. It was nice. I mean, it felt good, but at the same time, it broke my heart because know that the next day, those kids may not even be eating. Then we did further research to try to see if the city has anything set up to be giving out free meals to youth or families that are in need during the summer, and there are none. The only ones that have programs right now are some of the school districts. Some of the school districts only feed kids 14 and under. Some do 18 and under. But from where our understanding is, is that youth in the city of Phoenix is 24 and under. They are providing some meals to adults and to some families, but they're charging $3, $5. And we all know that this state has cut off all food stamps. They are going back in and reissuing those. But until those cases are processed and speaking with some people that actually work in DES, they're over six months to a year behind. So we're talking about six months to a year behind that families and kids may not be eating at all. So yes, it is nice that we are doing these programs. It's nice the city wants to donate money, but it takes more than money. You have to have these programs already up and running and the food going. You could give all the money in the world, but if you don't have these programs up and running immediately and giving children food immediately, there are children going to bed tonight without a meal in their stomach. Thank you.

Thank you. Marcos is next. No, Kenneth is next, followed by Marcos.

Good afternoon, Mayor and Council. For the record, my name is Kenneth Steele. I'M THE DIRECTOR OF HEALTHY COMMUNITIES INITIATIVES AT PINNACLE PREVENTION. I'M HERE TODAY IN SUPPORT OF THE ADOPTION OF THE 2030 FOOD ACTION PLAN, JUST LIKE I WAS HERE IN 2015 IN SUPPORT OF THE GENERAL PLAN WHEN THERE WERE THOSE TWO PAGES ON FOOD SYSTEMS THAT STARTED IT ALL. PINNACLE PREVENTION, WE'RE A NONPROFIT ORGANIZATION THAT SERVES ARIZONA STATEWIDE. FOR YEARS WE HAVE SEEN THE CITY OF PHOENIX SERVE AS A LEADER AND A MODEL FOR OTHER CITIES AND TOWNS IN THE COUNTY AND IN THE by preparing and adopting a food action plan and by investing in the efforts that ensure that the plan's priorities and actions are actually implemented. We applaud the city's efforts and successes from the first food action plan and we feel that the next iteration is comprehensive and responsive to the most pressing needs that we are seeing in communities right now. was encouraging to see the city take a comprehensive approach to community engagement to ensure that the plan reflects the reality of residents experiences and their ideas and their solutions the priorities identified are heavily driven by community and we know that ensuring community trust and support both now and into the future is important to you all we also appreciate that the food system's needs and priorities are interconnected with other adopted city plans including the general plan Climate Action Plan, the South Central TOD Plan, the Rio Phoenix Plan, and the Shade Phoenix Plan. Truly addressing these complex issues requires cross-sector coordination. In a moment, like others have mentioned, where cost of living weighs heavily on families, we're especially thankful to see that food access is prioritized. We constantly hear about the barriers that folks experience when it comes to affording food and when it comes to affording housing and transportation. A lot of these barriers that we're seeing right now are systematic and they're coming from policies that are being passed at the federal and state level and they're making it hard at the local level for our neighbors to access food and for farmers to grow food. So food costs are increasing for all of us and that's why we need this plan to put us a few steps in the right direction. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you so much for- If staff would be willing, I have a few postcards from some partners that have written their specific council members. They're really pretty. So if y'all are able to pass them out, some are directed to specific representatives and some are for council in general. Thank you so much.

Marcos is next, followed by Jeff Bowles.

A GOOD AFTERNOON, MAYOR AND MEMBERS OF THIS COUNCIL. THANK YOU FOR THE TIME TO SPEAK TODAY IN SUPPORT OF THE 2030 PHOENIX FOOD ACTION PLAN. THIS PLAN ALIGNS VERY CLOSELY WITH THE WORK OF ST. MARY'S FOOD BANK. AS YOU MENTIONED, MY NAME IS MARCO SCALCINI. I'M THE CHIEF PROGRAMS OFFICER FOR ST. MARY'S FOOD BANK. AS YOU GUYS KNOW, FOOD BANKING WAS BORN HERE IN PHOENIX. THE WORLD'S FIRST FOOD BANK WAS ESTABLISHED IN 1967. AND AS I WAS REVIEWING THE PLAN, I was happy to see food access included as part of that. It's such a growing problem. What began as a local effort to help Phoenicians in need has grown to one of the largest food banks in the world. And again, as I reviewed the plan, I was happy to see food access as part of the plan. One of the strongest areas of alignment with St. Mary's. The plan calls for expanded access and participation in public food assistance programs, and these goals reflect the work that St. Mary's does every day with its 600 partner organizations, including more than 250 here in the city of Phoenix. The efforts of this network help address many of the barriers that have been identified in the plan. The plan also recognizes that food insecurity is more than just Food, its emphasis on health and nutrition, education, workforce development, and community partnerships closely mirror the comprehensive approach that we've adopted at St. Mary's. We know that lasting progress happens when organizations come together. And so we would like to... to say that we're proud to stand side by side with the city of Phoenix through many challenges, through COVID, through economic downturn, changing federal policy. We're proud to stand with the city and we hope that this plan is passed and that we can continue our partnership into the future. Thank you.

Thank you so much. Certainly a point of pride for us in Phoenix to have led the way. Jeff is next, followed by Cesar.

Hi. Mayor Gallego, I assume you mean Jeff Bowles.

Jeff Bowles. Jeff, good to have you.

Yeah. As many of you know, I've lived in Phoenix for 26 years and on the city's east side around Creighton School District, I founded Creighton Community Foundation in about 2013. As many of you have observed in these council chambers, we've been working on long, slow, and methodical systems change in our community for all of these years, and unexpectedly, one of our biggest and most rewarding initiatives during this span of time became food. Consequently, before the city's Food Action Plan 2025 came about, we were in the trenches of hunger relief, food access, and similar work. We were there when Food Action Plan 2025 was adopted by the city. It left our city stronger with wide-ranging partnerships, friendships, and collaboration on behalf of healthier communities for all. In particular, with tremendous impact upon the lowest-income families among us. It's been a plan that has implemented solutions that would be far beyond the means of any single organization and brought dreams and hope to many. And as you all recognize, it is among dreams and hopes that economic opportunity springs forth. And that's where cities become things that are better for all people who live there. Today, because of what unfolded through Food Action Plan, we have rich urban garden spaces connecting us to each other and spilling over into our own homes and backyards in ways that bring living, growing, food-producing spaces to our lives on a daily basis. In a desert of all places. Can you imagine? We have hundreds of backyard gardens lifting up disadvantaged families and giving those same families the same opportunities that anybody would have. We have access and acres of trees and hundreds of partners putting trees and shade in different places. We have hundreds of partners in all types of small projects. Such small projects often seem trivial individually. And that's where many localities fall apart, letting small projects look unique and interesting on their own, but failing to recognize their full potential. Such projects alone may advance the city's food resilience with their own incremental steps, but it's only when they are harnessed together into collaborative planning and executed in partnership with each other, like the action within this food action plan 2030, that a place like the city of Phoenix realizes the transformational potential that we see happening here.

Thank you.

But even with a plan, food resilience.

Thank you so much. Does anyone have a question for Mr. Bowles? All right. Then Mr. Gonzalez is next. And then we have Serena available to speak if necessary.

Mr. Gonzalez, floor is yours. Yeah. Hello, this is Cesar Gonzalez. I believe I was going to follow the vice mayor's comments. I may have registered for public comment by accident.

wonderful uh maybe we'll then pause the clock and the vice mayor will comment sure i'll go ahead and comment um uh mr gonzalez is on to share so we thought was exciting news that aligned with the food action plan um as someone who has advocated for more investment in our south phoenix area especially when it came to food desert his announcement correlated with our food action plan and a new grocery store will be coming to the south phoenix area Viarta supermarket will be opening its first Phoenix location in South Phoenix and helping to address one of our specific food deserts. So I wanted to give Mr. Gonzalez an opportunity to share about his new endeavor. Wonderful. Mr. Gonzalez, the floor is yours again.

Thank you very much, Vice Mayor. Thank you, City Council members, members of the community. We're overjoyed to be able to join the Phoenix community and be able to service our community by expanding access to fresh and healthy foods, while also bringing not only jobs, but career advancement opportunities. As a family owned and operated business, we believe in not only being the local grocer, but a community partner. We will be partnering with local schools, charities and food banks and looking to participate in local events and festivals that help celebrate and uplift the community. We want to be an overall positive impact to our communities. Our new 36,000 square foot store will be located at 26 East Baseline Road on the northeast corner of Baseline and Central and looks to open in the first quarter of 2027. Our new store will feature our signature meat department with a full service butcher counter, paired with our seafood department, which makes ceviches fresh in-store daily, our produce department, where you will find fresh-cut fruit, organic items, and a vast variety of international items, our kitchen, featuring authentic Mexican and Latin American foods, which also makes fresh guacamole in-store daily with only fresh avocados, no frozen pulp, fresh pressed juices made with only fruits and veggies, wellness shots, and all-natural smoothies. Our tortilleria department, which makes tortillas with fresh ground corn masa, with the corn being cooked and ground in store daily. Our sushi station, with chefs making sushi daily. Our bakery department, baking sweet bread and crafting cakes and pastries. Our center store, grocery, deli, and frozen departments. where you can not only find authentic and hard-to-find Mexican, Central and South American and Caribbean items, but also anything you would find in a conventional grocery store. Without losing our identity, we've become the most crossover Hispanic grocer. What Phoenix is getting is a vibrant, clean, and first-class shopping experience, accompanied with exceptional customer service in a much-needed food desert. We wholeheartedly believe our store aligns with the 2030 Phoenix Food Action Plan, offering healthy, affordable, and culturally relevant food for all. And we can't wait to serve the people of the city of Phoenix. Thank you so much.

Thank you. And then Serena, did you want to add anything?

I just wanted to speak in support of the food action plan. I don't need to add anything, but thank you to the office of environmental programs and to council and to the mayor for your leadership on this.

Wonderful. Well, thank you so much for your support and your work on it. All right. Councilman Hernandez.

Thank you so much, Mayor. I just have a few questions. This is a pretty exciting update that we have and pretty exciting work that is happening. So just really thank you to the office, OEP, and every department that's involved in this. I know it's a lot of hard work being put into these plans, but I really appreciate the attention to the community engagement piece, to the equity and to the justice and the development of the plan. Can you talk a little bit about some of the achievements of the last food action plan and how those, specifically how we measured those metrics of success?

Mayor, members of the council, council member Hernandez, thank you for the question. The outcomes of the 2025 plan are captured in our impact report that's available on our website. The graphic on slide two was a screenshot of one of those pages. I would say that some of the top outcomes were related to our emergency food access efforts during the pandemics of the number of meals delivered, pounds of food grown and distributed, and number of households served. So those were very closely tied to our ARPA-funded programs because those became such a strong focus of the food systems program with that funding. And then those helped us in turn to achieve and make progress towards 90% of the actions in the 2025 plan.

Thank you so much. And I just ask because I think it's super important to just reiterate that to the community on how much successes we saw through the previous action plan. My next question is, can you talk a little bit about how federal administrative changes have negatively impacted our food system?

Mayor, Council, members of the Council, Council Member Hernandez, I can mention a few changes that have come from the recent administration. So the first being the changes to the SNAP enrollment criteria that has resulted in Arizonans and Phoenicians losing access to their SNAP benefits due to things like increased work requirements, There's also been some programs that have ended. Some examples are the local food purchasing programs, like the local food purchasing assistance, LFPA program, that subsidize food banks, schools, and other institutions to purchase from local farmers. So that program has been ended, which impacts farmers' ability to sell to local markets and local institutions' ability to purchase from local farmers. And there's also been changes to the SNAP education program, SNAP-Ed, that provided a lot of the programming that Phoenix residents are asking for when it comes to gardening, health, cooking, nutrition, meal planning on a budget. So those programs are being phased out with the ending of that funding. And then the At the federal level, there's a survey that evaluates food insecurity at the state level that has been ended. So that was one of the metrics that we relied on for data, and that will no longer be continued.

Thank you. Just very concerning things happening there. So what do you think just showcases why this is so important, what we're doing here at the City of Phoenix? And my next question, and the Vice Mayor mentioned it briefly about the food deserts, that's something that's always, that has been very concerning to my office. Can you explain a little bit, I know it's in the report, but can you explain just a little bit on what a food desert is and how that impacts our residents here in Phoenix?

Mayor, members of the council, council member Hernandez, a food desert is defined by the US Department of Agriculture as an area with limited access to healthy and affordable food. And they're typically in areas where there's higher concentrations of lower income neighborhoods or communities. So with a food desert, there's two criteria in an urban setting and a less urban setting where if you are in a food desert, you may live up to a mile away or in an urban area half a mile away from your nearest full-service grocery store. So that means that if you're living in one of those neighborhoods, you might have to travel, and if you don't have access to a private vehicle, or it's 110 degrees in the summer, it can be really difficult to access the food that you need.

Thank you so much. And I want to shift over a little bit to like drought and just heat concerns. You know, we have been seeing it get hotter and hotter. Also very mindful of our, as we move forward and what our drought situation looks like in the future. Can you expand on any research on the future of our food system? Should those worsen? And I know we did hear a little bit from one of our, from Ginger, from our speaker. Is there anything else you can add around that?

Mayor, members of the council, council member Hernandez, I would just add that with increased temperatures, extreme heat, and increased drought conditions, it can just make farming harder. So farming is really dependent on patterns, and if your seasons are shifting because the temperatures are getting hotter faster, that can impact yield, and that overall impacts the availability of food here that's grown here locally.

Thank you so much. And then I know I kind of want to shift a little bit now. I know the plan outlines the importance of looking at how systemic racism impacts food system and food access. How have we engaged those communities that have that are most impacted to provide them with the most education and support around access to food?

Mayor, members of the council, Council Member Hernandez, we prioritize working with communities that are located in areas identified as food deserts for education. So for example, our Garden Phoenix program where we provide free gardens to both indoor and outdoor gardens for residents and education on how to grow food at home is specifically for residents who are living in food desert areas.

Thank you so much. I think that's so important that we're trying to really address that gap and making sure that they have the education and resources. I just have a couple more questions. Can you explain the policy and zoning shifts that are being made to support this plan?

Mayor, members of the council, council member Hernandez, some of the zoning shifts that we're exploring through the plan include an urban agriculture tax amendment to the zoning code so that we can add additional definitions of different types of urban agriculture that exists and clarify where in the city they can take place. And this is really important because As we develop new innovative growing practices, like an indoor container garden where we're growing food hydroponically that's solar-powered, zoning hasn't encountered that before. And so if we want to expand and create more projects like this, we need to make it a little clearer on where they can be and how they need to be developed.

Thank you so much. I've nerded out on a lot on zoning that affects housing, not so much on food production. So I have learned something new through this plan and this report. So thank you so much for that. And then just my final question is, can you speak a little bit more to the fiscal investment we have made as a city and how much we plan to spend on this food action plan?

Mayor, members of the council, council member Hernandez, we have an ongoing investment in the Office of Environmental Programs through our food system program, which has annual general funds of about $380,000 that are dedicated to our ongoing programs like our Garden Phoenix program, our grant programs, Project Reduce, and other education initiatives. We also know that this plan will be implemented across city departments and there's investments across the city that are supporting food access that aren't necessarily going to OEP but we know that they're supporting the larger food action plan goals. So I would say that this plan is really scalable in terms of what funding we're able to achieve. We can make programs bigger and expand to more residents and we're always looking for additional grants and resources through our other departments and our community partners.

Awesome. Thank you so much. And I know on the Project Reduce side, we had a few providers out and outside of chambers. I'd like to thank them for being here because all three of them are D7 gems in the community and amazing businesses to support. ESPECIALLY HOW THEY ARE DOING THEIR PART IN FOOD ACCESS AND FOOD SUSTAINABILITY FOR THE ENTIRE CITY OF PHOENIX. SO REALLY SHOUT OUT TO OYA OYA CREPES AND IRMA'S KITCHEN THAT WERE OUT THERE WITH US TODAY. AGAIN, I CAN'T THANK YOU ENOUGH FOR THE WORK BEING DONE INTO THIS REPORT. AND IT'S PRETTY EXCITING TO SEE A LOT OF THE PIECES IN THIS AND HOW WE ARE GOING TO ADDRESS THIS ISSUE. PLEASE CONSIDER OUR OFFICE AS PARTNERS, WHEN YOU'RE PLANNING EVENTS AND ENGAGEMENT, THE CONTINUED ENGAGEMENT ON THIS ISSUE. THIS FOOD ACTION PLAN REALLY BROUGHT TO MIND AN ISSUE THAT I THINK I'VE SEEN HAPPEN A COUPLE TIMES NOW THAT WHEN WE'RE WORKING ON ONE POLICY, WE'RE NOT ALWAYS LOOKING AT WHAT THE IMPACT OF ANOTHER POLICY IS. I KNOW THAT we're not often engaging in dialogue to really understand how those policies really affect each other. I know, just an example on this, in part of this food plan, there is a couple of action items, specifically 2.1 and 2.2 that specifically call for the city to create more opportunities for city departments, including parks, to provide access to healthy food and our residents. And I think that piece is now in conflict with the recent past parks ordinance on how we're, you know, is going to have more barriers to distribute food and parks. So I think I just want to see us as a city move forward in a way where we're looking at policy in a holistic level and the intersectionality of how one policy really affects other policies. Because I agree, I think that we need to do everything we can to make sure we expand as much access as possible, food access as possible to all of our residents, especially in District 7 that has some of the highest food deserts. And so they're really impacted by a lot of things. So I wanna see us really, CHALLENGE US AS A CITY AND ENCOURAGE US TO REALLY WHEN WE'RE WORKING ON POLICY LOOK AT THE INTERSECTIONALITY OF IT SO WE CAN CREATE AND EXPAND OUR ACCESS TO FOOD FOR ALL OF OUR RESIDENTS AND NOT FIND WAYS WHERE ONE THING MIGHT CREATE BARRIERS IN US BEING SUCCESSFUL IN ANOTHER AREA BUT OVERALL AGAIN THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THE HARD WORK AND I'M HAPPY TO SUPPORT THIS TODAY THANK YOU SO MUCH MAYOR THANK YOU VICE MAYOR AND THEN COUNCILMAN GUARDADO

Thank you so much, Mayor. I want to start off by congratulating and recognizing Nancy, Maddie, and the Office of Environmental Program, your entire team. Start off by congratulating you on the 2025 implementation. 90% is beyond commendable given that you were working under difficult times of the pandemic. And I think the plan that you set forth for 2030 is also commendable. I want to congratulate you on what I see to be genuine community engagement You've reached more than 2,300 residents, and I think the goals that are outlined in the plan are very helpful to support in our communities. I want to start off by acknowledging your hard work and giving an extent of my gratitude for that. I want to also point out that, take a little point of D8 pride. Many of the speakers that talked, talked about programs that are in District 8, starting off with Dr. George Brooks, one of our first conversations with myself as an elected was ensuring that I knew about the general plan and about this food action plan. Ginger Sykes Torres, she talked about the community garden. Hearts and Souls People Garden was one of my first tours as an elected official. And the comments about the first food bank, that reminds me of another District 8 resident, Vernel Coleman, who was instrumental in moving that forward. AND WE HAD THE GREAT NEWS OF CELEBRATING HOPEFULLY CELEBRATING A NEW GROCERY STORE COME INTO A FOOD DESERT IN THE DISTRICT. SO ALL GREAT NEWS. IT DOES TELL US THOUGH THAT THERE'S A LOT HAS BEEN DONE. AND I'M REALLY GRATEFUL FOR THE WORK THAT HAS BEEN OUTLINED TO SEE WHAT ELSE WE HAVE TO DO. MY FIRST KIND OF QUESTION OR MY FIRST QUESTION IS THE FOOD DESERT DATA IS BASED ON 2019. When do we anticipate getting some additional data to determine whether or not we have made so we can measure this excesses that we have made since 2019 to present? Because I do believe that given the work that has been done, that we will see hopefully some reduction in the food deserts in our community.

Mayor, members of the council, Vice Mayor Hodge-Washington, thank you for the question. I would say that with the food desert data that is coming from the US Department of Agriculture and we're not able to update their specific data set, but one of the challenges with that data is it's not even just from 2019, the population data is from 2010. So it's really outdated and something that we've included in the plan is a focus on collecting more baseline data at the city and county level so that we can have stronger metrics or stronger baselines so that we can evaluate the success of the plan.

And I presume that will, I don't have the action item, but I presume that will be included in the dashboard that has been articulated in the action plan, correct? Correct. Thank you. My second question goes to One of the, I think one of the reasons the city has been successful in other areas such as our Phoenix housing plan is the level of collaboration across departments. Can you talk a little bit about the anticipated cross department collaboration that you envision as part of the food action plan, the 2030 food action plan?

Mayor, members of the council, Vice Mayor Hodge-Washington, we will absolutely be working with city departments in all parts of the plan. In the development, we met monthly with representatives from about 18 departments across the city to discuss what actions were being included in the plan and better understand the state of food systems work in the city. Again, we know we're calling it food systems work, but it might be food access, it might be economic development or workforce development that have food elements in them so we did a lot of work initially to try to understand what that current state looks like and then moving forward we're going to continue convening that interdepartmental food action team to implement parts of the plan where I think we're going to have quarterly meetings from now moving forward where we focus on different actions and make sure that we're getting progress and updates from the departments that are leaders on those specific actions

Sorry, my last question would be, how do you anticipate prioritizing the implementation of the different components of the food action plan, given your current available resources?

Mayor, members of the Council, Vice Mayor Hodge-Washington, thank you for that question. In terms of what we'll be prioritizing, I would say that we would continue working on areas where we already have some momentum to continue expanding those services. For example, in Section 3, the education and training, we're about to launch some additional gardening and food skills, so cooking, nutrition, education programming this fall. to start making progress towards that action since we did just see some of that programming from the SNAP-Ed program go away. We're also going to be focusing heavily on the food access priorities since that's such an immediate need for our community.

Thank you for that, because I did tell a small fib when I said it was my last question, because action 1.2 and action 1.3, they both referenced, we're looking at, for example, our SNAP registration rates, highest and lowest. And given some of the shift that we've seen on the federal level, I was curious as to how we plan to deal with what I'll call the pre-2025 world and what we currently are and where we have seen reduction to our SNAP numbers. How do we ensure that we are getting a full view of the true need without relying solely on that data point, if possible?

Mayor, members of the council, Vice Mayor Hodge-Washington, one thing I want to call out from some of our previous work that was even pre-2025 Food Action Plan was our work in the region through our Maricopa County Food System Coalition, where we partnered with the Maricopa County Public Health Department, Vitalist, and other entities to develop a community food assessment plan. where we did some large scale data collection around food access to better understand the state of food production in the county. And now that data is almost 10 years old again. So one of the actions in the resilience section is to do a new comprehensive food system assessment at the county level, since that's what we consider to be the boundaries of our food system, so that we can have stronger baseline and track progress against that. Thank you so much. Those are all my questions, Mayor.

Thank you, Councilwoman Guardado.

THANK YOU, MAYOR. FIRST JUST WANT TO SAY THANK YOU TO EVERYONE. I KNOW WE'VE BEEN TALKING ABOUT THIS FOR A LONG TIME SINCE BEFORE I WAS ON THE COUNCIL. SO LOVE TO SEE THE PLAN, LOVE SEEING EVERYTHING THAT IS HAPPENING THROUGHOUT THE CITY AND ESPECIALLY THROUGHOUT DISTRICT 5. WE NOW HAVE A SPROUTS IN DISTRICT 5, RIGHT, WHICH I KNOW THAT KEEPS VERY BUSY WITH A LOT MORE HEALTHIER OPTIONS ON THE WEST SIDE. I'M SO VERY EXCITED TO CONTINUE TO SUPPORT THIS AND CONTINUE TO WORK WITH ALL OF YOU AS WE CONTINUE TO MOVE THIS FORWARD. FOOD IS MORE THAN NUTRITION. IT IS A HEALTH CULTURE COMMUNITY AND OPPORTUNITY. EVERY FAMILY DESERVES ACCESS TO HEALTHY AFFORDABLE AND CULTURALLY VOLATILE FOOD REGARDLESS OF THEIR ZIP CODE. FOR MANY FAMILIES IN MARYVILLE AND THROUGHOUT THE WEST SIDE ACCESS TO FRESH FOOD CONTINUES TO BE A CHALLENGE. THAT'S WHY I APPRECIATE THAT THIS PLAN FOCUSES NOT ONLY ON EXPANDING FOOD ACCESS BUT ON SUPPORTING LOCAL PRODUCTION, NUTRITION EDUCATION, COMMUNITY GARDENS, MOBILE FOOD MARKETS AND STRONGER PARTNERSHIPS THROUGHOUT OUR NEIGHBORHOODS. I WOULD LOVE TO SEE MORE PARTNERSHIPS WITH OUR OFFICE TO SEE HOW IS IT THAT WE CAN BRING MORE GARDENS INTO THE DISTRICT. I LOVE WHAT'S HAPPENING IN OTHER PARTS OF THE CITY, BUT I WOULD LOVE TO SEE A LITTLE BIT MORE HOW DO WE EDUCATE PEOPLE TO LEARN HOW TO GARDEN THEIR OWN FOOD. PEOPLE ON THE WEST SIDE HAVE BIG BACKYARDS AND I KNOW THAT THEY'RE If there was an education component that we could probably do at the Maryville Community Center, I think that would be very well appreciated by a lot of the neighbors. Because as much as I love some of the new grocery stores that are coming online, I understand that also access to food is not just so much how far it is, but what the cost is. And the cost is incredibly high right now. And I think the more independence that we can give to folks, the more that we can educate, the more that we can help. I think that is amazing. Like out in Marieville, it's not about giving people handouts, right? It's about giving people the access and the education to be able to create their own, which I think is amazing. INCREDIBLY IMPORTANT AND IT'S PART OF WHAT I'VE BEEN HEARING IN DISTRICT 5. IT'S JUST, YOU KNOW, GIVE US THE TOOLS AND WE'LL MAKE IT HAPPEN. AND I THINK THAT'S THE RESILIENCY OF MARIBEL AND OF WHAT PEOPLE WANT IN THE DISTRICT. SO I LOVE EVERYTHING, ALL THE THINGS THAT WE'VE BEEN ABLE TO DO TOGETHER WITH ALL OF YOU. I THINK IT'S BEEN GREAT. THE FEEDBACK HAS BEEN AMAZING FROM THE NEIGHBORHOODS. AND IT'S IMPORTANT FOR US TO CONTINUE TO COLLABORATE. I WOULD LOVE TO SEE, I KNOW THAT YOU GUYS ARE COLLABORATING A LOT WITH CED. I BUG CARLA ALL THE TIME ABOUT WHAT IS THE NEXT STORE THAT WE ARE ABLE TO PUT IN A NEW SUPERMARKET THAT WE CAN DO IN THE AREA. I KNOW THE NUMBERS ARE A LITTLE OUTDATED WHEN IT COMES TO WHAT THE COUNTY HAS GIVEN US. WE HAVE MORE AND MORE FAMILIES MOVING INTO THE WEST SIDE. WE HAVE MORE PEOPLE COMING AND AS MUCH As I love shopping at my local Fry's, sometimes it's a little bit impossible because the lines are too long to be able to get there. So I think continuing to work with all of you, with CD and with you guys and figuring out how do we how do we make this even better? I would truly appreciate that. But again, thank you for all of your guys' hard work. Thank you, Ginger, for putting this atop of mind and all the hard work that you're also doing in all of this. AND THANKING THE NEIGHBORS, THANKING THE NEIGHBORHOODS FOR KEEPING US ACCOUNTABLE AND MAKING SURE THAT WE'RE TRYING TO CREATE A HEALTHIER CITY AND A HEALTHIER NEIGHBORHOODS AND HOPING THAT WE CAN CONTINUE TO GIVE ACCESS TO OUR NEIGHBORHOODS AS WELL. THANK YOU, MAYOR.

NEW SPEAKER THANK YOU. COUNCILMAN PESTOR.

Thank you, Mayor. Shout out to St. Mary's Food Bank, the heart of the city, District 4. They feed many, many people, as we all know. And many, we also have, because there's so many people receiving food, we also have a traffic backup on Thomas. But we work around it and we work through it. I just wanted to say that it's very important, because we have been talking about this for a long time, but the plan is so methodically thought out. And you can see all the efforts of everyone that was a part of this in this plan and how it was built. And I know that is tedious work. And I know at times you have to take this in and add it. So I want to thank you. I also want to give a shout out to Roseanne Albright. as this is one of her last pieces before she leaves us. And so I want to thank the whole team, but I also want to thank Roseanne Albright for her effort in this space. One of the items that was going to be part of what I was going to speak about was the City Land Urban Farm Projects. We have been successful for those throughout our city. And right now that is what is happening in the Isaac area, Isaac school area, as to be able to do that. The other piece that I want to mention is that one of the obstacles, and I think it's important to talk about it, is that one of the obstacles when we talk about doing urban farm projects is the water. And there is a state law that talks about the water, and I don't know if Max wants to talk about it, but there talks about urban farms and what you can and cannot do with urban farms and the water. One is if we want to continue to do some of these spaces is we have to look at areas of irrigation. And look at areas of irrigation because it's already been set up, but it's part of the SRP, I don't know what to call it, area of irrigation. And so I think we have to be cognizant of that as we start to talk about putting these in different spots, because I think it's important, I think it's needed. Classes, are definitely needed in education on what we can and cannot do. And so I think it's important that we look at all of this. As we build gardens and look at gardens, we can do water conservation. So you've hit some great highlighted areas. One of the other pieces, and I think I'm one that struggles with this, is health, nutrition, and culinary training. I struggle with this because at times I think I'm eating the proper fiber or the proper vegetables and fruits. And if you're diabetic, you would know and learn that you can't eat a grape because a grape can also spike your insulin really fast or too much watermelon. And so I think this is very important for our city to take on. as a priority because then we're educating community and community then educates other community and it just kind of blossoms and moves organically throughout our city. And so once again, I'm just talking in the space of how we have really advanced ourselves and build a model, once again, a city model that is going to advance not only our city, but other areas of expertise of those looking at our plan. So thank you again. I appreciate it.

Thank you so much. Any additional comments? Certainly been a wide-ranging plan. We've done everything from checking out seeds at libraries to help people grow vegetables to partnering with the National Football League during Super Bowl to compost food waste. So we covered a lot of ground with this plan, and I have a feeling there is more innovation to come. All right. We have a motion on the table. Roll call.

Buenaventura. Yes. Hernandez.

Yes.

O'Brien. Pastor? Yes. Robinson?

Yes.

Stark? Yes. Waring? Yes. Hodge-Washington? Yes. Gallego?

Yes. Passes 9-0. Wonderful. Congratulations, unanimous passage. Thanks for your hard work on this. We will now move forward with agenda item two related to public safety. And I'll give folks time to come up. Wonderful, I'll turn it over to our assistant city manager, Lori Bays.

Thank you, Mayor. Good afternoon, Mayor, members of the council. We are happy to be here today to present to you on the public safety improvements we have been working on. As you are well aware, the city of Phoenix, meaning the mayor and council, city leadership, departments, as well as the community, have been intentionally working on improving public safety for well over a decade. In September of 2024, the City Council passed a series of action items aimed at improving public safety. And this is the fifth update to the City Council since those action items were approved. We are committed to continuous improvement, accountability and transparency. And with that, I will give you a brief overview of the presentation and then introduce our team. Today we will give you an update from the Phoenix Police Department. Representing the Phoenix Police Department today, we have Chief Matt Giordano, Assistant Chief Jeff Benza, and Assistant Director Jody Wolfe. We will also provide an update on the Community Assistance Program implementation. And today we have a new face, Kelsey Brown from the Community Assistance Program will be presenting today. Third, we will have the Office of Accountability and Transparency. Director Shannon Yohani will be presenting. And then finally, the Office of Homeless Solutions will provide an update by Director Rachel Milne. And at the end of the presentation, I will also provide you an update on the implementation of the Community Transparency Initiative. So we have a lengthy presentation for you today, but we have a lot of great information. And with that, I will turn it over to Chief Giordano.

Thank you, Lori. Mayor Gago, members of council, thank you again for allowing us to come before you and tell you all and show you the good things we've been doing over the last several months. My commitment, and it's always been, and that of our department as well, is to lead with pride. Pride, as you know, serves our foundational values. It's protection, respect, integrity, dedication, and excellence. And then lead is mine, and that is how we'll move forward. leading at every level, engaging with our community and our employees, holding ourselves accountable, and remaining unwavering in our mission and the well-being of our entire community. We're currently in the process of establishing a strategic plan that we're going to build around continuous improvement crime reduction, community engagement, and business operations, using LEAD that I talked about earlier with PRIDE as our guiding principles at its core. The Phoenix Police Department's LEAD strategic plan will outline the organization's priorities and act as our compass for the next three years. This strategic plan process is ongoing, and I'll bring together three related initiatives you're all familiar with. THE CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT PLAN, THE CRIME REDUCTION PLAN, AND THE CITY COUNCIL PUBLIC SAFETY IMPROVEMENT ACTION ITEMS OF SEPTEMBER OF 2024. AND WE'LL TAKE THAT ALL AND PUT IT INTO ONE UNIFIED ROAD MAP. THE CITY COUNCIL ACTION ITEMS REFLECT THE COMMITMENT TO STRENGTHENING PUBLIC SAFETY AND ENHANCING POLICE SERVICES. This plan will integrate lessons learned from the US Department of Justice investigation, ensuring that the department's future direction is informed by a clear understanding of past issues and a commitment to meaningful and lasting improvement. The plan is in the process of being developed to clearly outline what is of key importance to city council, the city manager's office, and to me as the police chief in how the department serves our community. The four pillars approach is wholly aligned with the department's mission, which is to serve, protect, and reduce crime in Phoenix while treating everyone with dignity and respect. and the department's vision, which is to deliver exceptional police service, to work collaboratively with our community and employees as a unified team to foster the highest level of trust, safety, and accountability, and to value, support, and invest in our employees. To understand the strategic direction needed for the future is important to understand the strategic direction and focus of our past. THIS STRATEGIC PLAN INCLUDES A COMPREHENSIVE SUMMARY OF 12 YEARS OF REFORM EFFORTS ACHIEVED BY THE CITY AND THE DEPARTMENT AT THE DIRECTION AND WITH THE SUPPORT OF CITY COUNCIL. IN THIS 2027-2030 PLAN STRATEGIC OBJECTIVES ARE CLEARLY DEFINED, CORRESPONDING INITIATIVES ARE CLEARLY STATED AND THE PERFORMANCE MEASURES DETERMINING SUCCESSFUL ACHIEVEMENT OF EACH AND EVERY INDIVIDUAL INITIATIVE ARE READILY APPARENT. Let's talk about next steps. To ensure we are building a plan that is comprehensive and reflects the priorities and needs of our community, we will seek input from the mayor, council, employees, and most importantly, our community members. This input plays a very important role in shaping our plan for the future, and we'll seek that input in a number of ways. We're going to launch a survey in multiple languages, which help us understand how residents feel about their interactions with our department. We also plan to hold community meetings and meet with the advisory boards to encourage discussions and help us refine our strategic objectives. We are looking forward to the opportunities to engage with our community to build our plan. Once we have finalized plan, I will then return in the fall of 2026 to present that to mayor and council. Our goal is to then publish the plan and promote it to the community in late 2026. On an annual basis, I'll report back to Mayor and Council on our progress in executing this plan. Before I hand this over to Assistant Chief Benza and Assistant Director Wolf, who I must admit are wonderful to work with, I'd like to update on some public safety, or they'll update you on public safety initiatives, but I also want to make sure then that I give you my appreciation, because without your support and your direction, none of this would be possible. So with that, I'll turn it over to Assistant Chief Benza. Thank you.

Thank you, Chief, Mayor, members of council. In 2024, you gave us 37 action items to improve police services. 29 of those have been completed. Nine have ongoing elements, and eight that I'll talk about today are in progress. Starting in the fall of 2024, whoops. Sorry. Starting in the fall of 2024 through the fall of 2025, the department has achieved completion of many of the action items related to discipline, related to policy violations and the requirements of the Professional Standards Bureau with respect to training and investigation. Discipline outcomes are now fully explained. Training is assigned to address individual and larger department needs with policy shortfalls. PSB investigators are delineating any policy, violation, investigation to directly capture the misconduct for both reporting and behavior correction. And any deviation with discipline recommended by the disciplinary review board is explained whether it's changed down or it goes up. Downward deviations are still approved by the city manager's office. And then finally, we've created a better career path for our communications bureau, which has stabilized their staffing. We've established a cadence to ensure our policies are reviewed by subject matter experts. Any substantive changes to policies will be reviewed by city leadership and the community. We will report those substantive policy changes to the council and the Civil Interview Board on the established timeline. And our crisis intervention team training has been enhanced to offer mandatory and discretionary courses to enhance the officers and their ability. The goal is a better trained crisis intervention officer and to recruit more officers to the fold. When it comes to those items that are in progress, We're still working on our Fourth Amendment compliance audits. Although our compliance framework and staffing need to be finalized, we're still looking at our stops, our searches, and our arrests. We continue to collect data on the age, race, gender, and housing status of those we interact with in those situations. We'll provide annual reporting to you and the Civilian Review Board, and we anticipate a launch for this in December of this year. With respect to our use of force policies, we've created a policy that defines how use of force can be applied when dealing with our youth or vulnerable populations. We've also looked at our policy violations with use of force with our less lethal tools, specifically our handheld irritants, our pepper spray, and our tasers. These draft policies have included public comment, and we anticipate launching these policies later this month. We are creating a youth interaction policy. The policy is to focus on the development of our youth and to teach our employees to deal with youth appropriately and speak with them appropriately. The draft policy has incorporated the public comment. Our e-learning for our employees is in development. We anticipate a launch for this and the associated training in this fall. Under the leadership of Councilman Guardardo, We will be using the Chief's Youth Advisory Board to help with programming and to help with policy creation moving forward. We've also been creating a policy to help our officers and our employees deal with individuals who are experiencing homelessness. This policy was developed in conjunction with the Office of Homeless Solutions. The policy emphasizes offering services while balancing enforcement and instructs our employees on how to deal with the property of those individuals with whom we interact. Our draft policy has incorporated public comment. eLearning is in development, and we anticipate launching this in October of this year. We're also working on a canine policy. This policy will define the various canine functions within the department. The comment period for this policy just closed on May 31st. We are still looking at those comments. We anticipate a draft later this month and a launch later this year. We're also working on enhanced customer service training. For activities specific to that, we've launched a cultural awareness training that began in the academy and has moved to existing staff as well as the academy. We have mandatory procedural justice and customer service training, which was launched in March of this year. In April, we launched autism training. Training for that for all employees is underway, and we're doing well with that. And we're also having a course that was developed by the Muhammad Ali Parkinson Center, and it's protecting and serving those with mobility disorders. That was also launched last month, and training is underway. Our early intervention program is moving forward. The procurement process has been completed. We're working with the vendor to develop the system requirements and an implementation plan for this system. The system, to remind you, is a predictive system that looks at the calls for service officers take, the number of calls for service, the types of calls for service, and then identifies those who may be in need of intervention. It's wellness-based versus discipline-based. and it's something we're looking forward to using for the welfare of our officers and to have a better product on the street for the citizens. We've also completed an analysis to determine what sworn positions can be better filled by professional staff members. We will share the results of this report once we prioritize the positions to better serve the department and the benefits of the study. I'd also like to share with you some avenues that we're using to seek public engagement. We will seek public engagement, as Chief mentioned, for our strategic plan as we do our new policies and substantially changed policies. We're going to leverage our real-time customer engagement tool, which is known as Community Connect, and our public sentiment survey platform, which is known as Blockwise. Assistant Director Wolf will discuss those platforms more in depth shortly. I also want to bring to mind the compliments and complaints, as well as the hotline that was launched in November of 2025. We've had 66 compliments, 459 complaints, and a 931 total submissions. I know the math doesn't make sense, but the total submissions means everything processed through the portal. Some of those are general comments, some of those are complaints for different departments, some of those are duplicate compliments or complaints, and some are for different agencies in the Valley. Urgent complaints that come into the department are still handled by traditional methods with supervisors contacting concerned citizens. But this system allows us to provide reporting on metrics that in years past we were not able to. So we're excited about what this will offer us. And I'll now pass the presentation off to Assistant Director Wolf.

Thank you, Chief Benza, Mayor, and members of council. As we shared in January, we use two technology platforms to solicit customer feedback, performance evaluations, and input from our community about police services. The first of which I'm going to share an update with you on is Community Connect. This is our innovative public safety engagement solution that allows us to automatically send updates to our callers in real time when they've requested service from us. We're able to do that utilizing multiple languages, and we also have extended support for victims through the platform's victim portal. It also allows us to measure the performance of those interactions with members of our community. In the first quarter of 2026, we issued more than 339,000 automated messages. And of those that responded to the feedback survey, 73% indicated that they were satisfied with the department's performance. That compares to 74%, which we shared with you in January, which was reflective of 2025. As you can see here, three particular performance metrics that we shared with you in January, we wanted to be able to provide an update to you, includes the overall department satisfaction, overall officer satisfaction, and the overall 911 dispatch satisfaction. As you can see, we've seen a slight dip. It's less than 1.5% in all three metrics. Since December of 2025, that is reflective of quarter one, 2026. The second tool that we use is called Zen Cities Blockwise. This allows us to understand the public sentiment related to our police department. It allows us to survey our community in a representative format, and it always allows us to assess performance and their feelings related to procedural, these four core benchmarks related to procedural justice. It includes safety, fairness, respect, and voice. Since the last time we shared data with you, we have seen an increase across all four of these core benchmarks, and in comparison to our regional cohort, so as a reminder, that regional cohort is like cities of similar size and geographic location. Our cohort has either stayed consistent in which there has been no change, or they've seen a slight decrease as well. We've also fielded multiple questions with regard to the additional capabilities that Zen City's BlockWise program affords us. That includes customizable questions, thematic analysis, demographics, and precinct reports. I'm gonna walk through those additional capabilities now. Here's an example of a customizable question that we utilized from BlockWise's question bank from March's survey. What actions would help police work more closely with the community and understand their concerns and improve public safety? Respondents shared with us that 48% would like to see additional training for officers in the development of relationships and communication. 40% of our respondents said that they'd like additional platforms in which to be able to offer feedback to the department. 35% said they'd like to see an increase in the number and types of community programs that we offer to the community to increase engagement with the police department. 22% said that they'd like to see more social media presence and more outreach from our social media platform. And then 10% either responded no comment or none or some sort of other comment. One of the other things that BlockWise allows us to do is conduct a thematic analysis related to the open text questions. So often surveys will be on a scale of one to five or an open text questions that allows the respondent to provide a narrative. BlockWise program allows us to do an analysis of that narrative response and identify common topics and most issues that raise to the top of mind for our community. Here you can see the list of those top comments related there and then BlockWise allows us to further analyze those top three issues and under see the subcategories so for example from march we have homelessness streets and traffic and drugs under each category you can see additional topics related to those subcategories sir thank you councilman waring thank you just a suggestion for another category homelessness at city facilities parks

or something related to that. I'd be curious how much people are holding the city apparatus responsible for what is clearly the number one issue by far in your calls.

Thank you, Councilman Waring, Mayor, members of council. We can certainly work with BlockWise to develop a question that targets that specifically in order to understand what the community feels about the city's response to homelessness. This is a narrative and a thematic analysis of the responses that community has afforded us. So it clearly identifies these top three issues over and over again in terms of the data that's been provided to us.

Thank you.

One of the other things that BlockWise allows us to do is analyze the data across demographics. So you can see here, we're able to analyze the data in relation to those four core benchmarks, safety, fairness, respect, and voice across performance metrics such as ethnicity, gender, age group, and education. It also allows us to be able to understand across our precincts what we're seeing in various neighborhoods. As you can see here, this is a graph of the top three topics. And if we look specifically at Central City, which is the precinct that we are currently in, you can see that homelessness rises to the top, followed by police, resources, and then streets and traffic. I'm gonna switch gears here a little bit and talk to you about an update with relationship to our behavioral health call response. As a reminder, you all know that we changed our answering protocol in 911 to afford callers the ability to communicate their needs to us by asking them, do you need police, fire, or behavioral health? We shared this data with you in our update in January. For the first time ever after implementing that change in our protocol, there are transfers when an individual communicates their need for a behavioral health resource. our transfers to the Behavioral Health Unit exceeded our transfers to Solari, which is our crisis counselors, for the first time ever. It's a huge achievement, and council asked us to come back and share with you how this, does this behavior continue to persist? I'm very excited to tell you that it has. Month over month, we're seeing that our transfers to BHU continue to exceed our transfers to Solari. In addition, the overall number of transfers to behavioral health resources is trending in a positive direction, so more and more of our calls are being transferred. to these experts, connecting resources to the individuals that have that need, and also allows us to free up both police and fire resources to address the issues in which they are most relatable to. And with that, I will transfer the presentation to our colleagues in fire to give an update.

Councilman Waring.

Thank you. Going back to your chart, the loitering and harassment, Seems like that might be a subset of homelessness. How do you distinguish between someone who's loitering and someone who's homeless? Because we get these calls, frankly, from bus stops and so forth in my district.

And Councilman Waring, Mayor and members of Council, excellent question. You're looking at the data much like we would. When we would try to work with BlockWise to understand the relationship, we can certainly go back to them and ask them to help us see that connection associated between both activities and see if there's a correlational or causational relationship. So we can certainly go back and look at that.

Okay, I'd appreciate if you would and let me know how it goes.

Mayor, council members, we are pleased to provide an update on the community assistance program, specifically with our behavioral health units. The calls transferred from PD communications to our behavioral health dispatchers will provide context on our heat relief collaboration, provide a recent success story, and of course, discuss our next steps. As you all know, our behavioral health units were created to respond to calls for service relating to mental health and substance use. Our goal with the 15 million that the council invested in our program was to create nine units to respond to those call types. To date, we have nine units in service providing citywide coverage. They provide coverage 24 hours a day, seven days a week. And then we also have, of course, the behavioral health dispatch program. Those are the supervisors who are responsible for deploying those units. And that dispatch center also has 24 hours a day, seven days a week coverage. As Assistant Director Jody Wolf mentioned, our calls transferred from PD communications to behavioral health for response continue to increase. From calendar year 2024 to calendar year 2025, we saw 128% increase in the calls transferred. And then we recorded in March of 2026, in a single month, the highest number of calls transferred, and that was 783 calls. And this graph depicts the behavioral health unit's actual calls for service, so residents that are, excuse me, community members that they're serving. So from 2024 to calendar year 2025, there was a 96% increase in the calls for service. And then again in March of 2026, in a single month, the highest number of calls served, and that was 1,164. Our behavioral health units respond abiding by typical traffic laws. So our goal is that they get to their customers in 25 minutes on average. And for calendar year 2026, we're hovering at about 21 or 22 minutes on average. This slide looks at the time of deployment, how our units are operating. The behavioral health units were created to respond to calls for service that traditionally PD or fire had gone on. So we wanna make sure that at the time of deployment, that we're one, triaging appropriately, and two, that these units are going to the appropriate call types. So we look at the percentage of time they're going as a single unit response with PDE, with FHIR, or with a combination of the two. So in March of 2026, 926 responses were single unit, or 80% of the total calls for service, which basically indicates that our triaging is working appropriately and our units are going to the correct call types. The Community Assistance Program continues to collaborate with the Office of Homeless Solutions and UMOM New Day Center, specifically when there's families being served at the heat relief centers. Our program is uniquely available to transport families that are going to be served by UMOM New Day Center. We have child restraint systems, and our staff are able to provide a supportive service getting families in need over to UMOM. I next would like to share a recent success story. PD Communications recently transferred a call for service to our behavioral health dispatchers. The customer was presenting as they were having a panic attack, and our behavioral health dispatchers appropriately triaged the call, but they actually realized in engaging with the customer over the phone, they were uncomfortable with our teams meeting them at their residence. So what ended up happening is our team met with the customer at a public location. Upon arriving on scene, the team was trying to find the customer and could not locate them. Ended up re-engaging with the customer over the phone and learned that they had gotten lost. So then ended up meeting them where they were at in the community. upon our teams actually getting in person with that individual, they realized that there was signs of anxiety, fearfulness, paranoia, and depression. Our teams collaborated and worked with that customer and actually understood that they had been a victim of sexual assault and potentially a victim of sex trafficking. As our teams continued to collaborate, they were able to transport to a facility that was available to treat the acute panic symptoms and also that ongoing behavioral health needs. The BHU also coordinated with the Phoenix Police Department to make sure that the customer had an opportunity to report the crimes and then of course provided a warm handoff to the facility that they transported the customer to. Our next steps for the behavioral health program and for the community assistance program as a whole is we continue to collaborate with our dispatch partners, specifically with fire dispatch. Prior to May 4th, our fire dispatchers would request a behavioral health unit directly, but as our volume has continued to increase for the behavioral health units, they are actually gonna follow the same protocol as the police communications. they're going to transfer those calls to the behavioral health dispatchers for assessment and just to basically have a more logistic and um approach to the to the response and deployment we continue to recruit and hire for crisis intervention specialists and peer support specialists we are on our third onboarding of of this year and we will have another posting for crisis interventional and specialists that will begin in the next two weeks so feel free if you know anyone to send them to our posting And of course, we'll continue to participate in community events and educating on the community assistance program. Thank you.

Good afternoon, Mayor and members of council and members of the community. I'm here to share a few quick updates about OAT since I was here last in January. But before we get there, I think it's important to note that May of this year marked five years since the OAT ordinance passed. I want to extend thanks and gratitude on behalf of the community as well as the OAT office for giving us the opportunity and allowing that vision of mayor and council at that time to come through and allowing this team to continue to do this important work of ensuring and advancing constitutional policing in Phoenix. The team has shown their commitment to constitutional policing and advancing constitutional policing here. Over the last three years, we've published 52 reports. We've made more than 17,000 community contacts. We've developed an incredible youth outreach program. And we've worked diligently to create opportunities for repair and resolution through our mediation program. This team will continue to show our dedication to our five Rs, reach, review, report, resolve, and repair. And I'm grateful as always for the opportunity to share with you all about all of the things that it are doing every time that I'm here. Since the police department updated or implemented the dedicated complaints and commendations hotline in October and November of 2025, we've seen an exponential increase in the number of contacts community members are having with OAT. Thanks to our dedicated review team, and in particular, our new intake and data coordinator, we have been able to seamlessly absorb the increase in contacts. OAT has seen a 700% increase in contacts since our first full year with staff in 2023. And in just the first quarter of 2026, we've seen a 300% increase in contacts over all of 2025. As we have more data, we will examine whether OAT's increased contacts reflect an increase in complaints due to accessibility or a shifting from other points of contact to OAT. As of today, OAT has issued 26 independent recommendations across 34 reports. Some recommendations carry across multiple reports due to timing of report release and implementation dates. The department agreed with 24 of those 26 recommendations. To date, the department has implemented or updated manuals or operations orders for all except the newest recommendations. Those staff are currently reviewing 168 department administrative investigations, 85% fall under our mandatory review authority and the remaining 15% fall under our discretionary review authority. As mentioned before, we've published 52 reports as of May 28th, and we are on par to release approximately 45 reports in 2026. Councilman Waring.

So the budget for OAT is three, $4 million?

Mayor, members of council, councilman Waring, approximately 3 million.

Okay, so we've spent about $15 million for 26 reports.

52 reports, councilman Waring.

What, I think you just said 20, or I'm sorry, 26 recommendations.

Yes.

That's a lot per recommendation. I'll leave it at that, Mayor, thank you.

The two newest recommendations that we've issued since January of 2026, the first was issued in OAT Report 23-009, and that came out in March of 2026. That recommendation, conduct PSB interviews of witness officers involved in critical incidents, came out, and the department agreed with this recommendation and issued an implementation date of July 25th, 2026. The second, meaningfully explore consideration of de-escalation strategies during on-scene communications between officers and subjects, was issued in OAT 23-018 just last month. The department's response to this report and those recommendations is due June 27th. OAT will begin releasing review reports of investigations that occurred after implementation efforts by the department in late 2026. As those reviews are conducted, OAT will assess whether the department's implemented actions resulted in meaningful improvements. Oates Community Engagement Team focuses on reach, one aspect of which is the youth outreach program Reform Rising. The initial pilot for Reform Rising started this fall at South Mountain High School. The program graduated 20 students, freshmen to seniors, and the program involved a key aspect of a civic engagement or ways to contribute to their community. The pilot involved an 11-week curriculum that engaged youth about topics including mental health, career options, youth rights, policy reform, and community initiatives. The community engagement team is taking this semester to revise and refine the program to ensure its sustainability and scalability moving forward. To gain broader reach, OAT began a conversation with the Phoenix Union High School District to develop an intergovernmental agreement to bring reform rising to schools throughout the district. While working through expansion in the Phoenix Union District, the OAT team will also be engaging in programming opportunities with local organizations and community centers over the summer. When school resumes in the fall, reform rising will return to South Mountain High School and expand to Maryvale High School with a twice a week, six week curriculum that includes interactive learning and engagement with community leaders and those invested in educating, equipping and empowering Phoenix's youth. Members of the community can reach out by phone, email, or in person. We have staff available Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. to receive complaints or commendations in person or by phone. You can also leave a voicemail, send an email, and we'll respond during business hours. If there's anyone in the public that would like to speak to me about a complaint or commendation today, please connect with me after this presentation. Thank you again for the continued support of OAT and for allowing me the opportunities to share about the work that we're doing. I now hand it over to Director Milne.

Thank you. Mayor and Council, I'm pleased to be here this afternoon to give you an update on some of the Office of Homeless Solutions' major initiatives for this year and to update you on how we are furthering our collaboration with the Phoenix Police Department. This year, our main focus is the implementation of our Strategies to Address Homelessness Plan, which was passed by this Council in February. And as you know, we've spent the last four years really improving outreach and shelter capacity in our community. And this year, our focus is to really maintain and improve those systems that we've put in place. We are also partnering with the Human Services Department on prevention programs, keeping people safe in housing so that they don't need those outreach and shelter programs. As I've stated many times before, housing ends homelessness. So housing is a main component of our strategies to address homelessness plan. And we have a few big projects that we are working on this year. The completion of our senior housing project in District 5, La Pere La Residences, which we anticipate opening in early 2027. And we are also partnering with the housing department to start the implementation of our master leasing program early next fiscal year. And finally, we are going to be focusing on bringing in some private resources to help us implement some of the policies in our strategies to address homelessness plan to take some of the burden off of our city resources. This year and every year, heat relief is a main focus of the Office of Homeless Solutions. We participate by providing all of the navigation services at our extended hour sites, including our 24 seven site at 20 West Jackson. That progress started this year, May 1st, we began operations. So we are 40 days in, and I'm happy to say at 20 West Jackson alone, We have helped 328 single adults access shelter or other housing programs. And we've helped 40 families get shelter at UMOM. And thank you to Kat for your assistance there as well. We are also working diligently to find a permanent home for our 24-7 heat relief site. As you know, this is the last year we will be able to rent 20 West Jackson. So I appreciate finance department's help in that effort. We have two OHS-owned zoning cases this year. We're in the process of amending our stipulations for the safe outdoor space to extend the operation there for an additional four years. And I'm happy to say just last night at the Central City Village Planning Committee, we got unanimous recommendation for approval to move on to Planning Commission, which will be August 8th. And second, we just completed our zoning adjustment hearing for our 18 month review at the Phoenix Navigation Center. And our case was approved without additional stipulations or requirements for additional hearing reviews as well. I'VE UPDATED YOU SEVERAL TIMES ON OUR STORAGE PROGRAMS, OF WHICH WE HAVE THREE. FIRST, ALL OF THE CITY SHELTERS AND SHELTERS THAT WE FUND ARE REQUIRED TO HAVE AMPLE STORAGE FOR PEOPLE ACCESSING THOSE SHELTERS. AND REALLY THAT'S BECAUSE WE DO NOT WANT SOMEONE TO HAVE TO GIVE UP THEIR PROPERTY IN ORDER TO ACCESS A RESOURCE TO END THEIR HOMELESSNESS. We also fund property storage program at the Key Campus. The Key Campus serves about 1,000 people a day, and our funded storage program allows them to access those services while storing their property. And finally, our unattended property program. When our liaisons are in the field and they come across unattended property, we have a formal process in place to leave notification that we were there, saw that unattended property, that we will return in 24 hours to assess that property. If it is still there after 24 hours, we will store the property and leave a second notification alerting those individuals how to get in touch with us to obtain the property. When they do call, we are able to use that as an additional engagement mechanism to help those individuals access resources. Since beginning this program in 2023, we have stored 308 containers of property. We've returned 39 containers of property to people who are seeking it, and we are currently storing 36 containers. OHS and the Phoenix Police Department have continued to grow our partnerships in many ways. We have really honed what we call our coordinated efforts. These efforts occur when OHS is providing homeless service provisions, but we also need assistance from our partners in the police department to address criminal activity. Our OHS liaisons have direct contact with the community action officers in each precinct and have a process in place to schedule these efforts when needed. We are also continuing to work with PD's property work group to advise and adapt OHS's property program to meet Phoenix Police Department's needs. OHS will have a role in PD's process when it gets rolls out, and specifically we will be the reunification between those individuals and their property, allowing us again to have that engagement opportunity. Both our safe outdoor space and our Phoenix Navigation Center are considered closed campuses where individuals must be referred by an outreach team or a public safety department in order to access services there. We made sure these sites had public safety referral access because we understand that public safety officers may interact with individuals looking for shelter and services at a time when OHS or our partners are not with them. We're pleased that these two sites have become real-time referral access for officers looking to connect people with safe spaces and services. The safe outdoor space has had 142 public safety referrals so far, the vast majority of those coming from Phoenix Police, but also adult probation, park rangers, DPS, and fire or CAP. And then at Phoenix Navigation Center, we've had 86 referrals, 47 from police, and 39 from fire or CAP. This process is working. Phoenix Police now has additional resources and clients are able to access OHS shelters in off hours. I will now turn it back to Assistant Manager Lori Bays for the rest of the presentation.

Thank you, Rachel. Just get the clicker passed down here. So I wanted to provide an update on what has transpired thus far in implementing the Community Transparency Initiative. As you know, residents throughout Phoenix have shared concerns about how federal law enforcement activities are and could adversely impact the community. And so in response on March 25th, 2026, you all, Mayor and Council took action to approve the Community Transparency Initiative. The CTI directed staff in six areas and required staff to provide updates at least every quarter. So this is the first update. The first directive to staff was to document and preserve information on federal immigration enforcement activities within Phoenix city limits that may violate criminal statutes, civil rights and other and or I'm sorry, let me go back, that may violate criminal statutes and or individual civil rights with the intent to investigate crimes committed by federal agents who act outside the scope of their duties. The update on this is that the city has launched an online reporting portal This is also a case tracking portal that allows us to document activity within the City of Phoenix. The community is actually able to report directly online, but they can also call into or email into OAT, and they can also call the Phoenix Police Department. So there are multiple avenues to report complaints into this system. OAT will document these complaints and then route the complaints to the Phoenix Police Department Special Investigation Detail, and then finally, the information will be shared with the Attorney General's Office. So far to date, we have received 17 reports. Eight of those have been routed to SID for investigation, and nine of them are more general comments and or they're not an actual federal agency complaint, but we are documenting that information and we will be sharing every piece of information that we receive with the Attorney General's Office. We also have two new detectives and one sergeant in place at SID to receive these complaints. They started on May 4th and they are able to investigate complaints going forward. Also related to the first directive, we have focused on communicating these efforts to the community and making sure that the community is aware of the portal. We are continuing to do that. We have provided a communication toolkit to your offices and we're also communicating out through our department communication channels and asking for help through our community partners as well to distribute information about the portal and make sure our community is aware that that is available to them. In addition, the law department is finalizing the formal referral process with the AG's office, so we will have an MOU with them to identify exactly how we will be transferring information to them and maintaining the confidentiality of that information. The second directive that the council approved on March 25th was to collect data on impacts to city services as a result of federal immigration enforcement. The update on that is that the police fire community assistance program and OAT departments have added internal tracking codes to track both time and resources spent on calls involving federal law enforcement. There is also training underway regarding how to document the time spent on those calls and other situations that involve federal law enforcement. The next steps are for those departments to begin also tracking the impact on call volume and responses to make sure that if we do start to see a significant increase calls related to federal law enforcement that were able to document that increase. We are also working in partnership with the Community and Economic Development Department to develop a tracking mechanism for impacts to small businesses and what we envision this being is an online forum for businesses to actually report impacts and then those businesses can indicate whether or not they would like to receive referrals to available resources and CED would assist them with that. The third directive is to identify potential partnerships and volunteer opportunities to facilitate the initiative. As an update, we have two new webpages, the CTI page and the Know Your Rights webpage, both on phoenix.gov. They have been updated with the additional information that was requested to be added at the March meeting, which were related to emergency relief, healthcare, domestic violence, and other resources for individuals and families. And all of this can be found most easily at www.phoenix.gov slash knowyourrights. In addition, we're collaborating with the IRC for employer-focused training regarding employing refugees. That will be released later this year. We're also working regularly with community partners and groups collaborating on how to share information. And this is a two-way street where we receive information and suggestions perhaps on what to add to our Know Your Rights webpage. And we also share information out with these groups to help get information out into the community to understand what resources are available. So it's a great partnership. Next steps, we are continuing to communicate out to the community about the Know Your Rights webpage. We have asked our city departments to post flyers and posters in city facilities that have public access. And we're doing that in multiple languages. We're also communicating through advertising, through our grocery store contract. We're also reaching out to some of our partners in health clinics and other community spaces where we can ask them to advertise this information and share with the community that there is this information available online, and of course utilizing our social media platforms. Additionally, we will be updating the CTI webpage with relevant data related to CTI. These are things like misdemeanor arrests and other information that the community has asked for. We are adding that information to the CTI webpage. We're also developing a reporting mechanism for sharing information with our congressional delegation. The fourth directive that the council approved was to ensure multilingual communication channels across city services and resources. As an update, the CTI and Know Your Rights webpages offer translation in over 120 languages. Our administrative regulation 5.32, the use of city property for civil law enforcement, has also been translated into multiple languages, including Spanish, Pashto, Swahili, Somali, Arabic, Dari, and Kinyawanda. And if there are any additional languages that the community needs, we are happy to have those translated as well to make sure that there is clear communication about what the AR says. Additionally, we have been implementing training for city employees who may encounter federal enforcement actions per the direction of the council. This includes protocols related to administrative and judicial warrants. To do that, we have developed a CTI training which was deployed shortly after the last meeting on March 27th to all employees. And this is a large group as defined under the AR which includes full-time employees, part-time employees, seasonal temporary employees, as well as contractors under city supervision and volunteers. And this training focuses on how to respond if employees as defined in that way, encounter federal law enforcement in the course of their work. And I'm happy to say that 93% of that group, over 15,000 individuals, have completed that training as of last week. We also have distributed quick reference cards with scripts and key contact information to employees to make sure that they have information handy regarding what to do in those situations. A second training course for employees will also be launched tomorrow, June 10th, regarding referring community members to the complaint portal and also information about the Know Your Rights webpage so that they are well-versed in the resources available to the community. And the next step will also be to ensure that that training is completed. And the last directive that the council authorized on March 25th was to develop options for the council to consider relating to outside organizations, staging in our parks and preserves and other city property. The update on that was that the AR, which again is the use of city property for civil law enforcement, was published and distributed to all employees on March 27th. This AR sets the standards for use and access to city-owned and city-controlled property for civil law enforcement purposes and it requires a signage plan and access control plan. The language at the bottom of the screen is what you will actually see on the signage. And an update, we did receive a Senate Bill 1487 challenge based on a legislator believing that this administrative regulation violated state law. That challenge was reviewed by the Attorney General's office and they determined that there was no violation of state law. continue to move forward then with the implementation of the administrative regulation. The property inventories have been completed and prioritized, and we've identified six high-priority departments to initially install signage, and we will be continuing to install signage in priority order, but the first six departments We are focusing on our housing, human services, library, neighborhood services, parks and recreation, and public transit. And we are starting with a batch of about 415 signs, which will begin to be installed, or are beginning to be installed this month. And we hope to complete that installation next month. And then we will move to the next priority level. The other thing that we are doing is we are also identifying additional access restrictions or improvements that may be needed in our city facilities to ensure that there is the appropriate level of access restriction based on the clientele for that particular facility and that also signage exists if there are employee only areas or restricted areas so that we can ensure that anybody entering that facility will know that it is a restricted area. That concludes our presentation and we'd be happy to answer any questions. Perfect. Councilman Waring.

Thank you, Mayor. So for the items that you listed from Lori from pages 31 to 37, what's the total cost of that?

Mayor, members of the council, Councilman Waring, there is no additional budget that has been requested for this particular section of the presentation. I don't have an exact number for you, but the amounts have been able to be absorbed within department budgets.

But I mean, the people doing all this were going to be doing something else.

Mayor, members of the council, Councilman Waring, certainly that is correct. I mean, this is part of someone's job duties. And so part of the reason we are tracking information regarding time spent on federal law enforcement activity related to their job duties is because we want to be able to document how much time city employees are spending on these types of activities. And then certainly there are some hard costs, for example, the signage. And we can provide... TOTAL NUMBER ONCE WE HAVE THE FINAL INSTALLATION COST FOR YOU.

I MEAN, WOULD I BE OUT OF POCKET TO SAY 500,000?

MAYOR, MEMBERS OF THE COUNCIL, COUNCILMEN, I REALLY DON'T WANT TO MAKE A GUESS RIGHT NOW OF HOW MUCH THE TOTAL WILL BE, BUT WE CAN PROVIDE THAT COST FOR YOU.

WELL, THEN I WON'T HOLD YOU TO IT. I'LL MAKE UP A NUMBER, 500,000. AND WE'RE SPENDING, I THOUGHT OAT THE FIRST YEAR WAS 3.4 MILLION. So I'm going to round to 4 million. Office of Homeless Solutions, are you 18 million?

Mayor, members of council, this will be the first year that we're general funded moving forward, 40 million.

40 million. All right, so 10 times. That's good, because I'm looking at this list. The stuff you're talking about, Lori, and OAT, doesn't really show up on this list of homelessness, street and traffic, drugs, theft and burglary, police resources, crime, police and community relations, violence, loitering, harassment, noise disturbance, gangs, or vandalism. So I'm glad that it's only one-tenth. I thought it was going to be a higher percentage. But the homeless solutions folks, that's number one, 37%. And the rest of it's pretty much police. I kind of feel like citizens are sending us one message and we're sending one back saying, yeah, but we're going to spend some money that would have gone towards addressing your concerns on something else. We just decided we could have spent it on officers or whatever. It's concerning to me. It's really concerning to me that homelessness actually got as many calls almost as streets and drugs combined. Now, every time I drive on the roads, I feel like I'm going to get killed. I can't drive two miles without seeing somebody doing 70 and a 40. So I know we're not really addressing that. So the fact that homelessness, which I've harped on for years, as you guys are painfully aware, is by far number one, where I bet 10 years ago it wouldn't last on this list if it necessarily appeared at all. So that's been quite a change. I just think more focus on that. There's no more Justice Department hanging over our heads. We've got to do what we've got to do. It's clearly the thing that citizens are most jacked up about. And when the standard of comparison is streets and traffic, they're driving on the same roads I am. They cannot possibly be unaware of how people are driving. And we've got, what, Chief, 34 officers, I think, covering 5,000 miles of streets. So maybe eight at a time, maybe. The chance that you're going to see an officer pull you over is almost nonexistent. I did see one this morning, by the way, on the way to the gym. I was shocked. That was a nice change of pace. I just think I would hope we would use this. I appreciate this presentation very much because I would hope we would use this list and see what people seem to be really focused on and act accordingly. I don't think anybody was calling this 37%, I'd be surprised if they were like, you know, I wanna see more needles in my parks, that's what I want. I don't think that's what the calls were about, my guess. So, tightening up the focus on what's really important to citizens, not citizens who just come to these meetings, that counts, but it is also a minute percentage of the overall population of Phoenix, which is 1.7 million, this room holds maybe 200. IT CONCERNS ME THAT THAT SEEMS TO GET MORE PLAY THAN WHAT PEOPLE ACTUALLY WILL PICK UP THE PHONE AND CALL US ABOUT. SO BE HAPPY. IN TEN MONTHS I'M TERM LIMITED AND YOU WON'T HAVE TO LISTEN TO US ANYMORE. THANK YOU, GUYS.

NEW SPEAKER THANK YOU. I THINK MANY MEMBERS OF THE COUNCIL HAVE COMMENTS BUT WE HAVE THREE PUBLIC COMMENTS. I'LL GO AHEAD AND TAKE THOSE IF FOLKS ARE READY. ALL RIGHT. WE'LL BEGIN WITH NANCY LAM FOLLOWED BY MARIANNE.

Good afternoon, Mayor and members of Council. My name is Nancy Lam. I'm a resident of Phoenix. I live in District 4 and work in District 5. Thank you for providing updates on the progress of implementing the CTI. There is so much to be done to resource and protect the most vulnerable in our immigrant community. I think city staff's work to implement these beginning steps in making city spaces safer for those using them. Upon review of the First Amendment canine youth and homelessness policies, there are still very broad allowances for the Phoenix police to use force and deploy weapons, gas, and other lethal means against people. In the canine policy, canines can still be deployed to, quote, physically move a passively noncompliant and downed subject or as a means of force when it appears reasonable to do so. In the First Amendment policy, police are still able to use CS gas, OC irritants, and lethal launchers on protesters and intervene in order to restore order. However, the use of force and deployment of gas and lethal weapons is completely up to snap judgment of the officer and their manager or the police chief with broad discretion. This police department has been proven that it cannot be trusted with such life or death responsibility. The ongoing lawsuit from Christian Diaz's family proves this as he was shot and killed at a PPD in his own home for protecting his family from an intruder. The 26-27 police budget reached $1.086 billion this year, but policing is not an effective solution for the challenges we face. In the report we just heard, calls for behavioral health unit calls rose by 96%. This points to the desire and need from our communities for alternatives to response from police in crisis situations. We urge the council to invest in community alternatives to policing by addressing the causes of poverty. With food costs skyrocketing, investing more into the local food systems that we heard from earlier in this meeting is crucial. I want to echo what another community member mentioned earlier, that we could be spending more time, energy, and money into distributing food to our students in the summertime when kids are not in school to receive food, for example. We should be investing in these community supports rather than in supplying PPE's use of force and lethal weapons deployment policies against our most vulnerable communities. Thank you.

Thank you. Marianne Eldon, followed by Roland Harris.

Good afternoon, America Yago and City Council. My name is Marianne Eldon. I also go by Annie. I live in City Council District 4, so thank you, Laura Pastor, for all you do for us. And I am here today to oppose the passage of this agenda item, especially because of the use of canine force in the police force. Oftentimes, Police so far have used them to sort of finish the job rather than actually finishing the job themselves. They will release dogs on people they are trying to arrest that might be already injured. And police are first responders. Police are supposed to help people. Even if they're trying to arrest them, they're supposed to try to keep them alive. And, you know, we're supposed to try to help them be better people, not just, you know... hurt them more like let's try to help the people we are trying to support and So I really feel like the fact that we have not there's a policy, but it's mostly of the left of the police's discretion to when when to use dogs on people and I think the fact that we have not been doing it very well and the discretion has not been very good, we should eliminate that dogs entirely. So I hope that that will be considered. Thank you.

Thank you. Our final speaker will be Roland. Well,

Thank you for your time. I just want to say the new policies that are being enacted and stuff and being discussed are too ambiguous. So you have a council member asking, oh, $3 million is a lot just for recommendations. Well, they're given policies that have no clear accountability. So it's kind of hard to hold someone accountable when their policy is ambiguous. You had no policy that holds anybody accountable. You have officers. And all these policies say that the officers is at their discretion. Well, you're putting that on someone who has no integrity or accountability. We speak about budgets. You guys gave $1.5 billion to a department that comes into these communities and beats, brutalizes, and murders us. They generate tens of millions of dollars by causing the DOJ investigation. They caused the city millions of dollars by generating wrongful death lawsuits, excessive force lawsuits, but you still chose to give them $1.5 billion. so again like i say you need to take this money you need to implement this money into other programs you need to start having more policies with more accountability clear cut accountability if this officer violates this policy this is what will happen you violate this policy the second time this is what happened look i'm here today because of january 11 2019 an officer at his own discretion chose to fire my son 11 times in less than three seconds, shot him, denied him medical attention for 13 minutes, shot him three times with Arlen rounds, 38 millimeter plastic grenade rounds, and then released a canine dog. Then months later, they did the same thing to Alex Hernandez by shooting him multiple times, denying him first aid, and releasing a canine. WHERE'S THE ACCOUNTABILITY AT? AND YOU WANT TO CONTINUE TO OVERFUND THIS POLICE DEPARTMENT. AND YOU HAVE COUNCIL MEMBERS CRYING ABOUT HOMELESS PEOPLE LIVING IN PARKS. WHEN YOU GUYS GAVE TENS OF MILLION DOLLARS TO THE POLICE.

THANK YOU SO MUCH. ALL RIGHT. I'm going to bring up public records. This is not the first time I have brought up public records and it's been a persistent problem for years. Back in September of 2023, the wait to get body worn camera footage from the police department was two years. I thought that number was unacceptable, acceptable. Two weeks ago, my office met with someone who was told she would have to wait six years for body worn camera footage related to the death of her daughter. She also was told she'd have to wait three years for other video footage and two years for the audio of the 911 call. I don't know how in good conscience we're okay with those numbers. In 2023, we talked about doing additional staffing. We reclassified positions to address the backlog, raising salaries. It's just really disappointing. Over the last 18 months, the request backlog has gone up by 64% and now stands at nearly 40,000 records. Chief Giordano, you were not here, but a previous group of leadership said we'd be making some changes like modernizing pricing. So why have we not been able to manage this backlog? What do we say to this mom who's told six years?

Mayor Gallego, members of council, thank you. There's nothing I can say to that, ma'am. I share your concern that that timeframe is too long. There's no way around that. I can go back to 2023, although I wasn't here, I did look back and had Assistant Director Court Hood put together some information. on the things we have done. And it did start back in 2023 with the support of council. We did modernize some positions. We did increase some positions. We did increase pay and increase training. And we started seeing benefits from that going into 2024. And then 2025 hit and we had a 30% increase in the number of public records requests that we received. And we went backwards completely from that. We just couldn't keep up with that additional demand. We thought it was a little bit of an anomaly, but we're seeing the exact same spike this year in public records requests. Everything is going up. So at the middle of last year, right around the time I arrived, they were already working on it, looking for ways to modernize the practice of body-worn camera redactions. Currently, it was about four hours to redact one hour of body-worn camera footage at 100%. Now what they're doing is they're using a 50% blur and that's about a one to a 1.15 ratio. So they've compressed the timeline to produce body-worn camera footage significantly. And that's, we're hoping that'll help. But to your point also about price increases and looking at, they've done a deep dive in that and we are historically one of the lowest cities in the state for the cost of public records. We're also the largest and we get the most public requests for information. A COUPLE OTHER THINGS WE'VE NOTICED IS WE HAVE A HUGE INFLUX OF COMMERCIAL REQUESTS FOR TRAFFIC COLLISIONS FOR REPORTING PURPOSES, AGAIN, FOR COMMERCIAL PURPOSES. WHAT WE'RE LOOKING AT DOING, WE'VE ALREADY BROUGHT ON ONE DEVELOPER, WE'RE IN THE PROCESS OF BRINGING ON A SECOND DEVELOPER TO CREATE A SYSTEM INTERNALLY THAT OUR RESIDENTS OR MEMBERS OF OUR COMMUNITY COULD GO ON, REQUEST THEIR DOCUMENTATION WITHOUT HAVING TO GO THROUGH A LIVE PERSON, WITHOUT US HAVING TO TOUCH IT. WE'RE HOPING TO HAVE THAT IN PLACE BY EARLY by the end of this year or early part of January of 2027. We'll just speed up that considerably. We get about 60,000 requests every year, I think it is, for traffic collision investigations. And again, that's a very time consuming thing. We will be bringing back to you, hopefully right after summer recess, we'll be bringing back to you some suggestions and proposals for a fee increase related to public records requests. But again, I share your concern. I share that mother's concern. Day-to-day work, it's not a work product. It simply comes down to an allocation of manpower and hours, and we just need to get ahead of that. So we'll be coming back with a request for additional staffing too, because public records are becoming so laborious now. We're getting so many requests. Our current staffing just can't keep up.

If Carfax asks for every collision in Phoenix and a grieving mother wants a report for her child, how do we prioritize?

We have the ability to do that as well. We've talked to our legal unit on the legal requirements of that, and we do have the ability to put the second example you gave in front of the Carfax request.

And same if we have media out partners who are looking for reports of public interest, they would be of higher priority than Carfax wanting every accident in Phoenix.

Let me clarify that for you. Yes, I'm getting that. I'm giving the yes. I wanted to go to the expert. I wanted to speak.

Thank you. We went through this before, but I'm going to keep doing it until we get where we need to go because this does matter to our community. I mean, the calls we've gotten are really hard. We had someone who was born in another country and wanted to repatriate the body, and they couldn't do so. The plane would not accept the body until they had the report from us, and we were giving them a very long time period before. The stakes are pretty high. So in fall, we're going to update pricing. Are other large cities seeing this, and is major city chiefs talking to these commercial providers who are doing broad records requests?

Other cities are also seeing an increase. I can use my previous position at Arizona Post. We used to get about 200 to 300 requests a year. By the time I left, we were getting well over 1,000. So everyone is seeing an increase in requests for public records. Throw in body-worn camera footage, and it just slows down the process completely. So we are talking at our East Valley and West Valley Chiefs meetings on how to address this. Assistant Director of Courthood and Administrator Amy Rehnquist are doing a very good job of diving into what are the issues. Where can we fix different processes? Can we leverage technology to make us more efficient? Because we really share your concerns.

And will you commit to talking with your peers perhaps at the national level about what these commercial requests, the impact it is to this mom whose child?

Absolutely, I can commit to that.

Okay, thank you. All right, Councilwoman Hernandez.

Thank you, Mayor, and I echo your concerns around public records requests. Small suggestion, I think the high number of requests are because the public does not trust the department. So I think in order to really get to how to mitigate this issue, we've got to stop killing people. We've got to get the community trust back so they... so we're not seeing the increased number of public record requests. So mothers like this that the mayor mentioned can get the video that they need. So just a small suggestion, Chief. And I wanna start my question with, you know, in the presentation, you mentioned about the K-9 policy, and can you just expand a little bit on like what the survey, expand a little bit more on the survey that was done around the K-9 policy?

Mayor, members of council, councilor Hernandez, what we did is we publish the actual policy itself, the draft policy, and then based on your recommendations, we used to do 30 days, we moved it to 45 days. I think I appreciate that. Absolutely, and then we collected all those responses. We are still working through what those responses are. There's not a survey, we don't ask what do you like, what do you don't like, we just ask for feedback. So we got responses, we're working, the team's working through those now, And then we'll address each one of those responses. And then based on those responses, we will make changes to the policy. We're not there yet, but we are working through that.

Okay, thank you so much. It's just, I think it's really helpful. This is an area that is very personal to me. And I know that in a previous meeting, like we've mentioned that we have canine dogs in different departments. I just kind of want to ask one question specifically around The communication and family investigations, are those two of the departments where we have canines or two areas where we have canines? Yes.

Mayor Gallego, mayors, council, council representatives. Yes, we do. We have, I know we had one recently passed away in communications, but we have still at least have one more in communications. It's a service dog. And then we do have some of the family investigations. We have also some therapy dogs there, but we recently are going to get one that can search and find digital media.

Okay, thank you. That was going to be my follow-up question, so you kind of answered the second part of that question on what the roles are. And then my next question is, under what circumstances can an officer deploy a K-9 on someone, when specifically talking about apprehension and enforcement?

Mayor, members of council, council members, I just want to review the policies to make sure I don't misspeak. Councilor Hernandez, if you would like, I've got Commander Riggin here from our Tactical Support Bureau. He could probably speak to this at a higher level than I could if that would be better for you.

That would be great. And just a summary, like I don't want to take too much time deep diving into it. Just if I can get a broad summary of, explain it to me like I'm in, like I'm a 12 year old.

I would prefer if he did it just because he can give you a more real-world example and explain to it in much greater detail than I could. Okay, perfect. Thank you.

Thank you, Commissioner.

Thank you, Commander.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor, Council, Councilwoman Hernandez. There are several things that we look at prior to deploying a canine. So some of the things are the criminal law that take into account, civil law, safety priorities, search and seizure, and then the actual policy related to application of force. So all those things are taken into account prior to the application of a canine.

OK, thank you so much. I just wanted to make sure I ask that, like we've heard in a previous comment and why this is so important and why revisions to this policy are so important. You know, I want to expand on that a little bit, but I want to start with the fact that we are releasing canines after our residents are being shot. My brother was shot five times with a rifle and then a canine was released on him and he bled out for 10 minutes. Jacob Harris was shot 10 times or 11 times and then had a canine released on him and dragged because we all saw the infrared video from the helicopter. So this is policy that's very critical and important. Changes need to be made. I think significant revisions to this specific policy are needed because the use of canines against human beings is inhumane, it's deeply harmful, and rooted in a violent history that many communities in this country still carry with them today. We cannot discuss police canine use in this country without acknowledging the historical reality of how dogs have been weaponized against marginalized communities. From enslaved black people being hunted as they fought for freedom, to the unleashing of dogs on the civil right protesters, to the use of dogs by authoritarian regimes like Nazis to terrorize communities. These are not distant or abstract histories. These are living memories that continue to shape HOW PEOPLE EXPERIENCE POLICING AND STATE VIOLENCE TODAY. AND I REALLY BELIEVE THAT WE AS THE CITY OF PHOENIX, THE FIFTH LARGEST CITY IN THE COUNTRY, HAVE AN OPPORTUNITY TO MOVE FORWARD TOWARD A MORE HUMANE, A MORE MODERN AND ACCOUNTABLE MODEL OF PUBLIC SAFETY. AND THAT MEANS THAT WE NEED TO REVISIT POLICIES THAT RELY ON INTIMIDATION, ON FORCE. and archaic militarized tactics, including the use of police dogs for apprehension and force. At the minimum, this policy should be revised to prohibit the use of canines for use of force and apprehension purposes. We should be seriously investing into de-escalation strategies, more behavioral health responses. I mean, we just heard the amount of increase of behavioral health call transfers that happen. ON VIOLENCE PREVENTION MEASURES, ON COMMUNITY-BASED SAFETY APPROACHES, AND NOT CONTINUING PRACTICES THAT ARE CRUEL, THAT ARE TRAUMATIC AND FUNDAMENTALLY IN CONFLICT WITH HUMAN DIGNITY. SO THAT'S JUST MY PIECE ON THE K-9. I DO WANT TO SHIFT OVER TO A COUPLE QUESTIONS ON THE PUBLIC SAFETY IMPROVEMENT ACTION ITEMS. The first action item on the data reporting and recording is listed as completed. And I think this is the one on data around age, race, gender, and housing status. But I haven't seen on a consistent basis that data be presented. So, WHAT OTHER IMPROVEMENTS NEED TO BE MADE BEFORE WE GET ACCURATE AND CONSISTENT? AND I REALLY WANT TO FOCUS ON THE CONSISTENT PIECE ON STOP SEARCHES AND ARRESTS FOR INCLUDING THOSE METRICS BEING REPORTED.

MAYOR, MEMBERS OF COUNCIL, COUNCILMAN HERNANDEZ, WITH OUR STOP SEARCHES AND ARREST PROGRAM THAT WE'RE DOING, WE HAVE ANALYSTS WHO ARE NOT OFFICERS WHO ARE LOOKING AT THE DATA FROM OUR PREMIER ONE SYSTEM AND OUR OLD SYSTEM TO FIND THE INFORMATION THAT WE WANT. We've given contact cards to officers that are instructed to fill out those cards so we collect all that information. What we're doing is we're looking at randomized samples of those things until we can get staffing in place and a framework in place that we can do that on a consistent basis where we're looking at random cases from beginning to end, where we look at the body-worn camera from a traffic stop or a subject stop, and we watch that body-worn camera, we read the report, and we look to make sure that everything matches the way it's supposed to, and that we're also capturing that data to share with you.

Okay, thank you. And so should the item be completed and ongoing as opposed to just completed?

Mayor, members of council, Councilman Hernandez, it's ongoing. And it would be a quarterly report that we provide that to you.

Okay. Thank you. For action item number six, it notes that the use of force investigations must fully explore whether the officers use de-escalation strategies during an incident. How are we measuring de-escalation strategies and how are we measuring if officers are in compliance? Okay.

Mayor, members of council, Councilman Hernandez, when we're looking at the de-escalation, one thing I failed to mention in my presentation is with all of our use of force policy, we look at communication, look at time, distance, and cover, things that take the de-escalation idea further with those things. We include that in each one of our trainings for use of force. In our investigations, our professional standards investigations, we look at what the knowledge of, this is an recommendation, what an officer's knowledge of law, policy, and training is with respect to the actions that they took. So we look at those specific things to look at de-escalation, and that's part of our policy. So we hold people accountable who do not de-escalate that situation.

OKAY. THANK YOU. FOR ACTION ITEM NUMBER 8, WHO IS RESPONSIBLE FOR ENSURING THAT PSB IS NOT MERELY PROVIDING BASIC DECLARATIONS IN THE REPORTS, BUT THAT THEY ARE INSTEAD OUTLINING WAYS THAT OFFICERS CAN IMPROVE?

MAYOR, MEMBERS OF COUNCIL, COUNCILMAN HERNANDEZ, I'M NOT SURE I UNDERSTAND YOUR QUESTION,

Let me find another way to ask it. I guess, let me backtrack. Let me ask this. Does PSB, when things go to PSB, I know like OAT does a review of cases, they come back with recommendations on how actions can be improved, right? Is that a correct quick take? Does PSB do the same thing? or do they have an opportunity to also review and recommend to you all how actions can be improved?

Mayor, members of Council, Councillor Hernandez, thank you for that question. I appreciate that. We do have OAT reviewing ours. Every investigation that is done goes through the chain of command. So when the investigating sergeant reviews that investigation, it's reviewed by the lieutenant. If it rises to that level, if it's a full PSB investigation, that goes to the commander, and I also review those. We have a new commander who's there who's been a sergeant and a lieutenant who's there and he understands my philosophy and Chief's philosophy as well as your philosophy to do complete investigations and fair investigations. We do review those. I do talk with him. There's been a few that we've disagreed on and that different sets of eyes and older and gray hair eyes have different takes on things and we do review those. We take them very seriously. One of the charges I've been given by Chief and by city leadership is to make sure that each investigation that comes in and comes out Each allegation is thoroughly investigated. Each one of them is accounted for. And that if officers are out of policy, that we hold them accountable.

Mayor, members of council, council members, just to add on to that, we also look at the recommendations from our friends at Oak and we incorporate those. So although they're looking at two years in arrears cases, we are already making implementations based on their recommendations from cases we did two years ago. So we look at that on an ongoing basis to look for ways to improve to make sure we're meeting those milestones.

Okay, thank you so much. I want to skip down to action item 15. There, this is around the annual report from the discipline review board. I believe that a report dropped in April of 2025. Is that annual every April? Or like, when can we expect that report for 2026?

Mayor, members of council, councilman Hernandez, I think we're due for another, if we did it in April, then we're due for it this year as well, with respect to the disciplinary review board outcomes. Although I don't know we've had but two this year, but we'll get that to you.

Okay, perfect, thank you so much. FOR ACTION ITEM 20, YOU KNOW, I THINK WE'VE TALKED AT LENGTH AROUND SURVEYS A FEW TIMES. AGAIN, I APPRECIATE THE WILLINGNESS TO WORK ON LIKE THE K-9 POLICY TO EXTEND THAT WINDOW TO 45 DAYS FROM THE 30 DAYS. I THINK IT GIVES THE COMMUNITY A LITTLE BIT MORE TIME TO PROVIDE FEEDBACK ON THINGS THAT ARE VERY IMPORTANT. YOU KNOW, WE'VE MET ABOUT PROVIDING INPUT ON THOSE POLICIES, AND I GUESS MY QUESTION FOR YOU WOULD BE THAT IS IT POSSIBLE TO HOUSE THE SURVEYS LIKE SOMEWHERE OUTSIDE OF PD WHERE THERE MIGHT BE A LITTLE BIT MORE TRUST FROM THE COMMUNITY THAT THEIR INPUT IS BEING HEARD AND MAYBE THAT WOULD ENCOURAGE EVEN MORE COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT IN THE FEEDBACK, SORRY, COMMUNITY FEEDBACK IN THE SURVEY PROCESS? I'm wanting to know what can we do to increase community feedback on policies?

Mayor's Memory Council, Councillor Hernandez. That's a great point. I share your concern. Sometimes when I see the feedback we get, reference our new policies we push out for public comment, they're lower than I'd expect. So I'm happy to work with you in your office if you have ideas. Maybe I'm just thinking maybe using your office as a collection point for anyone who wants to send things to anonymously. And we could do it that way. But if you're open to it, I'd be happy to sit down and talk through that process and how we can improve.

Yeah, definitely open to that. I think like even maybe like a listening session, right, where we can invite community out in the district and hopefully provide more feedback on the policies that really affect them every day. So happy to continue to work on that, Chief. I think that would be great. And the last question on the action items, the continuous improvement plan is supposed to be developed and continue with stakeholders, with departments, with community members. WHAT COMMUNITY GROUPS HAVE BEEN REACHED OUT TO SUPPORT ENGAGEMENT ON THIS? AND CAN YOU SHARE A LITTLE BIT WHY THEY WERE INCLUDED IN THE INPUT PROCESS?

MAYOR, MEMBERS OF COUNCIL, COUNCILMAN HERNANDEZ, WE'VE USED THE CHIEF'S ADVISORY BOARDS FOR A NUMBER OF OUR IMPROVEMENT IDEAS TO GET INFORMATION FROM THEM AS THEY REPRESENT DIFFERENT PARTS OF THE COMMUNITY.

Perfect. Thank you so much. And I know we have all seen the news for the last five to six months. And unfortunately, our department cannot stay out of the news and the headlines. I think we need to take more corrective actions because Our sworn police department, some of them are a hot mess right now. And, you know, we have officers harassing kids on their off time, admitting on camera that we have DUI quotas. They're on radio shows showing off drugs. My office is getting complaints about, you know, some sworn officers engaging in affairs with women. WITH THEIR WIVES AND ACCUSING THEM OF MISUSE OF CITY RESOURCES, OFFICERS USING MEXICAN LICENSE PLATES ON UNMARKED CARS, AND I KNOW THAT ALL OF THE ALLEGATIONS ARE BEING INVESTIGATED, BUT JUST LAST WEEK MY OFFICE MET WITH A MOTHER FROM DISTRICT 7 WHO SPECIFICALLY HIGHLIGHTED AN INTERACTION WITH THE DEPARTMENT AND HOW ONE OF OUR OFFICERS USED RACIALLY DEROGATORY LANGUAGE DURING THAT INTERACTION. So all of this is really concerning. I think for me it points to a cultural problem in the department, whether we want to admit it or not. So, Chief, my specific question to you around this is what work are you doing and what work can be done to shift the culture within your department?

Mayor Gallego, members of council, Councillor Hernandez, I appreciate the opportunity to answer that question. Changing the culture is not easy. It's difficult. There are a lot of very good men and women that are part of the Phoenix Police Department, and I think it all starts with me. I set the tone, I set the direction, I set my expectations, and that's what I've done. As you know, it's no surprise. We've had several high-profile cases that have come over on my desk. I get no joy out of it. I don't enjoy it, but there are some men and women who don't deserve to wear this badge, to wear this uniform, and I've taken corrective measures with those, and I'll continue to do that. But it comes through effective communication, additional training opportunities. But first and foremost, it's what's my expectations for the men and women of the Phoenix Police Department. And I think I've been pushing it out. I've been here about 10 months now that I've been pushing it out almost daily on what my expectations are. And I do that through role modeling. I go out and I try to show them the behavior and the attitude that I want to see them display when they're interacting with members of the community. Again, you listed several items or several issues that we've had, and I don't deny those, but I will also tell you that from the millions of contacts that we have, I think the men and women in the Phoenix Police Department do a phenomenal job.

Thank you, and I appreciate that you don't shy away from tough questions and answering them to us, because we really are tasked with bringing those to you, right? I might push back a little bit, though, because based on the survey results that Jody covered earlier, the dissatisfaction with the service, I think, is... Sorry, what page am I on? IN THE COMPLAINTS AND COMPLIMENTS, WE RECEIVED 459 COMPLAINTS AND ONLY 66 COMPLIMENTS. I THINK THERE'S ROOM FOR IMPROVEMENT THERE. BUT AGAIN, I APPRECIATE THAT YOU DO NOT SHY AWAY FROM THOSE. MY HOPE IS THAT WE CAN CONTINUE TO PUSH FOR IMPROVEMENTS IN PROFESSIONALISM. That will truly change the culture within the department so that we can get to a point where we avoid the hummus of the headlines that happen out there. It would be nice to go at least a week without the department being negatively portrayed in the news because something is going on. So thank you for that. And then just my finally on the strategic plan, I appreciate the inclusion of goals related to improving systems of accountability, like increasing the body-worn camera compliance, enhancing behavioral health responses, REVIEWING DISCIPLINARY PROCESSES, YOU KNOW, THE COMMITMENT TO IMPROVING YOUTH INTERACTIONS AND PROVIDING ANNUAL REPORTING ON THE USE OF FORCE REVIEW OUTCOMES. I THINK WE, YOU KNOW, I HAVE TALKED ABOUT IT OFTEN, I WOULD HOPE THAT WE ALL AGREE THAT TRANSPARENCY IS THE FOUNDATION OF TRUE ACCOUNTABILITY AND WITH THAT ACCOUNTABILITY THERE CAN BE NO MEANINGFUL PUBLIC TRUST. SO I DO WANT TO THANK YOU, CHIEF, AND YOUR EXECUTIVE STAFF ON THE DEPARTMENT FOR INCLUDING THESE COMMITMENTS IN THE PLAN. SPEAKING TO THE INTERACTION WITH INDIVIDUALS EXPERIENCING HOMELESSNESS, YOU MENTIONED A PARTNERSHIP WITH OHS ON ACCESS TO SUPPORTIVE SERVICES. CAN EITHER YOU, CHIEF, OR RACHEL SPEAK A LITTLE BIT TO THE PLAN AROUND THIS? I BELIEVE IT'S COMING LATER IN THE FALL, CORRECT?

Mayor, members of Council, Councilwoman Hernandez, are you speaking to the policy that Phoenix Police is putting out on individuals experiencing homelessness? The Office of Homeless Solutions did review that, as did Neighborhood Services, and it also went out for public comment, and we sent it to lots of our partners who have provided comment as well.

Okay. And any elaboration you can do on the plan around that piece of it? Specifically to supportive services, to access to supportive services.

Mayor, members of council, Councilman Hernandez, one of the things that we like so much about the policy that we're creating is that when we take the property of the person we've interacted with, when that person wants their property back, we partner with the Office of Homeless Solutions to give that property back to that person. So if they're making that connection, they're able to offer those services almost circular at both ends of that contact. And their expertise is much more successful than ours. That's our hope with that policy.

Thank you so much. On the body-worn camera compliance, what accountability measures are in place when officers fail to properly activate or maintain the body-worn camera usage?

Mayor, members of council, Councilman Hernandez. If an officer fails to activate their body-worn camera or turns it off during the incident that they're investigating, then we do look at that as a full PSP investigation, and we provide discipline for that. It starts at a written reprimand. After you get a supervisor counseling, a written reprimand and progressive discipline carries on from there.

And we're tracking all of that?

Yes, we are. Both activations and then who gets those disciplinary for not having their cameras on.

Okay, thank you. And to the transparency piece and the use of force, transparency is great, but what we really want to see an actual reduction in use of force. Can you tell us how our efforts to create reforms are actually reducing harmful use of force incidents?

Mayor, members of council, Councilman Hernandez, one of the things that we're doing is we're emphasizing tenants of time, distance, and cover. We're looking at communication. We're adding that into all of our of our training plans at the academy as well as our in-service trainings. We're looking at avenues for officers to learn to communicate better, not only verbally but non-verbally as they deal with the people that we're dealing with so that we reduce the chances of that becoming an encounter that requires force to be used. That's an ongoing process that we're working on.

Okay, thank you so much. And have we thought about how some of our most impacted communities could be involved in how we develop reforms to disciplinary systems or disciplinary actions?

Mayor, members of council, Council Member Hernandez, discussed our systems of accountability with our partnering chiefs advisory boards, with our friends at the Office of Accountability and Transparency to improve what we do. Each recommendation that they have made, we've included into our professional standards bureau manual as well as our operations orders, and we track those things to make sure that they're being taken seriously by our investigators and by our employees to ensure that that becomes part of our normal life.

Okay, thank you so much. And I think this will be my last question. Speaking on the piece of enhancing interaction with the youth, are there plans to expand diversion and non-police alternatives for youth-related incidents?

Mayor, members of council, Councilman Hernandez. Yes. With our interactions with youth, we're always looking for different avenues to do that. We're looking at different providers that could help to teach us how to get our forward-facing employees better equipped to deal with youth and understand the youth development, the youth mind. So we're always looking for different ideas, different avenues to improve how we do business with our youth of our community.

Okay, thank you. I just want to emphasize that while crime reduction is listed as one of the three pillars of the strategic plan, I would encourage us to really broaden our understanding of what actually creates safety. Communities are safer when people have access to housing, to food security, accessible mental health care, youth programming, good schools, cooling infrastructure, stable employment. and supportive relationships, right? A lot of folks really need a community support around them to thrive. Public safety cannot rest solely on enforcement strategies. Ultimately, the question is not simply how policing becomes more effective. It's how do we build a city where fewer people are pushed into crisis in the first place? I think that will really get to the root cause of of so many issues that we are seeing, like homelessness, right, where that's now the number one call that you all get, but you can't actually solve the problem. You're going to move an encampment or you're going to disband an encampment, but the police department cannot solve homelessness. So we need to really, I want us to look at those long-term root cause solutions. And just want to close out with, you know, I want to really thank you, Lori. Thank you, Chief, for your continued attention to these matters. Again, neither of you ever shy away from the tough conversations that you have to have with probably not just my office, but with multiple offices. So I appreciate just the willingness to engage in those conversations and really be open to the tough feedback from what I'm getting from our residents. And thank you all for letting me work through all of my questions. This is a department that gets over a billion dollars every year, and I think that warrants a little bit of extra time TO GET THESE QUESTIONS ANSWERED, NOT JUST FOR THE RESIDENTS AND FOR THE COMMUNITY. THAT IS REALLY THEIR TAXPAYER DOLLARS AT WORK. AND THEN JUST MY VERY FINAL POINT, I PROMISE, REGARDING THE COMMUNITY TRANSPARENCY INITIATIVE UPDATES. I'M REALLY, REALLY GLAD TO SEE WE ARE MOVING ON THIS. I HOPE THAT THROUGH THIS PROCESS WE CAN ALL CONTINUE TO DEEPEN OUR RELATIONSHIPS WITH OUR COMMUNITY PARTNERS AND REALLY DO THE WORK NECESSARY TO PROTECT OUR RESIDENTS IN THE BEST WAY WE CAN, NOT JUST IN THIS MOMENT NOW THAT WE ARE SEEING UNDER A VERY VIOLENT FEDERAL ADMINISTRATION, BUT MOVING FORWARD. THANK YOU SO MUCH, MAYOR.

NEW SPEAKER THANK YOU. COUNCILMAN ROBINSON.

Thank you, Mayor, appreciate it. I want to get to the public safety improvement update, the presentation that you guys gave, but before I get to that, the Mayor mentioned something about public records requests, and she's absolutely right, and I know you guys know that. One of the things I'd like to see us try to approach, and it deals with public records to a degree, as well as a host of other things, but Two types of calls that require or will usually end up with someone putting in a public records request are burglar alarms and traffic accidents. There are law enforcement agencies around the country that do not go out on burglar alarms. I know we've approached this before. but we are doing the work of the alarm companies. And we have ADT at our house, I know they don't want me to say this, I don't necessarily care, but we pay them and they should be the ones who come out to the house, if there's a problem, then call the police. But we're doing that work for them. And it's the same with traffic collisions. If no one is not seriously injured or they're not dead, we should not be investigating those accidents, those collisions. I say that because I spent parts of last week in Chicago at a conference on... It was entitled Advancing the Field of Alternative Response. So law enforcement agencies across the country are having the same problems that we're having. Are we spending our times doing the right things? Councilwoman Hernandez mentioned that there are a lot of things that the police roll on, especially with regard to homeless. There's no crime there. We're wasting a lot of law enforcement time doing those things. Councilman Waring mentioned the fact that people drive fast on these streets. We know that. We no longer have the motorcycle contingent of motor officers out patrolling and doing, you know, traffic enforcement. So one of the things I hope we're able to do is really pay particular attention to are we spending our time doing the right things? And Ed and Lori, And Ginger, if there is a way for us to explore further about whether or not we can develop a policy where we do not respond on burglar alarms and then take the next step, take a hard look at our traffic accidents, do not respond on traffic accidents. That's not our job. We're doing the work of the insurance companies. Now, I say that about those two things, and it's something that could help us. But I also want to make mention of the fact about the use of force and the apprehension and the use of canines. And I had the opportunity to oversee the Tactical Support Bureau or division for about three years. Dog bites are terrible things. They just are. I don't know that there's a police officer or anyone else who's going to tell you otherwise. They are. It's tough. They're used in certain situations. And I... understand and agree that proper supervision and proper use of the canines needs to be exercised at its fullest. But I wanna give you an example because if we take that tool away, and it is just that, it's a tool, if we take that tool away, what happens? And the best example I can give you is a real life example that I lived, working south side, the Henson, not the Henson, it was the Cofelt Projects in the 1900 block of West Cocopaw, and it was about two o'clock in the morning, the call came out of a shooting, one subject down, I was right there at 19th Avenue and Broadway, so I was there in less than a minute. So I'm there, the folks are still there, they're fighting, one guy's down, I heard another unit roll up, it happened to be a guy by the name of Charlie Poe, who was a canine operator, He pulled up the next street over. I was out there. I yelled at the guy, put the gun down, put the gun down. He started shooting at me. Three shots, head high, and anywhere from six inches to 18 inches away from me. He landed in the wall behind me. I reverted back to the way I was trained, and we were about 21 feet away. So, Chief, as far as you and I are right now, I was squeezing the trigger. It takes about three pounds of pressure to pull the trigger on the gun. I was probably at about two and a half. And I heard Charlie yell, the canine was loose, the canine was loose. The canine took the guy down. I did not have to shoot. I was going to, and there was little doubt in my mind I wasn't going to miss him. And I say that not to brag, but that's the reality. I did not, that evening, I did not use deadly force because we had a tool there. And that tool was that canine that was able to apprehend the person. As it turned out, the guy that was shot and down was a young man's brother. Someone else shot him. He ran inside, got his dad's gun. He was fighting with his father when I got there. I was about to shoot a guy who was going after the guy that had shot his brother. It would have been completely justified. I know some people don't like to hear that, but that is the reality. We have canines for a reason. My expectation, and I know it's Chief Giordano's, is that they are used in the appropriate manner. That's why we have a duty commander on the street, that's why we have lieutenants, that's why we have sergeants. We make sure they're doing the job that they're supposed to be doing. So I'll get off that soapbox, but real quick, I wanna go to a couple of things that were said in the report itself. And it was slide 12, in progress, Fourth Amendment compliance audits. And you kind of answered it a little bit, Chief Benza, when you got into early intervention. But my question is, if the audits show a concerning pattern of some sort, there's something going on with a particular officer or maybe even a squad, can you walk us through briefly what is done? What steps are taken if we see something is going on?

Mayor, members of council, Councilman Robinson, if we start to see a pattern either with an, well, if we see one of those incidents that does not follow the pattern that we want, if we're watching the body-worn camera and we don't like what the officer is doing, the steps they're taking, be it procedural justice and how they speak to the person, or in terms of legal, how they proceed with that traffic stop or that subject stop, that information is conveyed through me, from the Organizational Integrity Bureau to me, and to our Professional Standards Bureau to review that to see if it needs to go to the precinct or does it need to stay in professional standards for either discipline or training. So we want to do those immediately. If it's a pattern with the same officer, then PSB would take that and we'd investigate that for misconduct.

Okay, and to that end, have we had many cases, and I'm not asking for a specific number, but have we had several incidents that have been identified through these audits that have been moved to PSB as an investigation?

Mayor, members of council, Councilman Robinson, we have had a couple of those that have come through that we've identified that are concerning, and we've been able to handle those with training. We have not had any issue with Fourth Amendment or search and seizure issues, but we've had some customer service challenges that we've addressed.

Okay, thank you for that. Okay, and the next one was, it was slide 18, in progress enhanced customer service training. I know there's a cultural awareness training and so ongoing, and autism training has been launched, the procedural justice and customer service training, all these things are ongoing. How is it being delivered?

Mayor, members of council, Councilman Robinson, these are being delivered through e-learning as part of our annual module that we do. So these are being delivered to the officers and our forward-facing professional staff members as e-learning classes that they have to go through and make sure they test out of those classes to ensure they're grasping the information we want them to get.

And everybody is going through it, everyone from officers all the way up to the rank of? Chief, yeah.

I didn't hear. Sorry, Mayor, members of council, Councilman Robinson, through the chief. We all do them as well.

Thank you for that. And the very last, not so much a question, but a comment. I mentioned that I was at that Advancing the Field of Alternative Response conference in Chicago this past week. It was put on by Georgetown Law, NYU Law, and the Policing Project. and to our friends over at the fire department, the CAP program was well known there. They were looking for and asking more and more questions about what it is that we are doing here in Phoenix. The chief and I have had an opportunity to talk about our CIT folks. They were curious about that. There are some opportunities for us to advance training and other things through these particular programs. programs that they have in place. There is one particular organization that is looking or would like to partner with the City of Phoenix, bringing some money to advancing our CIT program as well as our CAP program over at the Fire Department, and I will be pushing that forward. So you'll hear more about that. And the very last thing, as I know it's late, I want to thank all of you. Rachel, Shannon, Jody, Jeff, Chief Giordano, Lori, everybody involved in the Public Safety Improvements Update, we've come a long way. We really have. I know people want more. They deserve more, but you guys are moving in the right direction. I think you're doing all the right things. And Chief Giordano, you talked a little bit about the leadership that you are exhibiting on a daily basis, and that is true. I see it, I hear about it. Still folks are around that I know, and that is one thing that they have been impressed with, is the fact that you're walking the walk and talking the talk. So thank you very much for that, and you should be congratulated for that. So Lori, Ginger, Ed, everyone, thank you for the presentation. Truly appreciate it. And I know a lot of work is going into it. There's still a lot more to do, but I know you guys are up to it. So thank you very much. Thank you, Mayor, for the time.

Thank you, Councilwoman Gordado.

Thank you, Mayor. I would just wanted to start off also saying thank you. I think that all of this work started with a lot of the ARPA dollars that we were able to get from the Biden administration to be able to build the skeleton of all of the great things that our residents were asking from us and asking us to be able to do. We were asked to start our own homeless solution office. So thank you so much, Rachel, for all of your hard work. The old office, thank you so much, Shannon, for everything that you're doing in that office. And for us to be able to enhance our police department. We continue to see that we don't have enough police officers to patrol our streets. And I just want to thank Lori, Chief, everyone, your predecessors, everyone that was part of making this plan happen and being able to enhance How do we handle our calls every day? What are the different tools that we are using now to be able to serve our community better? I know that in a lot of the areas in my district, everyone appreciates you guys, appreciates our CEOs. I'm very thankful to all of our CEOs that come out to all of the meetings that I'M NOT ABLE TO ATTEND AND TALK TO OUR NEIGHBORS AND LISTEN TO OUR NEIGHBORS AND ARE ABLE TO ADDRESS A LOT OF THE CONCERNS. AND WE HEAR IT EVERY DAY, RIGHT? THEY, YOU KNOW, LIKE A LOT OF PEOPLE IN THE COMMUNITY, YES, THEY DO TALK ABOUT THE THINGS THAT NEED TO BE BETTER AND I KNOW THAT FIGHTING EVERY DAY CHIEF TO MAKE IT BETTER. I'VE SEEN YOU DO SOME VERY TAKING SOME SERIOUS ACTIONS THAT WERE NOT EASY FOR THE DEPARTMENT BUT WERE THINGS THAT NEEDED TO BE DONE. SO I'M THANKFUL TO YOU FOR YOUR LEADERSHIP AND EVERYTHING THAT YOU HAVE DONE SINCE YOU CAME INTO THE SINCE YOU CAME INTO THIS ROLE AND HOW SERIOUS WE'RE TAKING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN OUR POLICE DEPARTMENT AND OUR YOUTH, THERE WERE A LOT OF INCIDENTS THAT OCCURRED IN MY TIME ON THE COUNCIL THAT WERE VERY CONCERNING, BUT I'M GRATEFUL FOR YOUR LEADERSHIP, CHIEF PENZA, AND ALL THE WORK THAT YOU'RE DOING. when it comes to our youth and how can we make that better? And we always strive to be better. We're not perfect, right? But we also don't have an unlimited budget to be able to spend on so many things that I think that we should do. But the biggest problem that we have as a city and that we have as a country is that right now we don't have a partner at the federal level to be able to help us address all of the challenges and all of the issues. We have a lot of great friends, you know, a lot of great people that are elected and that are trying to help us. But every day we continue to push, we continue to fight, we continue to ask for, we continue to get creative with the limited resources that we have. I WAS VERY LUCKY TO START MY TERM UNDER THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION AND NOW WE ARE IN SOME VERY DIFFICULT TIMES. WE SEE HOW OUR COMMUNITY IS STRUGGLING. THERE'S JUST SO MUCH POVERTY OUT THERE RIGHT NOW. WE SEE PEOPLE BEING EVICTED AND THAT CAUSES CHAOS. AND YOU GUYS ARE OUT THERE EVERY DAY. DEALING WITH THE CHAOS THAT'S BEEN CREATED BY THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT. AND IT'S BEEN HORRIBLE AND IT'S BEEN TERRIBLE FOR A LOT OF PEOPLE IN OUR COMMUNITY, BUT WE CONTINUE TO FIGHT AND WE CONTINUE TO DO THE BEST THAT WE CAN. I CAN'T THANK YOU ENOUGH FOR ALL OF THE WORK THAT YOU'VE DONE AROUND CTI TO BE ABLE TO TURN THAT AROUND THE WAY YOU AND YOUR TEAM DID. I THINK IT WAS PRETTY REMARKABLE THAT WE'RE ABLE TO SHOW THE COMMUNITY THAT WE'RE ABLE TO WORK AROUND THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT AND THAT WE ARE ABLE TO IMPLEMENT THINGS TO CONTINUE TO PROTECT OUR COMMUNITY FROM THE MOST VULNERABLE from the most vulnerable to our seniors and to our folks experiencing homelessness, you guys have a big job. And you guys make us look good every day because of all the work that you guys do out there. So I can tell you guys how much I appreciate you guys. seeing all the calls that are now going to cab i mean that's i mean i hate that that's what's happening but i'm but i'm grateful that we have a place where people can actually call right and there is a different way that we can help people as well i think that's pretty pretty remarkable that we're able to make that shift and everything that we've been able to do as a city. So just want to thank everyone for their leadership. Ed, thank you so much for all of your work and helping keep everyone in line and all the hard work that happens every day. So Can be thankful enough to all of you. I know there's a lot of things that we still need to make better and there's always room for improvement. But the work that has happened, at least since I've been on this council, has been remarkable. So thank you all so much. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you.

Council, you wanna go? Councilwoman Pastor.

Thank you, thank you, Mayor. I just wanna say, and I'm gonna read something, but I wanna say thank you for the protecting and serving those with movement disorders. And they had contacted me because the World Parkinson Congress is being held here in Phoenix in June. I don't know the exact date. And so this is what they wrote me. Your support would send a powerful message. Our city is committed to progressive policing. We welcome visitors from across the world with compassion. and we are willing to invest in the education of our officers, need to achieve these goals. Furthermore, ensuring this training is a place safeguards Phoenix's reputation on a global stage during a period of intense media scrutiny. So I want to thank you for doing that because I know there were discussions eight months previously, there was a shift change, people changed, and it had, I don't know what exactly happened, but it showed up in my email. And I worked with the group, Muhammad Ali's Parkinson Center, to really try to get that before the World Parkinson Congress presented itself. And so we will be seeing many people around our city with movement disorders and they wanted police to be trained in order to understand and see if something went wrong or happened. So I want to thank you for that. I also want to give kudos out to the training of the CIT I think I'm getting that CTI. I wanna give kudos out for the training, because 93% has been trained and almost completed by June 3rd, which is very challenging as the large of a group that we have. So I wanna give kudos for that and understanding the importance of the training within our city. I have two questions, and the two questions are on Community input. It says survey, and I understand the survey part. Community meetings. What community meetings? Are you speaking of block watches, neighborhood association, council meetings?

Mayor, members of council, councilor, pastor, absolutely all of the above. We're willing to come out and do a roadshow and discuss the strategic plan and solicit feedback. We want to make sure it truly represents what the community is looking for.

And I think that's going to be a little difficult in the summer because a lot of our neighborhood and block watch, a lot of people shut down in July. and then are back in August. And so when I read that it's gonna be fall, report back fall 2026, is that towards the end of fall or mid fall or winter?

Mayor Gallego, members of council, councilwoman Pessore. That's where we left it very vague in fall of 2020. We want to make sure we give everyone enough time to give us their input for us to process an input and then make meaningful changes to the plan before we come back before you.

Okay and the last one is how are people selected to serve on the advisory board?

Mayor Gallo, members of council, council members, do you mean the police chief's advisory boards?

I guess so, because I'm just reading the bullet right here, so yes.

Those are just people that get volunteered through us, and we connect through them, or connect to them through our community relations bureau. So just through Community Connects. If you have someone that would be interested in serving one of our 12 advisory boards, please just forward them to Commander Joe in the City Manager's office and he'll route them to the appropriate place and we would allow them. We're always looking for additional members of the community to make sure we have as wide a group as possible to make sure we're collecting input from everybody.

Okay. Thank you. Thank you for your work. I appreciate it. Thank you.

Thank you. Does anyone have any additional comments? All right, we will be adjourned, and we'll do our next public safety update in the fall. Thank you so much.

Welcome to Phoenix, Nevada.