Board of Supervisors Addendum - Regular Meeting

Morning. I think we're about to begin the meeting. I I just have to share because it's I'm an overshare. Today is my first day as chair. This is a gavel that I won in 1989, a high school debate team. It's never had a use and it has sat there for so long. Anyway, so yep, there there it was. It's highest purpose. Today is Tuesday, January 20, and we are going to start the meeting with a roll call. Supervisor Connell? Present. Supervisor

board members are present. And

we will begin the meeting with the pledge of allegiance led by Amber Wells.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of The United States Of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you Amber. And now we have Marta Guzman who is going to read the land acknowledgment. Thank you, Marta.

Good morning. On behalf of Pima County residents, we honor the tribal nations who have served as caretakers of this land from time immemorial and respectfully acknowledge the ancestral homelands of the Tohono O'odham Nation and the multimillennial presence of the Pascua Yaqui tribe within Pima County. Consistent with Pima County's commitment to diversity and inclusion, we strive toward building equal partner relationships with Arizona's tribal nations. Thank you. Thank you.

We will move on to item number four, which is current events and public acknowledgments. My colleagues have anything they want to share?

If I may, the governor will be here tomorrow at the TCC, I believe, at 9AM, someone can correct me if I'm wrong there, to give us the state of the state here in Southern Arizona. So if people are able to, I recommend that they attend.

Mhmm. Well, tomorrow, Wednesday, the twenty first is our the District 3 1st ever Pitcher Rocks office hours. We've expanded to Pitcher Rocks, because it felt important to do so. We'll be at the Pitcher Rocks Community Center from 04:30 to 07:30 p. M. Just open office hours. And then this coming Saturday, we're very excited. We are doing, our office is hosting a PAC, Pima Animal Care Center dog walk. Just to get folks out over to PAC, perhaps you will like the dog so much that you will want to take that dog home. It's from eight to eleven a.

M. We'll be meeting up at PAC. The number of people who can participate in it is limited, so just call or email our office and get signed up. And then, this Wednesday is the Governor's State Task Force on Missing, Murdered, and Indigenous People. They're hosting listening session at the Richard Elias Building at 4455 E East 5th Street, from two to 8PM.

And it's just an opportunity to come and hear from folks who have been directly impacted by the kidnapping, or the disappearance of loved ones or the exploitation of native communities from some of the, the, sober living centers over the last few years. They'll also sharing be updates on the task force efforts and plans coordinated, coordinated plans across the state. And then finally, Saturday, the thirty first is the all the way to the border trash pickup from 09:30 to two hosted by Rancho Sierra Vista de Sasa Bay and the Poso Verde Wildlife Preserve with support from the Altar Valley Conservation Alliance. If you're interested in joining us, is the cleanup on the road that goes from Three Points down to Sasabe. Happens every year.

Pick up thousands of pounds of trash. Please do join us.

Chair Allen?

Yes.

I'm sorry, I forgot to mention I know I've talked about this with our department directors and also in our newsletter. But our staff and I have started a podcast series where we are interviewing department and program directors. And you can subscribe to the podcast through any of the usual podcast platforms, Spotify, Apple podcasts. You can also watch them live on YouTube, and our first three episodes have posted. They are interviews with Nicole company's And

the

with Heath we're Viscovey Chiodi, the Director of our Economic Development Department. And we drop a new podcast every week that there is not a board meeting. Because board meeting week is when we issue a new letter. Just wanted to share that with my colleagues and with the public. Thank you, Chair Allen.

Supervisor Cotto. Thank you, Chair Allen, and good morning, everyone. As part of the One Pima initiative, the District five office has been participating in neighborhood cleanups. This past weekend, District five participated in its fifth neighborhood cleanup, and we encourage the public to join us. This is a joint venture with the City of Tucson and Tucson Clean and Beautiful.

We'll hear more about pleased balance a last sheet week sheet with the Sonoran Institute, and which is a nonprofit organization focused on the Santa Cruz River. And they will be installing this week a technology that is used in other parts of the country that essentially the way I think about it, colleagues and guests, is when there is a heavy flood in the Santa Cruz, this technology essentially traps the trash and is able to capture in a big boxed cage all of the debris that otherwise would probably take weeks, months to be able to get out when it's deeply entrenched into the soil. And so, this is really important because we've heard, from, the public that they want cleanup of the Santa Cruz. It is important to them as it is to all of us here on this board, and I applaud this Norden Institute for, bringing this technology to us. I wanna see this installed in several places throughout, the community.

And last but not least, I do wanna thank one person in the room, and that is the CEO of the YWCA, Magdalena Verdugo. She has, been a gracious CEO for our community, but in particular, over the last three months, has been our host in District 5 for our Love of Leuctura series. This is a series that I created with our staff to celebrate reading, to celebrate local authors. And in three months, we've had about three fifty people join us. And our next Love of Leuctuda series is going to be with a former supervisor, perhaps you've seen him on NPR now, David Yetman.

These events are selling out in twenty four hours when we post the tickets. We're at capacity for supervisor Yetman and looking to add more space. But, Ms. Verduer, thank you so much for hosting us. We've had a great time with our authors, and thank the YWCA for hosting us. Thank you, Chair Allen.

And now we'll go to agenda adjustments.

On the regular agenda, Page three, Item 12, it's an executive session. And then on the addendum agenda, Page one, Items three, four, and five, the executive session items will be heard at a time soon of twelve p. Back to the regular agenda, Page five, Item 22, under County Administrator, this is unfinished business from November 18, the Central Arizona Project Presentation. This item will be heard after call to the public. On Page five, Items 20 five-twenty six under conservation lands and resources, these are contracts unfinished business from November 4.

And also on Page six, item thirty and thirty one, these are under real property. These are also contracts unfinished business from October 14 and November 4. The county administrator requests these items be continued to the Board meeting of February 17. And on Page six, Item 32, real property. This is the notice and at 75 East Broadway. This item will be heard after regular agenda item number 22. Thank you.

Okay.

We have a number of recognitions and presentations and proclamations today, and we are going to start with the recognition of the retirement of Robert Questas, Park Specialist II Parks and Recreation for forty years of service. I think the county administration is acknowledging.

We are, and I'm looking for the DCAs and our directors on that

Good morning, Robert. How are you? So I'm Carmine De Bonis. I'm the deputy county administrator. I can attest, Robert. This is the first time you and I have met. Correct?

Correct.

Absolutely. But we have something in common. Right? I've been with the county thirty years, and congratulations on forty years with Pima County. That's no small feat.

Thank you, sir.

Well, and thank you for serving the public through our parks and recreation department. I mean, those amenities are touched by everybody in our community, and it's folks like Robert really who make those amenities very special, right, for the use by families and and youth and visitors to our community and couldn't be more honored to stand here next to you as a long time county employee and just wish you the best in your retirement. I'm sure you have lots of things that you're looking forward to do after putting in forty years at Pima County. Say a few words. Do you have family here?

Yes, my wife. Okay. Well, here you go, Robert. Thank you so much. Thank you.

So our next recognition is the retirement of Leticia Guzman Maldonado, administrative assistant one for the in the courts, Pima County Superior Court, for thirty six years of service.

A few words. Thank you. Good

morning, everybody. I'm Jennifer Torsha and I'm one of the deputy court administrators with juvenile court. We're going to have a theme. I think this is the time we've met as well. But thirty seven years of service, so much appreciated. Frankly, we couldn't do the work that we do if it wasn't for people like you. So again, appreciate all those years of service and best of luck on this next chapter.

Thank you. Thank you. I want to thank all my family and my friends that came and coworkers. I wanna start with Che, my daughter Lisa, my son Mike, my son Mario, my granddaughter Janelle, my sister Lucy, my goddaughter Kelly, my cousin Mary Anne, my cousin Mike, Marissa, Armando, Ray, Scott, and, of course, the head of all clerk of the court, Jim.

You know, it's James. Thank you. Thank you. You're back. You're welcome. May I can we get the family up here too? Come on, James and the family for a quick photo if you can get up here. None of you wanna be in a picture with her? Come on up. Yes. Can you hold that?

So I don't have to run back

and Our

next recognition is one that we do on a quarterly basis, and these are outstanding county employees who are nominated by peers, selected by peers, and it's for the gems, the gems of Pima County. So to acknowledge each of the gems I will pass to the administrator.

Thank you so much Chair Allen. And the first group are underneath Deputy County Administrator Holmes, so I will turn it over to him.

Good morning.

We have first Mackenzie. Mackenzie Smiths, Administrative System two from Facilities Management. All right. Mackenzie's I think you can be right here. Mackenzie's job means working with a diverse group ranging from managers and shop supervisors to accounts payable staff and outside vendors. She ensures vendors follow their contractual obligations and follow-up with on invoices. Recent examples of her willingness to go an extra mile to ensure peak performance of staff members is creating an internal process documentation and tracking work tasks in an easy to visualize calendar. Everyone give it up for Mackenzie. She makes great burgers too.

You. Thank you, Mackenzie.

Next we have our administrative specialist, one from the library, Susan Afsali. Sosan understands the significance of her role as a department representative for recruitment, reaching out to candidates, and showcasing her dedication to public service. She's known for seamlessly juggling multiple responsibilities while assisting coworkers, answering questions, and providing guidance to colleagues, all while jumping in to resolve issues with kindness, respect, professionalism, and understanding. Thank you, Sasan, for all your work.

Thank you so much. All

right. Next, I'll turn it over to my colleague, Carmine.

Thank you, Steve. Good morning again. Happy to be here. This morning, we're gonna recognize Gabriel, Gabriel Lopez junior.

Where are you, sir? Good. Good. Good. So

Gabriel's been with the county almost four years now, and I'd like to think he's on in his way to a forty year to able then we're get get a assistance and employment above all. So that's a unique space. Folks who have served in our veteran service and coming out and acclimating into the community again. Gabriel does that in a super way. I mean, he does it with care and with heart, always with a smile on his face.

Congratulations. Thank you for being selected as a gem. And then we're gonna recognize Martin Gonzalez with Parks and Recreation as well.

So

Martin's been with the county for six years Parks and Recreation Department and he's a Park Specialist one and he gets to operate the county shooting facilities both our gun shooting facilities and also archery shooting facility. So across the Southeast Regional Park and Tucson Mountain Park, seven different locations. And so Gabriel not only manages or works in those locations, but really takes the time and the care to understand the equipment that's there. So he's read up on the clay target equipment and how to maintain that and repair that. And so really an asset to the Parks and Recreation Department and we're happy to have you here for six years and again hopefully on your way to decades of service at Pima County.

So thank you very much, Martin, for being selected as a gem.

And we are now moving to the county attorney's office, believe. I'll ask them to join us as well as Kim, who is the deputy city attorney, who will make that presentation.

Good morning everyone. Jackie, can you come up? Jacqueline Chang. She works in our operations division in the Pima County Attorney's Office. Jackie coordinates with our staff and with our attorneys, felony indictments, subpoenas, anything that we need to keep the criminal justice system going.

Jackie is often the first point of contact that law enforcement and our attorneys and other staff have in the office. Without her contributions, we would not be where we are today. She is amazing. She's willing to chip assist us and help anyone in our office. We are really proud to nominate Jackie for this award.

Thank you. Thank you. And the juvenile court, is it can you are you gonna be able to come with us again? We have Carrie Carol Valris. Help me. Help me. Help me here.

Carrie. Call

it up.

Carrie. Tell us. Just said. Just said. Court appointed special advocate. Thank you. First, pronounce your last name? Calvaries. Calvaries. That's what I thought it was.

Come on in, Carrie. So I'm going to go ahead and start off with reading this right here. So it says as lead coordinator for the advocate program, Carrie ensures the volunteers, child advocates, have the tools they need to complete this sensitive yet very important work. Carrie also mentors and onboards new volunteers and recruits future volunteers working nights, weekends, and holidays if necessary to help meet the the goals of the program. Carrie is amazing.

Our appointed special advocate program has hundreds of volunteers, and with that, it requires a lot of work to ensure our volunteers feel that they're trained to be able to work with these kids, that they're able to be compassionate with our children, and that they feel supported. So Carrie, on top of doing all of what's said here, she also coordinates events, to ensure that people are having fun, fun activities. She puts together other, activities throughout our community to celebrate our volunteers and the children that they serve. And we very much appreciate Carrie and our CASA program. I'll give the plug, we're always looking for more volunteers.

Couldn't get away with being up here and not doing that. But again, Carrie is wonderful to work with and tremendous asset to our court.

Thank you. And now we're going to huddle up for a photo. But thank you all again for allowing us to take a few moments to recognize these gems. I think we have over 7,000 employees who every single day work very, very hard on behalf of the constituents and those who visit and live here in Pima County. But every now and then we've got a group that have gone just a little bit above and beyond and so it's a wonderful time for us to take just a moment's pause and honor them. So thank you all and now stay with us for one more photo and on to business.

Next on the agenda we have four proclamations. The first one is going to be the presentation of a proclamation to the Arizona Technology Council proclaiming January 14 to the sixteenth to be Arizona Photonics Day. I move the item.

Second.

Second. Is there a discussion?

Chair Allen? Yes. The person listed on the agenda is not going to be here, but we have Shelby, I don't have a last name for Shelby, and Paloma Santiago, who will be here to accept the proclamation.

Great, thank you. All those in favor? Aye. Those opposed? Item passes, turn it over to Supervisor Scott to present the proclamation.

If the folks from the technology council are here to accept this.

There. How are you?

Good. Are you? Hey Shelby, mind do holding this? Sure. You.

Thank you. Tucson is home to world class businesses and scientific and educational institutions with decades of innovation and leadership in optics and photonics. And whereas, University of Arizona Wyant College of Optical Sciences is one of the premier educational and research institutions in optics and photonics worldwide. And whereas Tucson companies and organizations are on the leading edge of optics and photonics technology used in astronomy, medicine, advanced manufacturing, automation, metrology, clean energy, communications, and quantum computing. And whereas Optics Valley, a committee of the Arizona Technology Council, is the Tucson industry cluster that facilitates Arizona's leadership through business acceleration, workforce development, startup support, and connections to local and global opportunities.

And whereas the Optics Valley mission is to catalyze, convene, and connect optics and photonics and the supporting business interests throughout Arizona. And whereas the annual multi day Arizona Photonics Days conference in Tucson brings together Arizona optics companies, the global the global photonics alliance, and international industry leaders to connect and learn about innovations We're of

proud Southern Arizona and of beyond. Now therefore be it resolved

of that the Pima County Board of Supervisors hereby proclaimed January 14 through 01/16/2026 to be Arizona Photonics Days in this community and encourage to that.

We're

about

and Photonics community to

accept do this, that. And thank you for the Board of Supervisors for this recognition.

Shelby, thank you very much. Happy to have you here with us.

Our next presentation is a proclamation to Tory Chisholm, Executive Director and Lori O'Brien, Operations Director for Friends of PAC, proclaiming Wednesday, January 28 to be Friends of PAC Day in Pima County. I'll move the item. Second. Seconded by Supervisor Himes. Discussion? All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? Item passes, five-zero. This is again.

You.

Jerry Allen. If we could have our friends from Friends of PAC come up and join us, please. Right up here. Do you mind holding this, Tori?

Absolutely. Thank you.

Where is Mr. Kazachic? Come on. Don't these directors know what to do, Jan? We also have our Pima Animal Care Center director, Steve Kazachic, us.

Whereas the Friends of Pima Animal Care Center was created on January 2836 by a coalition of Pima County leadership and concerned citizens to provide critical additional resources to PAC, enabling it to serve as many animals as possible and continue providing the highest level of animal care services for years to come. And whereas Friends of PAC's mission for the last ten years has been to ensure PAC animals are supported with the resources needed for a safe, healthy, and happy future. And whereas the contributions made by Friends of PAC to Pima County have facilitated the creation of the Pet Support Center, Keeping Families Together program, Medical Pets Fund, Karen's Caring Man Mobile Medical Unit, Spay Neuter Support program, and most recently, adoption satellite. And whereas Friends of PAC established the Friends Pet Clinic, a low cost veterinary practice dedicated to serving the pre surrender and post adoption needs of vulnerable team

the team team to it is fitting and proper to

acknowledge support the support and contributions to made over the past ten years by the Friends of PAC, which has helped Pima County to achieve a reduction of its euthanasia rate. Now therefore be it resolved that the Pima County Board of been working

strong foundation

working working the Board of of Directors

of

Thank you all for this recognition. I will say on behalf of the thousands of community members who make up the Friends of PAC, we're so grateful for leadership at the county level, both Board of Supervisors and the Administrator's Office for the care of vulnerable pets in our community. And it's our honor to help work upon this great base just to bring more care and compassion to the animals who need it the most. So thank you.

Thank you. Anybody else? No?

And now we're going to go to a couple of addenda item proclamations. The first addendum item number one is a presentation of a proclamation to Magdalena Verdugo, CEO of the YWCA of Southern Arizona Victor Boleg and Doctor. Laura Banks from the Reed Center for Gender and Racial Equity of the YWCA, Pat Burris with Coming to the Table, NAACP, League of Women Voters of Greater Tucson, Pat Topkey, coming to the table, League of Women Voters of Greater Tucson, Doctor. Johnny Chavez, Voices of Change, and Betsy, and I apologize if I'm not pronouncing this correctly, Bozia, President of the League of Women Voters of Greater Tucson, proclaiming the day of Tuesday, January 20 to be National Day of Racial Healing in Pima County. I move the item.

Item. Second. Seconded by Supervisor Hines. Discussion? All those in favor?

Aye. All those opposed? Item passes five-zero. And I will present the proclamation. I first say I attended the event on Saturday and it was wonderful, thank you.

My son was there with me as well, and just got a lot out of it. We had great discussions afterward and appreciate your leadership and your hard work. Proclamation reads: Whereas we all witness growing racial divisiveness across our urban, suburban, rural, and tribal communities today that threatens the very core of democracy, and whereas the impact of the racial inequities is clear and underscored by the systems that perpetuate inequity and injustice which have been generations in the making, And whereas, like those who came before us, it is our duty to protect children and maintain communities in which they may all be given the opportunity to succeed. And whereas we understand and recognize that we must all work to heal the wounds created by racial, ethnic, and religious bias, and build an equitable and just society so that all can thrive. And whereas all individuals have the right to be provided every opportunity to learn, grow, and thrive in nurturing environments that don't jeopardize their safety, dignity, and humanity.

And whereas every person has the capability to make a simple change within him or herself that can have a profound effect on an entire society. Whereas if we all dedicate ourselves to a process that brings individuals and communities to wholeness, repairs the damage caused by racism, and transforms societal structures into ones that affirm the inherent value of all people, We can bring about the necessary changes in thinking and behavior that will propel this country forward as a society where everyone belongs. And whereas racial healing is a vital and crucial commitment to the educational, social, mental, and overall well-being of us all. Now therefore be it resolved that the Pima County Board of Supervisors hereby proclaims Tuesday, January 2026, the day following Martin Luther King Junior Day, as the national day of racial healing in Pima County, passed and adopted this January 2026. Thank you.

Somebody would like to oh, sure. I'll say something because I actually wrote something.

Thank you, Chair Allen, and members of the Board of Supervisors, and all of our community partners, on behalf of the YWCA, the League of Women Voters, thank you for your leadership and for formally recognizing January 20 as a day of racial healing, a powerful affirmation of our shared commitment to justice, equity and belonging. We are deeply honored by this proclamation and grateful for the Board's leadership and commitment to advancing equity, justice and collective healing in our community. This proclamation serves as a meaningful affirmation of our shared responsibility to confront racism, foster understanding and build a more just Pima County for all. Thank you.

And then our final proclamation is to Doctor. John Arnold, CEO and Founder and Paul Diaz, President of PPEP and Edgar Granillo, President of PMHDC Board of Directors, proclaiming the day of Monday, 01/26/2026 to be PPEP Micro business and housing day in community. And I should note that this is addendum item number two. I move the item. Second. Seconded by supervisor Hines. All those in favor? Aye. Those opposed? Item passes. Five zero. And this goes to supervisor Scott to lead.

Micro Business Housing Development Corporation under the Portable Practical Educational Preparation Incorporated is one of Pima County's oldest strategic partners having worked together to establish the community development block grant program under governor Bruce Babbitt. And whereas the mission of the PMHDC is focused on socioeconomic development in underserved communities that we the the first $40,000,000 in small loans. And whereas the PMHDC worked with former Pima County Supervisor David Yetman and the Pascua Yaki Association to We

great

to land to build their own homes in of several states and is proud proud to to have built more than 650 houses for farming families. And whereas PEP and PMHDC worked with my with Pima County to raise $1,300,000 to build the Amado Youth Center, partners with Pima County to operate the diverse voices in prevention program, which focuses on opioid prevention programs, and submitted the first grants for all the rural clinics in Pima County. Now therefore be it resolved that the Pima County Board of Supervisors in recognition of the PMHDC fifty year anniversary hereby proclaims Monday, 01/26/2026 to be PEP micro business and housing day in Pima County and recognizes doctor John Arnold, PEP CEO and founder for his fifty eight years of leadership. PEP board members such as Enrique Serna, Arnold Palacios, Doctor. Celestino Fernandez, Gerta Brown Heard, Paul Diaz and many other leaders including staff of PEP Incorporated.

Congratulations.

I was all prepped to have a bunch of people here other than those that are remaining. I was going to let you know that I'm wearing this mask not because I sit on the OREO Board of Directors, but because I'm having dental surgery and I didn't want to scare you all. And also I just add to your last comment there that the relationship between Project PEP and Pima County Board of Directors began in 1958 when Bud Walker was the chair of

the board.

So I felt those were worth mentioning. So thank you all very much. I appreciate it, Madam Chair, members of the Board, Andres. Thank you all. Dan?

So we are now going to

move

to call to the public, which is item 11 on the regular agenda. I am going to read out loud the guidelines per the Board of Super visors rules and regulations for call to the public. Citizens attending the meeting shall observe rules of propriety, decorum, and good conduct. Any person making personal, impertinent, or slanderous remarks or who becomes boisterous while addressing the board may be removed by the sergeant in arms if directed by the chair. Such person may be barred from further audience before the board.

Unauthorized remarks from the audience stamping the feet, whistling, yells, and similar demonstrations shall not be permitted by the chair who may direct offenders from the hearing room. We have nine speakers, this morning, and I'll call out the first three speakers and actually invite you to come and sit in the reserved seats in the front just so we can kind of keep things moving along. Our first speaker is telephonic and that is April Musser.

Good morning. I'm here today to bring to your attention a serious transparency and governance issue involving the Pima County Attorney's Office and its ongoing non compliance with Arizona Public Records Law. On July 30, nearly six months ago, I submitted a public records request seeking basic financial allocation and expenditure records from the County Attorney's Office. These are standard budget records that every county agency is required to maintain for budgeting, auditing, and reporting purposes. Over the past six months, I have received no documents, no timeline, and no partial production.

Instead, I received repeated statements that no records were available for months and that recent communication indicates that the office is only now attempting to receive its own financial records from other internal departments and that no estimated completion dates can be provided. Requests for a schedule for production have been denied. Arizona law, ARS thirty nine thousand one hundred twenty one and thirty nine thousand one hundred twenty one point zero one requires that public records be open to inspection and that copies be furnished promptly. The statute does not set a fixed number of days, but Arizona courts have consistently held that promptly means without undue delay. In Phoenix New Times versus Arpaio, the Court of Appeals made clear that agency workload staffing issues or internal processes do not justify prolonged or indefinite delay in producing these records.

When the county attorney's office refuses to comply with state law, specifically prompt access as required under ARS thirty nine thousand one twenty one, it's not just a delay, it's a non compliant Arizona statute and it undermines the fundamental duty of that office which is to uphold, interpret, and enforce the laws in this county. If the county attorney's office truly does not possess the financial records required for budgeting and audit compliance, that raises serious questions about internal controls, reporting, and fiscal oversight. If the records do exist and are being withheld, that raises equally serious questions about transparency and accountability. At this point, it's no longer just a public records issue, it's a governance issue that affects public trust, fiscal oversight, and the county's potential legal exposure.

Thank you, Ms. Messer. Our next speaker is Diane and Allen Young.

Yes.

This is, my name is Diana Schultz, and I am on the board of directors for the Tucson Society of the Blind. I have submitted a petition to you, the board of supervisors. I am, also sending it to the mayor and council and to the regional transportation agency. I've been working on this project for almost two years. We need to get the boundaries changed for paratransit transportation.

We have individuals that live outside the so called boundaries that are handicapped, disabled in some sort, whether they're autistic, whether they're dialysis patients or the blind, we need to change the boundaries to include all of Pima County residents. Currently, there are 900 homes at Rocking Kay Ranch. We have individuals living out there that aren't able to take advantage of the paratransit, system because they live outside the so called boundaries. I feel that the boundaries should, be inclusive of all taxpayers in Pima County so there is no taxation without representation. And these individuals have no way to get to doctor's appointments unless they pay an individual, to take them.

Some of us because they have never worked. They live below the poverty line because they don't have the social security income that a lot of us that have worked and are able to collect a larger amount of money. So I am asking you to do whatever is in your power to help me get this passed. I understand that the RTA has a plan online that you can view and I looked at it and the boundaries have not been changed and I believe that the boundaries have not been changed in twenty years. There has been an incredible amount of growth in that amount of time.

I have been here since 1963 and I have seen a lot of changes in the city and I think it is only fair that we provide the services necessary to our handicapped population. Thank you very much. Thank you.

Next we have Dana Cormash.

I've been here with this book, Computers in Society. Doctor. James LaSalle told us '4, Computers won't replace people, they will displace them. People will be able to work less hours and share jobs. Well, that's not happening.

Did I thank you yet? I've got to thank you. I know you're doing the best you can, but this Project Blue, it's not only the water and the utilities that are statistics on the data centers that are already up in various parts of our country and there is a higher rate of rare cancers and miscarriages. So it's not very good. And I have a ton of articles because I save everything. But you are doing a great job, I know. That's my opinion.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Alan Young.

Good morning supervisors and administrator Lesher. My name is Alan Young and I am a resident of District 3 here in Pima County. I appear again before you today to speak on behalf of veterans of Pima County. More importantly, I am representing disabled veterans such as myself. I would like to talk about the recently amended Senate Bill seventeen forty nine adopted by the Arizona State Legislature last year with an implementation date of 01/01/2026.

This bill deals with property tax exemptions for disabled veterans. Under the revised bill, veterans rated by the Veterans Administration with a 100% rating are exempt 4,188 with total disregard of combined household income so long as their total assessed value does not exceed $28,429 Veterans rated by the VA at less than 100%, the $4,188 exemption is limited by multiplying the total exemption by the percentage of the veteran's disability so long as their total assessed value does not exceed $28,459 and the combined total household income does not exceed $34,901 with no dependent children in residence and $41,870 with one or more dependent children in residence. Regarding total household income, the following compensation income from all sources includes cash public assistance and relief, railroad retirement benefits, payments under the federal Social Security Act, payments under the unemployment insurance laws of the state, payment from any veteran's pensions, workman's compensation payments, and loss of time insurance. When I went to the Pima County Assessor's Office to apply for an exemption as a 90% disabled veteran, I was told by the gentleman working that total income exemptions for 100% disabled veterans was a lie. He did give me the application and told me what supporting documents I needed.

When I returned the next day to submit my completed package, a different gentleman accepted my package and told me that Pima County was still confused about what the amendment bill meant. A veteran colleague of mine who was 100% disabled went to submit his package and he was told by the gentleman working that day that Pima County has requested a meeting with Governor Hobbs to get guidance and clarification on how to implement the exemptions for disabled veterans. I was also told by a veteran from Cochise County that they are fully on board with the amended bill and they are process claims without any questions. I would ask that county staff work with the assessor's office to determine the guidelines that Pima County will follow and disseminate information so that disabled veterans residing in Pima County can apply for any and all exemptions they are entitled to. Thank you.

Our next three speakers are Lori Moore, Robert Royce, and

COVID vest with mask because it's flu season. My name is Laurie Moore, I'm a heterosexual taxpaying U. S. Citizen of Pima County. This is my several years in review of you. When Board Supervisor Adalita Grijalva and Dems lured, aided, abetted, harbored and transported 600,000 illegals through Arizona, there was no vetting, sponsors or medical documentation. Because of that, DHS withheld $51,000,000 from Pima County. We are rightfully on the radar of the Feds and ICE. The preschool PEEPS program has been renamed early childcare. Is that babysitting for non citizens?

The number of pre schools is suspicious. Salerida has two, South Tucson has two, and the city of Tucson has 144. We sound like Minnesota. Are we next? Tucson will likely lose $20,000,000 in federal funding because of support for Drag Queen shows in public schools. Supervisor Allen thinks it is not a crime to be homeless, but what the homeless do is a crime. I have to rent a Ramada in the park while the homeless live there rent free. Littering and panhandling are crimes with hefty fines, yet the homeless are exempt. Some homeless people have dogs. Are the dogs registered with up to date shots?

There are places for the homeless to go, but because they refuse to go, they are given protected status to live in our parks and on our sidewalks. We have laws to protect us and keep the town clean, but they are not being enforced. These bad scenarios are but a few examples of the circular issues that you have created in the name of sympathy at the expense of sovereignty. Pima County deserves leadership that is enforcing the law, protecting the homeless, the border, and our money, which is meant only to be used for U. S.

Citizens in Pima County, not the undocumented. To assure that there are only women in women's sports and locker rooms, this had to reach the Supreme Court. That is ridiculous. A mental illness has attempted to destroy biological women's rights to compete fairly with other biological women. The court case should be renamed pick on somebody your own size or you can only play if you have the same DNA.

Biological men with or without gender confusion have always been able to compete with other biological men. Gender is determined at conception. Surgery can alter looks but not DNA. I have a simple slogan to clarify the gender issue it goes like this: Whether you sit or stand to take a whiz, if you have a prostate gland you is what you is. Thank you.

Our next speaker is Robert Royce. And then following Robert we have Jerry Bustamante, Lucy Howell, and J. P. Salvatierra. And that's all the cards we have.

Sorry about my dry voice. I have had my first cold in twenty five years and my first norovirus in forty five years. And I've gotten over both of them, but my voice, my throat is still dry. Well, I fully expect the citizens of Tucson to know enough to vote down overwhelmingly this RGA expansion project. I'm not taking any chances.

I'm asking everyone with ears to vote no on the RTA. You only have to look at the mess on Grant Street, 6 Months, two miles closed, all the cross streets closed, one lane on Alvernon totally jammed up, one totally jammed up, no one doing anything about it, no one has in any kind of hurry to finish, there's enough workers show up so they pretend they're doing something, but they're not. And why not? The city of Tucson only has 12.5% of the representation on the board while we collect well over half the taxes and have over half the population. The whole system is engineered to squeeze money out of Tucson to pay for the sprawl in the satellite cities.

And that's the way it is. So I'm asking everyone to vote no. Us If Tucson citizens should vote no as a matter of civic pride and the rural voters should vote no as a matter of fairness. Once we vote down the RTA, county wide sales tax plan is far superior in every way. It sheds the wasted bureaucracy, is costing us a lot of money.

It gives a 1% transportation tax to every municipality with a balance of unincorporated areas going to Pima County to take care of our roads. It gives a two percent general fund tax to every municipality in the county and 2% balance goes to Pima County. But I've promised several thousand people that three quarters of the new income to Pima County, I'm talking specifically of the general fund income will go to reduce property taxes. Why? Countywide sales tax plan is a property tax abatement program to keep people in their homes, keep people from getting taxed out of their homes by this skyrocketing county taxes, but it also will provide equivalent of the RTA tax generated in rural areas to the county to fill in extra needs so we can simultaneously reduce property taxes and actually have an increase in funds to support the county.

Thank you very much.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Jerry

Good morning, Madam Chair, members of the Board. I'm Jerry Bustamante. I am with Hudbay and the Copper World project and here regarding the communication presented by Supervisor Hines on today's addendum agenda. Now while we recognize that this Board has a history of resolutions opposing mining of the Santa Rita's. Not here to argue against the Board's communicating those positions.

On the contrary, I am here to extend a sincere invitation to this Board. Now we believe the best way to address your concerns outlined in your recent resolutions specifically regarding water use in the Tucson AMA, air quality and protection of cultural resources is truly through direct engagement and factual technical review. To that end, I would like to suggest a few steps that will help us move towards really a productive relationship, a relationship that we as a company have always wanted. First, I invite you to come out and tour Copper World. Seeing the site layout and the planned mitigation measures firsthand provides a perspective that a written resolution cannot capture.

Second, we are hopeful that you would be interested in periodic update meetings with the county administrator to share potential milestones and discuss any areas of interest and concerns. And then finally, we would welcome the opportunity to sit down with you individually as often as you would like and address the continuing concerns mentioned in Doctor. Hines' communication ensuring that you have current and factual information. Now we've been successful as a company leading as a transparent and responsible neighbor. We believe that open doors and open dialogue will serve this community much better than communications like the that you ones are voting on today.

Meanwhile, we continue to advance the Copper World project. Last week our joint venture partner with Mitsubishi was finalized and also last week the law suit challenging Copper World's right of way from the Arizona State Land Department was decided in our favor. So Copper World is is no longer a question of if it gets built. It is moving forward. And for more reasons why our relationship needs to change for the better.

So regardless of today's vote, I hope that you accept our invitation to visit the Copper World site to learn more about the reality of the project and that we can begin to work towards a constructive relationship that ensures that the Copper World project will bring the greatest possible benefits to this community. Thank you.

Our next speaker is Lucy Howell.

Good morning. Good morning, Administrator Pleasure and esteemed panel or the Board of Supervisors. My name is Lucy Howell. I represent the Force for Health Network. I'm the co founder along with my co founder who is based out of State College, Pennsylvania, Doctor. Robert Gillio, who acts as our Chief Medical Officer. So I just want to start off by asking one question. Does this board feel like we have what it takes to be a global leader when it comes to collaborative healthy communities? And I'm going to circle back to that question at the end. We, I Lucy, actually believe that we do.

At the Force for Health, we believe that everybody can be a force for health for themselves, for their families, for their communities, and for the planet, but we recognize that not everybody has equal access and opportunities to do so. So let's talk about a couple problems here. Did you know that the CDC claims that nine out of ten U. S. Adults low health literacy proficient.

That's kind of scary, right? Lack of access to be able to navigate our health care systems properly leads to unavoidable costs, which is number two. 80% of healthcare related costs are tied to preventable long term chronic disease. So what's going on? Our schools are not addressing the issue properly and so this whole concept of a chamber of health leaders coming together for the sole purpose of improving health outcomes is what we're going to be launching in February and we're inviting you guys to come.

Okay, the third problem is that we have a huge workforce gap. Okay, healthcare workers are at critical shortage. I'm on a statewide panel that's looking to place 30,000 healthcare related workers in place by 2030. But we are in a nation that spends the most per capita, has the highest number of doctors, and yet we are number one, number two globally unhealthy on the list. And so we have to go to the individual and we have to hold the individual accountable for their own health literacy.

So that's why we've created a free health virtual academy, right? But technology and academy is only one part. We need support, partnerships, and outreach to the community. So that's why I'm inviting you to get involved. In February we're going be launching the Team Up Greater Tucson Chamber of Health System and I'm leaving it so that we can show the rest of the country what highly collaborative communities look like. So thank you, heads up, nothing to do now but I will be reaching out to each of you to answer the question do you think we have what it takes to be the healthiest community in the country? This is not a politicized issue.

Thank you. Our next speaker is J. P. Salvatierra.

Chair

Allen, supervisors, Administrator Leisher, Attorney Brown. Are issues that I brought to your attention before that deal with the lack of full public disclosure. There are challenges to the open meeting law that even preclude you from sharing in healthy ways with the community and other things that we may not directly realize. We have the executive session, why not make it fully open and full disclosure? There is no greater problem that we incur than when this takes place and then special interest entities come to you and they use their contractual verbal direction and agreements behind closed doors to identify to the public at the very last minute when you've already concurred to some agreement of form and fashion that does not help the public.

And it precludes us from being fully aware of what's going on. We have issues with public records requests. I personally think that if someone brings something up in one meeting, the very next meeting that information should be allowed available to the public for everyone, not just that one person, so that it's a matter of record that we can go back into a log and find out what that issue was. It's so relevant to us now. We have thank you Chairman Hines for or I mean Supervisor Hines for attending the town hall with Attorney General Chris Mayes.

She brought up some very important points. We have a future of, I would call Copper World a future nuisance under our ordinance and guidelines. Have you ever looked at the satellite view of Green Valley's tailing pond? That's what this future is going to look like. How much 2.5 micron dust particles can we absorb before we are engulfed with COPD?

Have you ever seen a person die and gurgle their last breath from all that phlegm and fluid fluid in their lungs? It's horrific. Copper World, Tucson Electric Power, Fortis, the aluminum recycling in Benson, they all have problems that we need and to address. You.

Thank you. And then our final speaker is Rick Crinnell.

My name is Rick Grinnell. When I heard my fellow veteran over here, I'm a disabled veteran. I've had over 21 surgeries related to my injuries. Sustained in the military. Parking here again and I discussed this with the county by the way, madam chair, members, forgive me.

The elevators. I park in a handicapped spot, but the elevator, don't I know where you all park, the elevator was the other side and I don't even know if that one was open. There is no wheelchair access coming up this ramp into your West side door. This is unacceptable. If ADA gets a hold of this, the county may be looking at some this is to a much broader picture.

This is the mindset of people dealing with people with disabilities. We're not broken. We we have barriers. And these barriers can be minimized by basic responsibility to the access for people to get in and out of their properties. This young lady here, my heart breaks for you. My heart breaks for you. You know, and I have to tell you, in Europe, they seem to be very more in tuned with people with disabilities. The U. S. We talk about it.

We pound our chest and beat the courts. But nothing gets done. And I'm sorry, will you please ask your counterparts across the plaza here at the city council to get somebody to fix these elevators instead of putting signs, please go to the other one. It's unacceptable. I'm fortunate. I can still climb stairs. Thank you very much.

So that concludes and thank you to all of our speakers for coming and for sharing. That concludes the call to the audience. I will ask my colleagues if they have questions, recommendations for the administration.

Supervisor Kunlick? Thank you, Chair Allen. I'd like a follow-up from the county administrator on the parking lot elevator situation. This has been several weeks. We had in making and we had a constituent unable to attend a meeting in December. I don't know if this is an inventory issue at this point with the repairs, we've got to find a better solution. So I'd like for us to do a review and analysis of where first

quarter start of And disheartened to hear that we, have not remedied this '19. Issue.

And

And before I call on any other supervisors, I also need to close call to the public and now bring it back to my colleagues, Supervisor Christie. Mans.

Thank you, madam chair. I, too, echo supervisor Cano's request with the, just described elevator situation. A second issue I'd like to have the county administrator to, investigate is the caller that was, having issues with, public records for a substantial amount of time with no response. I would ask, that the county administrator look into this and find out what it is, particularly that's holding up the, the the request for the public records. I don't think it looks very well on, our county or our, administration when we have this kind of lack of response or or no response at all.

It may be perfectly legitimate. Maybe there's some reason, but I think it needs to be followed up. My second issue is I would like, and I know it's gonna happen because supervisor Hines is on the RTA committee. If he would be so kind as to follow-up on our speakers regarding their issues with the transportation for handicapped within the boundaries of the RTA and why what is keeping the RTA from addressing that. And I would also finally Board

of

the the

of

of of discussion with the Hudbay administration to find out exactly what the issues are that is instigating the resolution we'll be discussing later. But the invitation was extended and I would like very much to see if this can be accomplished through the county administrator coordinating that. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Supervisor Hynes?

Thank you. And I would like to echo my colleague from District 4 on addressing the just the timeliness of public records being requested and delivered not just from the county attorney but just across. I'm sure there's a process for that. We know we've been involved with that but and as well, my Chief of Staff actually speaking with this lady here upfront on the paratransit transportation boundary question, and I will be taking that to the Regional Transportation Authority Board of Directors as well to get some more information and figure out if those can be modified. So thank you for that.

And with regard to the gentlemen, the veterans specifically on 2025 Senate Bill seventeen forty nine, I think it was that the service amended veteran property tax exemption, which I think is a very reasonable thing to do. It's new and I just I guess I would just like to have staff check-in with assessor Drewby on that because it I think it's a commendable thing to do and it's great to talk about it, but now we have to make sure that we're implementing it. So thank you for bringing that to our attention. Happy to go see the Copper World site. And for the Force for Health Group, you might want to check-in if you haven't already with Doctor. Cullen in our public health department as well. Perfect. That's

all. Chair Allen.

Supervisor Scott. Thank you.

The of Directors

the RTA board

of and the PAG regional council. Of I think one of the issues that needs to be resolved is the fact that some paratransit responsibility is invested with the RTA and some transit responsibility is invested with Suntran. And I think folks like Ms. Schultz and her friends in the community are often confused as to which entity they need to deal with, and there's not always a great amount of coordination between the two bodies. Thank you, sir. Thank you, Chair Allen.

Thank you. Per the clerk's note earlier, we are now going to move to item number 22 on the regular agenda, which is unfinished business that was originally scheduled for the progress we've the past. Past. And progress Secretary of the Central Arizona Water Conservation in

Good morning, Madam Chair, members of the Board of Supervisors. I am Karen Caesar, and I am the Board Secretary for the Central Arizona Water Conservation District Board of Directors. I'm also joined here with me today by one of my Board colleagues, Mark Taylor, and Mark serves as the Co Chair of our Public Policy Committee. And like all of you, we represent the citizens of Pima County on the CAP Board of Directors. We are popularly elected.

People don't always remember that because we haven't shown up on a ballot for a while, but we run-in the general election, nonpartisan office and serve to represent the Pima County citizens on the Central Arizona Water Conservation Board of Directors. And we're very happy to be here today to give you just a little bit of update on what's going on with Arizona's largest renewable water supply, which is the water we get from the Colorado River. All live in the desert, we are aware of this, and I don't know if someone is going to forward. Thank you. Excellent.

I just want to say living in the desert and doing it successfully for a long time is important. It's important to our lives, our prosperity, our businesses, our families, our communities. So it's important to know where are Arizona's water sources? About a third of our water comes right now from the Colorado River. We get a little bit more than that, about 41% statewide from groundwater.

We get 18% from in state rivers, and when you're talking in Pima County, that's a head scratcher, but our in state rivers are actually the Salt River project systems of lakes and rivers that mostly benefit Maricopa County. And then 5% is from reclaimed water, and I'm also happy to report that Tucson area writ large is one of the leaders in developing and using reclaimed water as a renewable water supply. So that's kind of like where our water is is coming from. But specifically, we are concerned with the Colorado River. Here in Arizona, we are one of seven basin states in the Colorado River Basin.

We're divided into the Upper Basin and the Lower Basin. The Upper Basin is Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, and New Mexico. New Mexico is always kind of counterintuitive, but they are an Upper Basin state in the watershed. And the Lower Basin states, which is Arizona, California, and Nevada. Altogether, that area supports about 40,000,000 people.

It provides water to all the major cities, including of course Tucson, but Phoenix, Denver, Los Angeles, Salt Lake City, San Diego, amongst others. The water serves altogether 30 Native American tribes, 22 of which are in Arizona, 11 of which are CAP tribes, so some are on river and some get their water through our canal. We support 5,000,000 acres of irrigated farmland in Arizona, particularly in the Yuma area on river. They call it the nation's salad bowl. They produce a lot of winter vegetables that feed country.

We generate clean hydropower and we support our national parks and recreation and wildlife areas. The hardest working river in the West, of course, think is the Colorado River and CAP is the entity that provides this water to Arizona and provides us our water security.

Ms. Sizzer, don't think the slides are moving along with you. Okay, I queue them? Sorry.

Okay, there's the basin and then you can go to the next slide, which is the water security. Now you can go to the next slide. All right, there we go. Okay. But we all know that we have been in a drought for twenty five years and counting with no relief in sight.

And so the important thing is what are we doing now and how are we preparing for a smaller river in a future that is going to be hotter and drier than what we have had in the past. And I don't know if that slide there we go. With the chart, one of the things that's critical to the Colorado River is the snowpack runoff that occurs. And the snow primarily falls in the Upper Basin, primarily in Colorado, a little bit in Wyoming and Utah, of course, but that snowpack is the major source of water that feeds the Colorado River. And what we've also experienced in the past several years is a declining runoff.

We might even get some good snowy years, but because of the hot, dry nature of the soil that's got the big sponge, the water melts, it doesn't run off and find its way to the Colorado River, it soaks in the ground. This chart that you can see and that people online hopefully see too, shows that last year in 2025, we had only a 92 of average snowpack, but only a less than 50%, 49% of runoff. So we had a couple of good years before that, but it just underscores the situation that we're in and the concern that we all are trying to share with everybody. Also the problem that we're trying to solve here in Arizona is how do we continue to ensure that Arizona has its fair share of renewable water. A lot has been talked about shortage.

If you could go to the next slide, please. We are now in a Tier one shortage, and we have been for the last couple of years. That is really driven by the elevations of the water in Lake Mead. And you can see that as lake levels get decline, our shortage tiers get deeper. The deeper the shortage translates into more cuts on the river.

Next slide please. But Arizona has really been doing its part. We have been using a lot of large scale conservation Mead. We have been leaving water in Lake Mead, both required amounts of water and voluntary amounts of water. The important takeaway from this chart is just to show that Arizona has really been leading the way of all the basin states and leaving water in Lake Mead to keep those elevations from plummeting to lower elevations and triggering deeper levels of shortage.

And Arizona has been proud to do this. Tucson and Tucson Water is one of our major partners as are a lot of the tribes locally, the Tonnohom and the Pascua Yaqui have contributed to this as well as other users in the Maricopa County area. But overall, we have saved well over 5,500,000 acre feet of water in Lake Mead, so I can't tell you how important that's been to our situation. But what I'm going do right now is, as I'm sharing this presentation with my colleague, I'm going to hand this over to Director Taylor and I'm going have him kind of talk about what we've done specifically and where we're going with this. Then if there's time, of course, we're both available to answer any questions.

So thank you, and I'm going to turn this over to Mark.

Thank you Madam Chair, members of the board. My name is Mark Taylor, Director of representing Pima County for CAP. I've been on CAP board for about eleven years right now and co chair of public policy committee. Normally I'm pretty optimistic person but we're going through some really critical times right now for negotiations with the Upper Basin. We started in 2007 with the 2007 interim guidelines that was because water levels in the two main reservoirs Lake Powell, Lake Mead were full in 2000 and because the beginning of this drought dropped almost half that elevation within three or four years.

Hence we needed something to essentially stop the use of the Lake Powell and Lake Mead and that's where the 2007 interim guidelines came into being as a way that those mainly the Lower basin states could share the shortage. It's been successful. It was there for twenty years. It was made for twenty years and expires this year in December. And there's nothing behind it.

Now to replace it other than last two and a half years we've been negotiating with the Upper Basin and we haven't gone very far with that. We've started right from the very beginning offering the Lower Basin as we mentioned before is Colorado, Nevada and I'm sorry, California, Nevada and Arizona. And we said we give up 1,500,000 acre feet in time of shortage. Most of that from Arizona, about half of that from Arizona. And we've gotten nowhere with the Upper Basin.

They have so far agreed to not save one acre foot or release stop one acre foot of shortage or conserve one acre foot. It's a real problem. We're down to less than a year now. We have to have an agreement made. And so we've been two and a half years in the negotiating table.

The Bureau of Reclamation gave us until February 14, which is coming up for the seven basin states to come to an agreement and still aren't even close to doing that. At that point after February 14, the Bureau will probably choose or direct where we're going to go and who's going to lose that water. It's critical for Arizona, you have to remember Arizona is highly dependent on CAP and the Colorado River. Tucson is almost 100% dependent and the surrounding communities of Pima County are nearly totally dependent on CAP and Colorado River. So these negotiations are incredibly important right now and it's important that we all understand what's at stake.

Arizona does have lowest priority on the river and essentially Central Arizona CAP is the lowest priority on the river based upon old contracts. So it's something we want to keep in mind. We want to watch what's going to happen. February 14 is going to be incredibly important to see what the bureau does and either we come to some type of agreement or litigation is next and nobody really wants litigation. So anyway it looks like my time is up, but if there's any questions we'd be glad to talk about it cause it's very critical for Arizona and of course Pima County.

Thank you. Supervisor Christie.

Thank you madam chair. I'd like to thank directors Taylor and Cesar because they're always available, always willing and accommodating to discuss these issues to any groups at any time at any place. Director Cesar just spoke to the veil chamber recently, did an excellent presentation much like the one we're hearing today, very appreciative to know that there are directors of this very highly volatile issue that affects us all that are so willing to express themselves and express what the whole CAP program is all about. You're doing an excellent job and on on behalf of least my district, I can tell you they like to hear what you're saying, and they appreciate your hard work. So having said that, in a thumbnail, you know, of Tucson gave some allocation back to the CAP.

You also mentioned, I think, that some of the nations have have done the same thing. How does that work, and what does that mean? What's what's the significance of that? Is it actually water being shipped back to Lake Mead or Lake Powell from Tucson allocations, or is it future allocations being traded off?

Madam Chair, Supervisor Christie, again Karen Caesar. In a nutshell, there has been conservation programs that have been occurring for the last several years. Some are sponsored by CAP in the State of Arizona, some are sponsored by the Bureau of Reclamation. But at a high level, what they involve is current water users forgoing their regular delivery that that they would normally take I'll use City of Tucson as an example. They take all their CAP allocation is taken and recharged out in their recharged facilities, mostly in Avro Valley.

In lieu of taking some of their water, they have left that water in Lake Mead, large volumes in exchange for being compensated for it. That compensated conservation is that water is no longer City of Tucson, it's system water, it's there for the benefit of the whole system. And each water user has had the opportunity, and this includes tribes, to do this on a short term basis, one, two, three years, and they've just decided, well, we've got enough water, for example, in the ground, we can forego some deliveries for a little bit, not hurt ourselves or our customers, but reap some rewards financially as well as benefit the whole system. So it's been a very creative win win situation, and that's sort of the high level of how that has been working.

Thank you for that. And, madam chair, miss Caesar, when we when that happens, when that occurs in our region, does this help in any of the negotiations you're experiencing with the Upper Basin folks? Or do they say thank you very much and then move on? Does it benefit us eventually?

Madam Chair, Supervisor Christie, everything helps, but I think as Director Taylor said, Arizona has stepped forward for many years and contributed large volumes of water in Lake Mead to keep us out of shortage. Arizona does not want to be the only one solving the problem. We can't solve the problem on the backs of just Arizona and particularly the backs of the Central Arizona project. So it demonstrates proof of concept. Yes, you can do this, but I don't want to say.

It's a thank you very much, but what are you doing what have you done for me lately might be a little bit of the attitude of some of the other basin states. But we definitely applaud our efforts and we have and Arizona has for a long time acknowledged that we've really stepped up and done our part. Our message to the rest of the basin states and to the federal government is Arizona cannot be expected to do this on their own. Everybody that benefits from the Colorado River needs to participate and share in this next thing, the next solution. You for that question.

Thank you, Director Cesar. Thank you, Madam Chair.

And Supervisor Christopher, can you adjust your mic for next time? Supervisor Cano will just go this.

Thank you, Chair Allen. I also want to echo the appreciation to Directors Taylor and Director Cesar. We worked a lot together during my time Legislature. And one of the items that I'm most proud of during my term as the ranking Democrat on the House and Natural Resources Committee was a program called the Water Conservation Grant Fund, which is through the Water Infrastructure Finance Authority. Just want to echo that it is going to involve several partners in agriculture, industrial users, government to continue to conserve water in our region and throughout our state.

The $200,000,000 that we appropriated in 2002 for these efforts have funded more than 200 projects throughout the entire state, advanced system upgrades for metering. Metering is not a bad word in Arizona, the legislature thinks it is. Water efficiency, fixtures, recharge, turf removal, these are all the projects that have helped conserve several 100 excuse me, it's 1,000 acre feet of water. And so I just implore the Board at CAP to continue to ask our legislature to fund vital programs like this. I believe that that's a win win for both the short term and long term gain and really appreciate you and the entire Pima delegation for the leadership that you have demonstrated during your service and of course the entire Board.

I was at the legislature last week and also saw Mr. Goddard who I'm very pleased as one of your colleagues in this effort as well. Thank you, Chair Allen.

Supervisor Scott. Thank you,

Chair Allen and also want to extend my thanks to Director Cesar and Taylor for being with us today. When Pima County property tax look at their property tax bill, one of the property taxes that is assessed is from the Central Arizona Water Conservation District. Just for the benefit of the board and the public and media, media, could you let us know how you determine where that rate should be set and what it's used for?

Yes, Chair Ellen, Doctor. Scott, Board Member Scott. Yes, we usually use about $0.10 per dollar is what is allocated and every year we do a vote and whether we need that money and how that's to be allocated. Only about 10% of our total revenue comes from taxes, the rest of it comes from rates where we actually charge our rate payers actual cost of delivering that water. So that 10% is used a lot of times for infrastructure upgrades for any type of mainly infrastructure upgrades that we use it for.

It's important that that money is available because right now our infrastructure is over 50 years old. We need to maintain it in a position that we're always there, we're always able to deliver that water reliably and that's one of the most important things we need to do right now. But essentially we vote on it every year and we have a lot of opportunities coming up that we don't really know what's going to happen with potential water acquisitions or we are definitely going to have to come up with some type of new water sources over the next few years to meet what we're going to lose because we're going to lose about 50% of our water. So that needs to be made up. And so there'll be a lot of uses for those funds in the future.

As Board Member Conno said, infrastructure is going to be the key and new sources of water are going to be the key.

And if I could ask one other question, Chair Allen. I can't remember the percentage of our total water resources that are used by agriculture, but I think it is by far the majority of water use in this state. I think it's in the high 60s, low 70s in terms of percentage of total water resources used. I know that eventually we are going to have to as a state move towards not different different

types

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plant or large infrastructure could be twenty years in the future. But our opportunity to work with agriculture is something that can be done much quicker and much more efficiently. Your initial question is about 70% of all the Colorado River is used for agriculture. That's one of the numbers right away to look at. For CAP, it's pushing near zero right now.

We had quite a bit of CAP that was dedicated to agriculture, but after we went in the Tier one shortage that Director Cesar talked about, our agriculture was the lowest priority and that's been cut out. So all that agriculture you see in Pinal County and up from Maricopa, we don't serve anymore. But Arizona still has a lot of agriculture that's still being served along the Colorado River in Yuma and up in Mohave County. Those communities are going to be incredibly important that we as CAP and legislature work with past in So seen

the

past in the that could be a great opportunity for bringing new water sources to Central Arizona. So I think our communities, agriculture communities are incredibly important to be working with right now and we hope that is source of water through more efficient use and crop switching and potential following of areas that really aren't viable.

So just to clarify, of the Tier one shortage agricultural resources are not using CAP water. What they are using then is a combination of groundwater and river water.

They are using groundwater right now. When talking about Central Arizona, what we served previous to the Tier one shortage which again was primarily Pinal County and some areas in Maricopa County. They use groundwater now and I believe over 40% of that land has been fallowed since we stopped serving them and the remainder are now using groundwater. They're back on groundwater sources.

All right.

Thank you, sir. Thank you, Chair Allen.

And thank you, Chair Allen. I actually, Supervisor Scott and I were recently in November at company. And And with like the discussions among the seven states. Just based on what I heard from you all, don't know that I would maybe Supervisor Scott can tell me what he thinks, but I it sounded in a the 19.

We see

I'm sorry, did miss part of your presentation. Second Go ahead, go ahead. Director And

Taylor and I will tag team these questions, so I appreciate that. Again, Chair Allen, Supervisor Hines. We were optimistic. There's a part of us that is still remaining optimistic. However, the deadlines come and go and meetings come and go and meetings of the principals of the seven basin states are held.

No progress has been made yet. And so I would say we are not as optimistic that we are going to get to somewhere positive shortly as we were in November, sadly. And that's just that's in December, our Board staff along with several 100 thousands of other people attended the Colorado River Users Association Conference in Las Vegas. I think it was like its eightieth year where anybody involved with the Colorado River meets in Vegas to discuss policy issues, technical issues, hydrology issues, everything. And we were hopeful that there was going to be some breakthroughs at that meeting, and there really weren't.

So everyone is still talking. I guess the good news is everyone is still at tables talking, everyone is still engaging, nobody has completely retreated to their corners at this point in time. But in a nutshell, the Lower Basin and Arizona in particular, as I said, is our position is everybody that shares in the Colorado River and benefits from it needs to help in the participate in the reductions and we all need to work together. Arizona has demonstrated that we can grow without growing our water use. There's some I'm going to mess this up and this is where I look over to Mitch, who will tell me if I'm right or wrong.

But essentially, Arizona is using about the same amount of water that we used to in the 1950s. And we've clearly grown a lot since the 1950s. We know in Tucson, the water use right now remains the same as we had in the 1970s. I think we are a model and every time I can get up in any forum and just tout Pima County and our communities efforts around water conservation, while maintaining green infrastructure and quality of life, I do so. So we are a great example of how to do it.

Our Upper Basin colleagues have basically said, no, we need not only can we not cut our water, we need more water continue to grow to our vision. And again, in Arizona, we can say, no, that's you can grow, we support your growth and your prosperity, but we also think there's a lot of ways to grow that did not require a whole lot more water. So stay tuned. I mean, stay tuned. One other thing I'm going to say, and it was toward maybe the end of the presentation, is CAP has convened and we have kicked off an effort called the Coalition for Protecting Arizona's Lifeline.

We started with mayors, we've got business leaders, legislative, tribal members, and what we're trying to do is at this time just kind of get everybody pulling in the same direction in Arizona, joining our coalition. There's actually a simple as you can join a pledge online. And right now, it's just you all are invited to do so. And it's a way that we in Arizona can show ourselves and show the other basin states that Arizonans are united in protecting our lifeline. When the time comes, we will stand together and stand firm in the fact that having the Central Arizona project go to zero is not an option.

We are vital for national security. We have defense, we have agriculture, we have education, we have healthcare. All these things are important and that's why we will continue to stand and advocate for and fight for Arizona's water because as of now, Supervisor Hines, there isn't happy things to report. But we hope things can change at any minute, and that's what we're hopeful for. Thank you.

Perhaps Director Cesar, you just answered the question, but I was just going to ask if there are things that this body could be helpful. What is the ask of us? Are there things that we could be doing more differently, better?

A very straightforward ask that you can all do today it was on the presentation, but I will get to my you can stay informed. And everybody in Pima County can sign up for the Know Your Water News website, that's a CAP, that's little like info, graphics and bite sized bits of information about what's going on, so you're not overwhelmed. But you can go to knowyourwaternews.com and sign up for regular updates. You can enroll CAP has something called CAP University, and that again, that's an online little deeper dive into what the Central Arizona project is in our water, and anybody that's interested in doing that can do that and that just gets you informed. And then always you can join the coalition and you can go to protectingarizonaslifeline.org and join and sign a pledge.

You can do that today. And the more people we have, particularly leaders like you, particularly our elected official leaders that are signing this pledge and joining our coalition, demonstrate more support and more grassroots and critical mass support for our efforts. So those are specific things you can do. I appreciate you asking.

Well, thank you. Thank you both. We are now going to move on to item number 32. This is the option notice and rent at 75 East Broadway.

We have Chair Allen. If I may, thank you. I think you know, the county has been working for several years to look at a way to develop in cooperation with the Rio Nuevo multipurpose facilities district, a project for mixed use of our land located at 75 East Broadway. What you have before you today is the next step of that conversation and option of notice and rent amount. We have with us today the chair of the Rio Nuevo Board, Fletcher McCusker, and staff is also available for comment. If I may, we can ask Mr. McCusker speak to the issue.

Thank you, Jan, Madam Chair, members of the Board. I have three quick slides. One is our screenshot, which she shows you, we're very proud of. This is Rio Nuevo over the last fifteen years. We've now developed a half a dozen hotels, but we're still ranked eleventh according to the state in terms of hotel area near our convention center.

We love this screenshot. A lot of people think it's Dallas or Austin, Denver, it's Downtown Tucson. What you're voting on today, next slide please, is this spectacular property across the street from TEP. As Jan mentioned, we've been working on this since 2021. The first effort was in cooperation with the county to develop a primary employment base, office complex and retail that was dismantled during COVID.

It's important that you remember why we partner with you in the city. Rio Nuevo is exempt from the gift clause. We're the only jurisdiction in the state that can do something under market. We can donate land, we can invest in equity, we can rebate sales

made

quarter have And in we Board. We with a a

to

the have Board. Do option. Are allowed to approve the operator. That's why we're here today is to ask for your approval to develop this hotel on this site. Supervisor Kano and staff have negotiated some conditions to that.

We've indicated in writing as in your packet, we are fine with those conditions. We don't see any challenge in developing local retail. There's going to be some challenges I think with counsel and how we describe local. But if you wanted to see the next two slides, you'll see how we categorize the companies that we work with. Quite simply, if you reside in Pima County and you have a business that you are a principal in, we consider you local.

And you can see how we've done that throughout the last eighteen months. If you just go down that list, these are probably people's names you recognize, local operators, local businesses. When it's not local, it's identified as either a franchise or an out of the city operation. We're pleased with this track record. Over 90% of the work that we do is on behalf of local and small businesses.

The exception to that has been hotels with the exception of the HSL property, which is on its way to be Hyatt. Every hotel that we've had help with has come from out of town, Dallas, Phoenix, California and now Oregon. We can go to the last slide. This is the last six months, similar activity. We are investing almost 19.

The a quarter lot our discount on the property the value and pay full value for the property. So we're ready to advance this. It would go to our board next week. It would come back to you when the lease and option agreement are final.

Thank you. Questions?

Thank you, Chair Allen and Mr. McCusker. Really appreciate the conversations that you've had with staff and our counsel to ensure that this exciting development is aligned with values and supporting small businesses and ensuring the living wage for the contract work. This will be a lot of construction. I understand it's a $60,000,000 project.

Exactly. So I want to express to my colleagues with this parcel being in District 5, the county has a unique opportunity to hold hands with local business owners. I am supportive of today's contract and feel as though it's the first step of many discussions that we have to have. And I want to thank the OB team as well for giving me and our staff a briefing on this exciting proposal. And we look forward to their investment.

But Mr. McCusker, I do want to ask a question because I looked at the economic study that was provided in the supporting material. In Page 30, it says the highest and best use of the subject property is for the development of a mixed use, high rise development with ground floor retail and upper level multifamily residential uses and on-site parking. You impact very the And I the Rio Nuevo Board and thank you for your years of exceptional service. What is the role of housing in downtown moving forward?

And how can we as a county government hold hands with you? Because the direction we're going in today is obviously going to be a hotel and will not be housing. And I wanted to just have that conversation with you in public.

Chair Allen, Supervisor Conno, thank you for that. It's a struggle for us as well. In this situation and most of the situations where we're dealing with public land, it's a competitive request for proposal process. We have not seen a single affordable housing developer bid into those environments because of the costs and the rents that are available to those projects. The original project was indeed a combined retail office housing complex.

It failed. A large part of the reason it failed was financial markets collapse. Every one of these projects is financed independently of Rio Nuevo. They bring a commercial lender. They're very leery to do question.

I

going to

standalone public housing, that's but do it in a mixed use environment is to provide those developers incentives. We can do that with you, especially if some portion of that is retail. However, we don't own any land. So somebody's got to acquire the land, partner with us, or allow us like we are doing here to acquire that land to issue some incentives to the developer. We've provided the city with a list of 16 parcels that are inside our district that could be developed as affordable.

But it would require someone to acquire the land to partner with us to use our incentives to attract a developer. Most of the builders that I have met with that do affordable housing would probably work with us if we could substantially discount quarter had a

part of the problem

is on the cost of the high rise. You get above this hotel, you're into a whole new scale of expenses associated with building that. And they have been extremely hard do And

to to And

the past. In in new business. And We've we've yet to find and maybe combined with the county and combined with the city, I think the city has to engage with us. If we had a parcel of land that we could contribute to a developer, I believe we could find a mixed use

Chair Allen and Mr. McCusker, thank you for that explanation. I think it's really important that we hear that Rio De Novo is committed to additional housing within its boundaries. Certainly that's a District 5 priority. This Board allocated $10,000,000 this year in stock gap financing for affordable housing projects and that will continue to stair climb over the ten year plan.

And so I offer that as guidance to both our administration and our private partners that with the addition of with this exciting addition of this particular Tucson Inland market adding an additional hotel, the news from HSL that the Hyatt it will be coming. I'm feeling a little bit as though we are having some hotel density and I want us to focus now on the housing side as we move forward. So Chair Allen, I just want to thank you for the opportunity to ask those questions and continue to ask that Rio Nuevo and our council work on language for local operators. The exciting part about this colleagues is that it is both the hotel and an outside market. And the visuals that I've seen are

it's this is going to

be a huge investment in downtown. I'm really excited about it. And my my hesitancy is that we I don't wanna see big box stores in our downtown area. And I sympathize with the need for you to have a tax base that contributes to the district, But we've got to listen to our small business operators and we'll define that in the contractual negotiations moving forward.

We are free to use our incentives as we see fit and we do not intend to incentivize a big box store. So we'll continue to do what you've seen that we're doing. One of the challenges we have, if you've read the recent auditor general report, they were very critical of us in hotel development. We are eleventh out of 11 cities, and we are state. I'm appointed by the governor.

I report to the legislature. They want us to build another 900 hotel beds. There may be a way to do that in the years. Going to to

next

do

beds. You Mr. McCusker. Further questions? Supervisor Scott.

Just wanted to share with my colleagues what Mr. McCusker and and administrator Lesher know which is that that's that's

question.

I

of of of Directors

expectations of the auditor. Wonder auditors I wonder if you

could of address for the board what roles the city and county could play and perhaps especially frame that around the potential creation of a convention district?

Rio Nuevo is an assigned boundary. It's a dog bone from the base of A Mountain along Broadway to Park Mall. We can only operate inside of that boundary. There is a conversation ongoing about expanding those boundaries, which will enable us to move north south along that line. We've been suggested not to approach the legislature this session. Session. I think supervisor Connoe would understand why. So we need political cooperation. We are a state agency. Our budget is appropriated through legislature and signed off by the governor.

So it takes a political act at the legislature to expand us. The Attorney General audit is used by leadership, particularly President Peterson to hold us accountable to our appropriated dollars. So the good news is this is a go forward request. The audit determined us to be in 100% compliance currently, which is astonishing given what we all know where Rio Nuevo started. Going forward, in order for us to keep these state tax dollars flowing, we have to respond to the Auditor first in the said to the board.

However, we don't own any land. And We're going to need partners, private sector partners, public sector partners to identify and invest state dollars into The legislature would not allow us to invest exclusively into housing. We're a sales tax TIFF. We've got to produce sales tax. So anything that we do to supervisor Conno's goal has to include some portion of retail. But I think that's what we all want. But we're stymied given our economics without the help from the state and probably without the help from the county and the state.

So just to follow-up, Chair Allen, the recommendation is to look at mixed use opportunities, including within those 16 parcels that Rio Nuevo District shared with the city. But specific to following up on the audit, even given that we're that it's not advisable to follow-up with the legislature at this point, In terms of following up on the audit recommendations, what can the city and the county do now that would be helpful towards following up on those audit results?

Increase overall 19, increase to the to auditor general, they want us to increase hotel the density in and around the convention center. In order for us to be competitive as a convention desire, and I think Visit Tucson would agree with this, we need to increase the number of hotel beds that are walkable to a convention. And that's our primary goal. It doesn't necessarily align with what the county wants nor what the city wants. So for us to next comes

from

pleased with the the in

And

And got three years now to demonstrate that we understand.

Three years before the next audit? Yes. Okay.

All

right. So I just wanted to reiterate that and Chair Allen and I talked about this when we made the transition from my position as Chair to hers that I would continue to be the board's representative to any conversations between you and the city about following up on the audit results and would like to reiterate a request made to the county administrator and the city manager in our last mayor and chair meeting that we look for an opportunity for the three of us to have that conversation so that we can help to address some of the concerns of the auditors. And again, very interested in what you have said today and also what was referenced in that article in the Star about the potential of a convention district. Is that something that would be needed to be done by the legislature?

First And overlay are not good. With We currently sunset in 2035, however. And there are long term issues now that we've all elected to save this convention site rather than to build a new one. So at some point, having a convention center district where the tax is created inside that district supported convention center development would be desirable. That's not likely to happen as long as Rio Nuevo is currently in the statute.

Understood. All right. Thank you Mr. McCusker. Thank you Chair Allen.

If there are no further questions, I will move the item.

Second.

Seconded by Supervisor Hines. All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? The item passes five-zero. Thank you, Mr. Fletcher. We will go back in order on the regular agenda and pick up item 13. And this will be the Board of Supervisors sitting as the library district board. This is a contract with Ingram Library Services. I will move the item. Second. Any discussion? Seconded by Supervisor Hines. Any discussion?

Madam Chair, just questions. The $4,800,000 contract in this item includes books and video materials and games. I was always under the impression that everything was moving online and that we were making a movement to get away from those things? And why are we going through a new vendor now? And are there more contracts going to be coming forth? And what will they entail?

Chair Scott and Supervisor Christie, I'll ask Deputy County Administrator Holmes to elaborate. But we lost a vendor that has caused some concerns within the district of how we can provide those additional supplies. Let me ask Mr. Holmes.

Chair Allen, Supervisory Committee. Administrator Lescher is correct. We had a vendor who actually closed distribution. Baker and Taylor was one of our significant vendors in this space. We had been doing work with Ingram in the past, but not at this scale. We were left with two current vendors now to purchase books and supplies from Ingram now become will become one of our primary suppliers moving forward. And the modality of books and materials, it's still circulation and demand for those pieces. The whole online space, although it's still prominent in our libraries, has not dominated to a point where we've abandoned hands on materials and books. Thank you.

All those in favor of the item?

Aye.

All those opposed? Item passes five-zero. We will return to sitting as the Board of Supervisors and it looks like we have on the regular agenda a few hearings. We will go to Item fourteen first, which is a hearing for the liquor license for Seoul Shee. Is there anyone present who wishes to speak on this item?

Hearing no one, I'll move to close the public hearing. And I will move the item. Second. Any further discussion? No? All those in favor? Aye. Those opposed? Was seconded by Supervisor Hines. Item moves five zero. Our next item is a hearing, rezoning time extension, is for South Culp Road rezoning with Michael Taylor at all. Is there anyone present who wishes to speak on this item? All right, then I will move to close the public hearing and I will move to approve case P20RZ0005.

Second.

Second. Seconded by Supervisor Hines. Discussion? All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? Item passes, five-zero. The next hearing is a comprehensive plan amendment and, for West Desert Oasis Trail Plan amendment with Jill Gookin. Is there anyone present whose wishes to speak on this item? Hearing none, I will move to close the public hearing and move to approve case number P25CA0002.

Directors

Board of of of Board Board like to be considered separately and removed Directors from the consent of before we vote on it? Hearing none, I will move the item. Second. Seconded by Supervisor Hines. Discussion? All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? Move five zero. Our next item is 18.

It's the Board of Supervisors updates on Boards, Committees and Commissions and other municipalities that we represent. Do my colleagues have any reports? Sure, Alan. Supervisor financial financial I'm

results. 05:00, tomorrow at CSA Headquarters right across the street from the state capital. Also want to remind my colleagues, you get emails every week about the meetings of the legislative policy

slide.

Into And

into to get

the the able

And

be do to

And and the staff from the chamber went over the work plan for the coming year. I have an electronic version of those board materials that I will send to the clerk to share with district offices. Thank you, Chair Allen.

You. Supervisor Connoll?

Thank you, Chair Allen. I am the representative on the Visit Tucson Board, and I wanted to share some additional information about a major event throughout District 5 and throughout our community in December, share some numbers with you, some economic data. The twenty twenty five Arizona Bowl, the Snoop Dogg Arizona Bowl, brought national attention to our community on December 27. The matchup featured Miami and Fresno State with Fresno State claiming the championship trophy, and the game drew an attendance of nearly 40,000 fans, 37,232 to be precise, generating an economic impact of $2,900,000 and fourteen fourteen fifty one room nights. And so it goes to show you what these major events mean to our community.

It's a lot of hotel beds, a lot of people coming to Southern Arizona and Visit Tucson tracks all of these major events. And I just wanted to make sure that I highlighted that given its significant contributions to our economy. Thank you, Chair Scott excuse me, Chair Allen. It's in my head.

Supervisor Heinz?

Thank you very much. Sure, Alan. With regard to the Pima Association, will say one thing on the RTA side of PEG RTA, I think I can say this, everybody should vote on March 12. With question. Question.

Of things, So we're going to have some discussions. I'm very much looking forward to on long term regional economic development with an infrastructure theme. Recently actually at the end of last week was joined by Steve Holmes with and also some additional members of our county staff over with our new Mexican consul at the consulate. And we had a very nice discussion and they have agreed to present on Mexico's very ambitious passenger rail plan, which is by 2030 to connect multiple areas, but specifically Mexico City by rail to Nogales Sonora, which is not that far away from us. So I think that effort which has over a 1,000,000,000,000 pesos is appropriated for it already is something that we need to look at very closely and maybe prepare as a region to meet them at the border so to speak.

And also looking at any necessary modifications to the Port Of Tucson as the refit and expansion of the Wyomest Port is happening now to anticipate a arrival of a lot more goods by train and what we can do to prepare for that, and what these efforts can have, the effects they can have on our our local economy. So thank you.

Thank you. And I sit on the Arizona Border Counties Coalition, which has an upcoming meeting, so no reports today, and then just joined the Southern Arizona Education Council on behalf of the board, and we have not yet met. Moving on, we have a couple of items that are related to cal endaring. Item 19, this is to, amend the board's meeting schedule for February so that it includes, time for a retreat on Monday, 02/09/2026 from noon to five p. M. I will move the item, seconded by Supervisor Hines. Is there a discussion?

Chair Allen? Yes. I have a question for the clerk when it comes to our meetings. Do we have a way of ensuring that if a member of the community is coming to our meetings and they're parking in our garages, that that validation can happen at your window across the hall is is is we don't offer paid parking for guests right now is my question.

Chair Allen, Supervisor Gano, no, we do not. We do validate tickets for the individuals that come for proclamations, but not for just regular public that come for the board meetings.

Okay. Thank you.

All those in favor of the item?

Aye.

Those opposed? Item passes five-zero. Item 20 is an amended Board of Supervisors meeting scheduled for March. This is moving our meeting from Tuesday March 17 to Tuesday March 24 and this kind of deals with resolves two issues. One is that we were being requested by elections department to have a meeting on the twenty fourth that would certify the RTA election and the week at the seventeenth is also spring break.

So by pushing the meeting to the twenty fourth, can sort of not that we want to kill birds, but we can do one thing and accomplish a couple of objectives. I move the item.

Second.

Second by Supervisor Hines. Is there discussion? All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? Item passes five-zero. Moving on to '21. This is our board meeting schedule from July to December, the remaining six months of this year. We try to approve the calendar in six months intervals. I move to see if I'm gonna do this right.

I have a couple of amendments. Just I'm doing well, do I have to move the whole item first or can I move to just amend? I will just sort of look for anyone to offer some guidance.

Yes, you can move the whole item.

So I will move to amend the proposed meeting schedule to meet on August as opposed to the eleventh and seventeenth. And that will allow us to put the tax levy adoption on the August 11 meeting. And then that will keep us on the regular schedule. The regular schedule is August 1125 meeting the second and fourth. The seventeenth was just because we thought we had to meet on the seventeenth, but indeed we do Board Directors of Board meeting of with of Directors of of of second meeting and move it to December 15 in order to accommodate employees whose children will be out of school and those who travel for the winter break and holidays.

So I would mend that movement move that amendment. Second. Seconded by Supervisor Hines. Is there discussion? All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? Item passes five zero. Got through some scheduling. Let's see. So I would move to approve the item as amended. Second. Seconded by Supervisor Hines. Discussion? All those in favor?

Aye. All those opposed? Of Directors with members of the audience. Board We've got a time certain at 12:00 where we'll go into executive session and wanted to see if there are items that you are waiting to be heard so that we don't leave you sitting here for a long time.

About

let's go ahead and jump to the item 27. And this is Pima County Cooperative Extension's annual report and presentation.

Good morning. Thank you for having me today. I'll wait for the slides to come up. Chair Allen, supervisors, thank you for having me. My name is Jen Parlin.

I am the Interim Cooperative Extension Director for Pima County, and I am here to talk to you about our 2024 activities and our progress on wildfire fuels reduction programming. Cooperative Extension is a nationally authorized institution implemented through land grant universities to bring agriculture and health education to the people. We are funded by federal, state, and of course, county funds, and we also rely on grants, program revenues and philanthropy to make these programs happen. Next slide. Pima County provides one office to us and then we rent two additional offices for a very low price.

Campbell And River is our office that is provided and we rent the garden kitchen in the city of South Tucson and an office in Green Valley that also includes a community garden. Pima County supports us financially through appropriations for 2025. This was approximately $226,000 Next slide. We report to the public through an annual report and a bimonthly newsletter that we call the Roundup. We also report to Pima County Conservation Lands and Resources and contribute to reporting that is rolled up in a presentation actually that is happening today for wildfires for you all.

Next slide. We primarily focus in three areas: Agricultural and Natural Resources, Family Health and Consumer Sciences, and four H Youth Education. Through these programs, we provide one hundred and seventy six thousand hours of education to residents across the lifespan in 2024. We accomplished this with 43 staff and 1,500 volunteers. Volunteers are so important to members.

With with

team

overview our team has been financial and We our has a seminars with information about garden planning, plant selection, irrigation, and water use, and much more. The invasive species program reached 1,200 people through presentations at public libraries, neighborhood associations, clubs, school groups, conducted home visits, participated in invasive species volunteer removal events, and interacted with residents at outreach events. Additionally, the program began organizing a series of monthly invasive grass removals in 2024. Next slide. Eighty eight percent of SmartScape participants earned COVID-nineteen of impact

We

is that educated residents about efficient drip irrigation part systems and prepared them for receiving City of Tucson rainwater harvesting rebate. Next slide. The Garden Kitchen reached has been to in past. We efforts organizational leaders of and early childhood teachers were trained in trauma the awareness, seed to table concepts, gardening, physical activity and nutrition. At Plaza Mobile Market, 40% of sales were completed with nutrition assistance benefits and team members were able to enroll 132 people in the Farmers Market Nutrition Program, distributing $12,000 in coupons for local produce purchases.

Next slide. The Pima Expanded Food and Nutrition Education Program staff taught almost 500 classes to about 300 adult community members with half of those folks participating in eight or more hours of education on nutrition, food safety, physical activity and more. These classes took place in family resource centers, schools, and low income housing programs. Over 700 youth received nutrition and physical activity education with over 400 graduating from engagement program taught over seven thousand five hundred hours of education through three forty four free workshops with 100% participants saying that they intended to use the Family Engagement Program information to better support their children. 38 of the classes were held at Arizona.

Classes were held at Arizona State Prison Complex Tucson or the Federal Corrections Institute with nearly 300 participants and seven seventy one community members participating in financial literacy classes. Next slide. In 2024, six forty three youth at 26

has our to

also our access to state level learning experiences and delivered over thirty four thousand hours of education and skill building activities to four H members. Before the annual County Fair, nearly 404 H members participated in the state four H Stock Show. Next slide. At Tucson Village Farm, there were four forty one unique learning opportunities engaging participants in dynamic activities including growing and harvesting food, cooking, hiking and art. The 2024 was packed with outdoor adventures offering 22 unique summer camps for youth.

TVF campers spent a cumulative of fifty four nights in tents, over four hundred nights in cabins, and over five hundred nights under the stars. These camps foster a connection with nature, providing youth with the opportunity to grow, explore, and develop independence. Next slide. We just finished our second quarter of the wildfire fuels reduction program, having developed and delivered a train the trainer fire fuels reduction course for 110 Master Gardeners with instruction emphasizing defensible spaces and the importance of reducing fuel load across diverse landscapes. We presented wildfire ecology and firewise landscape concepts through Master Gardener public Zoom class series and an invasive species presentations directly educating three forty four community

COVID-nineteen We

of has

key to also that

SmartScape the materials that emphasize wildfire risk reduction COVID-nineteen for landscaping professionals at the first urban and suburban weeds and fire risk class. Education included landscaping

twenty eighteen, nineteen. The

first wildfire outreach coordinator was is scheduled to be hired this month. Duties will include working with local fire departments and districts, the Arizona Department of Forestry and Fire Management, federal fire managers and others to reduce wildfire fuels, promote wildfire resistant ecology, and increase urban and rural wildfire preparedness. Next slide. Pima County funding is crucial to the maintenance of operations and programming is I spoke about today, including assisting our community members with invasive species removal and educating diverse audiences in the management of vegetation to reduce the risk of wildfires in urban and rural areas of our county. We thank you for your support.

Next slide.

Thank you. You.

Madam Chair? Yes. On the wildfire issue, that's a particular area of interest for me and our district. It seems like you might be duplicating efforts with the county's wildfire mitigation plan. What kind of coordination do you have? And I noticed you're going to be hiring a director. Is that going to be necessary? And can there not be more And impact

I

in the are we're the educational arm of it. So the appropriation has come to us to provide that education and outreach to the community based on the plan that is passed for Pima County.

And Madam Chair, what kind of outreach do you do with communities? Do you have anything to do with HOAs or for instance the Green Valley Council, Vail Southeast Regional Council? These are all entities. Mount Lemmon has Firewise. Does this coordinate with Firewise, the Firewise Certification Program?

Yes.

And most importantly, do these entities who are aware of such things as the Firewise program as well as other wildfire mitigation efforts, are they aware of what you're doing as far as mitigation in Pima County?

Chair Allen and Supervisor Christie, thank you for the question. Yes, they are aware. That is why we're hiring that staff member. In the plan that was submitted to Pima County, it was only to be hired in January to start all of those connections. Our outreach to the public has already started with Master Gardener trainings and invasive species. And so HOAs have been in collaboration with those educational units. Our plan going forward is to hire this person to really manage all of those relationships and bring everything together to really have sustainable and thoughtful communication.

I would just suggest, Madam Chair, that in your efforts you do reach out and provide programs and speakerships to these organizations. Attend the Green Valley Council monthly Board

sense

get

we're to

opportunities what past. The

seeing seeing a past. Areas as the targets for our outreach.

Madam Chair, fire districts, are you having any collaboration or contacts with them?

Supervisor Christie, we have started talk to the fire districts that will also be part of the plan with this new hire. Thank you.

Other supervisors? Hearing none, thank you so much for your presentation and for your work. I am going to move us to item number 24 Just to provide some segue, this is a report on wildfire mitigation plan. It's the mid year report, by senior adviser to the county administrator, Marty Vasquez, just so we have some continuity even picking up from the discussion about wildfire mitigation and presentation update on the plan. So I will turn it over to you, miss Vazquez.

Chair Allen, supervisors, honored to be able to give you a midyear update on the wildfire mitigation plan that the board of supervisors requested in February. Oh, is it possible to get the slides up for item 24? Perfect. And just as a reminder, the plan was requested in February. It was presented to you in May, and then the plan was put into action in, July.

Perfect. Thanks to the hard work of internal county departments and external stakeholders working closely with emergency management officials, fire agencies, and land managers, all 45 tasks identified in the wildfire mitigation plan have moved out of their discovery phase, and they're now in a planning progress or completed and under monitoring. Monitoring. We are on track for both budget and, future schedule of all deliverables on the plan. Next slide, please.

The first of the three major focus areas is public education, and some key achievements in this midyear report include the creation of the Desert Fire and Invasives Collaborative, which works to provide strategic coordinated messaging with partners like Arizona desert Sonora Desert Museum and Tucson Electric Power by elevating wildfire prevention through joint initiatives. Learning from other communities, we are continuing to emphasize the firewise principles, which are the gold standard for wildfire protection. Our initial focus is heavily on defensible space, especially in Zone zero, which is the first five feet around your home structure, which should be kept lean, clean, and green, which means free of debris, combustible materials, and dry or dead vegetation. You also just heard from the University of Arizona Cooperative Extension, which has been an outstanding partner in delivering educational effort, helping to deliver classes on smartscapes and master gardener programs that cover invasive species information. And now wildfire preparedness will reach a much bigger audience as they hire their wildfire education coordinator, and I will be in strong communication with them as well as part of the plan.

Next slide, please. Our wildfire messaging calendar was developed with partners for the 2025, 2026 plan. It included two topics per month that were shared with fire agencies, PIOs, and regional partner communication departments to amplify messaging. It is being reviewed now for any upcoming year updates, as this calendar is designed to be fluid, allowing us to address any emerging regional needs. Next slide, please.

Our next goal was mitigating invasive species. County departments, including conservation lands and resources, the Department of Transportation, and Regional Flood Control District, worked with partners from Tucson Bird Alliance, Sonoran Institute, and UA cooperative cooperative extension to treat over 12,000 acres, and volunteers have contributed over seven hundred hours since July 1 in mitigation of buffelgrass and stink net. We are also in close communication with Arizona Department of Forestry and Fire Management Southeast District Forester to plan upcoming efforts where we can start to do some cross jurisdictional work. The first chipping day event in partnership with the Summerhaven HOA and Mount Lemmon Fire District was conducted in December. This event combined educational outreach on defensible space with actionable steps for vegetation removal.

And looking ahead, we are looking at coordinating roll off container events, specifically in communities identified as having a high wildfire risk. These events are design designed to help residents safely dispose of vegetation and debris that could ignite from wind blown embers, reducing hazards in critical defensible space zones. Selections of location will be based on wildfire risk assessments, assuring resources are directed where they are most needed. Next slide, please. Key achievements in emergency response include working closely with the office of emergency management to continue increased sign ups for My Alerts.

The this year, each quarter saw a rise in register registrations, and we are encouraging anyone who has not yet signed up to visit the office of emergency management website to do so. Funds were also allocated in the plan for additional wildfire coordinator coordinator training based on local fire responder feedback. A wild land fire leadership course is scheduled for this third quarter. We are also mapping pre developed evacuation zones that could be shared with responding agencies, and this is being done in help with Pima County's IT department and ArcGIS. In October, a wildfire and we are actively working with partners address opportunities to strengthen this process.

Next slide, please. Some upcoming headlines. The community wildfire protection plan, also known as the CWPP, is the five to ten year long range plan that takes a deep dive in identifying wildfire risks on all lands throughout Pima County and outlining specific treatments. The CWPP is often a prerequisite for state and federal grant applications, and I'm happy to report that it has completed its first edit, and it will soon be open for public comment. The CWPP is the macro plan which will guide future wildfire mitigation efforts, while this current plan that we are covering today will continue to serve as our region's annual action plan.

We are also working on bilingual wildfire messaging materials to reach a broader audience, and that is currently underway with Pima County's communication department. The Department of Insurance and Financial Institutions recently completed its report to Governor Hobbs. Pima County, with the involvement of in the council by deputy county administrator DeBonis, provided input on insurance coverage considerations related to wildfire wildfire risk to the state task force. Better coordination of invasive species data to track growth, mitigation efforts, and emerging hotspots is also underway. This will be helpful in order to better align efforts and prioritize areas to reduce possible duplication of, of efforts in mitigation and funding.

And a very special congratulations to the Sonoran Desert Weed Wacker's and Pima County's restoration program staff who received the Southwest Vegetation Management Award for their outstanding work in invasive species treatment. Next slide. All of these accomplishments would not have been possible without the incredible involvement team. The We

in is making a difference. This concludes the presentation.

We Happy to answer any questions you may have.

Madam chair?

Yes, supervisor Christie.

And perhaps mister DeBonis could chime in because of his service on the insurance and resilience committee. Are you seeing or are you sensing any kind of movement or change of policy with insurance carriers who are offering homeowners insurance as well as the availability of homeowners insurance or the rates? Or is this going to require more increase in

to And then, on the State Department of Insurance and Financial Institutions Council, the Resiliency and Mitigation Council, we received a lot of presentations the council did across wide spectrum of different states looking at it from fire service providers, state agencies, private insurance, and also private companies that are developing tools to help in in this this area. I I think that it is vastly varied in terms of how insurance providers are approaching it. That was something that the council had identified in the county's comments back to the council. We identified the need for greater transparency and and consistency in terms of the use of tools to determine what the fire risks are and setting of insurance rates, for homeowners. And so, as we concluded that, the council acknowledged that a task force has been set up by the state legislature.

I think to your point, that work is gonna be critically important to see, noticeable and sustainable changes and benefits to homeowners in terms of insurance rates and how they're set and what options they have even in knowing what tool was used to identify the risk, how did they score with the use of that tool, is there the ability for them to provide information or appeal the ruling and affect the ultimate rates that that they're provided? So I would say that while much work was done identifying, the range of different things that are happening, this task force and its work is gonna be crucial. And so, county administration will be monitoring, the work of that state, legislature enacted task force and looking forward to, actions that result in either changes or, modified approaches to to how insurance rates are are set and how homeowners can participate more actively in their their own their own outcomes. And, madam chair, mister DeBonis, you in that report in December, you made a number of recommendations. Could you highlight some of those recommendations?

Certainly, chair Allen and and supervisor Christie. Wrapped in what I had just indicated. I think one of the most crucial ones is the ability for homeowners to understand the tool that the insurance industry is using in order to determine the risk and the setting of of rates or even the insurability for particular properties. I I think that that is currently opaque best when homeowners are trying to obtain insurance and understand the basis from which the insurance industry participated or in which the basis in which the insurance industry determined those things. There are also other models that were utilized or are being utilized in other states that provide for funding assistance for property owners to address whatever risks that they have on their property.

So that was a component of the recommendations made saying, hey, the state should look at providing funding to enable homeowners to harden their their their residents with fireproof roofing or fireproof siding, creating defensible space areas within proximity to their residents. Also looking at greater ability for home owners to, appeal, determinations that are being made. Look at standardization of tools. Right now, the insurance industry, has the ability to decide what tools they will utilize to model what those risks are. So those were some of the recommendations that were forthcoming from Pima County to that council, and those were also reflected in some of the input from others who participated in that, notably the county supervisors association.

Madam chair, just one final comment. I wanna thank everybody for their diligent efforts and hard work on this issue. It's in my district, at least, it's it's top of mind. We have many constituents constituents that, as you know, are dealing with this homeowners insurance and premium, affordability issues. And, I have to say, from the meetings that I attend and the, public gatherings and feedback that I get my constituents.

They are embracing this process. They are embracing the Firewise certification process. I think we've got some 33 HOAs in Green Valley alone. I could be wrong, but it's a a very significant number of the HOAs are embracing the Firewise certification program. Mount Lemmon has been the gold standard.

And I I do know that, there are at least 13 in Green Valley. And the the community is really embracing this. As a matter of fact, we just received a $20,000 grant, as you know, from Freeport McMoran, dedicated to, fire fire wildfire mitigation. So the community is behind it. The community wants it, and the and I know the community is very appreciative of all the work you're doing. Thank you, madam chair.

Any other questions from the board? No? Actually, I did have a question about some of the areas that are the wildlife or wildland urban intermixed areas in District 33 Points, Avaca, Pitcher Rocks, and, and kind of what what what work is happening there as folks are kind of right on the edge of of wildfire?

So, chair Allen, a lot of what is happening with that long range plan with the CWPP is working with fire agencies and land managers to look at specific spots and find what are the best targeted tools to mitigate in those areas, which will be nice, right, because that's the big macro plan. Then from there, we can take an actionable year plan and work through those. So we are in constant contact with the fire agencies to kind of preplan for the mitigation of invasives, as well as work with the communities to get this educational messaging. That's our low hanging fruit. We wanna make sure that we are getting the defensible space, all the fire wise messaging out to them.

So we are in constant contact with the the fire agencies and land managers within that area within those spaces.

Madam chair, and and one final question. I I in my notes. It appears the Rincon Valley has not received a lot of activity from our programs or have been involved in a lot of our programs. And I would just urge whatever activities that you have available that they be reached out to and included. We've got some feedback that the Rincon Valley folks are very interested in the Firewise program and wildfire mitigation and the, of course, the homeowners issue. So if you could make an effort to reach out to the Rincon Valley folks, we'd be glad to help you with that if you need any assistance.

Chair Allen, Supervisor Christie, absolutely.

Well, thank you. With that, I think we are going to move into Executive Session. We have Item 12 on the regular agenda and then on the addendum, Items three, four, and five that are all under Executive Session. So we will break for that. Will make a motion that we break for executive session. Second. Seconded by Supervisor Hines. Discussion? All those in favor?

Aye.

Those opposed? We will break into executive session. Five zero vote. Thank you. So we are back in session.

We are just came out of executive session. We had items that are for information only. Directors the

of

half

And twenty twenty only, as was addendum item four and addendum item number five. For addendum item number eight, I move to approve the conflict of interest waiver. Second. Seconded by Supervisor to year. To make authorization as discussed in executive sure session. That Seconded by Supervisor Hines. Any discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Those opposed?

Item passes five-zero. And then addendum item number 10, I move to authorize Pima County Attorney's Office as recommended and described in Executive Session. Second. Seconded by Supervisor Hines. Discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Those opposed? Item pass five zero. Oh, and then where does that take us back to a presentation item number 23 with the, very patient Jen Darlin, the senior advisor to the county administrator giving us an update on county initiatives to address homelessness and public safety. Thank you, Ms. Darlin.

Thank you, Chair Allen. Good afternoon, everybody. This will be a very brief presentation with a more thoughtful and more thorough presentation coming in February, which would be the first of the two board approved progress reports on One Pima. And as the Board is familiar, all of these updates are always going to be grounded in one or more of the five priorities that were critical to the foundation of this office. In brief, for public and the audience, the first is to conduct an inventory of county and partner programming.

The second, illustrate and describe how homeless response system works and how services are delivered. Third, to develop, county and public facing communications. The fourth, to develop a strategic and continuous improvement plan with the goal of ensuring programs are responsive, sustainable, and equitably distributed. And the fifth and final, which is to develop a means of tracking the efficacy of county assistance. And today, just briefly, will touch this update will touch briefly on priority number five, which is to check-in on how we're doing with our program response in terms of the protocol.

Next slide, please. Thank you. And as requested at the December meeting of the Board was to come back to you all and provide you with some performance, early performance at that of the Board approved master agreement, again aligned with One Pima, but also supportive of our, county administrative procedure, which is the county encampment protocol. It's a land managing response that is also married together with our, connection to resources and supports. The master agreement that you all approved on in December essentially, provides for expedited cleanup that is not only complaint driven but it is also maintenance driven as called for again in one Pima.

That is this is the ongoing cadence of, cleanup in areas, washes, waterways, channels that are adjacent to the Chuck Huckleberry Loop as well as other county owned washes throughout the region. The board approved the contract on December 2. Work got underway in earnest a week later. And so what you see here is a time frame between December 9 and December 31, keeping in mind there were some holidays tucked in here. We have 12 total sites that were cleared by the contracted vendor, a little over 37 tons of total of debris collected.

Not all of it was encampment related. Some of it was the trash and debris that ends up collecting in these waterways and channels through various different weather events. And the total cost for this first stretch of programming was in the neighborhood of just over $37,000 Again, I just want to highlight that this is work adjacent to, the both maintenance as recalled for in one payment as well as complaint driven, meaning that anytime we receive a report of an encampment and it's verified to be within a waterway channel under the regional flood control district's maintenance responsibility. This is going to be the vendor agreement that's going to ensure that cleanup is facilitated within seventy two hours after the site has been outreached to and posted. Next slide, please.

Also as requested by the, supervisor Scott at the December meeting was to bring back to the board some feedback from the county staff, the four full time personnel who are charged with facilitating the enhanced protocol. That would be the site inspections and verifications of the space and verifying that it is in fact an encampment coordinating with outreach services and other, community resources to ensure that we're getting folks connected to care as well as, you know, managing the data associated with that. We met on December I'm sorry, January 13, just last week, met with all four of the team members to hear from them what their, perspectives were. The discussion and topics were were on the themes that you see, to the the green huddle of humans icon. Those were the topics that basically grounded our conversation.

Overall, it was positive from the team. I want to highlight that I feel like I'm doing that. Am I doing that? No. Okay.

It was positive feedback from the team and I want to emphasize this piece that again you have on this expanded resource response we have two individuals who come to this work having already worked in other departments of the county, and they have seen by their participation in those other departments some aspect of the county's protocol response. And what was communicated to me and I found heartening was that they appreciated seeing the whole protocol from beginning, middle, and end. So you have perspectives here that will continue to inform on the improvement of that outreach, not only the outreach strategy, but also the the cleanup and coordination across departments and with other jurisdictional partners. We also heard about the need for expanded training. I'm sure you can appreciate this is a land management response, but this is and it is chiefly led by land managing personnel.

And when they continue to engage in these sorts of environments where they're encountering individuals who are in the middle of having homeless crisis, or episode, it can take an emotional toll. So they've requested that we start to incorporate ways to, expand their training to account for trauma informed practices, as well as finding ways to bolster their response by ensuring that they have access to outreach support, for not only the site inspections and the postings, but also on day of remediation. We also talked over the survey tools and reporting. We got some I got some really great feedback on some ways to make that, to improve those processes. But overall, it was a positive conversation that will lead to more, dialogue, as we go into this the rest of this calendar year.

And the feedback I received on the need to coordinate better across not departments but other jurisdictional colleagues is something that has been echoed in the conversations I have also had with other departmental personnel and other, jurisdictional partners in this space. Collectively, you have a team that represents a total of sixty years. As the board saw this morning with the the dedicated, awards that went out to the two individuals this morning with over thirty years of of service to county, I think that there is a long history and practice of the county being an employer of choice. In fact, two individuals had left the county to go pursue work outside of the county, and they came back. So all a good testament to county Pima County programs and Pima County departments being a place that folks call home.

Next slide, please. And just high level, some we continue to participate at the staff level and the city implementation meetings. These are biweekly meetings with folks over at the city of Tucson. This would be Tucson fire department, Tucson police department, their environmental services team, as well as their encampment assessors and other folks on ways that we can coordinate to, ways that we can coordinate our resources and response. Specifically, when when we're at the table, we're talking about what does the county do to partner for effective strategies adjacent to the Chuck Huckleberry Loop.

That's not just from the outreach perspective, but ensuring that we're making aware our land managers of those efforts as well. Additionally, we have the twenty twenty six point in time count, which will be occurring on January 28. The volunteer registration has closed, and so I think that they're they're pretty well situated with that. So we will start to see anecdotal data from that point in time count on the number of individuals experiencing homelessness by or about early March. And then finally, the notice of funding opportunity as facilitated by the US Department of Housing and Urban Development has gone through a little bit of a dramatic, pivots since it was released in December.

Ultimately, is, the the funding competition is now open for under fiscal year twenty four terms. What this means is that it's very complicated, but in fiscal half twenty twenty one. Get to of And And

And

And instead, then, they have reverted to just reopening the competition for last year with no changes to the programming. What that means in essence is because they reopened last year's competition, it isn't really truly a competition. They just reopened it for for agencies or communities rather to reapply for funding. So all of this to say it was a it was a little bit of a multiple pivots over several weeks that had to eventually lead to an adjudication that basically haven't changed much of anything in our homeless programming. But more will be known more definitively later on in the spring, March to May being the window of time.

Next slide please. And just real quickly, again, 17 meeting of the Board, will be a more comprehensive update on the progress of the One Pima, the actions taken with our colleagues across, the campus here with the city of Tucson, working closely with them as a safer center gets operationalized, and we're working to get people into low barrier forms of treatment and care. The community workforce development department met with the housing commission, last or just this past Friday to review the gap funding recommendations. So this will be coming toward the board in February. And finally, we've been working with the district five office on ways to, increase resources and support to that community.

There will be an event on March 28 and working also to ensure that when we're doing these types of research events or I'm sorry, these outreach and community events, we're making sure that we're bringing all of the county programming and opportunity into this community. In fact, with senior advisor Vasquez on bringing in Tucson fire department into these community resource events, opportunities to bring in roll offs as well to help with the mitigation efforts that she and her and office of emergency management are also working on as well. And with that, that concludes the update. I'll be happy to answer any questions.

Thank you. Questions to my colleagues?

Supervisor Kanna. Thank you so much, Chair Allen. I want to thank our county administrator and Director Darlin for putting so many legs to the One Pima initiative. I'm excited about the update that you'll be providing to the Board in the coming weeks. I am doing a lot of neighborhood association meet and greets in the evenings on weekdays and week weekends sometimes.

And those conversations are telling me that we need to do a better job of promoting the One Pima initiative. And so I'm hoping that the the county administrator can work with director Darlan and our communications team to have an online portal that focuses on the tenants of that. But more importantly, if we can mirror the city's homelessness encampment web page, which tracks various forms of data. I'm looking right now at this particular at their website, encampmentprotocol.tucsonaz.gov. 183000 pounds of trash removed.

Our equivalent with the number you provided to us, Director, is about 74,000 pounds of trash. I want to see those kind of numbers to paint the story of the impact, the fact that the Safer Center is operational right now. If there significant 19. Growth the with second

us to tell this story better and to have it in one

reporting quarter dashboard similar to what our colleagues at the city do. And I'm excited about all of the progress that we've been having. Neighborhoods are responding well to it. And I am extremely grateful, Director Darling, for you working with our District five staff on implementation of this. These are exciting updates and look forward to more action in the coming year. It's a two year plan.

Excellent.

Anyone else? Well, thank you, as always. I am going to move us along if we look at regular agenda item 28. This is a final plat with assurances for Saguaro Ridge Estates. I will move to approve plat number P18FP 000020. Second. Seconded by supervisor Hines. Is there discussion? All those in favor

say aye.

Those opposed? Approved five zero. Item number 29, another final plat with assurances. So I move to approve plat number p 25 F P 00014 Bahada Ranch. Second. Seconded by supervisor Christie. Discussion? All very that And

the

This is the acceptance of a grant for the health department, Arizona, affirm sexual and reproductive health. I will move the item.

Second.

Seconded by supervisor Hines. Any discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Those opposed?

Item passes five zero. Item number 34, acceptance of a grant from the University of Washington to provide doxycycline. Time first first we And be sitting as the flood control district board for item number six. This is a contract with the Green Valley Coordinating Council. I will move the item.

Second.

Seconded by Supervisor Christie. Is there discussion? All those in support, say aye. Aye. Those opposed. Item passes five zero.

Madam chair? Yes. Could we, address item 11?

Yes, we can. I will move the item. Second. Seconded by supervisor oh, sorry. We are back as the Board of Supervisors. So I move the item. Second. Seconded by Supervisor Christie. Is there discussion? All those in support say aye. Aye. Opposed? Item passes 50. Popping back up to number seven. We are still as the supervisors. I will move the item. Second. Seconded by supervisor Christie. Is there discussion?

Oh, no. Seconded supervisor Hines.

What did say? She said Christie. Who's that? Sorry. Supervisor Hines.

I'm happy to just briefly explain this. Sure. It's a it's a pretty straightforward, but it came to my attention that the resolutions that this board has been passing with regard to their opposition bipartisan opposition going back years, twenty years actually, haven't really ever been conveyed to, like, the board of directors for Hudbay, like, regulatory authorities in in Canada where where this company is located. I just so I'm still not but but our council did advise that we have a dedicated item to do it, but this is just asking staff to convey with a cover letter this these resolutions. That's the resolution most recently that we passed in opposition to this project to these relevant parties.

That's it.

Madam chair, I I'm astounded that anyone would think that the board of supervisors, if Pima County is not Board I'm of Directors. Directors, Directors. Mr. I'm Chairman, I'm sure very they are very pleased intimately familiar pleased with the the fact that this board does not want the Hudbay Copper World project to go. However, I'm sure it will pass again as the other ones have.

What I would the the we have first first the the of the Hudbay Copper World project, I am in favor of it. I support it. I want job growth. I want economic development. I want workers to have strong family entities that

excited

health

district system. And we support it.

And And I so also want to point out about to the construction community, the contracting community, unions, mechanics, shop people, everybody who has jobs as a result of the Hudby project, that the people seated to my left are not to be taken as friends. They are not supportive. There have been numerous occasions on many projects where they have my colleagues to my left have voted it down have voted the project down. They speak in one term that they support unions. They support workers.

They support families, and then they vote against the project project that does exactly that. So we're all up for election in a few years, and I urge those communities, contractors, unions, mechanics, pavement, construction, all of those communities to remember who voted for them, who supported them. It wasn't my colleagues to my left. And I'm looking forward to that list of all the, quote, unquote, relevant regulators because I'm sure they're very familiar with the sports decisions in the past when it comes to resolutions. K. Thank

you. Any further discussion? So, Kent,

can I just ask, I company's we're to excited that's good question? Question. I Could you flush that out a little bit because I'm think I voted for all the previous ones, I'm not really sure why we're doing this one?

Great questions. And Chair Alan and Supervisor Scott, I was a little puzzled that this required an item quarter then '19. Had a a anywhere, meaning I don't mean that I'm not no negative, quarter but then like it's I've heard that Hudbay is framing this as a project that is being welcomed with open arms by the region and in their comments and their shareholder discussions and Board of Directors meetings, I believe they are mischaracterizing the region's interest or lack of interest in this particular project. When I heard that, I said, well, I mean, how many times have we sent them copies of a resolution? And it I don't believe that we have.

So I don't know. It's simply I don't even know if we need a but again, our legal counsel advised that we have an item instead of just me saying, hey, staff, can we actually send the resolution to some of these folks so they can actually see that we're very much not not in line with this? And he recommended that we have an item dedicated to doing it. That's all. That's why it's on

the And if I if may, just to clarify my understanding, this item is not us repassing the same resolution that we have passed. This item is simply us directing that it is gonna be distributed out. And that when we as the board wanna communicate and share resolutions that we have passed officially, that we need to agree on that, that the administrator cannot just send out resolutions as, two different entities without the board's knowledge of that. Okay. What that what is the what is

the county administrator? Where do you send out these resolutions?

Okay. Chair Allen and members of the board, the previous resolutions have been sent as instructed to tended to be the federal delegation and the governor. Sometimes we've added the state land department, but those have been the parties to which they have been officially forwarded on behalf of the county. They then get posted, but we have not necessarily gone as we ended it there. We we send it to the federal delegation, to the governor, the state land department, occasionally to the state legislature.

If it has been something that is, also is part of the county supervisors association. But in a case like this as we have not sent it to a variety of other parties.

The variety being

Relevant regulators and other states.

Do we even know who that means or that that is?

It is in working with excuse me. I'm sorry. Chair Allen, supervisor Christian, working with supervisor, Heinz. I think he's indicated that his intent, which is ownership of the board of directors of Hudbay.

It it just boggles my mind that there would be even any thought process that the ownership of Hudbay would have no idea about the feeling of this board about their project. After all these years, after all these resolutions, after all this litigation, they wouldn't know that this board is against the project. It's it's it's really

This is are there any more questions about the item, clarifications? Supervisor Coffey.

Thank you, Chair Allen. Perhaps when we consider other resolutions, first impact of

to

we're the lens instead of going through the Board. So I just want to make that point that I've always found our county administration willing to send the Board's correspondence after a public vote, especially to any entity, and want to ensure that we have that as a standard practice moving forward. And I know we'll have an ally in the administrator's office to do that on any resolution. Hudbay representatives reached out to me to have make And

to

that sure accessibility and transparency. And when I indicate that that I'm interested in meeting with them, they cancel. That is not a cooperative discussion that I believe that is indicative of the kind of sentiment we heard from their representative earlier today. So I'm looking forward to meeting with Hudbay if they are willing to meet with the District five supervisor. And I just have to say,

progress pleased past.

Impact of

the COVID-nineteen

And and, you know, you've interrupted on numerous times, several And of us for this discussion, and I want to work with you to have a collaborative conversation in all of this. The decorum is important to run a meeting.

If there is no further discussion,

going to abstain. I have indicated my opposition to both Rosemont and Copper World on numerous occasions since coming to the Board in 2021. So I'm not comfortable voting against this item, but I'm not comfortable voting for it either. Respectfully, I'm going to abstain.

Item passes three in favor, one opposed, one abstained. For the remaining items, would like to suggest a of more more bit more a clusterer. All those in favor?

Aye.

As opposed? Items move five-zero. Item number 35 is adjournment. All those if you want to move yeah, yeah, y'all don't have any say on this. We're done.

More work for your rookie gavel.