City Council - Regular Meeting

Good morning, everyone. We'll get started in about three minutes. Thank you for your patience.

Councilmember Ebert, can we do a mic test? Hello.

Thank you. Can you hear me?

Can you guys hear me?

We can hear you. Okay, thanks. I'm still here.

Sorry, we're checking the wordly.

Oh, my bad. I thought you guys were trying to get rid of me.

Good morning, Madam Clerk. Good morning, everybody. How are we looking?

Good morning, Mr. Vice Mayor. We are having a little bit of a technology thing right now happening. So if you can just give us like two more minutes, we can hopefully get it resolved.

Sounds good. Thank you.

Test, test. All right, Mr. Vice Mayor, we are all set if you are.

Yes, we're ready to go. If you want to get us started, we'll start with the Pledge of Allegiance. If I can ask City Manager Bryant to lead us in the pledge.

Thank You city manager Bryant we can go into a roll call madam clerk Thank You mr. Vice mayor calling roll for Wednesday, June 10th 2026 council member Taylor here council member door here vice mayor Martinez council member Ebert Here councilman Reese council member Anderson here mayor she be absent at this time. Mr. Vice mayor You do have a quorum of the Reno City Council

Thank you. I understand we have a proclamation and a special presentation today from some of our CPR and AE chief. It looks like you're here to read us a proclamation for CPR and AED Awareness Week proclamation. It's all yours.

Thank you very much. Thank you, Vice Mayor Martinez, Council Members, and Manager Bryant, Dave Cochran, Reno Fire Chief, and with me is Cindy Green, our EMS Division Chief. Today we're going to recognize a group of personnel, citizens, and sworn first responders who took swift and decisive action to really make a difference in our community. I was going to describe it as accidental teamwork, but it's really not an accident. They trained for this, they reacted when it was appropriate, and they made a difference, and that difference was literally saving a life. Having said that, I'm going to introduce our medical director, Dr. Nicholas Von Forster. He's going to describe what happened, and I'll let him take it from there. Thank you, Chief.

I'm Nicholas Von Forster. I'm an ER and EMS physician and medical director for Reno Fire. And it's my distinct pleasure today, fittingly during CPR week, to be recognizing the individuals who all contributed to the survival of our community member, Dee. I'll use this initial to protect his privacy. Management of cardiac arrest outside of the hospital is one of the most important things we as emergency practitioners train for. A time sensitive emergency where when all things align, we can make a real difference in someone's life. But everything has to align. The event has to be recognized in a timely manner. CPR has to be started immediately. Shocks, if needed, have to be delivered as soon as possible. Emergency services must be mobilized through the dispatch system. First responders must quickly recognize the specific condition that needs to be treated within seconds. Transport agencies have to delicately keep a critical patient alive until the hospital. The hospital must quickly identify root causes and provide definitive management. All of those things I listed, that is the chain of survival. And all of those things went right for Dee. But even when all of those things go right, survival is low. Even if we can get a heartbeat back, people may have been without blood flow for too long, leading to organ damage, brain damage, and may never wake up. That is the majority. Survival where the person goes back to their usual life is like threading a needle. So when an incident happens where the person is not just alive but lives, that is a reason for celebration and recognition. Back to the chain of survival. On May 29th, Dee was working installing carpet at the UNR Center for the Application of Substance Abuse Technologies and suffered a sudden cardiac arrest. The first links in the chain of survival. Number one, recognition in EMS activation, and number two, early CPR. Staff members at the UNR CASAT quickly recognized that Dee was in cardiac arrest, went and got an AED, and activated the emergency response by dialing 911. These were Michelle Berry, Manda Brown, Caitlin Witt, Brianna Guerra Carrera, Sarah Di Natale, and Sophia Bassi. City of Reno and REMSA dispatchers provided further guidance to those staff members and initiated the response of appropriate resources. Link number three, rapid defibrillation. An AED was applied by the staff members and a shock was delivered. This is likely the shock that restored Dee's pulse. UNR law enforcement consisting of Officer Mario Mendieta and Officer Ian Knight arrived and they continued CPR. However, Dee was not yet out of the woods. He was still in a life-threatening heart rhythm. Link number four, advanced resuscitation. Reno Fire arrived. This was firefighters Garrett Heckeis, Richard Lucius, Tyson Wright, and Captain Jeff Cates. They initiated advanced cardiac life support. They recognized that Dee was still in a life-threatening heart rhythm and could lose pulses at any moment. They delivered an additional shock to treat this rhythm. REMSA personnel, paramedics Kelsey Mayo and Tessa Broderick, and paramedic intern Jack Tonner arrived and assisted Reno Fire with advanced cardiac life support as Dee was moved into their ambulance. He required yet another shock in their ambulance and was now beginning to wake up. Reno Fire and REMSA crews were successful in treating the arrhythmia and remarkably, on the way to the hospital, Dee was already starting to answer questions. Links number five and six, post-cardiac arrest care and recovery. At St. Mary's Hospital, emergency department, cardiology, critical care teams were able to provide definitive management and invasive cardiac support while his heart healed, and heal it did. This needed the coordinated effort of St. Mary's physicians, nurses, techs, registration staff, housekeeping, nutrition services, lab, pharmacy, all supporting that goal. What is most remarkable about this case is not only the fact that Dee got to go home and his brain survived. What is most remarkable is the speed at which that was achieved. The chain of survival of out of hospital to in hospital care worked so well that in this case, the time from cardiac arrest to discharge from the hospital is the fastest I have ever heard of. That is only possible when there is essentially no disruption of blood flow and oxygen. The CPR has to be perfect. The fact that all of these people worked together to make that happen is amazing. Dee was not able to be here today, but he directly extended his utmost gratitude to all of the individuals involved in saving his life. And in his words, I have a lot to live for. Phenomenal work. This is why we do what we do. Thank you. At this time, I would like to have the following people come up and receive their life-saving award. Michelle Berry. Amanda Brown. Brianna Guerrera Carrera Kaitlyn Witt Officer Ian Knight Officer Mario Mendieta Firefighter Garrett Heckeis. Tessa Broderick. Kelsey Mayo. And Jack Tan.

All right, and then the final piece, we have a proclamation. Actually, I would be remiss if I didn't recognize Captain Jeff Cates, Tyson Wright, and Richard Lucius couldn't be here today. The demands of the job dictated they'd be elsewhere, but we're recognizing them as well. I have this proclamation, so I will read it now. Whereas sudden cardiac arrest is a leading cause of death in the United States, affecting hundreds of thousands of people each year, and immediate cardiopulmonary resuscitation, CPR, and the use of an automated external defibrillator, AED, can significantly increase a person's chance of survival following cardiac arrest. And whereas bystander CPR can double or even triple a victim's chance of survival, yet many people lack the training and confidence needed to respond in an emergency. And whereas increasing public awareness and access to CPR training and AEDs empowers community members to act quickly and confidently when seconds matter most. and whereas first responders, healthcare professionals, educators, and community organizations throughout Reno work tirelessly to provide life-saving training, education, and emergency care to residents and visitors, and whereas CPR and AED Awareness Week serves as an opportunity to encourage all residents to learn these life-saving skills and help build a safer, more prepared community. Now, therefore, I, David Cochran, on behalf of Mayor Hilary Schieve, Mayor of the City of Reno, do hereby declare June 1 through June 7, 2026, CPR and AED Awareness Week. Thank you.

This side, just take a few steps that way. There we go.

All right, ready? One, two, three. Perfect.

Okay, Madam Clerk. Congratulations, I think we can move on to public comment.

Yeah, thank you, Mr. Vice Mayor. Mr. Vice Mayor, our first item today is general public comment. It should be noted for those in the audience that comments are to be addressed to the mayor and council as a whole. Comments heard under this item will be limited to three minutes per person and may pertain to matters both on and off the council's agenda. Council may not take action upon any matter not agendized on today's agenda. When you're called on for public comment, please state your name for the record and begin speaking. The timer will begin when you've stated your name and you will be afforded three minutes. For those participating in chambers, in accordance with council rules 6.3.11, while in this room, please be respectful. Disruptive behavior from audience members like clapping, yelling, whistling, etc., which impede the meeting, may result in a warning issued by the presiding officer. If the behavior continues, you may be removed from chambers. If you're an attendee in the Zoom meeting and would like to make public comment, please raise your hand at this time. Our first public commenter today is Terry Brooks, followed by Steven White, followed by Tony Harsh.

Good morning. It's me, Terry Brooks, again. And today I'd like to share with you my thoughts on entertainment and what seniors go through. Every day that we live, we all need some entertainment. And when we finally retire, we need even more entertainment. Sometimes listening to the radio or watching TV isn't enough. Sometimes we all need to engage in other stuff. such as going to see other people in a public place where we can be entertained by others face to face. Senior centers are a good place to go to be entertained. I've received lots of entertainment there, and I've never complained. I always look forward to entertainment when I enter a place that I know I will enjoy, such as a senior center. There are several musicians and bands that perform there, They all have a lot of talent that they are willing to share. And sometimes when they perform, they even give us the chance to stand up and make our moves and show them how we dance. Therefore, there's several events where you can dance, such as a ballroom and Chinese folk dance. There's a ukulele group for seniors to join and a country western line dancing for seniors to join. So at such senior centers, we not only get entertained a lot, but they even give us a chance to show them what we got. There's a senior idol talent show to see entertainers face to face. They even let me enter it and I actually won once, won second place. Entertainment is something good that we all need, even if it comes from someone like me who's not quite up to speed. I would like to thank you all for listening to me today, and I look forward to entertaining you when I have a lot more to say. Thank you.

Stephen White, followed by Tony Harsh, followed by David Zavesky.

Good morning, folks. In case you forgot, my name is Steven White. I'm an artist and a notorious defender of your First Amendment right to engage in the oldest forms of human self-expression, the fine arts. You know, 27 years ago, I was getting ready to set my artwork up in a public park in Littleton, Colorado, called Clement Park. And that morning, gunshots rang out. That was the morning of the massacre at Columbine. To this day, it affects me. It lit a fire under me. It lit a passion under me that I've carried with me for all these years. And that passion is to deliver the gift of art back to the children of our country. It's an alternative to guns, drugs, gangs, and violence. And it's a gift from those kids that died at Columbine. It's been a long journey. I've had to fight three federal lawsuits into one wall. I got a state assembly bill passed that requires art to be part of the recreational experience of the parks. And I've been working with Nathan now, and we're gonna make this dream come true here in Reno. 24 years ago, I came here to deliver the gift of art back to your children. I've been working on it all these years. I want to thank all of you for helping this dream come true. It's an incredible thing that we can do for all of our kids. You know, give them venues in the park with permanent display screens where kids can simply come down and hang their artwork up and display it and share it with the community. It's life-changing. It brings beauty to the world. It saves kids' souls. Thank you. And thank you to Nathan. We're working through this. I'm keeping them on their toes. But we're working through it. We're going to make this happen. God bless you all for helping me do this. Thank you.

Tony Harsh, followed by David Zavesky, followed by Pablo Navaduran.

Good morning. I want to thank you all for being here. I just came over the Arlington Bridge. It's brand open. It's awesome. And I want to thank you for incorporating a tradition that I started 26 years ago with the hanging pots and the flowers, beautifying the downtown. Why I'm calling you, I'm here, is to, you know I show up when I get passionate or I have a long history with something. I'm here to talk to you about the open meaning law. I have a very big problem with the agenda item on Monday, June 1st, of the Redevelopment Advisory Board, and that agenda item, and I have to get my glasses on, and I hope I can bring it up, was agenda item B4, and it is a reference to redevelopment discussion and recommendation and various things. It only allows to be seen the parcel number of this discussion item and then it refers to who might be the leasing agent. I do not think that that meets the letter of the spirit of the law. That is when we were going to be discussing the public plaza and the redevelopment. That's a parcel portion I think that we missed it in notifying the public of what the discussion was going to be about, that anybody even showed up. I'm shocked. I don't even know whether that agenda item parcel number is the public plaza or is it the redevelopment lot. I don't know. But I care very much about the open meeting law because I sued the city of Reno over it and won. And in fact, when I served, I sat down at the Supreme Court of Nevada and watched how you cured an open meeting law. You need to repost it. You need to rehear it. And so I just think that we do know how to do it. If you look at your agenda item, I need to look at my time. I have time. If you look at your agenda item C1 under the city of Reno, staff report and it has to do with the disposition of a city-owned property, you actually locate it as 14180 Mount Charleston Street and then the parcel number. So we do know how to do it and I think we need to do it. Thank you very much and have a great day. Hope it's not as long for you.

David Zavesky followed by Pablo Navaduran followed by Sean Sullivan.

All right, hello. My name's David Zavesky, and I'd like to preface my comment by saying that I never thought I'd see the day where leftists and conservatives alike would unite to protect free speech. This is in regards to the Believe Plaza. And also, just because it's off the agenda for now doesn't mean that this idea can take shape once again after the dust settles. The Believe Plaza, as many have pointed out before me, is one of the only, if not the only, designated free speech space in the Reno area. It's heavily utilized, centrally located, profoundly versatile, and it sits alongside one of our greatest regional treasures, the Truckee River. And one more additional important perk is that everyone gets to use it. Agreeing to buy this out would mean that you are basically putting up a paywall for use of an essential public space. Intentionally gatekeeping our working class residents, bikers, skateboarders, and community volunteers. And what for? So that wealthy transplants and college kids can experience getting heat exhaustion and alcohol poisoning but just on the other side of the river? This isn't even the first time either that a city approved initiative was used to interfere with regular activity in a public space. This happened with Roland Reno II when they set up a camp conveniently in essential public spaces and it didn't even attract a ton of visitors as intended. But for some reason, it was only done conveniently at the sites where mutual aid groups are active. So then it begs the question of examining a pattern where it's like, oh, homeless people are an eyesore and this move just might be good PR for tourists, which ends up backfiring. So if you were to vote in favor of Mr. Sitzler's proposal, that means you're against free speech. Now think about the kind of constituents that you're representing and how that makes you look. The Belief Plaza as it is, is already 10 trillion times better than it would be if the Eddie bought it out. And to think also that they are buying it out for $1 a year is so cartoonishly evil. It's criminal that these people see a magnificent, vibrant, iconic public space as a disposable testing ground. At their core, these people are uncreative and lazy businessmen and should not be taken seriously. Everyone who is against this proposal believes in the Believe Plaza. It's one of the last remaining monuments that gives Reno its unique identity, and for someone to deliberately minimize its value is incredibly disrespectful. That's all I have to say, thank you.

Pablo Nava Duran, followed by Sean Sullivan, followed by Nicole Anagapisis.

Good morning, City Council.

I never attend those City Council meetings, but I want to say Thank you, Devin Reese, for running for mayor to do something to change about Truckee River and bringing Tata-Reno together from North Valley to South Reno to Northwest Reno up to East Reno, Ward 3, which is my ward. And I want to say thank you, Devin Reese. For stepping up for we don't see a council And I can't miss you know right now Thank you very much, Devin Reese. I know it was heartbreaking to your election result last night, but thank you, Devin Reese. I'm also gets a proposal of Willie Plaza on Eddie Plaza that this Bully Plaza should be a freebie destination, not just for conservative liberals or Democrats and Republicans, but this should be for everybody. That includes the vision of Charlie Kirk happening in Bully Plaza. I can do support that. We pause at, you know, any social events that happen on free speech. It doesn't matter conservative or liberal, Democrat, Republican. This is for everybody. We are nice to America. We are protected by the First Amendment. The First Amendment is free on speech and it's free on assembly. So this is free on assembly. So thank you, and thank you, Darren Rees and Kathy Taylor. If you were events who want to remember, I'm going to say good luck to you. I wish your campaign the best. Thank you.

Sean Sullivan, followed by Nicole Anagapis, followed by Joshua Kowalski.

Hey there, my name is Sean Sullivan for the record. I just want to briefly address my attire. I'm trying to keep it casual, more for my benefit than for you all, so don't take it as disrespect or anything. Greetings Mayor, City Council. The CPR topic is an interesting one. I guess my public message is wear a mask and break some ribs. I have done CPR on a scuba diving trip and I still scuba dive, but we were too far out in the helicopter. The Coast Guard helicopter told us to discontinue at some point. But yeah, break some ribs if you have to. I also want to clarify my written comment from last week and my previous in-person comments. My goal here is not to attack anyone. I saw many faces on police officers after I made my comment last week, and they all looked the same they looked like Mr. Solferino's face when he was up here and that creating that is not my goal but we're here to discuss about as serious a matter as it can possibly be so that's that's why I'm here that's why I'm wearing flip-flops to make it a little tiny bit more casual I carried my sandals here because they kind of hurt my feet a little bit just uh hurts less anyways um and y'all can verify that with your pan to zoom cameras um i want to address also my written comment i do did exaggerate a few things on purpose uh specifically the cuts i understand that there are admins who might be found in any investigation and they may move them out in a paperwork and it may have a taint to it but that that paperwork still has to get done so clearly you're not going to be cutting everyone that comes up in this or every position rather that comes up in this uh investigation I'm proposing, but the goal was to start the discussion to have a serious look at mainly the street police that come up in this investigation, because those are the bad apples that really ruin the reputation of the police force. And I'm here to have this discussion over a few weeks, I guess, just as a member of the public. I want to share with you today what happens when China, Russia, Iran hacks our mass surveillance system. China has Hackers that outnumber ours 50 to 1 per an ex-U.S. intelligence agency person. They can use this information to target community leaders, teachers, professionals. And if it's allowed to be sold for advertising, they don't even have to hack it. They can just buy the data for pennies on the dollar like it's already available and track all of our motions and make all these plans. If you don't think everything can be hacked, you can look at Stuxnet. That's how you hack a system that is not connected to the Internet. We did that to Iran and blew up their nuclear centrifuges. If it's connected to the Internet, it's easy. In my opinion, all the hacks on the community vulnerability database are the bad ones that got caught, and any bad actor can use these for blackmail. Are people bad? No. I learned to play dominoes in Parr Boulevard, which is jail, with the worst of the worst people, and they were nothing but nice to me.

Nicole Anagapisis, followed by Josh Kosakowski, followed by Kylie Patterson.

All right, good morning. Nicole Anagapis is for the record. And I just want to start by saying that the residents of Reno are aware that addressing the LOI from the eddy to privatize the Believe Plaza is not on today's agenda. We all know that. Despite this fact, I feel it's been necessary to bring to the council and the city manager's attention that the immense backlash from the public is worth engaging with your full attention. Devin, full attention. Thank you. Beyond that, I believe that it's imperative to highlight this body's history and its failures to steward public assets properly, including but not limited to the CAC properties and recently the Lear Theater. I also find it curious that just a few short years ago, this body accepted a proposal from the Stitzer's family to build for like hundreds of thousands of dollars below fair market rate to build attainable housing. And I think I could be wrong about this, but I think that plot of land is like still empty. I'm not sure, but I'm pretty sure it is. That was riverfront property as well, kind of like our belief plaza. The reason I'm here to highlight these points is that I believe Plaza is not an empty lot. It's not just a parcel that is ripe for privatization. And then on a national stage, there is a conversation being had at many dinner tables that are addressing the gutting of our forest services and the sales and exploitation of beloved free and public lands. And this is Nevada. We are second only to Alaska in the amount of public lands that we have. And as Nevadans, we want to protect those. As other commenters mentioned, this is not a partisan issue. People love this place. They love their public lands. And they want to see you guys steward them properly and not entertain joke proposals like a dollar a year for 20 years. So to press that point a little further, I just took some time to capture some examples of how much folks from this community love that particular piece of publicly owned public space from the Eddies to Instagram posts on the matter. So the first one says, reasons I go to the Believe Plaza, start a bike ride with friends, practice my right to free speech, take my dog to the river, watch free live music, participate in food distributions. Reasons I go to the Eddie. I don't. Somebody said, any way the actual people who live here can fight this. Any community vote or feedback, any way to push back at all. Our city council is constantly failing us and approving things we don't want behind our backs. This one says, keep public places in the hands of the people. The statement says, not to privatize it. Then why, what exactly is this move? Their words are hollow. This is still privatization. This one just says, you are scum. This one just says, boo. This one is a series of tomato emojis. This one says, public spaces are inherently valuable. We don't need another point of sale POS. This says, this is a greedy ploy to privatize public space. Resend the proposal. More tomato emojis. The only blighted space is those fuck ass storage containers that you call an establishment. Just take the LU greedy trash bags. A series of thumbs down emojis. It seems the only investment you were looking for was for yourselves, offering to lease a publicly used space for a whole dollar a year. That is not investing in Reno. That is abusing your position of power to fill your own pockets. This one says, our vision is for privately managing poop from a butt to be left right in your doorstep. This is an investment, an investment in pooping from a butt into your lap. We are listening, with quotes. Thank you. You're welcome.

Joshua Kosakowski followed by Kylie Patterson followed by Dalton Askone via Zoom.

Kosakowski, so thank you. First time doing this. Nicole, good friend of mine, spoke to the sense of community that a place like the Believe Plaza engenders. Five days from now will be my one year anniversary in Reno. and my 11th month since wandering onto the Believe Plaza alone. I left that day with a sense of community. Devon, I do notice that you're looking at me and you ignored Nicole. That's odd. A little respect, please. Yeah. So I showed up that day and I left with a sense of community. Maybe the best that I've ever known. In that time, I've been witness to and participant in spontaneous protests, in mutual aid efforts, in casual gatherings, and frankly, if you know, some of the best dance moves that Reno has to offer. It would be dishonest of us to think that those things would be possible under the stewardship of the EDI. I understand that an unsolicited application, whatever we want to call it, has to proceed through this body. I also understand that there is more often tension with some of the groups that use the plaza and yourself. I would remind you that abdication of the protection of that plaza would be against everything that you should stand for. And there are so few places like the plaza available to us in Reno. Not just for people that look like me. but for houseless people, queer people, really all of our citizens. To grant the eddies request, which is greedy and cynical, at a dollar a year, would be a loss to all of us. I urge you to reject any and all proposals made by Mr. Stitzer or any attempts to privatize public land. And I appreciate your time. Thank you all.

Thanks.

Kylie Patterson, followed by Dalton Askone via Zoom.

Hi, my name is Kylie Patterson. I'm a lifelong resident of Reno Sparks. My husband, daughter, and I have lived in Ward 5 for the past seven years. I want to start off by recognizing the amazing work done last Monday during the data center moratorium meeting. I couldn't attend due to work, but watched online. I can't express nearly enough gratitude to my fellow community members who attended and spoke. Thank you all so much for fighting for a permanent ban, for providing important fact-based information, and for reminding me of how tough, intelligent, and tight-knit my community is. That brings me to my next point, the eddy. because whoever came up with the dead-brained idea that the Believe Plaza should be handed over to the eddy clearly forgot that the people of Reno are not weak or stupid or detached. I understand that this proposal did not come from the city council, but rather from a development board, which the owner of the eddy just happens to be on. I also understand that the specific issue is not on today's agenda. That said, I want to address it. My biggest concern is simply what benefit could the people ever get out of giving away our public space for the amazing price of $1 a year? Fancy terms like activation and cornhole have been used, but there doesn't seem to be a benefit to anyone except a singular alcohol vendor and their pre-existing clientele. No less, this is a space that is already well loved and well used by a wide range of folks on a regular basis. I remember when it opened. I remember seeing local music acts there when I was a teen. I remember joining my community in protest there when I was in my 20s. And I remember last Tuesday when I was lucky enough to pitch in with the beautiful mutual aid work done by Family Soup in the plaza. Sorry, it's also my first time. These are all experiences that have enriched my life and would not have happened in the plaza if it was not public. And most importantly, they were warmly shared with my neighbors. Privatizing our public space would essentially be begging someone else to tell us what we're allowed to do there and how much it costs. Should this proposal be on the agenda in the future, I'm asking the council to recognize the intrinsic and immeasurable value the city plaza has to the people of Reno. Please reject this and all future proposals to privately manage our beloved public space. Instead, I demand that our plaza remains in the hands of the people of Reno permanently. I also ask that changes are made to ensure there is more transparency and democracy around this process for the public. The way this proposal was announced was insulting to many of us. The lack of conversation with the public before and after the announcement has made many of us recognize that more room needs to be made for residents to vote or speak on these matters. After all, the plaza belongs to the people of Reno, and taking something without permission is theft. Thank you.

Thanks.

Dalton Askone via Zoom, followed by Sean Wensley.

Hello, can you hear me?

We can, thank you.

All right, thank you. Dalton Askone for the record. Good morning. I just wanted to say I moved to Reno very recently, and in my time here both as a visitor before I moved here and now since I've moved here, the only place that I've visited More frequently than my local grocery store is the Believe Plaza, both when I was a guest and now that I'm a resident getting to know the city better. This plaza has been the face of the city in my mind, and I mean that as a great compliment to the city of Reno. And I look forward to visiting it more in the future as a free and public space. And for that reason, I oppose its privatization. Thank you for your time.

Sean Wensley followed by Elizabeth Morgan via Zoom.

Okay. I'm thinking you should have an automotive person of all these, right? Because I got an automotive problem. On your vehicles, on everybody's vehicles, they have the regular license plate, and they have that little tag on that right side, which is fine. But DMV has radically flipped on us because, number one, mine expired last year, and I went down last week to try to pay it and get one, and they wouldn't do it. I couldn't believe it. And that should be standard. Because, number one, what they were telling me, I got to pay them over $200. And I said, I don't have any money like that because, number one, I have... I'm getting my Social Security, and I don't get that. I mean, that was getting paid on the 15th for years. But now I get it somewhere from the 20th to the 25th every month. But... What they should do, they should at least take the minimum payment, which is like $50, and then you can just make a payment to get it all caught up with them. But they won't even do that because I even asked them on it. It's getting radical because that's not helping all the people here because, you know, I came up here in 97 from California, and now you've got a lot more millions of people up here, and you've got to help all those people. And all your cars are going to have the same thing too. But if you don't pay it, like mine expired back in September, October last year, and they never sent me anything. But they told me they did, but I never got it. So I couldn't pay it. And most of us never bothered to really look at our back license plate all the time. So what they should do, they should at least take that money first, and then you can just make those payments, even if it's every month or something like that. And that'll be caught up, and everything will be fine. But they won't even do the basic stuff anymore. And it's very stressful to go down there to DMV, because there's so many people. It takes you an hour to an hour and a half to talk to somebody. Okay?

Our final public commenter is Elizabeth Morgan via Zoom.

Hi, can you hear me okay?

We can, thank you.

Good morning city council. I have a bit of an unsolicited comment to make. However, I feel very strongly this issue needs to be addressed before the city council breaks 2 weeks ago. The Eddie made an unsolicited proposal to take over city, or I prefer the name, believe Plaza. This proposal sparked out across the community for several reasons. Number 1, when the Eddie and sisters complete lack of research or care to understand how the space is already used over the course of a normal week. The space hosts skaters, musicians, artists, locals, tourists, walkers, runners, bikers and of course, family suit mutual aid. Over the course of a month or two, the plaza hosts protests, memorials, and various city events. Over the last two weeks, I've heard so many stories from people who have deep ties to the plaza. Two friends met and fell in love at bike night, which always starts in the plaza, and several people have made lifelong friendships at various events the plaza hosts. On a personal level, I use the plaza multiple times a week to skate. Bad day, skate it out. Good day, skate it out. Any sort of day I'm having, the plaza is free and open for me and everyone else to use. When the EDDIE's team referred to the area as a blighted space, many people in the community joined together to remind the EDDIE, and hopefully you too as the city, that the plaza is alive and beautiful. My argument is not all just anecdotal either. According to the UN's Healthier Cities and Communities Through Public Spaces report, public spaces are essential parts of healthy cities and include several benefits. The promotion of physical health, community engagement, reduced air pollution, economic benefit, social engagement, all of which can help improve mental health for all people. If you really want to improve the plaza, there have been several studies you'll have already commissioned that make great recommendations, but an easy place to start would be shade, tables, a water fountain, or even a bike rack. Over your summer break, I encourage you to get outside and enjoy the plaza, strap on some skates, attend a bike event, distribute some aid, maybe enjoy the plaza at sunset, and talk and listen to the people of the plaza. Don't let this essential community space become exclusive. Become an exclusive private business. Not everyone has access to bars. Not everybody wants access to bars. It's really important that as the city, we keep public spaces public and that we provide strict guardrails on how these spaces will be used. Thank you.

Thank you.

Mr. Vice Mayor, for the record, we received 26 additional comments which were general in nature or not directly associated with an agenda item prior to yesterday, Tuesday, June 9th at 4 p.m. These comments were written correspondence received via our reno.gov online public comment form or by emails to our office. Copies of these have been distributed to the Reno City Council and are available to the public on reno.gov forward slash meetings. With that, we're closing out item A3, opening public comment.

Thank you. We'll move on to agenda item A4, approval of the agenda. Are there any updates, Manager Bryant?

Only that because we have some folks here in the audience, I'm proposing that we do consent poll. If there are any pulled consents, that they be heard after item C4.

And if I may.

Yes, Council Member.

Yeah, Vice Mayor. I was interested in potentially deferring item B1 on the RDA agenda. And the reason is I had briefly chatted with the mayor about a week ago. I don't know that she communicated her concerns to our manager, but I have my own concern about the item. And I know it would be the second time that we would continue it, but the reason is is that First of all the mayor's not here and will not be here. She is our liaison over to the RAB She has expressed concerns about how it is managed and I just think it would be what is the word appropriate polite Respectful to delay it till she's back so that would be my request and You know if you if you don't want to do that, okay. I mean, I'll have comments on the item myself and

different comment Thank you a couple of things the item for discussion at the moment is the City Council Meeting and discussion on the City Council agenda. We have not yet opened the RDA board meeting Well, so if you could hold that until we actually get to approval agenda for the RDA board Okay, I was thinking about it that we generally do them together, but we do not be not.

Okay.

Thank you Thank you with that. I'll look for a motion on the approval of the Reno City Council agenda. I

I'll make the motion.

Second.

We got a motion. Second. Council Member Weaver, it sounds like you have some comments.

I was going to pull consent items, but I was like, oh, never mind. Yeah, okay, perfect.

I have a motion and a second. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion passes unanimously. With that, we'll go to the consent agenda and pull any items.

Council Member Anderson? No. Council Member Taylor? I will need to pull B9 and B16, and I won't be voting on them. 9 and 16. Council Member Reese? No, nothing. Dewar?

No.

Yeah, B8, it's well over a million bucks. B18, which is about flood updates, FEMA. And then B23. And it's mostly positive things.

23, perfect. Council Member Ebert.

Yeah, I would like to pull B12. 13 and there's another one that I forgot to mark so if you just bear with me one second here I can't find it right now but if we can reconsider that item later I don't want to hold us up

I would like to make a comment on b-28 and not pull it but I just want to do a huge shout out this is a contribution from my discretionary funds to this year and a veterans research education foundation they do a tremendous job in our community supporting veteran research education and community services I've learned a lot about them over the years I've been arena so I just want to highlight that. Thank you. Thank you.

And Mr. Vice Mayor, can I just confirm we have items polled are B8, B9, B12, B13, B16, B18, and B23.

That's what I've got, yes. And I have a question. I don't know if there was anyone in the audience to speak to B28. I didn't see anyone, but...

Did you want to pull the item or are these your comments? No. Okay. Council Member Ebert, did you find it? If not, I'll look for a motion.

No, I don't want to hold anything up.

Second. And a second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion passes unanimously. So we're moving on, Manager Bryant, to C1. That's correct. Thank you. Okay. Let's open up agenda item C1.

All right. Good morning, Council. My name is Brenna Nichols, Senior Management Analyst in Public Works. I am joined today by J.D. Klippenstein from the Reno Housing Authority. Would you like a presentation on this item today?

Does anybody require a presentation? Doesn't look like it. We'll move to approve.

Oh, yeah, I would like a presentation, please. Thank you. Okay.

Okay, yeah, go ahead, Ms. Nichols.

Fantastic. So this item seeks direction from council to consider a letter of intent to purchase 14180 Mount Charleston Street by the Reno Housing Authority. The amount of this would be $10 plus closing costs. This item is in alignment with our strategic... Oops. This item is in alignment with our strategic plan and the economic and community development goal. And a little bit about this property. It's located in Ward 4 at the corner of Mount Charleston Street and Cocoa Avenue, just south of the Reno Stead Airport. It's .35 acres, and it's been leased to Reno Housing Authority for their clubhouse for the Stead Manor community since 1994 at no cost. This potential sale is through NRS 277, which is to another government entity for a public purpose. And so I wanted to elaborate a little bit more on the community benefit of this transaction. The Stead Manor is a 68-unit affordable housing community. Rents are capped at 30% of household income. And the Clubhouse is a community meeting space that supports youth programs, workforce services, and technology access. Additionally, Reno Housing Authority has been investing in the community as a whole, and the clubhouse is part of those improvements. A quick timeline. The city purchased this property in 1975. RHA began leasing the property in 1994 when the construction of the clubhouse began by RHA. Today, we are considering a letter of intent from RHA to purchase, and if approved, we would follow up with two more council actions. The first step would be a resolution of intent to sell on August 12th, and then follow it up on August 26th with a resolution of sale. And with that, here is the recommended motion. Let me know if you have any questions.

Thank you. Council Member Ebert, yeah.

Um, just to put things on the record, cause I've taken a tour of that, um, facility or apartments basically, and it's a really nice community looks well kept from the outside. Um, and I know there's several, um, you know, housing authority projects in my ward and they're all very well maintained. Um, and I just really appreciate, you know, the, the sense of community that's provided for people, um, especially, you know, in my ward. Um, Can you just kind of, for the public's benefit, can you say again who built the clubhouse? The Reno Housing Authority built the clubhouse. Okay, so it was no cost to the City of Reno to build this facility. And we've been leasing it to RHA since 1994 for $0, correct? Correct. Okay, so this is a sale for how much? be a nominal fee of $10 plus yeah okay so we're not really losing money but it is a benefit to a resource to the community that's really appreciated and utilized and maintained well is there plans to renovate the the clubhouse is it going to be out of commission for a while is it going to be torn down what are the plans for that no JD speak to that

J.D. Klippenstein, Deputy Director of the Reno Housing Authority, for the record, to Council Member Ebert. So we're currently on the tail end of a gut rehab of the property. We invested $20 million for a substantial rehab of all the residential units, exteriors, and the clubhouse. It was a phased rehab due to it being occupied. So we've been... temporarily relocating residents, bringing them back on as their new units are available. The clubhouse is in this final phase, so the project will be complete at the end of July, and we will be returning residents who have been temporarily relocated and then also leasing up for some new residents now that the project is fully available. And the clubhouse will be available for those residents as soon as it's completed.

That's wonderful. So the residents that had to kind of be transplanted for a while, did they go to another RHA property or did you assist them with rent in other areas if there wasn't an RHA facility? apartment available?

Yeah, it's a great question. So we relocated residents to available units on site. So since it was done in three phases, we could relocate folks into vacant sites, vacant units for the most part. In some cases, they were relocated to other RHA properties. All relocation costs and counseling services were paid for by the housing authority, and they continued to pay rent, their normal rent. There was no impact on what they were paying.

That's wonderful. And you said counseling services. Was there people that were kind of distraught about having to move? Or what's the counseling services for?

Yeah. Sorry, it's a broad term. We contracted with a third party called Housing the Home to meet with the residents, make sure that we were aware of all the needs they had as they were relocated. Got it. And then they handled all the moving logistics, hiring the moving company, all of that. So counseling is kind of a broad term in that regard. And they were their point of contact while they were temporarily relocated.

So do the residents pay the moving fee, or was that also a fee that the RHA covered? The RHA covered all costs. That's great. Well, thank you. I really appreciate the work you guys do and the upgrades. It's wonderful. I mean, I thought it was great when I visited already, and I haven't been there after the remodel. So thank you. And I know the other project a little further south in Reno where it's individual houses too, it's just really great to have different types of housing available and to really have it feel like community and have outdoor space for people to use and things like that too. So thank you. Thank you for your work. I appreciate it.

Thank you. We will be having a grand reopening in August. We'll make sure that the members of the council get an invite for that. Great.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Are there any other questions from the members? If not, Council Member Reese?

Thank you so much, Mr. Clippenstein. Thank you so much for the information you provided. I've had the privilege of being at this facility a number of times over the years during the pandemic. We used it largely as a food pantry. and so I think there are still some larger refrigeration units, or there were at the time, but absolutely have our support, my support. Reno Housing Authority is doing great work. Thank you for the work that you're doing. What else can we do to help you at this site? Is there something else, or are we on the right track?

We're on the right track. We really appreciate the support. This is kind of the final piece for the long-term preservation of the property, and so we appreciate the support on the item.

Yeah, super cool. Thank you so much for being here. Yeah, thank you.

Any other questions or comments? Not all look for a motion.

I move to accept the LOI to dispose of the city-owned property at 14180 Mount Charleston Street to RHA for the public purpose of supporting affordable housing for a nominal fee of $10 plus closing costs and direct staff to proceed with the sale process as authorized. A second. Okay.

We have a motion and a second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion passes unanimously. Thank you so much. Okay, Madam Clerk.

Mr. Vice Mayor, we're going to go on to item C2, Charlie 2.

Manager, is that what you said? I thought you said we're going back to consent.

No, I said we would go through items C1, C2, C3, C4, and then do pulled consent.

Oh, okay. All the Cs.

Thank you.

Welcome.

Good morning, Vice Mayor and Council Members. I do not have a presentation for this one today. It is the fourth quarter augmentation. Primarily, this is just recognizing some grants and reimbursements and truing up some of our housing grant funds to finish out the year. So there was not much noteworthy in this one.

Thanks for the overview. I'll make a motion.

Second.

To approve this resolution to augment the budget for FY25-26.

We have a motion and a second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion passes unanimously. Thank you. We'll move on to agenda item C3. Madam Clerk.

Thank you, Mr. Vice Mayor. We're opening item C3.

Will there be a presentation yet, Director Rambeer?

Good morning. Vicki Van Buren, Director of Finance for the Record. Today we have the Citywide Risk Assessment Report prepared for you, and it was prepared by Ide Bailey. The City has contracted with Ide Bailey to conduct internal audits and offer independent feedback on governance and operations. Ide Bailey has assessed priorities and created a multi-year audit plan. They have identified 16 internal audits to consider over a multi-year planning horizon. These audits aim to improve controls, boost process efficiency, and strengthen oversight to lower operational risk and promote better fiscal stewardship. Fiscal year 27, the budget includes $100,000 for internal audits, and staff recommends prioritizing the top three proposed audits in the report that they will go over. These three areas we believe will offer important insights as the city plans for the new ERP financial and payroll system. The three top proposed audits include payroll, IT infrastructure, and overtime. I, Bailey, did present this report to the Financial Advisory Board on May 14th, and the FAB did recommend that we move forward with the top three audits for fiscal year 27. And so with that, I will turn it over, and they will present their report, and then we'll be glad to answer questions.

Good morning and thank you for giving us the opportunity to present today. We're happy to be here to walk through the results of the city's internal audit risk assessment that we performed and also discuss how this work supports the city's internal audit planning for the upcoming year. So in attendance today is myself, Carly Ransom. We also have Catherine Villamar and Roger Alfaro. And we are the key members of the engagement team for this risk assessment. So before we dive in, I just want to take a moment to introduce ourselves and why we're here. So we are the city's internal audit partners from Eid Bailey. We're engaged to essentially serve and support the city's internal audit function, working alongside with leadership to provide internal audit services and independent objective oversight across the city. A key part of that internal audit function is the risk assessment, which helps guide and support the selection of internal audit projects for the upcoming year. So this briefing is intended to provide a high-level view of the city's risk landscape based off of the work that we performed as part of this risk assessment. We'll reference certain page numbers from the report just so you can easily connect with what you're hearing today. Okay, so this slide really frames the objectives and the scope of the engagement. In short, our goal was to provide a comprehensive risk assessment across the city's key processes and functions. So we looked at the city from an entity-wide perspective to understand where risk is more concentrated, where organizations and processes are more complex, and where internal audit can really help and add value to the city. So to achieve this, as part of our risk assessment, we included discussions with leadership and department management, along with review of operational, financial, and governance-related information. And when we say enterprise-wide, we mean it. We covered 22 departments across the city, which collectively make up the city's audit universe for this purpose. And with that, I'll hand it over to Catherine to discuss the audit universe a little more in depth.

Good morning, city council members, and Kathy Villamore from Mike Bailey, for the record. So here you see the city's full audit universe, which are the 22 departments that were included in the risk assessment. This scope is important because it ensures that the risk assessment and ultimately the audit plan reflects the city's full operational footprint. To bring clarity and consistency to the city's risk environment, we group the risk identified through the assessment into risk domains tailored to municipal operations. This framework helps show how governance, resources, processes, systems, and external factors intersect across departments as opposed to viewing risks as isolated issues. Each domain represents a concentration of related risks, risk conditions observed across the audit universe. So here you will see the heat map. This displays the relative concentration of risk across the city's audit universe. Essentially where risk is more concentrated by department based on operational complexity, regulatory environment, service criticality, and reliance on staffing and technology. A key point that we want to emphasize here is that these ratings are relative and not intended to represent absolute rankings or evaluations of departmental performance or control effectiveness. So a high rating here does not mean that a department is doing something wrong. It typically reflects the level of exposure or complexity that comes with the work. So if you look at the high-risk departments, police and fire department, utility services, city clerk, finance, information technology, these departments tend to operate in highly regulated environments. They rely heavily on technology or manage large volumes of transaction or sensitive data. Medium-risk departments like HR or development services also experience elevated risk due to process complexity. System limitations or staffing constraints. And then we have the departments in the low risk rating. They generally reflect more stable and predictable processes and fewer higher impact risk drivers in the scoring model. This table summarizes the department risk profiles that we used to develop the proposed internal audit plan. It provided a consistent way to compare risk across departments and help focus an audit plan where additional management attention or independent assurance is likely to provide the most impact. So here is the proposed internal audit plan. The plan includes 16 potential audits that can be sequenced over multiple years, giving the city flexibility as risks evolve and capacity allows. The first recommended audit for FY27 is payroll and timekeeping controls assessment, and then we have the IT infrastructure lifecycle and asset management review, and then the third one is overtime controls and compliance review. That brings us to the end of this briefing. Thank you again for the opportunity to be here, and we're happy to answer any questions.

Council Member Dewar?

Yeah, thank you. Can you go back to the slide where, what's the red, yellow, green? Yeah. Okay. On this, you're saying this lists all the departments that would potentially be audited over time.

These are all the departments that were included in the risk assessment. The 16 potential audits cover most of the departments. It might not touch every single department.

Is that true? Have you identified departments that are not touched, as you put it?

No, the departments are here. The proposed internal audit plan, let's see.

Well, let me just cut to the chase here. What I don't see on here, and I assume you didn't evaluate it, but I think should be listed here somewhere, is we have now a separate agency called the Redevelopment District, and it has a separate board, has separate staff, And a budget. Well, and a big budget because it's probably the biggest capital budget we now have because it's the center with the most money. And so I guess I'm just wondering, I understand that you didn't include it in your review, but I wonder if it will ever be reviewed.

Vicki Van Buren, Director of Finance for the Record. This would be for the city of Reno. I understand. So if we were going to do one for the redevelopment agency, we could potentially bring one forward, contract separately for that to look at different things. I'm welcome to work with Manager Bryant to... to look at that space.

Happy to do that. If that's the body's desire, we can go ahead and execute a contract and have the RDA.

Yeah, and I'm not speaking to the timing. Sure. We've just sort of gotten off to ground zero the last two years, but within two years, I think it would be a good idea to do something.

We can go ahead and initiate that process. Thank you. Okay.

Do you have anything else, Council Member Dewey? No. Well, I do have one more thing. So I wasn't really sure where code enforcement fits in this chart either. Because we have reorganized a number of times over the last few years, and I'm not really sure where it sits today and under who. It's on the bottom there. Business license and code enforcement. And code enforcement. Okay. I would move it up higher into a higher category. I mean, I'm not trying to... second guess you, but I do know that we've had some major discussions here at the council about the work that's being done, how it's going, what the issues are, and occasionally there are concerns arise about not following through on code enforcement, letting people go, giving them multiple warnings without actually ever executing, let's say, a penalty, and I do think that should be higher in the red category, sooner rather than later. I do. And especially because they're trying to restart. And if I was their manager and just restarting, I'd want a clean slate if I'm going to start a whole new effort. So that's a thought.

Vicki Van Buren, Director of Finance. For the record, this heat map isn't really to identify where the audits would be. This is to help them rank. the audits as they're looking to propose as they go forward. So I don't know if you want to explain the heat map a little bit more because it's based on number of transactions. How many transactions do they have? How much interaction do they have with financials? And so it ranks that based on the probabilities that there might be something wrong because there's so much volume in that area or regulation. So it's not necessarily... These aren't necessarily where the audits need to be. This helps as a ranking system as they look to rank those audits. And I don't know if I'm explaining it in your best words.

I just need to clarify for the record. I want to make sure we don't get too far straight. Can you go advance one slide, please? Sure. This is the proposed audits that have been proposed today.

Yes, and that's heat map ranks, helps them rank. Correct.

So if there's any changes to this proposed audit order, it would be done at this level. Thank you for adding that. With that, we'll go to Council Member Taylor.

Thank you. I think I have kind of the same question, but I wanted to understand when you get to the top three... Rankings is that based on the risk that was defined in the executive? Summary report those factors so at some point I would imagine that all of these things would need to be audited yes based on how they impact the risk to the city on the Qualifications and criteria to find in those risk interest to find is that accurate yes?

This is intended to be you know, a three to four year plan. So this would be the plan as we move forward. If you see other things on here that you think you want moved up, we could do that. We are recommending we go with the top three.

You guys are the experts. So you've evaluated all of these things. You've came up with, yeah, they came up with the top three based on the amount of risk. And that is your top three recommendations for those. Is that accurate? Or those are the top three. Yeah.

These are their top three. I would, I would recommend these as well because we are moving forward with the new ERP payroll system and financial system, and I think those top three would really help us as we look to build out what that new model looks like.

I'm very consistent in making decisions based on the data, and the data says that the research that you've done, these are the top three things that we need to do to minimize or look at the risk to the city on all the factors. Perfect. Thank you.

Council Member Reese?

Thank you so much, Ms. Van Buren. I wanted to sort of hone in on a particular point, and that is external versus internal audits. So can you just speak to just generally, I'm just wanting to have a starting point for us to have a conversation. Audits in general, what is the function of an audit?

Function of an audit is to verify, make sure we're in compliance, verify our numbers, make sure we're materially representing things. There's a big difference, though, between the audit we do annually, which are outside auditors that come in and audit our financials annually. That's different because they're auditing to make sure we're representing our financial statements materially correct, that they don't find any irregularities. That's different than internal audit. Internal audit, technically, you aren't required to do this. It is a very good practice because internal audit, we're helping to find out where we could have better controls, where we could have better governance in certain areas, where we could make things better as far as a city. So these are opportunities to learn about how departments are doing things, are there better ways to do it, and are there some things that we are missing that maybe we aren't doing right and we can correct ourselves and continue to monitor that. We used to do this in-house. We had the in-house couple of staff, but now we have outsourced it. They're doing the same function, but I think it's a different process, and we're going to get a different look at it independently from the outside. I like what they brought forward here as far as the audit plan. There was a lot of things on here. You'll see a lot of things on here that really are important things, the P-card, the procurement, sewer billing, lots of opportunities for us to do some really meaningful audits, auditing ourselves, basically.

Well, and that's why I kind of want to start at the beginning. I know the other folks jumped in and want to talk about the prioritization. I wanted to start at the level set of what the audit function is. I understand that a couple of years ago we made the decision not to have an internal audit function at the city, but that this would essentially replace that on a contract basis The folks who were doing that. And so I suppose that's the first important part. The second part is like what an audit can tell us. Right. I understood. And maybe you had a lot of component parts as your explanation of what the audits do. But at the end of the day, what we're trying to make sure we're doing is like not overlooking something that would lead us to like a small group within the city being able to do no bid contracts and no one knows about it or something else like that. And so you feel good about where these will place us in a position just to have better and good governance?

Yes, I do. Yeah, and it does look, you know, it looks at compliance. It looks at are we following NRS, a lot of those things.

Can one person sign a check or does it require several layers of check writing, approvals, all those kind of things? Look, I just want to make sure that because for the public who watches this that they would know that we do audits. They're being done externally. I'd Bailey is incredibly capable. They do this All across state all across the country, maybe the globe.

I'm happy to see it go forward Yeah, so my experience there's at least two kinds and probably more kinds of audits the big one that we've done here often is financial auditing and And what I'd like to understand is that these audits and or, are they including programmatic audits? And so programmatic audits deal with the actual processes, the outcomes. If you say, let's say pick parking, that they have a goal of issuing 25 parking tickets a day and they're only doing 10. What's going wrong? Is it inappropriately staffed? Are they skipping cars? You know, what's the issue? And so under that umbrella, I'd like to understand more, once I finish my questions, is this financial, programmatic, both, which is what I would hope, Number two, in terms of things that are not even on this list, okay, again, I would like to highlight code enforcement. We've spent a lot of time at council talking about code enforcement. We haven't spent a lot of time talking about contract management or risk management review or even business license. We're hiring a third party to do an audit on business license, you know, validating the business license. So I'd like to add to this list code enforcement, RDA, and actually parking. I think those are at least some areas that we've talked a lot about, and yet we don't really have some good data coming back on those areas, how they're functioning, what can we do to beef them up. Are there things we can do at council, changing ordinances, staffing, whatever the issue is that the auditors would identify for us, I would love to see them addressed. And certainly in the top 16, I think they belong there. So that's my opinion. You asked about these things, and do we miss any, and should we add any? Those are some. I think we should.

Okay. Thank you. Vicki Van Buren for The Record. Yes, and just to answer your question, yes, these would be programmatic and financial and compliance, depending on which audit they are. Yes, and these are separate from the financial audit that we're required to do every single year, which is a different entity than these.

I've served on a number of audit committees for different private businesses, as well as public agencies, as well as nonprofits. And what can I say? Nobody's perfect, and there's always issues. And unfortunately, I've been involved, worked at agencies where they actually experienced fraud. That was very well hidden. I actually served on a federal grand jury for 18 months. similar kind of thing with fraud against the federal government. So I'm pretty attuned to the issue and I just want to make sure that we are also attuned and not just sort of the obvious things about the money and payroll. All those are very obvious. These are maybe a little less obvious, a little bit more hidden. So I'd like to make sure that we add them. And I'm not saying what number, okay, where they should fit, but I think there's some risk areas there. Okay.

Council Member Ebert.

Yeah, I have a few questions, and I'm sorry if I missed it. I'm having technical issues as well here. So on this... selection of the top three are these based on potential fines and fees that we could be facing like for payroll and timekeeping assessment IT infrastructure overtime controls is this something that we're at risk because if we got an audit we would have to potentially pay a lot of fines or fees on or how did you identify or say those are the most important of all of these

I think I'm going to ask our auditors to come up and kind of talk about the selection process and kind of go through how that works.

Good morning, council members. For the record, I'm Roger Alfaro. As stated earlier, I was part of the engagement team that worked on this risk assessment. As we went through the process of aggregating risks through the interviews, through data that we were reviewing, financial information, our focus was on identifying risks. So when we talk about risks, we're dealing with the uncertainty that could impact the city's ability to meet either strategic operational and service delivery types of objectives, as well as internal control related elements. And so, as shared earlier, we aggregate these risks in certain areas, we call them broad categories, to be able to then look at the risk citywide, and then we assign a ranking to them, or a scoring. That scoring is done in the perspective of professional judgment, having worked with other governmental agencies, other cities, taking into consideration information here at your city. But at the same time, it's not a mathematical computation of precision, but it's more of being able to use a methodology and a ranking to identify areas where risks exist. And therefore, when we go through these elements of these programs, or these topic areas, if you will, These are elements that came as a result of that heat map. There's a component to the heat map that we're looking at specific projects and saying, where can we have most value from an internal audit perspective? So we are looking at those top three as areas of... greater significance in our ability to review that information and respond back on operational internal control or related matters as it relates to those topics.

Great. Madam Vice Mayor, can I have just a little more time? I have a follow-up question on that. Yeah, go right ahead. So in my past life, I worked in an HR department, and I'm aware of fees that... can come with not handling payroll and HR correctly, and some of them are per day with no cap. So I'm concerned if we're not managing that correctly. That is, to me, also a concern about our ability to function as a city if we're fined into oblivion because we weren't doing something right. really want to know like yes I understand we have to make sure that those departments are operating at capacity that the city of reno can function at the level we need to but I think that also fines There's some significant areas of concern for me personally and then again IT the state got taken over this year, you know, so I really want to make sure that there are always Get whatever technology they need and support that they need So if they're if they're lacking we definitely need to prioritize that in my opinion and then police fire finance overtime and controls and compliance review. I do think that's important too. We've had some concerns from the community regarding overtime. I would like to see if we can find a way to verify overtime because I absolutely support it when it's needed and people are spending time away from their families and It's definitely cheaper than hiring a whole new police officer or firefighter. But we just, you know, want to make sure that programs are not being taken advantage of, you know, our good graces are not being taken advantage of. So just wanted to pass that along. Like, I understand the distinction between, you know, functionality as a city, but also like, really, there is a lot of financial things that we could be you know, an infinite risk for her. So not to be alarmist, but I'm worried about that. Thank you.

Thank you. Council member Taylor.

Thank you. Um, I just want to sort of talk about to my colleagues. It's no, it's no surprise that our payroll system and where we've been with needing a new system is one of the highest risks to the city. We've heard it over and over and over again. So these top three don't surprise me one bit along with what council member Ebert said. Um, But to Councilmember Dewar's concerns, it looks like the motion is really just to proceed through 27. So there's gonna be an opportunity to look at other things at a different time, but for right now, we're looking at what are the top three things in the next year, which I think have been presented very clearly. It's not to say that we can't look at other things, but what you're asking from us today is say, in 2027, go through and look at these three things and give us more details on it. Perfectly happy supporting the motion whenever anybody's ready.

Thank you Yeah, and I support that as well I think that things you've identified as the top three are totally fine. I agree with them I think they're high priority items I just want to make sure because you gave us the rest of this list that we're looking at and I support this idea of making sure That the HR procedures and everything are also on this list. I think it's really important You know So that's where it's going. I mean, if you consider this future direction, and if your next council, you bring it up next year for the audit, and they say, well, it's not on the list of 16, I think that's a miss. You know, I think you should include more things. And the second thing is, I don't recall, but maybe I missed it, did you actually call the council to get their input, or was it all from the staff? Is this your time to talk to us?

No, we actually, as part of the process, had interviews with governance as well as leadership at the citywide level and departments as well.

But I'm just asking, I just don't recall or maybe I missed it. Did you have interviews with council, individual council members?

Individual council members, yes.

Okay. I probably brought up some of these same things then. So if we did, I'm going to look back on that. Thank you.

Thank you. Before we move on to the motion, I just want to mention that I appreciate you focusing a lot of the efforts on the IT infrastructure and lifecycle and the impacts of that throughout the whole organization because it does touch everything we do at technology, integrates more and more into the work that we do in the city. And so assessing the risk and looking at efficiencies of the way that we can better prepare and defend the organization, our sensitive data is important. So I just wanted to highlight that and appreciate you for that. And obviously your first one with payroll and timekeeping control assessments is gonna lead us into that next phase of making sure we have enterprise relationships management system that will be successful for our city and be better able to provide higher services for our community. So thank you. With that, I'll look for a motion if there are no other comments or questions.

Mr. Vice Mayor, I move to accept the Citywide Risk Assessment for Fiscal Year 26-27 and direct staff to focus audit efforts for Fiscal Year 27 on the top three proposed internal audits.

Second.

We have a motion and a second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion passes unanimously. Thank you for the presentation. Thank you, Council, for the discussion. With that, we'll close Item C-3 and move on to Item C-4. I believe we have presentation.

Good morning. Carissa Bradley for the record. Today's item is the final section of your strategic plan for FY27 through 29. Today's item is focused on the two sections of well-maintained city infrastructure and access to natural spaces. These are the proposed areas where we would focus time and attention over the next three years. see if everybody wanted a presentation or if we wanted to move forward.

I'd like a presentation. Sounds great. It's a big update to me.

Sounds perfect. So just as a reminder, the strategic plan, as you'll recall, we've positioned into this strategic prioritization framework. here with this pyramid. This was approved by Council at the October 29th, 2025 Strategic Planning Workshop. As a reminder, the yellow section, the trapezoid there, are the places where Council had directed staff to find out what more specific projects or issues or things of that nature would be focused on in the lifecycle of this plan. all working to shore up the base to lead to a higher quality of life here in Reno. These are what we're calling major opportunity areas, which are basically our goals. To date, council has discussed and approved for inclusion in the draft plan all areas related to fiscal stewardship, legal obligations, and safe community. Today's item, again, is focused on well-maintained city infrastructure and the access to natural spaces. So for those two sections today, I'll be going over what the recommended proposed major opportunity areas are. Again, major opportunity areas, those are our goals. They're the things that we're looking to kind of target improvement areas on, the things that might require a little bit more time, resources, and effort, and discussion across council over the next three years. And we've really focused on these as strategic time-bound issues. So in the well-maintained city infrastructure section of the plan, there's two major opportunity areas that are being recommended for inclusion and discussion today. Again, this item is really intended for you all to provide feedback, discuss any questions or comments you might have amongst each other, but today we're gonna focus on these two. Well-maintained, The first one, sorry all, the first one is a maintenance assessment. And so through all of the insight that we gained over the last couple of years, this lingering question around maintenance and our maintenance obligations at the City of Reno, came up quite a few times and so it really rose to the top as an area where we might want to focus some resources into better understanding our complete picture of maintenance needs and potential ways to help fund it and offset over the next couple of years. As a reminder, us, like many cities and local governments across the country, have a large portfolio of infrastructure and maintenance needs. And in our most recent FY27 capital budget, we had an excess of $190 million of unfunded known needs. And so as we all know, Maintenance is a day-to-day function of local governments and municipal functions, and so focusing in on this over the next three years of how we better fund and understand the life cycle of our assets, apply more consistent standards and processes for the potential acceptance of new maintenance needs or new projects, that's sort of where this one came up. The second proposed is to do a CIP reform, so the Capital Improvement Plan. We had heard a lot around the need for additional assets or more infrastructure, more improvements, wanting more across the community. And the CIP really functions as council's opportunity to drive that process over the years, over the fiscal year. And so we wanted to take a hard look at what that CIP process looks like from year to year. How do we prioritize those projects or those prioritization factors still relevant and what this body wants to focus on? And so we were recommending this based on that feedback over the last couple of months and are proposing this as a place where we would focus in our time. The second section of the plan we're focusing in today is access to natural spaces. And this section, there's two recommended major opportunity areas. The first is the Parks District, which we've been working on and towards for the past couple of years. And the second is around the river, the Truckee River. First, the parks district. So we are currently in the process of a region-wide effort to do and complete the service plan to understand the possibilities and governance structures around a parks district. So this major opportunity area is focused on one, completing that service plan, but then utilizing the plan findings to understand what our next steps might be to have a more sustainable structure in place to fund parks, both from what we have now, but also being able to grow and expand that for our community. The second recommended major opportunity area in this section of the plan is the Truckee River. I think we all can agree that it's such a wonderful and beautiful asset to our community, and this body has really laid the foundation already for future investments, whether it be through the Truckee River vision plan or former actions in the last couple years around Designating sections as parkland to help enhance those maintenance needs so we are recommending this as part of your strategic plan because it has become such a Forefront of the the guidance that you all have given and we want to make sure to continue that over the next three fiscal years So next step so you've seen me a couple of times over the the spring here today is if if the body agrees would be the last time where we talk about the the draft version of the strategic plan and for these two sections. And then after the council break, during council break, I should say, we're looking to send it out for community review. Make sure that the things ring true to some of the community. And after the break, we would come back with a fully drafted final plan for you to adopt. What was that community review process to look like? It would be open from about tomorrow, if I can get it online by today, I'll open it today, through the end of June. We'll market it through our regular channels, but most specifically the Reno Report, our social media, and various community boards and commissions that'll meet during that time period. We're also proposing to host a webinar on the 23rd for community members to learn more about the plan, what it means, what it, how it was developed, and any process or feedback that they want to provide to help strengthen the plan in its final iteration. There will be a feedback form available after this meeting as long as Council approves it for inclusion. And then any feedback or questions can also be emailed to strategicplanatreno.gov. I'm more than willing and happy to meet with community members one-on-one or discuss the plan in its entirety. Really want to make sure that this is a comprehensive project. I also want to emphasize this entire strategic plan update process has included various touch points for the community, whether it be through the 2025 community survey was helpful and insightful to this. We also hosted a variety of community drop-ins and some interviews with some regional stakeholders as well. And with that, the recommended motion is on the screen, but again, I'm happy to answer any questions or just hear any feedback you have around these four, uh, proposed recommendations.

Yeah. So, um, I know that we've met and I appreciate your time and your efforts on this. I just want to say, I agree with everything that's on there. So that's one, but two, I know we had talked about adding in some sustainability measures. It's a part of our master plan. And if we don't start including it somewhere, we're just not going to move towards that goal. So I know there's different ways we can move towards that. We could do it in code and we can do it in parks. But I really want to see that specifically called out so that that's included in the parks projects, that's included in whatever you know that if there's sustainability measures that make sense to be included that we're doing that because you know that is a I believe that's a priority for the city of Reno we haven't updated the master plan but I don't think we've really shown that effort that I think is overdue so just if we could include that again everything else I think is great no criticism on that just I would really like to see that kind of

More to the forefront.

Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

Thank you. Carissa Bradley, for the record, I will say we tried to incorporate the sustainability piece a little bit more in the CIP reform major opportunity area, and it seems a little... I framed it as based on community and organizational needs, which was sort of my way of incorporating sustainability. Because we want council to say that in the CIP, right? Maybe that's one of the prioritization factors when we go to update that process. But I hear you. I will work on incorporating that into the final draft to make sure that sustainability is there. more of the program.

Okay and I'm not trying to throw a wrench in any process I just wanted to call that out that.

No wrenches and I think Jackie's got an update on that related to sustainability.

If I may I just wanted to also clarify for the record that based on your feedback from the last time and I believe council member Dewar's as well we have updated our we're working on finalizing the update to our CIP policy where we've added inclusion of consideration of sustainability features when appropriate so I think that that's a big win that's going to go a long way to supporting this effort.

Council Member Dewitt. I still have 30 seconds. But yeah, are you saying that Manager Bryant in place of having it here?

We've done it and we can incorporate it in here relative to what we've already done.

Okay. Okay. So not instead of, but both. Thank you for clarifying that for me. Thank you.

Yeah, I had a similar comment and I had extensive conversation with these folks and it sounded like that you were going to do two things with the CIP infrastructure stuff. One was to look at life cycle costs, not just first costs. So that's really important. Like we can build something the cheapest, but it's more expensive to maintain on the long haul and it ends up costing us more at the city. If we had paid a little bit more money up front, we might have been able to streamline our maintenance costs. So that's what this is about. And you added this word, life cycle analysis, and I wanted to compliment you for incorporating that. And then the second aspect of the life cycle costs was I brought up earlier incorporating sustainability at every phase. Mm-hmm. in every project. And when I've talked to the folks that are in Public Works, they say, oh yeah, we do that. But it's not articulated. It's sort of inherent in maybe their process, but it's not actually called out as a thing that we do. And I think it would go a long way to helping people understand how you've threaded sustainability into this plan. Because I will tell you, Councilmember Ebert, at my very first meeting, when I looked at the overall chart, I just said, I don't see sustainability on here anywhere. And we're now a decade in. since we adopted the master plan, since we adopted the sustainability plan, but we have adopted no ordinances, regulations, occasional programs. So we do have the sustainability manager, Ms. Grohman, but it's more reactive to what grants are available and those kind of things. And this is not to say she doesn't do a good job. I mean, she's working with me on this BEAR initiative right now, doing... a very creative job. But if you don't say the words, you know, people are going to miss it. They're not going to understand. And so I think we have to be more intentional about making sure that words, some words here, speak to that. And thank you, Manager Bryant, for... Addressing it, but I want to make sure the words in the plan because I think when you go out for public comment These are going to be some of the comments that you hear You know we might care about the things that you've written, but the public is always looking for that sustainability piece They've been hammering on us for a long time, and we still have done Nothing, you know I mean nothing in terms of a broader initiative. We've done smaller things Okay, okay? Thanks

Any other questions or comments from the body? If not, I'll look for a motion.

And before we do that, if I can just state for the record, we did receive three comments associated with this item, three letters in favor.

Thank you, Madam Clerk. Council Member Ebert.

Yeah, I just want to say kind of relative to this, you know, we've had a lot of public comment lately regarding environmental impacts. So I think it's very timely for this to include that. Even if we are already doing it, just so people see it in writing, I think it'll provide some assurance for people. And we are the fastest warming city in the country. I know it gets said all the time. We need to start acting like it, right? We need to be the most on top of sustainability measures. I feel like we should be leading the examples. So thank you so much for your work on this.

And I had to follow up. Yeah, on the parks district, the parks access to natural spaces, I think you called it.

What are what's the word?

Yeah, not natural natural spaces So the parks district when you just use that word the intention there is to Do further work to make sure I mean you've listed out a bunch of This will be done. This will be done. This will be done, but I want to make sure when it says I'm trying to look here. I'm looking at mine. What I don't see here, and I thought we discussed it, was a third bullet that would deal actually with access to natural spaces, which is the whole trail system. So we have, I mentioned at my meeting, we have over at Truckee Meadows Regional Planning, They are working on trail initiatives. It seemed like a perfect time for the city to marry up I even helped them get extra grant money to work on trails and I know parks cares about trails and I know they've included that in their their plan, right? But again, I think if there were words that talked about the like and maybe I've missed them here but the specifically the words trail or access to you know Not just our developed parks, but open space.

Okay. Okay. Thank you for that feedback. Okay. Carissa Bradley, for the record. Councilwoman Durer, I do want to – I was able to connect with Nathan after our council briefing to discuss that. And they had informed me that the parks district service plan does have some elements of that. And so I hear what you're saying, though, and I will include it a little bit more in the language here. Okay. rather than the assumption that it's a village.

Well, for example, even if it said deliver parks that are better maintained, maybe it would say deliver parks and trails that are better maintained and expand and enhance to meet evolving community needs. I mean, that's a simple way to get at it. Love it.

Okay. So just so I have it when I go back to make some small edits here. So at the very end of that top there would be enhance public parks and

Open space or I would say trails but open space trails I mean and then there's other places to include it as well the one above Establish a plan for pursuing This is the region's park system, I mean, I think the more you can say parks and open space or parks and trail system I think it's more clear But I do believe you're gonna get some comments on this and when you go out to the public. So, thanks Councilmember Anderson

I'm ready to make a motion.

I think so.

Okay. I move to approve the MOAs for well-maintained city infrastructure and access to natural spaces and include them in the draft strategic plan for community review.

Second.

We have a motion and a second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion passes unanimously. Thank you. Thank you. With that, we'll jump back to our pooled consent. I think the first one I have is item eight.

Yeah, that was me.

Vice Mayor?

Yes. Can we take a quick break, actually? Just a 10-minute break?

How's everybody feeling? Is it okay if we get their consent and then take a 10-minute? We'll do those pooled items first, and then we'll take a 15-minute break.

Okay.

Thank you. So with that, we'll open up agenda item. It was B8? B8. Thank you so much.

Yeah, I pulled this because it is over $4 million. It affects four of the six wards, and I just think it's important for the public to know how we're spending our money. I mean, $4 million is not anything to sneeze at. Do you want to give just a one- or two-minute rundown about what this is about?

Yep. For the record, good morning, Vice Mayor, Council Members, Jonathan Smith. I'm a senior civil engineer with the Public Works Department. This is an award of a construction contract to F.W. Carson for the 26th Consolidated Sewer Rehabilitation Project. This project is an annual project to help us maintain the reliability of our sewer system for our community. We have a lot of project location on this, as he said, through four of our wards, four out of the six. They are selected based on pipe condition assessment reports and input from our utility services team, as well as our maintenance and operations group. Priority is given to areas that have the highest risk of failure due to age and deteriorated condition. Locations that have experienced prior pipe failures, so we've had emergency repairs done. Their emergency repair contract, this contract follows up with that, goes in and repairs the remainder of the pipe and the pipes adjacent to it to prevent future failures. And lines that also require frequent maintenance and operation attention. So this is just kind of help maintain the reliability of our sewer system. Okay.

All right, well, I appreciate all the work that you do. It's something that's very hidden from the public. They just know they flush the toilet, right? They run the dishwasher. They don't have any concept of what happens after that. And in fact, a lot of the sewer throughout, especially probably in Ward 4, is going to actually get reclaimed through our advanced purified water facility. And I think it's important for people to know, just like they turn on the tap and the water shows up. And it's not until we have a boil water order or there's a drama or an emergency that people even become aware of how reliant we are on both those systems. So thank you.

You're welcome.

Okay.

I don't know if there's any questions.

It doesn't look like it.

All right. Well, with that, I make a motion to award the contract to FW Carson Co. for the 2026 Consolidated Sewer Rehab Project, an amount over $4 million. Yes.

We have a motion, a second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion passes unanimously. Just to state, we have items 9, 12, 13, 16, 18, and 23. Coming up, we're going to move on to agenda item B9 first.

Mr. Vice Mayor, I have disclosures on 9 and 16. They're kind of the same thing.

If you want to pull them together, I can read both disclosures and leave, if that's okay. Let's do both. I think we'll just need a motion for each one. Looking at you, Mr. Shipman. Okay, perfect.

I'll open up both items. Thank you. On item B9 and item B16, fellow council members, Madam Clerk, I am disclosing that CME is a current client of my consulting firm, so is HDR. tailor-made solutions and involves approval of consulting agreements. Because I have a substantial and continuing business relationship with CME and HDR, I have a commitment in a private capacity, so I will not be voting on these contracts today. Thank you. Thank you for that.

We'll just wait for her to get off. Okay. Council Member Reese.

Mr. Vice Mayor, on item B9, I'll move to approve.

Second. Second. We have a motion and a second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion passes unanimously.

On item B16, I'll move to approve.

Second.

We have a motion and a second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion passes unanimously. Thank you. With that, we'll open item B12.

Cory Solferino for the record. Thank you, Vice Mayor Martinez and Council, City Manager Bryant. Thank you for the opportunity. We have a couple of things before you today. One of them is technology with respect to a vendor contract for Deep Blue 6. What they are, Blue Cover 6, I apologize. Blue Cover 6, too many movies. I threw in Deep Blue in there. Got to get off Netflix. What this is is a contract vendor form that does applications for the police department looking for efficiencies. So one of the contracts that we have through them is they develop our applications. So I left my phone back there with Officer Mercurio, but literally when we're out in the field, when we're doing our community outreach, when we're tracking vehicles that need to be towed or our contact, we are doing that through applications for statistical analysis, for data collection. We're also using it for our annual in-service training for our firearms inventory. So they do a plethora of applications for us outside of the scope of our IT or tech services division that build them specifically for the Reno Police Department.

Thank you. That was perfect. I just wanted kind of an overview of what it was. There's a lot of kind of uncertainty from the community about what we're doing in the law enforcement realm. So I just wanted to have some transparency and kind of a high-level explanation of what this is for. So thank you for that.

It's truly invaluable, Councilwoman. I wish I could talk about the dissemination of information about everything that we do, the congruent topics that happen from shift to shift. How do we pass information to over 400 employees? And we do it through these web-based applications. So I can go on vacation and come back, and I can literally look through everything that's happened on my shifts that passed down. So through EverWatch, through some of the other apps that they're building, it's how we share information from shift to shift. from team to team, and just truly invaluable resource. I wish I knew about it years ago. I tried to get access when I was wearing a different uniform previously, and now that I'm wearing a blue uniform, I have access. So I'm absolutely impressed.

Will this replace anything else, or will this be...

This is continuing ongoing contract maintenance. So we've had it for a while, and it's just continuing that... program moving forward.

Okay, okay, so it's not replacing a different program that does something similar? Okay, thank you. I'll make, oh.

Yeah, I just had a question too. You know, a long time ago, the Reno Police Department developed something called My RPD app. And this is an app that was developed in-house and then externally. And it was your official community app. It shows area incidents, most wanted, notifications, sex offenders, something about registering property, submitting ideas to RPD. Is that still work, or is that still active, do you know, or is that something that isn't addressed in either B-12 or B-13?

We are moving forward. Sorry, Corey Solferino, for the record, to Councilwoman Dewar. We are moving forward with our hexagon that's no longer our hexagon project. That is, I forget the name of it currently. That is our CADRMS system. A lot of that forward-facing public data through our website will be upgraded with this new regional collaboration between cities of Reno, Sparks, and Washoe County. I will find out its current status, but I know that it's not up to date in the sense that it needs to be. So as these new generational projects come online, we will absolutely push that data out there because it is important as we revamp What we're presenting to our communities and our neighborhood advisory boards, I want them to be able to see where the crime's at and where it's not. So we're trying to regionalize. I've been working with Chief Crawforth and with Sheriff Balaam to bring continuity to the NABs and the CABs so we have similar public-facing data. So you can know that you can hit two different districts at the same time and understand what's happening in that space.

Well, can you find out the status of this My RPD app? Like, does it still work? Is it updated? Should it be decommissioned? You know, if it's not a thing anymore. Maybe it needs to be taken, like it's on my phone. And people refer to it, I think. But maybe it's obsolete at this point. And I was more concerned even about this item 413, or B13, when it said... law enforcement software, contractor services, independent contractor. That's exactly how my RPD app was developed, so I didn't know if any of these contracts are for that. But it sounds like probably no, but I'd love to hear more later. Okay, thanks.

Thank you. Are there any other questions or comments? If not, we'll look for that motion. Council Member Ebert.

Yeah, I'll make a motion to approve.

Second, we have a motion and a second. All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Aye. Any opposed? Motion passes unanimously. Thank you. We'll close item B12 and move on to item B13.

Yeah, if we could just have a similar kind of review real quick. Thank you.

Thank you, Vice Mayor Martinez. Corey Salfrino for the record. Council? Force Matrix is literally a game changer in law enforcement. Think of it as Google for cops. So it takes disparate data sources across all different types of platform from CAD, from Tiburon, which is our current records management system and automated reporting system, GIS data, and it creates leaked charts, it creates subject information so we can literally identify people, places, times, crimes, It literally is generational changing. I used to be, full disclosure, I used to be an advisory consultant non-paid for a software similar to this. This is 10 times what that was. It is literally Google for cops. So again, on that same app that we were talking about earlier that we just used on the previous agenda item on B12, Force Matrix is within the phones of our issued patrol officers. So if they are arriving at a call for service or they're looking for suspect information, they can pull it up on their phones and literally link to different crimes, different areas for people that share information and understand who the people that they're dealing with in the field, what crimes that they might have previously been committed of, connected with, personnels. We also use it for missing person searches, contacts. It's Google for cops, for lack of a better term.

Sorry. Does it also help you like know where they're at? Like if something were to go wrong, could you find them based off of that information?

Couldn't find them per se, but similar to what like LexisNexis was back in the day, it would give us previous addresses that they'd been affiliated with, whether that was at a registered place or a contact where we came into contact with them, it would give us a documented address.

Location where we'd previously or a law enforcement entity had contact with them Okay, and then this is kind of maybe for the last thing more do these things help you get Tools like the last one tools like this do these help you get? information to provide metrics for for the community like these are the kind of calls were responding to these are the areas were responding to ward wise not like a specific like it's this House. But like we're getting these types of calls in this word we're getting these type of calls in this word because I would imagine my word is going to be way different than you know Councilmember Taylor's order. Councilmember Anderson's Ward that we all have very unique issues so I just was curious if these tools would help just kind of give us a better picture of what's happening.

Corey Solferino for the record. Thank you for that question. Obviously, when I stood before this body several weeks ago, I talked about evidence-based practices and intelligence-led policing, and this is exactly the blueprint that gets us there. So irrespective of what type of crime reduction strategy that we're doing, whether we're looking at LAPD or NYPD and ComStat or stratified policing initiatives, this gives us our heat map. This is where we can go in and tell us what's important. How many burglaries have we had given in this area? How has it been reported? It allows our officers to literally have that without having to wait for a weekly brief or for a real-time intelligence center or INRIC to put out a safety bulletin. They can look at it in real time on their phones. So traditionally, just a game changer for law enforcement and the sharing of that critical information.

Okay, so it's kind of real-time for law enforcement, but does it also provide...

We'll work on the forward-facing piece for that. So one of the things, and I apologize for interrupting, Councilwoman. No, that's fine. What we want to do regionally, the Sheriff and Chief Crawforth and I, is provide that blueprint that looks the same across all of our jurisdictions. Because we do have criminals that hit all three areas, they really don't care if they're hurting Sparks, Washoe County, or Reno. We want to be able to report that data congruently. So when they see it, it looks the same. It feels the same. It is the same. So we will work on that initiative as we're getting all three of those agencies on board to be able to push that to the public. So I don't have it forward facing yet, but that is our goal.

great I know that that's something that my community really misses I know it went away under chief Nance and it's very helpful to help dispel myths about crime that's happening I think things get kind of exaggerated sometimes not always but there's sometimes where people get really afraid because they think all these terrible things are happening and So it's very helpful for us as council members to provide factual information to the community.

That's very important because the only way that we can intervene in crime reduction strategies is when the public calls us or we see it happen in front of us. So literally our best sources of intelligence are the public who trust us to call us when these things are happening in their space.

Yeah, yeah, but also just bigger picture too so people know like, oh, I was afraid of robberies and there was like one in my ward, you know, that kind of stuff where people get a little peace of mind and realize that sometimes things get maybe a little bit sensationalized and it's not necessarily...

happening all around them so that's that's something that's really important to me in long term but I know you can't just snap your fingers and make it happen I'm just curious if these will help you you know get to that point it will and really one of the initiatives that I want to work on is that forward-facing website we're working on our policy manual overhaul I want to push that forward-facing so the public doesn't have to put in a FOIA request to be able to see what our policy is on a specific matter they can literally go to the dashboard and see that and Same with our crime reduction strategies and that active hot map to see what is happening. We know that every year when kids get out of school and as kids are finalizing grades this week and graduations, that we have an increase in burglaries when kids are out and cars are unlocked and some of that activity. Probably a lot of e-bikes too right now.

Yeah.

Duly noted.

Yeah. Well, thank you so much for this information. I appreciate the transparency. Thank you. Thank you.

Would you like to make a motion? I don't think anyone else has any.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah, I'll make a motion to approve Motion a second all those in favor say aye aye any post motion passes unanimously. Thank you Thank you with that. We'll move on to agenda item p18 I'm sorry, mr.

I had a typo and I needed to abstain on item be 18 not be 16. I

And somebody pulled by B18. I just was noticing that the agenda changed since the time that the... So, yes. I'm a little slow today, too. No, you're not slow. It's just... It's unfortunate, but yes.

Procedurally, how would you like us to move forward, Mr. Chairman?

Yeah, if the...

Can we move to reconsider be 1618? Councilmember Taylor will abstain and you can take that Matter with the rest of the board.

So what if I pull it for reconsideration? Can she just I?

Pull 16?

Yeah, pull the one that she was supposed to. It's B18. B18, and she would give the disclosure, and then she could still vote on... Oh, we already did.

Yeah, I think we're already done there, so I think she'll just sit out on this one if that works.

Okay.

Got it. Okay. Hold on a second. So the disclosure applies to this current item that's open, B18, instead of B16.

Correct. Got it. Can we get a point of clarification, though? Because Ms. Taylor did not vote on B16 then, and she desires to vote on 16. So we have to pull 16 and reconsider it?

The motion's still passed, so I don't know if it's necessary. It wasn't pulled. B16 was already. Yeah. Yes, and we voted and passed that item.

It's fine. I'm okay with it unless there's... I'll just abstain and go away on B18.

Okay. Thank you, Council Member Taylor. Council Member Dewar, your comments on B18.

Yeah, I pulled this item. I had a very good conversation with staff about it, and it looks so innocuous. It's one of those things that it's sitting here, and it says, oh, we're going to do... public outreach for FEMA flood map updates, and it doesn't really say much. When this has happened before, hundreds of people, particularly in now what is Ward 6, this was right as I was coming on council, were put into a FEMA flood zone. It was 300 people, 300 homes. And as a result of the mapping, they all had to pay flood insurance that they never had to pay before. And it was because there was a berm that was protecting them that was decertified by FEMA. So it couldn't be technically protecting them anymore. And so now they were in a flood zone. So they were very unhappy. And we got many, many, many calls of the 300 people that now had to pay. We worked it out. I tried to come up with some other process But I really couldn't and so they had to stay in there with this item It sounds like and I'm gonna ask the staff to give a presentation. It sounds like some of those 300 now are no longer determined to be in a flood so they no longer will have to pay flood insurance and But there's more people that are being put into a flood insurance area in Ward 6 that will have to pay. And since those people may come to council because they did before, I thought it would be good for you to explain what is going on here, if you wouldn't mind.

Sure. Mary Horvath, Utility Services Department Senior Civil Engineer for the record. So this is a contract for HDR to provide support for the city staff for public outreach for the FEMA flood map changes. in Ward 6, that it was a FEMA-initiated map change that the city didn't really have control over, but we've worked with them as a collaborator, and we've done... We had a technical appeal that occurred in 2025, 2026, and the appeals are complete. The maps are pretty much finalized. We're still waiting for FEMA to finalize everything, and because of funding issues, it will be a while We're probably going to have the letter of final determination for the final maps in February, but we want to get a jump start on that and get the public outreach started to the affected homeowners, businesses, and residents.

And can you give us a rough number of the amount of people affected this time?

Sure. So Mary Horvath, for the record, the new buildings that we put in the floodplain are about 170 people. and 240 will be removed. And then parcels, about 400 will go in and 400 will go out. Flood insurance is mandatory if homeowners or businesses' buildings are within the new floodplain mapping and they have a federally backed mortgage. They'll be required to pay flood insurance.

Did you estimate how many homes Yes. Would it be newly in?

New, about, well, about, so 50% of the 173 are single family residential houses.

And then you said 240, is it 240 of the 300 that were put in before?

It's quite a number of those. Actually, I do have those stats. Of the decertification of the levy that occurred in... It was a long time ago. Yeah, a while ago. There will be 15 structures that remain and 213 that will be removed, and then 50 structures will be added. Added.

So quite a bit of change. And I guess the point of it is, is just as we have public comment, those people may call you. Exactly. They may call us. They may call you in particular, Council Member Anderson. And I just think it's worth knowing more about it instead of us all kind of getting caught flat footed over it.

Sure. And we have we have planned to do full briefings with the council to educate you. And also the reason for this contract is for HDR. HGR helped us with the technical appeal. They also have on staff the former mapping chief for FEMA Region 9, Eric Simmons. So that's the reason why we chose HGR. He has helped communities through this dozens and dozens of times, if not hundreds of times. And so he knows the deal that the scope for HDR includes identifying all the people impacted and what, you know, what the best way to educate them. We plan to do public meetings, workshops. have a full website for people to go in similar to the Silver Swan Lake website that we share with Washoe County. And so we really want to get a jump on this so that they do not get the first notice with their letter from their mortgage lender saying you need to buy flood insurance in the next 45 days. We want to completely get ahead of that and make sure they understand their options. There are FEMA does have a discount for people in this situation because when flood maps change, this happens all over the country. And so they have a discount that people can take advantage of. for flood insurance. Is that just like the first year? The first year and then it's prorated. It goes up by 18% after that.

And the last question I had is can you explain why the flood, like the land didn't move, can you explain why the floodplain changed?

So this is, it's updated technology. The flood maps that are effective currently were done in the 80s and 90s and with old technology and the mapping technology and the hydraulic software, the hydraulic modeling software has improved tremendously in that time. And we can just better identify what the actual flood risk is to people.

And these 300 were in Double Diamond primarily, so that part of your ward. So I don't know where the new things are. Is it around South Meadows and those areas? Yeah, I have a map. All right, OK. It would be helpful. And then if you could send the map to us, it would be great.

Yeah, I think I sent it to you and Councilwoman Anderson.

It looks like it's up on the screen.

Yeah. So this is the map. So the orange will be the new mapping, and the purple is the effective through this area.

And then the yellow is- What do you mean effective?

Like currently? Yeah, they're currently in the floodplain, and they currently have to pay flood insurance. But they would go out? Well, some of, so the purple that doesn't have the orange over it will be the ones going out. So that you can see that double diamond area with a large swath of purple, those are the houses that will be being removed from the special flood hazard area. So this, you can see most of, just because of the updated technology that was used for the new maps, you can see most of the flow is within the streets. So we're going to be suggesting to these homeowners that they maintain flood insurance just because they're still at flood risk. but it will be cheaper for them, and it won't be mandated anymore.

Do you have any questions, Council Member Eber? I see your light on.

It did, yeah. So this process, I believe, has already happened in Ward 4, correct?

Similar process.

Yeah, and I know that a lot of homes were suddenly in a floodplain, correct? Right.

Yes, they were identified as being in the floodplain.

Okay.

And was that due to changes in topography or... Again, there it was updated technology for hydrology modeling and hydraulic modeling, but a very similar process. It was actually Washoe County that initiated that map change. This was initiated by FEMA. Okay, so it was hydrology that changed it.

And hydraulics and better topography, same technology. Okay, so... the new development that happens is not changing hydrology? No. Okay. So there's a public outreach process, you said? Yes. How are you using the feedback from the public? Because I know that I had a lot of feedback from my community that they felt like they weren't like having an impact with their feedback. And I don't know if it was just felt like it wasn't relevant or if you just had legitimate documents that said it wasn't correct or what, but I'm worried about having a public engagement for anything and then kind of not including any of those comments in the process.

How do they,

Yeah.

Mary Horvath for the record. There's not a lot of ways to fight back. This is a FEMA-initiated map change that we don't have any. I mean, we did do an appeal. We spent several hundred thousand dollars to make sure that the mapping was correct. We collected additional topography elevations to make sure that it's correct. The way to mitigate this is with flood control projects, which we do not have the funding for. So that is one way they can help fight it, is help get public support for flood control projects. But this map change is beyond the city's control, and it's FEMA-initiated. Well, wasn't, I mean...

Wasn't the city of Reno kind of providing information to FEMA because they didn't have enough staff? So they're kind of using what we give them. So we have the ability to tell them what's happening, correct? So it's not like they're dictating to us and we're powerless in this situation.

Right. We submitted a full appeal with both hydrology and hydraulic data, and that process is complete. We did we have incorporated new development and we collected topography. So the We did our due diligence, but the process itself was dictated by FEMA. We couldn't stop that map change from happening. We could only Yes, we were we they are going with the maps that we that we suggested okay, and Some of my time was used by councilmember to her.

So I'm gonna just go a little for a council member Okay, so who decided on the original FEMA maps? Like if they're using us, how did they get the first draft?

Mary Horvath, for the record, I believe the original maps were done for mostly the development within the Double Diamond area, certainly, and upstream of especially I-580, it was just, I think it was done by FEMA with a very simplified process.

Okay, so they're not getting a report from you and then we're appealing our own report based off of community feedback?

Hi. Good afternoon. Trina McGinn, Director of Utility Services, for the record. Well, let's just step back for a second. So FEMA's role is to identify flood risk and communicate it to the communities of what that is. So they came in in the 80s and 90s. So before this area was developed, they don't really come in and map anything. As things start to develop, they come in and map it to ensure that things are being built not in floodplains. Sometimes they're a little late to the game, but since the 80s and 90s, nothing really has changed other than individual developments who come in and they apply by a conditional letter of MAP revision and then a letter of MAP revision. The process by which any individual would request to change a map if they had different information than even we had, you know, as we did our appeal, is there is a process for a letter of map amendment. If they, you know, they know that they built their house five feet high and they say, I have this information, but we didn't look down to that scale because honestly we don't we don't have the funding or the time to go to each house yeah individual house there is a process though by which individual homeowners can come back and say well that mapping isn't correct because i built my house let's say five feet high okay um so that's a separate process after this um fema does initiate these changes and you know they recognize that the mapping the topography the mapping technology all of that was really old from the 80s and 90s. Things have significantly, technology is just wildly different. There was sort of a one-dimensional, you have cross-sections, and now it's two-dimensional. It's looking everywhere does that water move, right? And how does it move through this landform and Through the roads and things like that. So it's much better. And so they came to us with, here's our preliminary mapping. We spent a year or more looking at that mapping and saying, well, we don't agree. And that was our appeal. And we had them get more topography, more information at culverts, more information in the entire area to make it as correct as we can. There could be instances where... It's still not exactly correct because we don't know that that one property did something.

Okay. All right. So you have currently like the maps previously from FEMA that show where the water is supposed to flow or expected to flow? Okay.

So the purple on this map is where previously FEMA, from the 80s and 90s, that's what it was delineated as. As you can see now, the red, and you see how it's kind of mottled on there? It's not solid. That's because it's actually showing, like the areas in purple within the red are higher. So it's not actually flooding those areas. So it's just a lot more detailed now than it used to be. And to Council Member Dewar's point, when the levee was decertified, it was all moving to the north along that levee. Now it's actually shown to be a little bit further to the south and east of there. So it's just better defining where the flood where people, where their risk is, really, and the important thing about this is explaining to the public and to these property owners where their risk is, truly, because there's a lot of people who think, I don't have a risk because I'm not in a floodplain, but now that we have this mapping, it's showing they do have a risk, and you would far rather have flood insurance if a flood came than not know about your risk and not have flood insurance.

Are there any other comments or questions from any other members of the body? Where is this? Yeah, we'll go back. Sorry.

I'm having a hard time seeing. What street is this exactly? The main road? Is that the 580 going through?

It's pretty much South Meadows.

South Meadows. Okay, okay. So was the purple like that kind of marshy area before?

That is a wetlands area, yes, if you're referring to this right here.

Yeah.

Okay.

So for the record, the outside of the yellow area is not being changed. The effective maps will stay effective. All of this is the same. So that is actually Steamboat Creek, and the map is not changing for that area.

Oh, okay, okay. So only within the yellow line, it's recommended to change from that purple to the red and outside of that, it's remaining the same?

Yes.

Okay. All right. Thank you so much for explaining all that to me.

Yeah.

Getting one more point of clarification. Can you leave that map up? Sorry. You just confused me. I thought you said the purple was coming out of the floodplain.

Is it remaining in the flip lane? Trina Magoon, Director of Utility Services. Everything within the yellow boundary. Within meaning west of? Meaning this side. Okay. This side of the yellow boundary. Sorry, the boundary continues off of this page. Everything west of the yellow boundary are where the modifications are occurring. Everything outside of that yellow boundary, i.e. Steamboat Creek, will remain the same.

So does purple mean the same thing on both sides of the yellow? No. Okay, that's confusing. It does mean the same thing, that that was the effective mapping. But when you use the word effective, that's a technical term. So if you could just say the purple that's on the east side of the yellow, that's remaining in the floodplain.

Correct.

And the purple on the inside of, or the west side of the yellow, that's coming out of the floodplain.

It will change from purple to red.

Well, you've shown red, and so the area you just pointed to, the part that's purple will come out, and the part that's red will stay in? Correct. Okay. You might want to think about a different color scheme in the future, but then we wouldn't have this question. That's a good point. Okay. And then I just wanted to know, the area that's north, what is that area?

Mary Horvath, for the record, that is the Steamboat Creek floodplain, and that is also going to be revised with the physical map revision.

I'm speaking of the area in red that looks like it's off Virginia Street.

Oh, never mind. Yeah. That is Thomas Creek. That is part of the map change.

So the purple there, some of it will come out, but the red will stay in? Yes.

Is that right? Trina McGowan, director of utility services for the record. Correct. The majority of that is located in the county. So everything West of the black line is in the county. Okay. This is another point of clarification.

And they've reviewed the same maps. They have the same issues going on. Are they also hiring HDR to talk to those people?

Mary Horvath, for the record. They were part of the appeal. It was a joint appeal with Washoe County. We have not joined with them for the public outreach just because it's different public population, but we probably will end up sharing a website.

And to Council Member Ebert's point earlier, they have an issue. I'm just going to try to get this as simple as I can. A person has an issue, says, look, I don't flood. I'm never going to flood. To my knowledge, the previous way was they hired an engineer, PE. The PE did a survey and said, you know what? They are not in the floodplain. So they got out of the floodplain. So when you said there's nothing they can do. Yeah, that was wrong. Okay, so there is something they can do. Now, I will say hiring an engineer is expensive. And paying a couple hundred bucks, if that's what it still is, I don't know, is not that expensive. I'm sure they've raised rates.

Trina Green, director of utility services for the record. It depends on if it is a letter of map provision based on Phil and they say, again, in the instance, maybe my house is five feet high. I don't know what the rate is today. It's a couple of hours of an engineer's time. It may require surveying. It may be upwards of $1,000 to have someone come out and remove the home. We really spent a lot of time and our due diligence with the information that we had to try and make sure it was as accurate as possible. But again, there could be areas where they have that information, right?

Yeah, and it's not just this year. It's all the future years, right? Thank you. Council Member Anderson.

I was just going to say that a lot of the additions here to the north are in industrial, their commercial properties, their businesses. So it'll be a discussion that we either have to have with the overall you know, developer or the individual retail locations. I'm ready to make a motion on this.

I did have just one comment real quick. I noticed that this map is not included in like the staff presentation, um, in the, um, you know, provided documents. I just want to make sure that this gets into the public record because we're just looking at it here, but it's not provided in the documents we have online.

It is my understanding that it would be included, so we will make sure that it's... Okay, that was it. Sorry. Thank you.

Thank you. With that, we'll look for a motion.

I'll make the motion unless you want to, Ms. Anderson. Oh, okay. Well, B18, I move to approve the agreement with HDR Engineering for professional services associated with public outreach for the FEMA flood map updates in the amount of $169,543. Second.

We have a motion and a second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion passes unanimously. Thank you. With that, we'll close item B18 and move on to item B23, our last pulled item of the day.

This one is just a huge kudos. So you got, the park says it's receiving $3 million. I mean, very unusual in this day and age from the federal government, very unusual. Could you just tell us, I believe this had something to do with our federal delegation. Would you just?

Absolutely, Council Member Dewar. Nathan Elliott, Parks and Recreation Director, for the record, a big thank you to our federal delegation, Amaday's office, Rosen, and Cortez Masto, who the hits keep on coming. We got some good stuff done with the California building and a lot of other areas in town. But also thank you to Callie, Will Zee, and Strategic, and Kayla Garcia with the infrastructure who really helped us put this together. We've tried twice, and it got through the second time. So very exciting, reimagining our facility. making it more financially sustainable, but also serve the community in a lot of different ways that we're not currently.

Well, kudos to the whole team that was part of both applying for this, you know, visioning it, because I remember I visited the Evelyn Mount Center with you, and you laid out your dream for how to improve the space, and this was years ago. So it often does take these years, but you kept at it. Good job, Nathan. Thank you. Good job to the team that worked with you on this, and Thank you to our federal delegation for bringing in $3 million for City Arena. Wow. Thank you. I don't know if there's any comments or questions, but I'm happy to make a motion. It looks like there's one more. Council Member Ebert.

Yeah, so this is one of the parks I lost when we did the re-boundary, or the re-district. Great job. You know, we need this as much as possible, you know, to get the support from other areas because we're, you know, everybody knows we're really limited in what we could do. So thank you so much for your work on this. And also hopeful that maybe someday we can get something to build a community center in the North Valleys, you know, or maybe potentially something could happen with the community. the Stead Elementary School that's being decommissioned. So just wanted to say great job. And then just also maybe hopefully we can do something up in Ward 4 too.

Just briefly, I think this is going to show, along with what we've done at Moana, a business model that takes care of the other half. It costs money to build it, but then how do we keep operating it and make it sustainable? And that's what this gift is going to let us do for Evelyn Mount. And if we can reproduce that model, we've taken a big part of the equation and and made it possible for additional services and spaces to grow. So if we can do that and do that well, then it's just finding the money to build it or finding a space to reimagine over there.

Yeah, yeah. Well, awesome. You always do a great job, so thank you so much.

Would you like to make a motion, Council Member Evert?

Make a motion to accept? The $3 million? The $3 million for the Evelyn Mount Community Center? Second.

We have a motion and a second. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion passes unanimously. With that, we'll go on a quick break and be back at 1 p.m. Thank you all.

What home means Nevada to me is just that. It's always a place that I find comfort and solace. We travel a lot, we camp a lot, and I just love coming home. Home means Nevada for so many reasons. My name is Scott Dunseith, and I'm the owner of the Home Means Nevada Company, which was formerly Reno Envy.

I grew up in the Bay Area and I went to school at UNR.

And my thought was that I would spend two years in Reno and then I would go back home. But after the two years, I just fell in love with the place. I love the people, the community. It's just been awesome. I was talking to a friend, I was giving him my address, and so I told him Scott Dunstheath, da-da-da-da, Reno Envy, 89523. And he's like, Reno Envy? I'm like, Reno Envy? So it was kind of at that moment, that was our aha moment, where I realized that the state abbreviation for Nevada, Envy, sounded like the word envy. So that's where it all started from. What's great about the downtown Reno community is that, you know, People believe in Reno. You know, we have something here. People really love this community as much as I do. And people really resonated with the idea of having like a local brand. Downtown Reno honestly has been a challenge, but we're a small business and we've been down here since 2008. And honestly, if we can do it, you know, there's a lot of opportunity out there. And we kind of wanted to prove to people that retail works. In 2012, rebranded ourselves and we went from Reno Envy and renamed our brand the Home Meets Nevada Company. kind of trying to support the local artists in the community by bringing their products in and selling them on their behalf. We have all sorts of great stuff. We have coffee from Glory Cloud. We have local honey. It's important for us to collaborate, too, with local celebrities. Krista Palmer is an Olympic athlete, and we had the opportunity to partner with her and create her own authentic Krista Palmer Battle Born T-shirt.

My name is Krista Palmer, Nevada's Olympic diver. This is a really special company to me because my roots are in Nevada. I grew up down in Carson City. I truly feel this connection between Home Means Nevada and my story. This has been a really cool partnership that I've been able to develop over the years with Scott. The projection of Reno downtown, I really see it opening up more doors for people to continue to get outside, continue to take their dogs for a walk and enjoy the Reno River walk, to be able to have space to enjoy those lovely afternoons. I think that's where I kind of see the progression of Reno going and for more people to enjoy what Reno is. It's truly a treasure here.

People believe in Reno, and we believe in Reno. There's so much opportunity and so many different types of people in downtown Reno. And the city of Reno has been great with this partnership with the Visitor Center, the RSCVA has been great. The collaborations that we do with the community, with the university, with Krista Palmer, Olympic athlete, it really is about a community that kind of binds us together. If we didn't have that support, we wouldn't be able to survive in downtown Reno. I have always felt like Reno's been kind of our little secret, and we love to share that secret. We love to see Reno grow and prosper. Great for shopping for friends, great for gift giving. So come on down, visit us, check it out. It's been a while.

Come visit downtown Reno and see what you're missing.

Do you want to make a difference in your neighborhood? The City of Reno's six Neighborhood Advisory Boards are your chance to shape the future of your community. From parks and public safety to development projects, your voice matters. Joining a NAB is easy, and it's a great way to connect with neighbors and city leaders while making Reno an even better place to live. Applications are open now. Visit Reno.gov forward slash NAB to learn more and apply. Get involved and help make Reno not just livable, but lovable.

Hi, I'm Reno Fire Chief Dave Cochran. It's an honor to connect with you as we look back on 2024. A year of innovation, strong work, and unwavering dedication to protecting our communities. The Reno Fire Department reached incredible milestones, overcame challenges, and made a real impact on the biggest little city. Let's look back at 2024 and the achievements and highlights of the Reno Fire Department.

2024's wildland season tested our region with incidents like the Gold Ranch Davis and Callahan fires straining resources from across the west. Although these fires happened just outside Reno City limits, our firefighters stepped up to assist while ensuring our Reno community remained well protected. In 2024, RFD deployed 264 resources to more than 100 wildland fires, contributing over 65,000 hours of work. These efforts brought nearly $2 million in reimbursements back to the department. Right here at home, we responded to 51,737 calls for service. an increase of over 2,000 from the previous year. Our commitment to service continues to grow along with our community.

The Safety and Training Division saw impressive growth in 2024, paving the way for a stronger, more skilled team. We proudly promoted 11 captains and eight operators, hired 25 new firefighters, and welcomed five single-role EMS personnel. This year, we ran two three-week fire equipment operator engine academies, one two-week fire equipment operator truck academy, and a two-week acting captain's academy. These intensive programs help sharpen our skills and prepare our teams for any situation. We also expanded our monthly company-level training sessions, introducing specialized active shooter training and wide area search exercises. And through partnerships with surrounding fire departments, we enhanced our response capabilities for wildland fires and hazmat operations. Additionally, we upgraded the training facilities at Station 11 with new technology to improve the delivery of our programs, ensuring our team is always ready to meet the demands of our city.

The Reno Fire Prevention Bureau experienced significant strides this year in 2024, starting with the appointment of a new fire marshal, three fire captains, and three new fire inspectors. Our team saw great success in our arson investigations, achieving an impressive 80% conviction rate and completed over 6,000 building inspections to help keep Reno safe. For the fourth consecutive year, we hosted our dumpster program thanks to a grant from State Farm. This program helps neighborhoods in the wildland urban interface clear dry vegetation and debris, creating defensible space. Thank you to everyone who participated and helped reduce wildfire risk in our community. In 2024, We are also thrilled to receive nearly $245,000 from FEMA's Fire Prevention and Safety Grant to develop a community wildfire protection plan. This comprehensive framework will prioritize wildfire mitigation efforts, improve emergency preparedness, and ensure long-term safety for Reno's residents and infrastructure. Keep an eye out in the coming months for ways to get involved. We're excited to collaborate with you.

In 2024, we work closely with our community partners to update the Regional Hazard Mitigation Plan. The plan assesses the potential impact of all prioritized hazards to the region and provides mitigation strategies and actions to reduce such risk. The update ensures the plan remains effective in addressing the evolving needs of our community. We also prioritized firefighter health with initiatives like our fourth annual cancer screenings and the introduction of the coronary calcium scan. These proactive prevention programs are vital in detecting early markers of heart disease and cancer, critical steps for firefighters facing heightened risks associated with their profession. Additionally, we launched a groundbreaking pilot program with the Epic Brain Center, exploring enhanced mind-body performance treatments. This innovative approach supports firefighters dealing with PTSD and other mental health challenges, while empowering them with improved executive function to perform at their best.

2024 was a landmark year for the Reno Fire Department Emergency Medical Services Division with 30,649 calls for service. Collaboration played a key role in 2024 as we joined forces with regional partners to strengthen our unified response to medical emergencies.

We were excited to welcome our new EMS management assistant and expand our specialized training for our single role program. Ensuring our EMS team is always prepared to meet our community's high demand for advanced emergency medical services. We conducted division level training on new medical equipment including cutting edge video laryngoscope blades, that are vital in life-saving situations and new medications that can be used to treat various patient presentations by our mid and advanced level providers. We also implemented a new medical charting platform, further enhancing patient care.

Reno Fire Department's Support Services Division achieved significant milestones in 2024. Enhanced vehicle maintenance and repair, increased apparatus safety, and equipment modernization. Through our apparatus replacement program, we added two new brush trucks designed for firefighting in rugged terrain and a state-of-the-art ambulance, ensuring our fleet meets the diverse needs of our community. We also enhanced operations by refining the use of fleet cameras throughout our vehicles. These systems capture critical moments during incidents, training, and daily operations, providing insights that improve safety and support crew education. Our logistics team continues to push innovation forward, adopting advanced battery-powered tools on our fire engines and ladder trucks. and improve personal protective equipment. These enhancements extend equipment lifespan, improve functionality, and prioritize firefighter safety. Looking ahead, we're excited to introduce a new heavy rescue apparatus in 2025, the first of its kind for our department since 1986. As an all-risk fire department supporting many different types of incidents, this addition ensures our crews are ready to respond to any emergency, no matter the challenge.

As we reflect on 2024, the Reno Fire Department has much to celebrate. from our interlocal agreement with the Reno Tahoe Airport Authority, enabling us to assume firefighting services across all airport properties, and our partnership with Truckee Meadows Fire and Rescue, which now provides automatic aid to ensure the closest resource responds to emergencies, no matter the jurisdiction. We're building the foundation for continued growth and excellence. I'm pleased to share that we also received the keys to 455 East 2nd Street, our future central fire station. We're excited to begin serving you from this state-of-the-art facility in 2027. At RFD, we believe that being part of the community is just as important as responding to emergencies. Whether it's hosting fire safety programs, participating in local events, or building relationships with residents, we strive to be more than the first responders. We're your neighbors, partners, and advocates for a safer region. None of our work would be possible without the dedication of our team and wavering support of our Reno City Council, state and federal representatives. Their commitment ensures RFD is always ready to serve and protect our community. On behalf of the Reno Fire Department, thank you for your trust and support. Together we accomplished so much in 2024 and we look forward to an even brighter and safer year ahead. Thank you for standing with us.

Grab a slice, hitch a ride, get a rush, and roll the dice. Step into a world where Nevada's northern lights shine bright. And last calls are rare in a city that never sleeps, where the spirit of the Wild West lives on through daring rapids, and rocking out goes beyond the crowds. Founded on the rebels of resilience, we aren't what you expected. We're what's coming. We don't just embrace downtown. fuse it with life. We are a convergence of adventure, art, and taste. It's not just our city, it's our identity. The mighty Truckee, our lifeline, and the Nevada sky as our backdrop, downtown Reno is a tribute to our roots and a leap into the future. Discover 110 blocks of stories of residents, entrepreneurs, creators, and masters of their craft coming together in the spirit of discovery and progress. In a city that never ceases to reinvent itself, we are the unexpected. downtown Reno invites you to rise with us again. What's your story?

Grab a slice, hitch a ride, get a rush, and roll the dice. Step into a world where Nevada's northern lights shine bright, and last calls are rare in the city that never sleeps. Where the spirit of the Wild West lives on through daring rapids, and rocking out goes beyond the crowds. We're the unexpected in a city that never ceases to reinvent itself. Been a while? Downtown Reno invites you to rise with us again. What's your...

You know how speeders got categories? Categories? Different types, different cars. Wannabe race car drivers with zero talent and all the insurance claims. Go on. Yeah, so you got the, I didn't realize I was going 95 type. Like the car magically went 45 over just on its own.

Oh. Officer, I thought I was going 45.

no buddy you thought about going 45. well then you got the uh i'm late for work guys like going 25 over is going to make up for the 30 minutes they spent laying in bed watching tick tocks ain't nothing like risking a reckless driving charge to get to a job that you already hate we can't forget the i was just keeping up with traffic folks oh the if everybody jumped off the bridge defense Just because everybody else is breaking the law doesn't mean that you get a free pass.

Nah, but it does mean we all get to sit on the side of the road together while we trade live stories and I write this ticket at lightning speed. There's one.

Yeah, we got a black Volkswagen headed your way, guys. Got him. In all seriousness, Reno, we need to slow down when driving on our roads. Speed and impairment are the two biggest factors in fatality crashes. That is why the Reno Police Department will be conducting proactive speeding enforcement on McCarran and around the city. Slow down, Reno. Nevada?

I'm not from Nevada, and I'm pretty sure the speed limit signs all look the same everywhere.

We're the unexpected in a city that never ceases to reinvent itself. Been a while? Downtown Reno invites you to rise with us again. What's your story?

I'm Corey, I'm a housing manager with the City of Reno and we are here at our second Love Your Block project, Hop-Up Nursery for Yori Avenue residents. We had residents of this neighborhood apply and we've got about 75 plants and trees here to give out to the neighbors to beautify the neighborhood, get a little more green here. One day of planting and a lifetime of shade and beautiful greenery in the neighborhood.

The Yori Pop-Up Nursery is a project that my neighbor and I kind of came up with. People get to beautify their yards. Sometimes landscaping is intimidating due to the cost. This initiative, this project helps kind of eliminate that obstacle for a lot of people. And so it'll be nice to see more plants in more people's yards and just make more of a beautiful neighborhood. Secondarily, I'm a huge fan of pollinators and native plants. And so getting more of those in the ground is just going to help the environment overall.

It's super exciting. I love this project. I started the Be Friendly campaign, which was created to help people talk to their neighbors. So a lot of times when you start a pollinator garden in your front yard, it doesn't look like a traditional yard. So I created these signs to kind of help with communication. It's a great neighborhood gathering and I'm super proud to be a part of it.

We're just so excited to be here in partnership with Reno Food Systems, Bee Friendly Nevada and the Nevada Division of Forestry, alongside all these neighbors to get in the neighborhood and get planting.

The Pioneer Center is a nonprofit performing arts center located in the heart of downtown Reno. We are in an absolutely gorgeous, one-of-a-kind historic building right on the banks of the Truckee River. Our building was constructed in the 1960s, so we have been open and operating as a nonprofit performing arts center for over 56 years now. I'm Denise Sewell. I'm the CEO of the Pioneer Center for the Performing Arts. One of the amazing things about being a community performing arts center is our historic stage is the very first performance opportunity for so many young children in the area. Aspiring young musicians and dancers will perform their first recitals here on our stage. There is an incredible magic when all of those children come into this professional theater for the first time. The feedback we get from those children and from their parents is that it's literally life-changing. for them to have those first experiences on our stage. And we know that many of those people choose to stay in this community and build their lives here in Reno as they grow. And they remember those first experiences and what it meant to them. We are quite literally in the bedrock of downtown Reno and we're not going anywhere. And we really have seen and felt a tremendous improvement since the business district has created the Downtown Reno Partnership. The work of the ambassadors to provide casual folks on the street with directions, with assistance, they are the friendliest, most helpful people out in the community. The name is well-earned, Downtown Reno Partnership. We really do feel that they are partners in helping to make downtown the place that we all see in our hearts, that we really know it is. They've just been an incredible asset to downtown and we've been really grateful to work with them.

My name is Adam Cates and I am the Director of Community Engagement for the Pioneer Center for the Performing Arts. The Pioneer Center is the hub of the performing arts in our region right here in downtown Reno. We are the home to some incredible organizations from the world-class Reno Philharmonic Orchestra to Art Town who brings in incredible performances from across the world and AVA Ballet Theater who present the annual Nutcracker, a tradition for so many families in Northern Nevada. The Pioneer Center is the place to come for the best of world-class performances. One thing that I love is the way that the bar and restaurant scene has just exploded over the past decade or so. And many of those incredible restaurants and bars and establishments are right here in downtown Reno. They're right across the street. They're right down the block from us. And it's been really wonderful to have a central gathering place like the Pioneer Center that is also able to engage with many of the restaurants and bars in our region.

As the footprint of the city continues to push outward and more incredible folks learn about and want to be part of and want to live here, the heart of Reno remains right here along the river in the core of downtown. this is that unique identity of the city and arts and culture have that unbelievable ability to weave into the fabric of the identity of a city it's through bringing so many different folks together for so many different kinds of experiences all authentic all genuine all designed to bring you together and uplift each other and to explore what it means to be human together through the arts There is no limit to what that can do to change people's lives and to enrich a city well into the future. So whatever the future has in store for Reno, arts and culture are a critical part of our identity. They always have been and they always will be. We at the Pioneer Center, together with all of our friends throughout the arts and culture community here, we will continue to evolve and adapt and explore new ways of making connections. And all of that will continue to happen right here in the heart of downtown, along with the other amazing organizations that make up this area with us.

Downtown Reno is where the best of the performing arts live.

Downtown Reno is alive with arts, culture, and entertainment.

My name is Parr Tolles and I am the CEO and founder of Tolles Development. I grew up in the Bay Area in Middle Park and I moved to Reno in 1994. Met a pretty girl and chased her down and got married and decided to put down roots here and it ended up being a really vibrant place for us to do business with our family and it's been a wonderful decision. but always had the desire to start my own business. And in 2016, started Tolles Development Company with the goal to focus on all product types of real estate, but with extra effort downtown. We bought a portfolio of office buildings with the goal to redevelop those buildings and really try to push downtown Reno into its next level. We also did that with Midtown. We bought a portfolio of retail buildings, turned that into what is now a very vibrant area. People always ask me if Reno is the next Portland, is it the next Austin? My response has always been, we're Reno. We have this really interesting quilt. I love the fact we're not trying to turn it into somewhere else, but that we're allowing it to evolve in its own really unique way. Private investment in downtowns, it's hard, but it's also incredibly rewarding. Downtown Reno's really got a nice platform for additional mixed-use development. We have a good foundation of retail, good foundation of office, good residential arts and culture. We have a river that runs through it. It's important for us to move where the market is telling us to go, but also to be more than just financially worthy. I think it's important to take a longer-term view when you're redeveloping and trying to obviously not only making returns for your investors, but also making more social returns for the community itself. I think we have a collaborative culture here. We're part of the fabric of this community. These businesses are our friends now. We don't have big commutes. People want to be together. We'll never leave Rita. This office portfolio and the Midtown portfolio, I did right before COVID. I've seen the vibrancy of downtown. It hasn't been hot as bad as it could. And now we're prepared to continue to move it forward with good development. It's easy to stay in suburbia, but certainly not as fun. And you haven't come to downtown Reno yet, please come visit us. I promise you, you will make it your Friday night date night. It is one of the most vibrant, special cities on the West. I can't wait for you to experience it if you haven't done it yet.

You all ready?

We are all set.

I'd like to reconvene. It is 1.01, and at this time we have Council Member Taylor, Council Member Ebert, and Mayor Sheehy absent.

Great.

And we're moving on to Item D1, David 1.

Thank you so much. Madam Clerk, with that, let the record reflect that the Council is opening public hearing on Item D1. Madam Clerk, was proper notice given and any correspondence received?

Mr. Vice Mayor, proper notice was given on item D1 and no correspondence was received. Additionally, we have not registered any public comment on this item.

Great. Do any council members have to make any disclosures? All right. If not, we will move on to a staff presentation if one is required. Does anybody require a staff presentation? It doesn't look like it. With that, then I'll look for a motion. If you put the motion up on me.

In the matter of case ABN 260009, I move that council make a determination that the public will not be materially injured by the proposed vacation and approve the abandonment subject to the conditions in the staff report.

I second and can make all the findings.

We have a motion and a second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion passes unanimously.

Great job, Jeff.

Thank you.

With that, we will... All right, we're on item E1.

We'll move on to item E1, yes. Ordinance introduction, Mr. Hall.

Ordinance introduction, bill number 7336. Ordinance to amend Title 14 of the Reno Municipal Code entitled Buildings and Construction, Chapter 14.05. Property Maintenance Code, Section 14.05.010, adoption of the 2012 edition of the International Property Maintenance Code to adopt the 2024 edition of the International Property Maintenance Code with the appendices, amendments identified as Exhibit A, and additional redevelopment area property maintenance standards identified in Exhibit B together with matters properly relating thereto.

Mr. Vice Mayor, I'm prepared to make a referral.

Let me just ask, is there any public comment?

We do not have any public comment registered, but we did receive one comment associated with this item in favor.

Are there any comments or questions from any of the board members?

You know, I thought I had seen, you said there was one letter, but I seem to recall there were some letters about this that weren't supportive. Have you seen any?

Any unsupportive? I've seen a couple that just had some recommendations and some ideas.

To change something?

Yeah, exactly.

Was it?

Some were related to citywide changes that we're going to keep on file for discussions in the future. There were a couple changes that we looked at that we did make some modifications. And then there was one change in particular that came in after we publicly posted, which I'm recommending to adopt as well. And it has to do with some landscaping terminology and things like that.

Okay. So I think, I mean, I guess the point is there were some letters of comment.

These were actually forms that when we need the public outreach we were allowed allowed to or we accept the public comment Yeah, okay Anything else I just want to make a really a comment I think that you Lance and your team have done a phenomenal job on taking a lot of feedback from this group and others and Coming up with stricter guidelines and stricter codes, and I'm really appreciative of that. So I know it may have seemed hard at times, and I think you might have even taken some criticism, but I'm really proud of the work that you did. So thank you. Thank you.

So I'm happy to make a motion on that line.

I would... Oh, do you want to give a... I would just ask that in terms of the motion, if you would incorporate, I can tell you that the landscaping stuff that wasn't in there. Well, why don't you go ahead. After this item was public posted, the feedback came in regarding section 910, which is the landscaping maintenance. The staff is recommending that incorporation into the ordinance introduction. It basically just adds noxious weeds and invasive species to help clarify some standards. And it also noted that we had referenced the National Arborist Association for some standards, and it's now called the Tree Care Industry Association. So it was just a technical terminology that a landscape architect had submitted. And I would ask that those be, I would recommend that those be included in the motion to refer.

So are you saying, I don't know if I'm called on, I was going to make a motion. Go ahead. Are you saying that an individual property, Right, and this applies downtown, right?

This applies across the city.

Oh, it does apply across the city.

That specific part is called out specifically for the RDA properties. So our downtown standards are expanding into the RDA properties, as this is written. And so the Landscaping Maintenance Code dictates how high some vegetation can be, how low tree volcanic peas can be, and then that you can't have weeds, debris. They wanted the idea of the noxious weeds and invasive species to be a priority.

I have a question. You may not know the answer, but I'm willing to find out later if you don't know. But if there's a property and they have a tree and it's threatening to fall on another property, is there anything that speaks to that issue?

Not specifically in this code, but it would be just a property maintenance code or even in our tree ordinance, our tree standards. If it's a property that's going on to somebody else's property, you're responsible for that. It needs to be, the property owner that the tree is planted on needs to be addressed and they need to do the removal or the repair.

And then if they don't, like is that part of the code? Absolutely. Ironically, someone just called me yesterday about a tree about to fall on someone else's property and where the tree is is a rental property and they've tried to contact the owner with no success. Is this a place where the code would come in and we would take some action?

Absolutely. Yeah, the property owner would be noticed. It would start with a courtesy notice since it's a residential property and then go to a warning of violation and then ultimately fines. And we have great ways of identifying the property owners through public information as well as access through databases that we have.

So this, though, would allow the city to take some action and build back?

Absolutely.

And it's right in this new code?

No, actually, we have that ability right now. Yeah, that would be if the city had to...

I thought it was. I told the person yesterday I thought it was addressed in code, but I wasn't sure if you were saying now it was a new addition.

That's not a new addition. That would already be there.

All right. Well, with that, if there's no other questions, I would like to... Do you want to put up the motion? Sure. I'm not sure of the bill number, but...

Motion to refer seven three six six councilmember George.

All right, I'd like to motion to refer seven three six six Bill number seven three six six for a second reading and adoption The additions with the additions as mentioned by our director, thank you Yeah, I second motion second all those in favor.

Say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed motion passes unanimously. I Great. With that, we'll close Section E and move on to G1, discussion and potential appointment of up to one individual to the Washington County Home Consortium Technical Review Committee.

I believe the staff recommendations was Ms. Yvette Myers.

Move to appoint.

Second. We have a motion and a second to appoint Yvette Myers. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion passes unanimously. Great. With that, we'll move on to any council comments. Council Member Anderson? Taylor? Reese? No. Thank you. Dewar? Ebert? Do you have any comments for this section? I don't have anything either. We will pause the items on the Reno City Council and move over and open the Redevelopment Agency Board. Madam Clerk.

Thank you, Mr. Vice Mayor. We're opening the Redevelopment Agency Board. We will call for Wednesday, June 10th, 2026. Calling roll is Member Taylor. Here. Doerr. Here. Martinez. Here. Ebert. Here. Reese. Here. Anderson. Here. Chair Schieve is absent at this time. You do have a quorum of the Redevelopment Agency Board.

Great. Is there any public comment?

We do not have any public comment registered and no hands raised in Zoom.

With that, we'll look for approval of the agenda. So moved.

No changes.

Okay.

I want to raise my hand at this time.

Yeah.

We have one item on the consent agenda, and Madam Mayor spoke to me, and I understand it's just hearsay at this point because apparently her text didn't go through to Jackie. Was she asked to continue item B1 to the next meeting? So I'll make that recommendation.

Okay. We did have a motion, Council Member Reese? No.

Second. I think there was a motion to approve the agenda, so I say yes, approve the agenda. Okay.

I second the agenda.

We have a second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed?

No.

One no. On behalf of. Motion still passes. Yeah. Okay. Thank you so much.

All right. Item B1. Yes, so that's in a consent agenda, but I'd like to pull the items.

Okay, we'd like to pull the item We'll listen to our agenda and be one.

Okay And I don't know who's okay. Here we go. Yeah, it's a pretty straightforward Document and I'd like to recommend one change. This is me now. I'm not here advocating on behalf of the mayor If you look at the item I Under executive director, it says the city manager or their designee is designated as the executive director. I'm totally fine with the city manager being the executive director. But having them designate someone else, I'm not fine with, and I want to explain why. Every other board that we all sit on, which is an external board, the board or the commission or whatever authority in each case, county. I would like to take the case of the county they have a separate board that the county commission serves as the board and that' s the They appoint the executive director, not this county manager. And it's just a very consistent principle that's on every board, commission, whatever you want to call them. So I am totally fine with our city manager being the director and being appointed as part of this motion, but I would like to delete or their designee and reserve that function for the city council to appoint the director. it's very consistent with the administrative practice of every board commission et cetera that we serve on and I think it's important here because this agency at this time, the redevelopment district has something. I mean, our staff gave us an estimates, but if I remember there's millions of millions of dollars that are within the agency, you probably know better than I do. And I think it is appropriate that that whoever's managing that report to the council. So that's, that's my perspective. And I'd be willing to make a motion to approve this item with that one change, deleting the word or their designee. Um, so that the council would be the appointing authority.

Okay. I just have a quick question.

Um, thanks, Jenica. I don't, I didn't understand or read that the executive director or their designee would not be coming to council and doing that. I'm, prepared to support the motion as is, but I was wondering if maybe you could address Councilwoman Durer's comments.

Sure, Jenica Finnegan, Operations Manager for Redevelopment and Economic Development. So the resolution, the proposed resolution before you has the city manager or their designee as the executive director. And so if the city manager chose to appoint or assign an executive director, it would report back to the city manager rather than the board as written, as proposed.

But then Jack we would still get input from that executive director and making any decisions, right?

Okay. Thank you council memories I Guess I'm trying to figure out and maybe miss Bryant can weigh in here miss Finnegan you either what is the goal? I'm trying to understand we well and let me also just posit that we have not stood up the redevelopment agency and operated in a redevelopment agency space for a long time and And so part of it is just our unfamiliarity with it. And maybe it is a best practice that the person is not appointed by this body. Maybe it is better as we do with our fire chief or our police chief where we are trusting the manager's designation and then ratifying it in some way. I'm just saying I don't have heartburn about how you have posited the change, but I'm trying to understand what the best practice is and what are we trying to accomplish, that sort of thing. or not on?

So there's a couple of goals. One is it removes some of the political impacts and yes that is a good thing to do. Two is just like it would with any other director or fire chief or police chief so kind of a similar vein there. But two this agency is taking off and it deserves some dedicated leadership and resources and these people you know would certainly continue to report to me and and I report to the council. So it really is no different than any other structure that we have currently within the city of Reno. And it would allow for some dedicated resources, not asking for additional funding or anything like that. We'd have to do some realignment. And of course, this doesn't mean it would happen. It just simply is a change to the resolution to authorize it should we reach this point in the future where we need it.

Yeah, and I guess for my part, and so my colleagues know where I am, I don't have any heartburn about it, A, because I trust our ability to manage the manager, right, our employee, but also I, too, wish to remove political influence over the redevelopment agency sector. Obviously, there is an element to it which involves our appointing those members there, but the staff is really who we're talking about now, and I want that to be as apolitical as possible, and so I'm happy to support as identified in the staff report.

Thank you.

Councilmember Dewar.

Yeah, I'd like to give a different perspective. Again, we have numerous agencies in our community that each of those bodies appoints their director, and the director is responsible to them. This insulates the director, puts the manager in between the director and the council, and I really think that it's important to maintain accountability. This is not everything else we do at the city. This is an entirely standalone board. This has its own staff. It has its own rules and procedures. It has its own set of money. And if it was like everything else in the city, then we wouldn't have a separate redevelopment board, and we wouldn't have to take off our council hat and sit as the redevelopment board it's it's not the same it's not the same as the fire chief if we had a separate fire agency that had a separate budget that was approved separately in a budget process and whose staff reported to the executive director cetera. then that would be different, but we don't. We have the fire chief, the police chief, and everyone embedded. Also over at the county, for example, the sheriff, the police chief, is elected. Over at the county, the legal is elected. We have that here, too. But we're the only city that has it in the whole state of Nevada. So I'm going to go back to standard procedures and do understand that this is, you know, I've got a master's in public administration and I'm trying to bring those principles to this setup and make sure that it will be functional into the future. And I don't know why the council would want to avoid having taken that responsibility to make the election to select the director, review the director, et cetera. And if there is another designee, we're not going to have that relationship. We, the council, will have a relationship with Ms. Bryant, which I totally respect, but we will not have a direct relationship with the redevelopment board. And the redevelopment board has been set up as a whole standalone agency. There's a reason for that. That's why I think it's a best practice to not do it this way and and that's my perspective and other people can have a different perspective I get it. This isn't like battle royale This is more about a best practice and I'm very comfortable with the rest of the the item So and I'd even like the opportunity to make a motion for that Thank you.

We'll go to council member Anderson.

I just wanted to get on the record that I I my perspective here is that accountability goes through our relationship with our city manager, just like it does with any other appointee or any other employee that reports to her. So I'm comfortable with that designation, and I do appreciate taking the politics out of that position. I think that it will insulate better thoughtful ideas that stay on track.

Thank you. Any other comments or questions? Council member Ebert.

Yeah. So I know this board is really kind of unique to council because it's not council, but it is, and we have a budget and we just started doing it because it didn't have any money. So we're still trying to figure things out. Um, So it's really difficult because the city manager does currently hire the executive director positions, correct?

Within currently the city manager serves as the executive director. Oh, sorry. The, the director position.

So, um, so it would be different than that process, correct? Who appoints the fire chief? I know council member Dewar had brought that up earlier.

At the county commission, the commission appoints them.

Okay. I'm sorry.

And I've recently confirmed that process.

Okay. So not the county. Yeah. Cause if I'm understanding correctly, the mayor made appointments to the board, correct? No, we're the board.

That's the advisory board.

Yes, but the people that got put on the advisory board were just appointed by the mayor, correct? Well, we had to vote.

Yeah, they were recommended by the mayor, and we all voted to put them in.

Okay, so this is just kind of a unique situation, but I don't think it's out of the realm of what the city manager normally does to appoint people, like the police and different... other groups. So I don't know. I'm just having a hard time with it. But, you know, would we be appointing someone today?

The resolution before you does not contemplate a specific appointment. So that would be at the city manager or executive directors.

So with the RDA board, not us, would they make a recommendation or what would that even look like?

No, that's the point, is that it would just operate just like I would hire a director of utility services or a director that's something that goes through me and those structures are in place to prevent undue influence. Not that there is any, but it also, again, provides some dedicated resource and focus on an agency that is in its infancy and that is growing and really needs the dedicated resources.

But I'm not arguing. I want to, if I may, that there should be a dedicated. I'll go back to you.

I'll go back to you. So would this person be able to. you know make appointments to the board or anything like what would be their scope of authority in this position because I think that's really where I'm like struggling like what what would they be doing that should be concerning to us as a council if we do not make the appointment?

Nothing than what is happening right now which is running the agency ensuring that budget it works running the RAB bringing bringing agreements tiff applications to this body for consideration so there's really no change okay and that's currently happening now right correct okay i'll i'll um have another round please thank you

Councilmember Dewar yeah, there is a change that the director would do that They're not doing now and that is in this document that they would be spending $100,000 on their own without our managers approval without our approval. That's written right in here That's I don't I mean we've authorized I think the public works director to sign off on 100,000 is that correct Jackie?

I think every director has a hundred thousand, but you can correct me if I'm wrong attorneys I Is it 50?

At this point, maybe 50. So anyway, I believe that it would be rather unique to have them just spending money without having our managers approval and I want to clarify that some that Jackie said which is well they need to be another said that somehow that if we appoint them it suddenly gets political and it also implied that I don't support resources I mean I don't really understand the argument Jackie that I'm not saying anything about them not having resources independent staff getting off the ground doing all the things the only thing I said I completely support everything on here with this one change, which is making you be the appointing authority for the director. I don't think it's a best practice. I just don't want to have words put in my mouth that somehow I don't think that they're important or they shouldn't have resources and those kind of things. So I just want to hopefully stick to this one issue that I'm raising, nothing else. Just trying to level set here. So that's my recommendation. It's not a do or die thing, but it's a best practice recommendation from my history of these kind of things. So do it or don't do it. But I'm happy to make a motion. May not get a second. I'm totally fine with that.

Are there other comments? Yeah, Council Member Ebert.

Okay. So this person would not be able to put anybody on the RAB or take them off. That's correct. And they would not set the priorities of the NAB either, right? Or not NAB, RAB. That would be decided by the board, correct? And then it comes up to council.

The Redevelopment Agency Board, which you're serving in the capacity right now, would still make all of the policy decisions related to the RDA. Okay. So RAB serves in an advisory capacity. And so that we bring their recommendations to this body for final decision. Approval or okay.

So is it fair to say that they would kind of have oversight over this position? Like it's not the other way around. They're not deciding for the rab Can you can you clarify the question?

I think the This position. If the city manager were to designate an executive director.

This person would not have the ability to dictate to the RAB what projects we're going to do or what the budget would be for any of the projects. I know Councilmember Dewart mentioned the $100,000 they'd be able to use, but it seems like it's kind of in line with other departments. What would be a potential use of that $100,000? Swag? Office supplies? What is a potential use of that?

So, for example, with some of the program awards, this would authorize the executive director or their designee to distribute those funds, disbursements, without coming back to this body. Right now, as it's written, the executive director only has a contracting authority of up to $50,000, and also the treasurer, which is the chief financial officer of the city of Reno, so Vicki Van Buren.

Okay, sorry, go ahead. Can you give me an example of something that's been spent of that $50,000? Sorry to put you on the spot. That's okay.

So, for example, restore awards for the facade improvement and tenant improvement programs.

Okay, and that's something that we voted on, right?

You have voted on the budget to fund programs, and so this would authorize the executive director or their designee to distribute those funds in accordance with the adopted budget.

Okay, so that $100,000 is to be used to... fulfill the direction that we've given them. That's correct. Okay. All right. Um, and let's say hypothetically someone gets appointed by the city manager. I'm not talking about this. I'm talking in the future. Somebody was appointed by the city manager and council was not happy with what they did. Would we have the ability to remove them from that position?

That would be a decision.

No, just like you can't remove other people under me. Now, you could remove me because you're unhappy with my decisions, but you don't have the ability. And as a policy matter, this board, particularly on the city council side, the city council, not this board, has decided that that is something that we don't want council to have the authority to do just to, again, to avoid the politics.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So is that really the, like the loss that would happen here is that council couldn't fire this person higher or fire?