City Council - Regular Meeting

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And hope everyone's doing well. Welcome to the study session of Tuesday, July 21st. We're going to start so that we can go into executive session and then come back and finish the study. So again, it is the study session of Tuesday, July 21st, 2026. Item one is an executive session. Ms. Clerk.

Item 1 is noticed as an executive session, Robinson v. City of Tucson et al., Pima County Superior Court, case number 2027593.

I have a motion to move into executive session, please.

So moved. Second.

There's a motion and a second. Any further discussion? Hearing none, let's go. I was going to say let's go to roll call. All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Any against? Motion carries. We will see you in maybe about 35 minutes. all righty we'll see you up in 35 minutes thank you

Thank you.

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Hey everyone, I do need a motion to return from- So moved. There's a motion. Second. Motion and a second. All those in favor, please indicate by saying aye. Aye. Any against? Motion carries. Item two, what is the council's pleasure?

Honorable Mayor, an appropriate motion would be to move that the mayor and council authorize and direct the city attorney to proceed as discussed in an executive session to include the settlement of this tort lawsuit in the amount of $185,000.00.

So moved.

There's a motion and a second. Any further discussion on item two? Hearing none, all those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Any against? Motion carries. All righty. Item three. Time has been set aside for a discussion of the update on strategic initiatives related to fentanyl opioid public health crisis. As we all know, we have been hearing about this item for a few years now. We know that fentanyl and opioid epidemic is a public health crisis, and it impacts all of us every day. I want to thank Lee Hopkins and Jess Lozoya who represent the City of Tucson on the Regional Opioid Settlement Action Committee. When the City of Tucson, the County, Marana, and South Tucson decided to join our opioid funds together to make a more significant impact using the ROSAC Committee to help coordinate those funds. It was a strategic decision to use that money to do the most good and to fill the gaps in services that we as the city of Tucson would see every day. At the beginning of this year, we opened the sobering alternative facility for recovery, the Safer Center, which is something that the mayor and council and TPD and our community safety, health and wellness program encouraged Pima County to fund because we knew that the Safer Center was a service that we needed, that we had a gap, that we didn't have the funds for. And so now the Safer Center has been opened I think since the second day in January of this year. It has made progress with 96% of the patients receiving a referral to continue treatment. validating our city's need to have low barrier treatment facilities. From prevention, justice involvement, and recovery, we are investing to break the cycles of addiction and poverty in a humane way with programs that are proven to work. With the complexity of addiction, there's not a one size fits all solution. We know this. We need options and resources dedicated to help us deal with this crisis and continue. to be interested in using the city-owned Desert Cove residential facility as a recovery center, a treatment facility, a supportive housing facility that we fund using opioid settlement money. I also want to thank TPD Corps officers, our Community Safety, Health and Wellness, Pima County Justice Services, Public Defender's Office, multidisciplinary outreach teams, which is our MDOT team, who are working day in, day out, going out and doing outreach on the streets for people that we believe need the treatment and resources to conquer their fentanyl addiction. So at this point we continue to use every point of contact, whether through street outreach, care coordination, or housing navigation. and through our Tucson Police Department to offer support programs and other diversion and deflection options for people that need them. So I just wanted to set the tone. We have been having these updates for, Mr. Manager, two, three years now? Two years now. And we have these updates every month so that our community, the public understand the work that we are doing tirelessly to offer a safe city and a safe place for all. So with that, Mr. Manager, the floor is yours.

Thank you, Honorable Mayor and members of the Council. Joining us here at the table is Lee Hopkins, who will be giving you the update for this month on fentanyl opioid public health crisis.

Thank you, honorable mayor and members of the council. It's a pleasure to be here today. Before I begin with the report, I just want to acknowledge and welcome some of esteemed guests we have in the audience today. So we have our ROSAC chair, Assistant Chief Roberto Jimenez from Marana Police Department. And we also have a number of the grantees that are doing the work day in and day out with the opioid settlement funds who were funded for projects in 2026. And so during my report, I will be listing out who is in the room. And after I conclude, if you have specific questions for some of the grantees, I welcome for you to raise those and they can come to the podium and answer them. In the memo that was provided, you'll find some additional history and background on how the areas of investment for funding were selected. National best practices, such as the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health recommendations that over 25 jurisdictions of states throughout the United States are using, as well as recommendations from the American Society of Addiction Medicine. with some grounding evidence that we used as a committee to make these decisions. But we also did a lot of local gaps analysis. We reviewed local gaps analysis from the city of Tucson, from the Pima County Health Department. We reviewed historical overdose data. And we did a geographical and equity analysis to ensure that not only is the right type of work happening, but that it's focused on the areas of town and the populations that need it the most. And this was all integrated into the RFPs. So most of the RFPs actually had specific census tracts or zip codes where grantees had to commit to be doing the work. For example, oh sorry, and then the vast majority of this work, so you know, is happening within the bounds of the city of Tucson. There is also some work happening in more rural areas in Pima County, but the vast majority is happening within the city limits. So I also want to talk a little bit about metrics. There have been lots of questions about how are we measuring the work and how are we showing that these dollars are really making an impact. So bear with me. This is a lengthy list. But if you look at attachment A with the memo, that breaks down each project and the metrics that that agency proposed to be measuring throughout the project. Right now I'm going to give you a brief sample of those. So bear with me. So there's 10 projects in total with different funding levels depending on the type of work that was being done and the cost associated. So please see that attachment A for the specifics on how much funding was allocated for each project. And today we have representatives from eight of those projects here with us. An example of some of the metrics are enrollment numbers, both at initial engagement and retention rates in programs, geographic and census track of programs and participants, assessment of risks and protective factors, pre and post evaluations, number of successful referrals to supportive services, percentage of medically assisted treatment referrals resulting in someone starting or getting induced onto medically assisted treatment that's specific to peer support, for example. Number of individuals who move into and retain permanent housing or gain and retain employment, that's relevant for transitional support services. Tracking the origin of the referral, so hospital, jail, another community-based agency, where are those linkages happening? Percentage of behavioral health crisis calls that result in a diversion. So that's specific to the co-response with law enforcement. Number of repeat law enforcement encounters within 90 days. Again, specific to behavioral health co-response with law enforcement. Length of stay in programming, what type of programming they go to next, so that's something specific to SAFER, but also some other programs. For example, are they going to residential rehab after detox or a family environment or getting induced onto medically assisted treatment? And last but not least, another example is client outcomes at 30, 60, and 90 days after intake and treatment. So that you could see is a broad sample of both outputs but also outcomes to really be able to measure impact. So quarter two reports were submitted just last week to the health department. And so we don't have our hands quite on those results yet. I think by September's report out, I'll be able to give some more details on quarter two results. But I would like to talk a little bit about quarter one results for the projects. So these were reported in April. And I want to highlight that I will give some examples of results of a couple organizations, but that's not to say that others are not doing just as valuable work. I just had to make some choices so that I don't keep you all day long. So a lot of quarter one for youth prevention focused on hiring staff, drafting and updating curricula, and recruiting youth participants for programs. So some highlights. Boys to Men had 54 masculine-identified youth attend restorative mentoring circles focused on social-emotional learning, resilience, and culturally-rooted practices. And then they also worked on recruitment for their youth leadership council and began recruiting in schools for their programs in the fall. In quarter one, Tucson Indian Center created a curriculum and began recruitment for youth community health representatives who are going to be peer mentors and health educators for middle schoolers focused on identity, indigenous cultural strengths, dialogue about stigma, mental health, and substance use. For peer support, Pima County Justice Services increased transition center staffing, they worked towards providing seven-day coverage, and they increased their data tracking capacity. For transitional support, quarter one was a lot about staffing, partnership building, and building the structure of how they will operate, how their case management will operate. So for example, The Haven increased staffing as well as served 133 women with inpatient and outpatient services, including placements in permanent housing, access to food, employment, and behavioral health care. And they increased their outreach efforts to promote their expanded transitional housing for women with children. For behavioral health co-response with law enforcement, Pima County Justice Services worked on building out MOUs with regional law enforcement partners and behavioral health partners. They hired program staff, and they planned the operational and evaluational details for the project. And last but not least, the sobering alternative for recovery centers, SAFER, operated by Community Bridges, Many of the updates you heard in May directly from the source, from community bridges themselves, as well as the University of Arizona evaluator, Dr. Jacobs. And since then, they have continued to serve a span of about six to 15 patients per day. And they have recently worked on increasing their community outreach and data tracking. And important update about SAFER is that the contract was extended until June 2027 to be able to continue the pilot. So many of the grantees are in the audience today, and just to highlight who those folks are, we have, and I'm sorry if a couple people are missing, I got a couple updates today in the morning. So Megan Saint Laurent is from Inner Mountain CPIH. Amelia Hoconsari is from The Haven. We have Trey and Erica from Boys to Men. We have, is Glenda Garcia from Arizona Cooperative Extension? I'm not sure if they made it. Tucson Indian Center, we have, oh yes, we have Veronica Boone and Danica Tso. And from Portable Practical Educational Prep, we have Amy Bass and her colleague as well. And is Kate Vesely in the room yet? From Pima County Justice Services, we have Kate Vesely. And the anchor that keeps us all afloat and safe is Brian Eller from the Manager for Mental Health Addiction and Injury Department from the Pima County Health Department. So I also want to extend an invite to your offices, yourselves as the council members, as well as your staff to attend a grantees quarterly gathering that will be on August 5th from 3 to 5 p.m. at the Abrams Public Health Center where the health department is headquartered. It's 3950 South Country Club. I'm happy to send a follow-up email so all of your staff have that information. And then another update is next Tuesday, we have our upcoming ROSAC meeting, July 28th. And so Jess LaSoya and I will also be presenting about that. the request for Desert Cove Bridge funding at that meeting next Tuesday. So we hope to have updates for you soon on that. And last but not least, around the regional work, just some data trends I thought would be helpful for you to know because the landscape of overdose deaths specifically is evolving. So we're seeing that deaths were about 325 to 350, between 310 and 350 per year from 2020 to 2023. Now since 2024, it's gone down, which is a good thing. The distribution of Narcan and the education in the community is working. Now it's staying steady 2024, 2025. We're on track to probably have the same amount, unfortunately, but in 2026, which is about 250 overdose deaths per year. But what we're seeing changing is that it's less overdose deaths related just to opioids, and we're seeing about 78% of the overdose deaths that involve an opioid are actually polysubstance, so especially methamphetamine, and then the second would be cocaine. So we're just seeing more mixing and overdoses resulting especially from high meth use in conjunction with opioids. So I thought that would be important for everyone to understand as we make policy and programming related to this. And now I'll do a brief update about the work that Community Safety, Health and Wellness is doing. So and kudos to our amazing team down at the Hub. From January to May 2026, we educated 617 individuals, including outreach staff, first responders, community members, individuals who use drugs, about how to prevent an overdose and how opioids work. And we also distributed 291 boxes of Narcan, which is 582 dispensers. We also continue to do a lot of co-response with the TPD core unit to support efforts of deflection. And we also are integrated in several cooling centers. So trying to provide triaging folks towards resources within the cooling centers when they're there. And I just also want to highlight how we're integrating the system. The Safer Center has definitely expanded community safety, health, and wellness' impact in making it easier for us to get folks to detox. The ability for people to take their belongings, more belongings, but especially their pets, has made a huge difference in people saying, yes, please, today is the day. And we complement that with what our state opioid response grant funds, which is food packets, cell phones, and ID vouchers. So those are also very helpful with engagement. And then in conclusion, I just want to highlight some outcomes from TPD. So since May 21st, 2026, TPD has saved five lives through nine doses of Narcan at five different incidents. So some of those were multiple doses. So that's a huge win and something to celebrate for those five individuals. Also with recent Safe City deployments, for the last six month period, in the memo you'll see all of the stats, so I won't read them in their entirety, but some to highlight are total contacts was 203 individuals, total arrests was 135, Video alternative to jail was 105 individuals. 32 accepted shelter. 34 went to detox. 39 started medically assisted treatment. And our amazing teams at Environmental Services removed 16 tons of debris. So there's more details to read there. And now I will conclude and invite your questions and discussion. Thank you.

Thank you so much, Lee. That was a very comprehensive and wonderful presentation. Thank you. And to our partners, nonprofit partners and Pima County, Brian, thank you so much for helping lead this work with the opioid settlement funds. I'm really excited about the statistics that you shared, the numbers that you shared and the work that's being done. Thank you all for your partnership. This is a crisis, the fentanyl crisis and the opioid crisis is something that no mayor, no city, no county, no jurisdiction can do alone. We need to be partners and work together to make sure that we find the solutions that work. And I think that because of the opioid settlement funds and our willingness to really leave the box, right? We're not constricted by boxes and try new things and experiment and pilot like the SAFER program and others and what you're doing is very, very important. So thank you all so much for the work that you're doing in partnership with Pima County and the city of Tucson. Any questions, comments? Councilman Lee.

Thank you, Mayor. Thank you for the amazing update. And to everyone out there doing the work, we really appreciate all of that. Lee, one thing you said really piqued my interest. The 78% of overdose deaths being polysubstance, is that because Narcan isn't as effective if there's meth in the system? Or what is leading to that number and what's being looked at to help reduce that number? Because that's a huge number. Thank you for that question.

I don't feel like I have the level of expertise to answer it specifically, and I'd like to talk to the health department epidemiologists around this before I answer, unless Brian wants to take that one. But essentially, Narcan is working, to answer your question directly. And I mean, in the streets, we're definitely, and in working with constituents, we're definitely seeing that there's more cocktails So it's not to say, I think, There are less opioid-only deaths, which is great. It means Narcan is working. But the presence of other substances within the cocktail then reduce the effectiveness of Narcan, right? Because like if meth is the main substance that is creating the overdose. So it's, yes, I don't know if I'm directly answering your question, but basically we are seeing that Narcan is working, but because people are mixing more drugs, we're seeing similar levels of overdose death. And we don't necessarily, we're not as evolved yet to know pharmacologically how to then reverse those. Yeah.

No, that's really helpful because it seems like we celebrate one win and we move the needle and the opioid deaths decrease and now we've got another challenge that we have to go after. So I was just curious about what might be.

One of the things that I will mention is, for example, it's safer. Folks, typically detox has been specific to opioids and alcohol because it's what you most commonly need. You need health care in order to detox safely and not die. it's different with meth and some other, and stimulants. You could sober up without necessarily having to take medication. But the great thing about Safer is that you can go in for any substance. So it really captures those polysubstance users, which we're seeing is the majority of drug users currently. It gives them a place where, even if meth is their main drug of choice, they can go there to sober up, whereas previously that option didn't exist.

Any others? Council Member Cunningham and then Council Member Schubert.

I'm really interested about Safer and some of the referrals we're getting. I wanted to... I'm not really... I'm not really... I know this sounds weird, but let me finish the whole thing before you ask what the heck is he talking about. By the way, hi, Amy. It's nice to see you, my old boss. with SAFER, with the mission that it has, which is that give me two good days thing, like hey, today's the day, the long-term outcomes are less concerning to me because SAFER's job is to move them to the next step. It isn't to, what they do, whether they're in residential treatment, whether they're in outpatient, whatever happens after that shouldn't be unsafe. To me, that success is whether or not we have an engagement in service, even if it's outpatient, even if we tell the client 57 times, You should probably go to residential. You should probably go to residential. And the client says, no, no, no, I can do it on my own. Because that never happens. The client never tries to change their treatment plan, right? I mean, that's never happened. I'm just kidding. So I'm thinking about safer and those outcomes. I think those outcomes are much better evaluated on if the client takes the next step and does not return to wherever they were before, which it sounds to me we're getting them from different folks. Some of them are walk-ins, some of them are referred by law enforcement through deflection, some of them are referred through, I mean, I'm sure we have a few that are post-custody that are coming out of jail. So I'm just trying to, I'd love to have that metric on where the mechanism in which they came in and then where they ended within five days. So even if they, After that, that's up to the resident, that's up to the treatment plan, that's up to the next step in their process, in their thing. And then also, what I'd really, I know we're already doing it to some degree, but I think we should probably have some type of reentry plan post-residential or post-outpatient, whether it's shelter, whether it's sober living, whatever we're doing. So those are some of the things I'm looking at. Safer is like the... That's the thing on the ground, and I think there's ways to repeat it. I'd also like to see how we can create another tier of safer that's an alternative to jail. So those are my thoughts today. But thanks for the report, and thanks for all the work that everybody's doing.

Council Member Schubert. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Thanks Lee for being here. Great to see you. I just want to take a moment to thank the Pima County Health Department for all of their collaboration and work on this process. I know they're doing a lot of work that we don't always see, such as offering technical assistance to the grantees, particularly around measurement, monitoring grant compliance and ensuring that these funds are being used effectively. I also want to voice my appreciation once again for the multifaceted approach of investing in both prevention and evidence-based interventions. And I'm also glad to see that we're focusing on populations that our local data shows are especially vulnerable, such as folks being discharged from hospitals, jails, and treatment centers with the transition grants with the Haven and community partners, and also those seeking low barrier detox options with the Safer Center grant. And I agree that we need to continue looking at these gaps and have options for people who are exiting treatment or residential or what's their next step after safer. So I'm really interested in being a part of that work. And I think the point that I take away about the polysubstances and the fact that not everybody is using the same drugs is that these kinds of evidence-based, community-centered approaches are what's going to work. We need to continue focusing on the big picture of what the root causes are, which is that these individuals need to have a pathway in order to find a way to thrive in society. These are folks who are existing on the margins. And so regardless of what they're using, we need to have services and resources to offer them. so that they can be compliant, so that they can stay on a pathway to treatment. So just really appreciate the work. I do have a few questions. My top one is how is the city collaborating with these programs, particularly with our Safe City deployments and the Safe City Initiative? And I have two other questions as well. I could ask them all and then wait. Okay, it's also helpful to see the performance metrics laid out for each grant award. I really appreciate that. Will we get updates about progress on these metrics in future meetings and how will these metrics be reviewed by staff as well as the ROSAC members when considering future funding? And then my final question, given their day-to-day work on the front lines, I'm curious if the grantees have reported any new or unexpected challenges in the substance use disorder landscape that are impacting their programs. Thank you so much.

Thank you, and I'd love to answer those to the best of my ability, unless you wanted more detailed answers after.

Is it okay if I answer right now? Okay, wonderful.

And before I continue, I also just want to note that LPKNC, I'm so sorry, they are also in the room, and they do amazing work with youth, as you know, and so Marcy is here representing them. Thank you for being here. So, let me know if I didn't capture the question correctly, but as far as collaborating with grantees for safe city deployment, that's a really good question. Up until now, a lot of the integration with grantees has been focused on SAFER and Pima County Justice Transition Center. Yes. So the transition center staff and CBI Safer are part of those deployments for the most part. They have staff present on site. And Then separate from that, a lot of our work in the Office of Violence Prevention and Intervention, so not specifically with Safe City Deployment, but in our work to mitigate and prevent violence in the community, our team works closely with several of the grantees as well. And that's a lot of, they're focused on substance use, but they're also focus on violence prevention and there's intersections on those two issues, right? Last but not least, we intend to, so we work as partners in referring people for services with all of these currently. I know our care coordinators refer folks to a lot of these programs that provide services. We are looking forward to integrating more closely with especially some of the transitional care services, so like the Haven, Intermountain CPIH, because that goes hand in hand with our care coordination work. And actually, I believe it's next week or the following, CPIH is going to come talk to our staff. A few of the other grantees have also come and talked to our staff. So we are really trying to leverage these expanded services in order to benefit the constituents. So not specific answer just to safe city deployment, but bigger picture everything that we're doing in collaboration. Now, as far as metrics, so currently, as you know, every grantee is reporting metrics that they selected when they submitted their proposal. And so they're accountable to reporting on those on a quarterly basis. Now, SAFER is the exception. SAFER submits a weekly report every week. But the rest of the grantees are submitting quarterly reports. And then as far as how decisions will be made moving forward after this initial grant year, so it will be tied to their performance measures. So ROSAC will definitely be involved in reviewing how folks are doing. Are they reaching the impact that they intended to? Are they spending the funds as proposed? And those, basically, ROSAC will go through an evaluation process in order to then recommend who should continue on to year two with the same funding. As far as reporting it out, yes. As soon as I am able to get some outcomes from the quarter two reports, I intend to include those in the September update. Did I answer all your questions?

I mean, this isn't really one you can answer, but I did have a curious question about if the grantees have reported any new or unexpected challenges. Oh, thank you. Yeah, yeah.

I wanted to actually open the floor to them to answer that.

That would be great, but I just want to bring attention. The 20 minutes scheduled for this item is gone. But since we have the grantees here, I think we should absolutely make the time to have this conversation. Absolutely have this time to. And to the question in terms of safe city initiatives, I've been to a safe city deployment, and I know that we have nonprofit partners there. I don't know if it's our grantees per se, but I know that we have nonprofit partners there helping. Yes, a lot of the behavioral health ones are they because I think that the question was very particular to the grantees themselves, which maybe we should invite to the safe city deployments. But what are the nonprofit partners that show up to the safe city deployments?

So the common ones that come are CBI, La Frontera, CMS, CODAC.

What is CMS?

Oh, sorry, Community Medical Services, CODAC, Behavioral Health. Of course, I mentioned the Transition Center, Pima County Justice Services. I just want to make sure. Housing First? Because I usually see Justin there. Housing First is always there.

I usually see some of our teams there.

And Community Safety is always there. We're some of the key co-responders. And then sometimes there are also individuals from some shelter providers like Salvation Army, Gospel Rescue, OPCS, Primavera. I don't want to miss anyone, but those are the ones that I definitely know come to mind.

Yeah. And so if we invite any of the partners to come up to the mic, if you want to talk a little bit about maybe some, what do you call them?

Just like unexpected challenges or, you know, new or unexpected challenges within the substance use disorder landscape. And also if people feel shy, they can reach out to us after the meeting.

Come on up, come on up.

this one okay let's see i think the green light is on okay great my name is emilia honkasari and i'm from the haven and to answer your we provide substance use treatment for women and i would say that the operating landscape has changed a lot just within the last year just the beginning of the year we operate most of our funding comes from access so the arizona medicaid system and we're seeing more and more women who qualify for access but are not able to get their benefits and that goes for healthcare, that goes for SNAP benefits, that goes for DES childcare benefits. So it's a lot of system level things that are kind of outside of our control and the women are not necessarily able to get into treatment if they don't have the right insurance and even when they get to treatment we try to connect them to SNAP benefits and get DES childcare and they're not necessarily able to get to those services. So we're very grateful to be using some of the opioid settlement funds for our food pantry and for childcare allowance and to reduce the barriers. But I'd say that just the access and work requirements and Medicaid changes, we're seeing the changes already now, and they're going to get even worse in the beginning of next year when all the work requirements actually go into effect. So that's a big barrier that we're dealing with right now.

Thank you. Thank you so much for sharing that. Any others want to share anything? Come on up. And then we're going to have to go to if there's any other questions, and then we'll wrap up this item.

Come on up. Thank you. My name is Amy Bass. I work for Portable Practical Educational Preparation, PEP. And we are funded for our opioid project down near the border in Amado. And one of the things that we have noticed in the families that we serve has is that a lot of them will not go to services on this side of the border because they feel too much of a cultural difference or that they don't know how to access them. So it's been really nice for us now to have the opioid settlement funding. We're doing both the youth programs after school. Angelica is our youth program coordinator and also, well, program coordinator. She also does the parenting programs. She put together packets for you. And we're able to establish that trust. And when they see that local government is investing in them, even though they are so far away rural from the city seat, the county seat, that it's building the trust. And we're seeing a lot of people now more responsive to reach out for the help. One thing that I have seen that is not related to the opioid settlement funding that we have, but related, Councilman Cunningham mentioned about people needing the help for the transition. We have an underfunded reentry program. And one of the things that I keep seeing repeated is that during those small amounts of funding, they can get a one-time help with assistance for rent. And so if you think of that in terms of rent month to month, By the time the person figures out they don't have money for rent that month, then they spend two weeks holding back the eviction from the landlord to get the help. So their two weeks is just concentrated on oh my gosh, what am I gonna do? They finally get the help to pay that rent. Now all of a sudden the rent is due again for the next month. So for the programs that you have that provide those kinds of supports, Think how fast a month goes by and all the trauma and anxiety that goes into a person who may be losing their place to live and extend it a little more because one month is a drop in the bucket and they're going to end up right back where they were in 30 days. So maybe a stipulation of like two months, as long as they meet with some kind of a coach or, um, mentor or something. And again, that is not the project that we have funded, but when the subject was brought up, I wanted to add that in. Angelica, do you want to tell them in like just two minutes your success with the kids at the youth center?

My success at the youth center, we are a small rural community in Amado. Uh, we have about 72 kids a week and, um, yeah, that's all they have in that small community. And they always wanna me be there for them to run programs, but we run only three, three days out of the week program program and they love it. So, yeah. Thank you very much.

Thank you so much. Really appreciate you. And thank you, Council Member Schuber for those questions. Council Member Barajas.

Thank you, Mayor. I'll make it fast. Well, thank you, Lee, so much. We all know that this crisis continues to affect Tucson and that recovery is possible when people have access to services that are easy to reach and meet them where they're at. With that said, I would just like to thank our outreach teams, care coordinators, first responders, and community partners who continue to work every day to respond to this crisis, to connect people to care and to save lives. Together we can continue building a safer and healthier Tucson for everyone. And I want to thank the grantees who are here in the room for the important work you all are doing around youth prevention, peer support, transitional support behavioral health for response with law enforcement and for just everything at the safer center i do have a couple questions possibly for you and city manager i noticed on the rosette pima county website it indicates that there's a vacancy and i do believe it is one for a pima county seat do we have any more information on plans to fill that vacancy, and then something also connected to the website is I noticed the links to agendas and meetings from past meetings are available, but none appear, or none appear to be available with past agendas and minutes. So if city manager, if you could help direct staff to obtain this information for past meetings, as well as I would like to see a refresher course around the zip codes that are identified, And how were these zip codes selected? So what was the matrix behind that? Thank you.

Honorable Mayor, members of the council, we're happy to do follow up on those questions that you had for us. And I'll just mention that there was a recent update on how the ROSAC is being administered, is now being administered more as an open, under open meeting law than it was previously, which might be part of this transition you're seeing on what's available, what's not available. And that's one of the reasons why the meeting that's next Tuesday has been rescheduled a couple of times because they went through that transition of how it was being operated before to how it's being operated moving forward. So you'll be seeing a lot more transparency and publicly available outcomes from the ROSAC moving forward because of that. But we'll also get you some detailed follow-up on that vacancy, et cetera.

And the county, the Pima County Public Health Department, it pretty much runs and manages the ROSAC. And so it is through an intergovernmental agreement that the city of Tucson you know, put its opioid settlement funds in, we bundled the money. We basically put it all together so it could go further, but Pima County does manage and run these meetings. And we also recently as mayor and council gave direction to our city manager to review the intergovernmental agreement so that we could add more detail on how the meetings are run. and add some of this details about agendas and notes and et cetera. I think, Lee, you can answer the question about zip codes and how they were selected.

So the zip codes that were selected were based on overdose deaths and heat maps of opioid use rates, as well as an equity analysis of areas of town that we know have been underinvested in this area, especially when it comes into the supportive services and the youth prevention. So I'd be happy to provide you a more deep analysis because the zip codes actually are different depending on the type of program. So like youth prevention has a specific set of zip codes. Peer support has a slightly different set of zip codes. just based on the target audience of that type of intervention and where the greatest geographic need is based on equity and overdose deaths. So if it's helpful, I can provide you a more deep analysis of that. I'll coordinate with the health department and also The zip codes are available on the Pima County Opioid Settlement website. If you look at the actual request for proposals, you can see the zip codes listed under each category. But I'll follow up with a more detailed report if that's okay.

Thank you so much, Lee. Really appreciate the update. This is incredible. Thank you to all the partners to Pima County. Really appreciate the incredible work that you're doing. Thank you. And the work that our nonprofit partners are doing in prevention work is kind of related to the next topic that we're going to talk about, really. It's a Safe City Initiative update. So we're moving on to item four. Time has been set aside for an update on the Safe City Initiative, including public drug use enforcement and treatment pathways. We're going to have our very own Chief Monica Prieto and our invited guest, Kate Vestley, who's the Director of the Justice Department within Pima County. Thank you so much, Kate, for joining us today. And I would be remiss if I didn't, during the Safe City initiative update, not talk about the shooting that happened on Sunday. Tucson experienced another serious and senseless act of gun violence. I am horrified. I am sad. I am mad. And I think that most community members are feeling that way. And it's important that we talk about it at this table. I know events like this leave a lasting impression and a feeling of unsafety to our community, to not being safe in different places. But as your mayor, I take the safety and security of our residents very seriously. It's my number one priority. The mayor and council have been working diligently in partnership with our city manager, with our chief of police, with the Pima County, with so many partners in our community to keep our community safe. And I want to offer my sincere gratitude to our police officers that bravely acted immediately to protect the residents of our community. Immediately. Like, there was not even a 911 call. They were there. And because of their valiant efforts, I truly believe that there was no additional bloodshed or loss of life. And so I want to commend you, Chief Prieto, for the incredible team that we have. And Chief and I have been talking and I'm like, we have the best police department in Arizona and arguably one of the best police departments in the country. So thank you for the heroic efforts of our police officers, our firefighters. Our 911 call takers. I mean, it really was a team effort and an approach that we trained for and it was deployed incredibly well. So I just wanted to offer my gratitude there. And thank you profusely for the work done in partnership with other public safety professionals. I also want to thank the medical professionals that helped take care of the victims after the scene, after they left the scene. Our county attorney and her staff for being on scene. I want to thank our community members who helped at the scene that were really helping take care of people that were traumatized and concerned. Everyone who was supporting the people that were impacted, whether it was physical or not. I just want to reiterate, our downtown is safe. Our downtown is filled with activity and vibrancy. It is the heart of our city. And as I said before, this is not the time to abandon our locally owned small businesses in our downtown. It is safe to go to the symphony. It is safe to go to a concert at the Fox. It is safe to go to the Rialto to have dinner or lunch at Hotel Congress. Thanks to our partners at Rio Nuevo, we have a fully staffed, and then some, officers in our downtown to offer help, support, safety. So I want to reiterate to our community, from those that live inside the city, those that live outside, to not let this incident affect the way we live as Tucsonans, what we do, the activities that we support, and the local businesses that we frequent. We need to keep working together to keep ourselves safe and we need to make sure that we're talking about this as a community, right? This is, I feel that together we can work on making sure that we continue making our city safe. As your mayor, I launched the Safe City Initiative last October. We've put efforts together with Pima County and other nonprofit partners, as well as TPD, Community Safety, Health and Wellness, Housing First. We're doing this approach to make sure that we keep our citizens safe. As part of our Safe City Initiative, we created the Office of Violence Prevention and Intervention, We created our VIVA, Violence Interruption Vitalization Action. It used to be the PNI. We've been working on this for years. These programs alone have brought down gun violence by 80%, 75%. I mean, these programs, these services, and the holistic approach that we as a city of Tucson use, they're working. And I know that Chief, you have some numbers in terms of homicide percentage numbers are going down. I think it's 19%, correct me if I'm wrong. Gun violence incidents are down. And so what we are doing is working. One of the first things that I did as your mayor when I first elected was to sign up on to the Mayors Against Illegal Guns. It's a bipartisan coalition of mayors who are working to reduce illegal access to firearms and to support proven prevention policies. That's something I'm very proud of, and this is not a genicum lately, right? This is something that I did seven years ago, and we've been creating programs that have proven to bring down gun violence in our city. We need to do more. Obviously, we need to do more. But the work that we have been doing together has been working. And I also think we need to keep, as parents, I'm the mom of a 16-year-old and a 20-year-old. As parents, we need to talk to our kids about not solving their problems with violence and with guns. We need our schools, libraries, houses of worship, and other groups to teach de-escalation skills, and that's something that the police department has been doing with our nonprofit partners. As a matter of fact, in my conversation with Crystal Moore, who's the director of the Downtown Tucson Partnership, She told me that for the last three months we've been planning in partnership with TPD and other partners a de-escalation training for downtown Tucson businesses. That's happening tomorrow. And we've been planning it for the last three years, I mean three months. But this is something that we take very serious and that we will continue to work on as a community. So I just wanna, again, thank you, Chief, to our police department, which is incredible, to all of the community partners that have offered help. On my end, I've been receiving calls for our residents in our community. from Gabby Giffords. I mean, she called me hours after the incident was reported on. Congress people, mayors throughout the nation have called to give us their thoughts and their support to the residents of our community. Other mayors throughout the country have gone through this. As a mayor, you never want to. have this happen, but there is a network that we work on and a network of mayors that are working on bringing down these incidents of gun violence in our city. We also need the support of our federal partners and our state partners to institute policies that will help our cities and the mayors and our police departments face less incidents like the one that we went through on Sunday. I just wanted to open up this particular item with some comments to acknowledge what we've gone through and what we went through on Sunday. So with that, I just wanted to open it up. Our chief, I guess you wanna pick it up from there.

Thank you, Mayor, Mayor, members of council. Thank you for that acknowledgement. As you know, I'm beyond proud of the courageous actions my officers took on Sunday morning. Not only did they stop a shooter, they also rendered aid immediately and undoubtedly saved lives that morning. So I know I'm proud. I know the city is proud of their actions. for their preparedness and their readiness to be able to do that. I'm here to talk today about the basically follow-up from my discussion that I had during mayor and council meeting this year on April 6th, where I discussed my desire to build a focused deterrence initiative that would help address the criminal activity that most consistently affects the quality of life of our community members and our business owners. This pursuit turned into two distinct but related initiatives, I'm going to have with me the Kate Vesely, Director of Pima County Justice Services with me who will help me here in a few. But the two programs I want to talk about is the Top Repeat Offenders Analysis and Intervention Program and the Focus Deterrence Narcotics Initiative. So let me just start with the Top Repeat Offenders Analysis and Intervention Program. I'll refer to it as TROI if you don't mind. This program was born out of the realization that there are numerous community members that are stuck in a cycle of low-level criminal activity. The same individuals are repeatedly cycling through our justice system without meaningful improvement. And Troy attempts to interrupt that pattern through coordinated intervention rather than repeatedly handing each incident in isolation. TBD will play a more active role in helping people break free from the cycle of crime. Troy is a 180-day pilot program that'll run in Operations Division West, and it starts tomorrow. We'll focus on 50 individuals who have repeated police contacts for chronic quality of life offenses, misdemeanor offenses, during the previous year. All individuals have committed misdemeanors anywhere from six to 14 times in the past 12 months. And these offenses include trespassing, disorderly conduct, shoplifting, solicitation, loitering, drug paraphernalia, public urination, median violations. Each week, our Operations Division West Zebra officers, our Community Outreach Resource and Education Team, our core team, and our MIS team, our mental health support team, and community safety, health, and wellness. They'll help identify two individuals each week. And these teams will identify possible interventions. They'll make direct contact and offer appropriate services. And the analysis of all names will refresh every 90 days. Accepting services is voluntary. A person will not be arrested, cited, booked, or subjected to greater charges merely because they decline assistance. When officers independently establish probable cause that a new offense occurred, they will make the legally appropriate custody or release decision under existing law and department policy. TPD may provide relevant information on making the legally appropriate recommendations, but release conditions, diversion eligibility, prosecution decisions, and area restrictions remain the decisions of pretrial services, prosecutors, and the courts. In certain instances, TPD will make recommendations to city court to not dismiss new cases involving identified individuals and to consider court-ordered drug treatment. Troy is not a roundup or an enforcement action based solely on someone appearing on a list. Placement does not independently establish reasonable suspicion or probable cause and it does not authorize detention. The pilot will be evaluated before any recommendation to expand, modify, or discontinue this program. Our available intervention options include mental health and substance use treatment, housing and supportive services, alternative to jail programs when eligible, assistance addressing warrants and other barriers, continued service offers through appropriate partner agencies. Our measures of success will include reduction in repeat offenses and police contacts, engagement with treatment or supportive services, housing or service placements, improved conditions for affected neighborhoods and businesses, and our goal is to place at least 10% of the identified individuals into housing or supportive services. Now, it's important to note that the purpose of Troy is to proactively identify those who are repeatedly coming into contact with law enforcement and connect them with services that address the underlying causes of their behavior, such as the mental health challenges, substance use disorders, or homelessness. Officers will continue to offer services during every contact and with any law enforcement encounter, enforcement action will be based on the facts of the incident and the existence of probable cause, not on whether they accept services. Troy combines individualized outreach service coordination and lawful accountability. It does not criminalize homelessness, compel anyone to accept services, or give officers additional authority. We are focused on helping these folks get out of the cycle, but prepare to hold them accountable if they refuse services and they continue to reoffend. We can't talk about the quality of life issues without recognizing that the drug epidemic ravages our community and a key part of that problem is that there's people willing to sell and distribute the drugs. Southern Arizona continues to be one of the primary corridors for narcotics trafficking in the United States. Enforcement efforts are ongoing and operations are actively conducted in all patrol divisions in partnership with the Counter Narcotics Alliance. Our upcoming focus deterrence narcotics initiative will aim to increase the certainty of accountability for those driving narcotics activity. Currently, we're building the framework necessary for long-term success to include service connection. We're meeting with internal stakeholders to establish clear roles, expectations, and methods for tracking outcomes. And those partnerships will include the Pima County Attorney's Office, Community Safety, Health, and Wellness, Counter Narcotics Alliance, TPD Research and Analysis, and our Zebra officers. Our research and analysis is developing an algorithm that will identify narcotics dealers based on objective data. The idea is to have two candidates identified for intervention in each patrol division per month, and like our other focused deterrence initiatives, the following steps will take place. You'll have CASU and Zebra officers providing intervention by offering a variety of services. Officers will make it clear that the candidates must break free from their lifestyle of contributing to the drug crisis plaguing our communities. Ideally, candidates will take the first step in accepting services. However, if they refuse services and they continue to reoffend, we'll work with the county attorney's office to hold them accountable for their actions. And this would include us requesting no plea deals and no diversion. Potential outcomes for success of this initiative are still being explored. Some of those discussions include a set percentage of candidates accepting services, a set percentage reduction in drug-related calls for service in specific high crime areas, a set percentage reduction in community complaints in specific high drug areas. And we'll continue to update you as we continue to develop this initiative. So these initiatives wouldn't be possible without our county partners and the Metro Justice Work Group helping to address the high utilizers and the gaps that we've identified, gaps that prevent us from connecting them to services. So with that, I hand it over to Kate Vesely, the Director of Justice Services, so she could further discuss our ongoing collaborative efforts.

Thank you very much, Chief. Appreciate that. I was asked to share a little bit about myself as an introduction to the new council members, a little bit about our team as well. So my name is Kate Vesely. and I'm the Director of the Justice Services Department in Pima County. I would like to tell you a little bit about my history. I'm, as my boss Chad likes to say, iteration, I'm a third generation Tucsonan raising fourth generation Tucsonan. So not only have I been a professional in the justice space for the last 25 years, but I have lived here my whole life and don't plan on changing that anytime soon. So I'm very invested in Tucson and what Tucson is and can become. I was raised by two parents whose careers were marked by civil service. My father was a Tucson Police Department officer, and I learned from him the importance of accountability, public safety, and protecting our community. My mother was an educator, Amphi, Sunnyside, TUSD, and she taught me people can learn, they can grow, they can change when the right opportunities and with the right expectations. Those two perspectives, accountability and opportunity, have stayed with me throughout my entire career. I don't believe they're competing values. They're both essential to creating safer communities. The Department of Justice Services in Pima County operates much like a public health department, except our focus is the health of the justice system itself. We study how people move through police contact, courts, jail, treatment, community supervision, and we ask a complex question. What about those encounters can create lasting change? What can we do to make an individual actually change behaviors because of those engagements? Our department oversees programs such as the Transition Center, which is seven days a week, 8 a.m. to midnight. We have wonderful new staff members. If you haven't been recently, you haven't been, come and see us. We would love to give you a tour. We also operate the Crisis Intervention Team Training along with Tucson Police Department, the Pima County Sheriff's Department, and the Pima County Attorney's Office. We do a multidisciplinary weekly jail population review. And we are about to launch a regional co-responder initiative to complement and scale TPD's current program. We recognize the importance of research and data scientists. We have two data scientists on our team who are dedicated to not only understanding our utilization of the justice system, but what aspects of that utilization is creating behavioral change. So this makes us uniquely able to assist as partners in this work around high system utilizers. Sometimes I refer to them as familiar faces as well. This is a national trend, a national concern. There are lots of communities across the country that have looked at their familiar faces and developed innovations in this space. The issues surrounding frequent fliers or familiar faces or high utilizers in the system vary dramatically. Yes, we are more than aware of the impacts of behavioral health and substance use, but there are a lot of complexities and there is no one token person who has repeat justice system involvement. It's all very individualized. Those interventions for these community members should be as diverse as the reasons why somebody is justice involved in the first place. The plan I am discussing with you today is a product of the Metro Justice Workgroup, an initiative launched by Mayor Romero and Supervisor Rex Scott with the Pima County Board of Supervisors. And it includes representation from all intercepts of our local justice system. Tucson City Court Director Josh Halverson and I co-chair the subcommittee. Say hi, Josh. If you have questions, direct them at him. And Mr. Lusk is also on our committee as well. Thank you, Roy. So we all came to the table with information. Tucson City Court identified over 500 individuals who had five or more open cases within a single year. Tucson Police Department did extensive studies around frequent arrests, and Justice Services looked at individuals who had been booked five or more times in the span of a year. Working together, we identified individuals who meet this high utilizer threshold. When we looked closely at the top 5%, we found that more than half had serious behavioral health issues, substance use disorders, were experiencing homelessness, or some combination of the three. Their booking histories were overwhelmingly driven by trespassing, shoplifting, and drug-related offenses. Many of our highest utilizers had also undergone or were awaiting court competency evaluations. But that doesn't make up the entire population. Of that high-utilizer group, 20% of those individuals had domestic violence charges. So it's not all substance use, mental health. There's a diversity of issues that are occurring at this level. What became clear is that these individuals are not simply cycling through one system. They are cycling through all of them. Courts, police, jail, behavioral health, emergency services, outreach, city, county, other municipalities throughout our community, back and forth. From those insights that we gained from looking at that data, we came up with three primary strategies. One is to identify those familiar faces, which we have been doing underway, and we recognize that there is a lot more work to be done in gathering that space, and to work across those systems to pinpoint which individuals are touching multiple systems routinely. Two, continue to invest in cross-system communication and data sharing. Three, assess misdemeanor case processing as it pertains to this population and implement strategies to increase case adjudication with expectations for compliance with treatment and services. I really want to talk about adjudication here for a moment. It's really key to what we are trying to accomplish. And it's critical to maximize the investments both the city and the county have already made in the space. When we are identifying a familiar face, arrest is not the finish line and arrest is not guilt. Every individual remains presumed innocent until their case is adjudicated. An individual is arrested multiple times, which is very common as we discussed, they're not going to jail for the intended consequence. They're going to jail as an interruption to whatever behavior law enforcement identified, but that's not intended to be the corrective action. It is imperative to put in place strategies that will quickly and effectively adjudicate a case, most commonly pleas but trial, all sorts of manner. And once found guilty, it enables the court to utilize community supervision, set conditions, and employ a range of consequences. Adjudication also creates an opportunity to establish clear expectations while connecting individuals with coordinated treatment, housing, behavioral health services, and recovery supports. That structure allows us to move beyond simply processing cases into changing behavior. Before anybody gets too discouraged by the enormity of this task, there are promising signs. And I'm feeling optimistic about the direction we're heading. One encouraging finding came from the transition center. Among the top five high system utilizers that were walking through our door, about a third of all those individuals voluntarily returned after their initial contact. That tells us something incredibly important. Even among our highest utilizers, there is measurable capacity for behavioral change when engagement is individualized, consistent, and built on trust. Looking forward, I believe there are three priorities. First, we must continue investing in data sharing systems across the justice system and service community. We gain valuable insight into the behaviors and costs associated with high utilizers in court, TPD, justice services, all share data and work together. Though that analysis has only scratched the surface, frankly. So much data is at our fingertips, but in many instances, it is largely unusable for large-scale analytics. Sometimes for as simple as a reason as the records are only paper and they get scanned in. There's no digital entry that we're able to pull large-scale aggregated analysis from. Investing in this data collection methods and evaluation will allow us to continue to evaluate how individuals move and behave through those systems, which in turn will enable us to target interventions that actually reduce future system utilization rather than simply responding to the next incident. Second, we need to continue building coordinated, progressive accountability. Law enforcement will always play a critical role in public safety, but we should not ask police officers to carry the entire burden of solving problems that also require courts, treatment providers, housing systems, prosecutors, defense attorneys, probation officers, navigators, and community organizations. Accountability should not begin and end with arrest. Every part of the justice system has a role to play to provide the support and structure needed for these individuals. Third, we need to continue investing in what works. We should create graduated opportunities paired with graduated accountability, making the right choice the easier choice and the wrong choice the harder choice. We should continue measuring outcomes, learning from our successes and setbacks, and refining our approach. Perhaps what encourages me most is this collaboration has already moved beyond meetings and data analysis. The city and the county recently partnered on a major federal grant application that takes many of these concepts and translates them into an operational model. Regardless of the funding outcome, but cross your fingers anyway. The partnership represents meaningful progress and future collaborations. So I'll leave you with this thought. Our goal is not to build a better revolving door. Our goal is to help people step off the carousel completely. So let's keep the momentum on this effort. We continue working together as the city, the county, our justice partners, the treatment community. We can reduce the number of individuals whose lives are defined by repeated contact with our justice system. That is good for those individuals. It's good for taxpayers. and it's essential to creating the safe, healthy, and vibrant community we all want for Tucson and Pima County. Thank you.

Thank you so much, Kate. Thank you, Chief. Really appreciate it. More than a year ago, when Chair Scott, Rex Scott, was the chair of the Board of Supervisors, I usually have a monthly meeting with whomever is the chair of the Board of Supervisors. And him and I came to a conclusion in terms of the fentanyl opioid crisis happening in our streets, our unsheltered homeless population, a lot of mental behavioral health issues that we needed to put together a group of the city and the county and all of our department directors that did similar work. We called it the Metro Justice Working Group. And it basically was our city manager, the county administrator, the chief of police, the sheriff, the county attorney, the city attorney, like all of our courts staff. to be able to find where the gaps in services, what was happening, what was not happening, and find solutions to a very complex issue. And the justice system and the work that we all do is very complex. these conversations started because of us all sitting together and having conversations about our frustrations and the issues that were happening on the ground, not just in the city of Tucson, but throughout the county. And so because of this group, the conversations that have been had are very productive. I love, love, love what you just said, Kate, and I've been saying it for years. that for many decades, many, many decades, society has been putting all responsibility of safety on the shoulders of police officers. And that's not fair. We want them to be psychologists. We want them to be behavioral health specialists. We want them to be, you know, we cannot... And so we need to spread the responsibility and find the solutions throughout the systems that we have. So I appreciate that you said that because I believe truly that by expanding these programs, we take off some of that work that society has been putting on the shoulders of our police officers and putting the right work in the right hands is something that I truly believe in. I just wanted to thank the work that has been happening in this working group because we've come to the conclusion in terms of the frequent utilizers of our system. It's not about incarceration, but it is about accountability and it's about treatment and getting people to the right resources as well. And so if there are crimes being committed, like you said, some of these frequent utilizers have domestic violence issues. we need to make sure that there's accountability there. And then putting the right treatment to the victims of these crimes. So I wanted to also thank Councilman Lee because she did bring to us an ordinance to try and get to the bottom of these quality of life issues that are happening in our city. brought an ordinance that she you know basically said here this is what I'm thinking let's let's try and see what we can do so I did want to thank Councilwoman Lee for you know, putting an idea out there and letting all of us, including the Safe City Task Force, pick at it and figure out what the best approach was to resolve the issues that she and all of us are trying to solve. So I wanted to just open the floor to Councilman Lee to help us guide the conversation.

Sure. Thank you, Mayor. Yes, that was September. And we've had several conversations since then. And at the time, as you said, Mayor, we just kept continuing to hear from the community that the drug use in public spaces was a top concern of the community. So again, in the spirit of trying to problem solve and be creative, I threw something out there for us to iterate on. And I'm happy with the progress that we're making. I'm not going to lose the thread, though, on the specific aspect of the public drug use. I think this is amazing, the programs that we're putting together. When we left the conversation in April, the direction was to really help us understand where the accountability was dropping, right? Because the justice system, as you said, Kate, is very complicated, and my concern is always that the officers that are out there doing this work every day, making the arrests, trying to get people connected with services, may not be having the impact that we want them to have on the people we're trying to help, as well as the community at large. So we left the conversation with direction to understand how many cases were actually being issued that our officers are sending over. And it looks like we have a number of about 75. So that tells me that data has now been updated, which was a issue before. So I think that's a good thing. I still don't have clarity on the final disposition, right? I think we said that was really a key to see the thread along the journey and how these cases are ending to see if they're having the results that we want to have. It says many of them pled guilty or many of them pled to a lesser charge or the charges were amended in court. But there's really just literally two sentences that answer what the direction was coming out of that last meeting. So I don't want to lose the thread on that because I think it's important for us to understand how these cases are being handled, where there are gaps and where we're not getting the outcomes that we want for the people we're trying to help and for the community at large. Also, Chief, love the information about the new initiatives. I made sure I had the revised packet, but there's no information in the packet about anything that you read. So I would love to see if we can get a summary or some sort of material so that we can dig a little bit deeper into that. Because that was a lot of information you shared and my brain could only process so much information. at a time while I'm taking notes. So that's one request that I have. And then, Roy, I know you were working with the county attorney's office. That is still an open item for me to understand those different phases or those places where cases might be dropped off and what the thread looks like all the way through. So I don't know if you have information about that, but that wasn't really covered in the materials.

Honorable Mayor, Council Member Lee, thank you for bringing that up. It is an ongoing process. We're having conversations regularly with the county attorney's office, along with my colleague, the chief, as well, and her team to sort of pinpoint where those issues are. There are issues, and we're willing to acknowledge that. There are issues with data transfer between the two parties, as well as where that data is, as Ms. Vesely sort of alluded to, is there's a challenge when We're not sure exactly where the data is and how to get it, but we're working on it. And there's actually been some movement recently. I know the county attorney is looking into some sort of more digital tools to make that a little bit easier, as well as my team, who is also working at the misdemeanor level to work on our new case management system, which will provide some additional clarity on that issue specifically, and especially working with TPD to get that information as well.

Okay, I think that's a really important part of this conversation, Roy. So when do you feel like it would be appropriate for you guys to come back? I know we said 60 days and it's been over 90, so I just wanna, I'm not gonna lay off the pressure, Roy. We need to know this information. So when can you commit to coming back to us with something?

Sure. Mayor, Council Member Lee, I think an appropriate time would be after our new case, just to give that both the county attorney and the city attorney some opportunities to make some changes. I think our current case management system is set to go live in the September, October timeframe. So after that might be the best time to sort of bring it back and then we can have a really good conversation and really dig deep into it.

First meeting in November?

Sure.

All right. Let it be done.

I like this. I like this. Pin down the timeline. I really like this. You have to, Mayor. We do. We do. Council Member Cunningham?

So there's a couple concerns I have on the high user piece. And it's not anything on our side. It's actually about the number of high users. Because we have incentivized ourselves to some degree, not on purpose, where we're We engage a high user who basically tells us to go away, and they're not counted as a high user. There's no documentation. We've engaged them. We've talked to them. We've asked them, hey, you know, this is probably not the best situation for you right here in this specific situation that you're in. What do you think about coming with us and talking to us for a little bit? Or what do you think about this or that? And we've encountered that in a lot of our outreach. A lot of times we will, I think because, I think our resources are scarce to some degree to manage engaging every single person who seems to be in need every single day, and documenting it is even taller. tolerator so the question that I have is if we do say we engage somebody who's on the median we get a complaint about somebody on the median or we're driving by we get some plate somebody on the median and we say please leave the median and they do and they comply sorry no I don't want any trouble and they go well we don't know if that person was engaged an hour ago or not we don't know what their history is we have no idea the question becomes what do we do question becomes if that if that same person is engaged 15 times in one month in the same scenario or a different scenario where they're asked to leave a park they're asked to leave a residence they're asked to discontinue camping in a backyard and we don't really and they comply and they're cool they're nice but we've made no progress on their case and We have no ability to engage them and discuss whether or not this situation is the most conducive situation for them. How do we get from one end to the other? How do we figure out, how do we document, okay, I talked to the guy with orange hair, or I talked to the dude who carries around the Harley parts, and I'm not being funny. These are actually people I've met doing street outreach, all right? the blonde lady who hangs out with the guy who carries the Harley parks. But they're all, they've all been nice, they've all been courteous, but they also are all, one, sleeping on the streets, which we don't want them to do. Sometimes they're camping in washes, which right now is very dangerous with the rain. They are engaging probably in polysubstance, we don't know, but I mean, if you've been doing this work long enough, you can see things at face value. And I have to know, how can I, or how can a cashew person document that contact and then a police officer document that contact very casual contact not a big contact but know that we're talking to these people and i don't think there's really a way to do it it's a it's an incredibly hard puzzle but if we're doing if we have some interaction with the workers in real time Yeah, our person saw that same guy last month, and we've been talking to him, and we've told him not to camp in that specific alley because the ward office let us know the neighbors have been calling. And if we have that kind of communication, maybe we can make a little more progress. And I don't know what you can do with these suggestions, but that's where I think our missing piece on the high users are. We still have high users that fly under the radar. And that's okay, but... we're not getting them to where they probably need to be. And that's a huge challenge for us.

And I'd love to hear if anybody can figure out how to- And Council Member, I just want to clarify that through the conversations that we have been having you know internally here with the city of tucson from from housing first to community safety health and wellness to our tpd officers it is not just about having a person hanging out at the park it's about a person violating some sort of law city law or otherwise And our officers detaining that person for public urination, for burning fentanyl on the street, for, you know, for either selling small amount of drugs, it is actually what What we were concerned about is that our officers were doing the arrests. And once they were doing the arrests, when we would lose any type of communication with our justice system. So they would show up to the court and then the judge would say, all dismissed. And so we were really losing people in the system. So Kate mentioned that it was a revolving door, right? They would just come in and then the judge would let them out. As opposed to all of us saying, okay, this person obviously needs to be compelled to take some sort of treatment and connected to resources and help. Like I said, it's not about incarceration. It's about finding the solutions that are right for that person. And so the justice, the Metro Justice Working Group is really trying to find these solutions, and that's why this program was suggested that we, you know, that we look at at least those that are committing, 10, 15, 20 violations a week that are obviously in need of help. And so that's what we're trying, that's the issue that we're trying to solve, connect all of the pieces to find the help that many of these people need. That's what we're here, that's why we're here. Any other questions, Council Member Barajas?

Thank you, Mayor. I just wanna add to the conversation something that I would like to add to the language around these initiatives, something that I know my neighbors and I have witnessed firsthand for many, many years with high users, either through them using or dealing. I would like to include some type of language around a regional landlord accountability component. If you follow some of these folks, we all know where the apartment complex is, where some of these homes are. So I would like the goal to be, and this will take additional research looking across the country of what communities have done, but the goal is to work together across jurisdictions to address landlords who repeatedly allow their properties to become chronic problem locations. Since many of these landlords own properties in multiple areas throughout the city and the county, or in other jurisdictions, enforcement in one jurisdiction often just pushes the problem somewhere else. A regional approach would allow participating agencies to share information, coordinate code enforcement, nuisance abatement efforts, inspections, and legal actions and ensure that repeat offenders face consistent consequences regardless of where they own property. For landlords who continually fail to maintain safe code compliant properties or ignore repeated violations, this could include escalating civil penalties, nuisance abatement actions and other enforcement measures available under local ordinances. By coordinating these efforts across multiple municipal boundaries, we can discourage chronic neglect reduce crime and disorder associated with problem properties, and improve neighborhood safety and quality of life throughout the region. So if we could add that regional landlord accountability component, I would like to see that happen. Thank you.

Thank you. Council Member Schubert.

Yes, thank you, Madam Mayor. And just a heads up, after my own remarks and brief questions, I also have a statement to read on behalf of Vice Mayor Santa Cruz, who couldn't be here today. Thank you. So first I want to start by thanking you and affirming our shared goals. It's really great to hear the conversation at the table about routing people, particularly high utilizers, to treatment services and resources. Hearing that emphasis on the fact that we need diverse solutions for the diverse individuals we're trying to help, that the goal is not incarceration, and that we really want to improve quality of life in our community, part of which does mean reducing these quality of life offenses. I love that we have those shared goals. I do want to raise up that our office has been hearing from a lot of subject matter experts, folks with lived experience and community partners who work on justice and behavioral issues, who are sharing concerns about the focus deterrence approach. Most notably, they've shared that the model of forced deterrence has shown success when used specifically for violent crimes rather than quality of life misdemeanors. They've also raised a number of questions that I believe are worth considering. Many of these questions, such as those from the leadership at Just Communities Arizona were just sent to us this morning. I do want to flag a few of them here. This initiative is intended to impact high utilizers who have already likely been offered services many times. Given that, how can we differentiate this program from something that does resemble forced treatment? I want to be able to show our community what we're doing and be above board. So we want to make sure that we can differentiate this program from something that resembles forced treatment, which has been shown to be largely ineffective and harmful. Another question, how can we ensure that this approach does not become a way to profile people who may simply be unhoused or using very small amounts of drugs? Another question, how might implementing this approach impact our city and county courts? And then a final question is whether it's possible for Kate to work with the city manager to distribute and share the weekly jail population review data with us here at the city of Tucson and to share with Ward 6, because our constituents have been asking, and any other wards that might want to share that. So those are my remarks and questions. I wanna make sure I'm keeping us on time so I understand if we don't have the time to maybe answer those now. Do we wanna spend some time?

I think that if both Kate and Chief wanna, if anything comes to mind that you wanna respond to.

Honorable Mayor, members of council, council member Schieber, just to answer the first two questions, this program is specifically geared so that we can have some meaningful impact on those that are with data, using data to identify those high repeat offenders. And we're talking about six to 14 times of arrests in one year in a 12 month period. So that is, you know, it's our responsibility to really use that data and focus on those that are struggling the most. And we wanna make sure that we do reach outs. And again, it's to simply connect them with services and do those reach outs and try to get them into some type of treatment. It's not an enforcement action. Should they re-offend and an officer come across them in a different period of time where they re-offend and there's probable cause to arrest them for another crime similar, another misdemeanor like this. Yes, the goal would be we're gonna work with our city prosecutors on misdemeanor charges and advocate that they there's that adjudication piece, right, that Kate was talking about, Director Vestley, sorry, was talking about in terms of making sure that, you know, that we follow through with that and make sure that, you know, we give them that best opportunity to get those services that they're so in need of. The, you know, again, wanna reiterate, the 50-person, list, the database that we have is, we're not gonna use it to profile, it's all based on data, on arrests, the number of arrests, and it's to plug them into treatment, and that will remain true. Our main goal is, again, to have 10% getting into some form of treatment.

All right. Honorable Mayor, Council Member Schuber, I'll add on the last two. One of the goals of this is to reduce the burden on the city and county court system. These are high utilizers of those systems, and we believe by further intervention, better connection to services, and better accountability, we can actually overall reduce the burden on the city and the county court systems. And then regarding your question about weekly jail data, we are working on how we can better report to you jail utilization from the city standpoint, but also the costs associated with that. I know that's been a standing question from this council, and we have that as active coordination with the county on how to better collect and then report that data to you.

And Director, did you want to just jump in?

Mayor Romero, Councilwoman Schubert. I just wanted to address the jail population review through the blessing by Sheriff Nanos. We do a lot of the jail reporting, and so we can talk with the sheriff about creating a custom report for you all. And so we'll follow up with you, Mr. Tamera, to see what we can do about that. The Jail Population Review Committee is something we do in partnership with the City Attorney's Office. We only see felonies, but most of the folks that we do see in JPR also have misdemeanor cases. So we're in very close communication with the City Public Defender's Office in particular, so that if somebody's movement's happening on the felony side, we can coordinate on the misdemeanor side. But I'm very happy to talk about JPR anytime. It's saved... about 11,000 jailbed days per year. For every individual that we see in the program, we reduce their incarceration time about four to six weeks. And these are folks who are gonna get out anyway. And the taxpayers were just expending more resources, keeping them in custody. So that's a great program. I wanted to also emphasize Just Communities' concerns. Caroline Isaacs is brilliant, and she often sees those angles, and I think that type of open conversation is really critical. Nobody has figured this stuff out anywhere across the country. Everybody is throwing stuff against the wall and seeing what works and what doesn't. And so I think we're in a place now where we have gotten to this continuous feedback loop of we're gonna try something, we're gonna collect data, we're gonna invite community response and feedback on it, we're gonna tinker with it, we're gonna see is this equitable, Is this defensible? Is this, you know, constitutional? And then, look, are we actually making behavioral change or are we spending more resources to repeat the same cycle? And there's a lot of vulnerability that goes with saying, well, I invested all this money or I wrote this grant or we've run this program and it's not yielding the results that we were hoping for. But that has to be part of the culture so that when we do try these innovative things that we can be comfortable saying, we tried it, we learned from stuff, but we really need to, learn from this and evolve into something else.

And I do wanna mention that Just Communities does have an individual that sits at our Safe City Initiative Task Force, right, I mean, shoulder to shoulder with Director Vestley and others. So they do participate in giving the City of Tucson Mayor and Council advice on what should or should not happen, so.

But thank you so much.

Yeah.

And I really want to tour the transition center and definitely talk more about the JPR. That's super interesting. I also have remarks from, I know that you have a, I'm like worried about it.

I know that you have a statement and then council member doll has his hand up. Go ahead. Do you want to do the?

I thought Kevin was going to go first. I can go. He answered. Okay, thank you. All right. So on behalf of Vice Mayor Elaine Santa Cruz, Ward 1, she couldn't be here today, asked me to share the following. She says, I share the desire of constituents, families, and business owners for safe, welcoming public spaces. That means fewer neighbors suffering from addiction, homelessness, and untreated mental illness, not just pushed out of sight, but connected to care. For too long we have answered public suffering with arrest and incarceration. That moves the problem, it doesn't solve it. Treatment should always come first. Everyone deserves to feel safe in public and everyone deserves real access to treatment. I support evidence-based alternatives to incarceration with accountability. They've also asked staff to respond to the following on record today and in writing to their office. Metrics, so the first question's about metrics. The memo says the pilot will be evaluated after six months but names no success measures. Will effectiveness be measured by treatment engagement, housing placements, and reduced recidivism or only by reductions in visible offenses? They request the evaluation framework be defined prior to the pilot launching, although I believe earlier in the conversation we affirmed that it's starting tomorrow. Will results return to mayor and council before replication and other divisions? So that's question one, and I understand that these are also getting sent. Number two is who makes first contact? Community Safety, Health and Wellness is listed on the action team, but the structure is TPD led. Will the first outreach to the 50 identified individuals come from CASU staff or from officers? As Housing First has taught us, trust comes first and Community Safety, Health and Wellness' relationship building expertise makes them best positioned to lead outreach and not just partner in it. Question three, the narcotics algorithm. What data will feed the TPD research and analysis algorithm? Who will audit it for bias? And will the methodology be public? Is there any process for a person to know if they have been flagged? And the final question, enhanced criminal justice accountability. The memo does not define this term. What does it mean in practice? And does declining services once move someone permanently to the enforcement tracker? Does outreach continue? Vice Mayor Santa Cruz also notes that this pilot operates in Operations Division West, which includes Ward 1, and requests ward-level briefings and community input opportunities as it rolls out. Thank you so much.

And let's make sure that we get that to our city attorney, our city manager, our city clerk, Director Vestley, and our chief. Thank you. Council Member Dahl?

Thank you, Mayor. This is a very exciting pilot and it seems very well thought out by people who are doing a lot of great work in this area. We hear it at Ward 3 all the time. People wonder why there's recidivism, why they see the same people. Businesses are being impacted. We call it quality of life, but it's, a financial burden on businesses to deal with repeat shoplifters, repeat people whose presence, unlawful presence in front of their building doing things that are not good to look at. And I hate to say that it's because we don't want to look at them. It's not that. But it's interrupting our civic community by having people who obviously have needs not getting their needs met and falling into the trap of drugs or having mental problems that aren't being adequately with. I think we're coming at this from a point of compassion. That's all I really wanted to say. I hope it's good luck. I want to be kept in the loop because Operations West is also in my ward. I WANT TO COME BACK TO WHAT YOU STARTED WITH, MAYOR, THE INCIDENT DOWNTOWN. THAT'S NOT IN MY WARD BUT IT'S A VITAL CONCERN TO ME BECAUSE SUNDAY MORNING WE HAD AN EARLY PHONE CALL FROM MY SON WHICH IS UNUSUAL SAYING, DAD, I'M OKAY. He was two blocks away because he's a hype dancer in the clubs and is a regular fixture of downtown. And he knows to avoid that particular block at 2 o'clock. So he wasn't going to be impacted. But his insights, I think, are helpful. And what you said about downtown is still a great place to visit. Friday night, my wife and I were at the Fox Theater. We went and had a great meal at the new... What's the... The new grocery store. Gibson. Gibson. Johnny Gibson. Yeah, I love seeing the pictures of him there. And just had a delightful time downtown. And everybody can continue to have a delightful time downtown. I am so impressed with the police response. I think you had the right amount of law enforcement happening the worst time of downtown, Saturday night at 2 o'clock. It's an old saying, nothing good happens after midnight. No, we push it to nothing good happens at 2 o'clock because there are a lot of drunk people on the street. People who work down there delay going to their cars when it's two o'clock because it's not a safe, it's not a great time when people who are having a good time drinking, and people should do that, are in a relatively safe place in a club because there's bouncers. I mean there's people who know the de-escalation and we need some of that de-escalation on the street. I think it's exciting that Rio Nuevo will work with the police and others to get those skills out on the street at two o'clock. I don't think police would be best suited, though I know you all have that training, but a bouncer type person should be at that line waiting in line for delicious pizza. We want Empire and the other pizzerias, there's a couple of other ones, to thrive as well as all the restaurants. And that period of time seems to me when troubled younger people who don't know how to handle their anger and really want a piece of pizza and somehow feel that people are impeding them enough to get a piece of pizza that they're gonna shoot them. You know, what sort of world has this become? So there's techniques that our community needs to go in. What I was completely offended by, Mayor, is the social media response. Everybody who can click on their phone has a solution. And the most amazing solution is that we should impeach the mayor. that a woman of color caused this problem when they don't know the incredible work she has been doing and all of us have been doing and our police force have been doing to make this community safe. I mean, that's a ridiculous politically motivated criticism that I just want to say publicly, I take great offense. I mean, those people need to clean up their act and be part of the solution rather than just someone throwing, not spaghetti against the wall to see who it sticks to, but throwing mud to see who it sticks to. And I was offended. End of rant. Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you, Council Member Dahl. I really appreciate you. And those words, that is something that I really appreciate and something that I tell people usually I'd like to. I'd love to have God-like or goddess-like powers, but I don't. We need to do this together and we need partners to bring down gun violence as we witnessed on Sunday morning. So thank you, Council Member Dahl. I really appreciate your support. I'm going to And our item, I really appreciate Director Vestley, your incredible insight into the work that you do and your partnership with the city of Tucson is highly appreciated. Chief, thank you for your work. You have an incredible, we all have an incredible Tucson Police Department that we should all be proud of, and I am. So thank you so much. Let's continue the work and thank you As the item ends, we're going to take a little bit of a break and then come back in the next five minutes to finish the study session. Thank you all so much. Really appreciate you.

Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you.

Council colleagues are here, city managers, city attorneys, city clerk. We have everyone in need to restart our study session. We are moving to item five. Time has been set aside to discuss the independent economic impact analysis for the proposed hotel development by Depot Plaza Hotel, LLC. Mr. Manager.

Thank you, honorable mayor and members of the council. Joining us here at the table is our chief economic development officer, Mike Czajkowski, who will be leading us through this item.

Thank you, Mr. Manager, Mayor Romero, members of the council. Thank you very much for taking the time after that rather healthy conversation about safe city. This is a really appropriate conversation considering investment in downtown and as we can activate their spaces. And I apologize, I'm trying to log in, but I'm putting in my two paragraph password and my laptop and it's not opening up for me right now. So, yes. So, just as a reminder, this was originally scheduled for the June 23rd council meeting. We did request a delay because just to confirm we're in the right space as they are pursuing possibly a 25-year in lieu GPLET with Rio Nuevo. And just working with our attorneys and their attorneys, we have confirmed that all of our I's are dotted and our T's are crossed. They are in a good space to work for that because of the length of this project that they've been working on. I don't need to reiterate that. This has been going on for well past my birth in the early 2000s. So this has been going on for quite a while. So the item we have today is the economic analysis. So we have the results of the economic analysis for the GPLAT, the eight-year abatement on that. And reminder, this is consideration for the Depot Plaza Hotel LLC on Fifth Avenue and Toole Avenue, a unique conjunction of two avenues in Tucson. We will be giving, with our direction, we'll request a direction to move forward with a GPLAT lease agreement for consideration final adoption at a future council meeting. We will require a 60-day notice to all governing bodies of any city and town and school district, which property is located, prior to consideration of any lease agreement. They do plan to develop, as mentioned, a six-story, 137-room Marriott-branded Moxie Hotel. If anybody has the opportunity yet so far to stay at a Moxie, they are the new, very limited, furniture, kind of cool, get you out of the hotel type of product. independent economic analysis demonstrates the benefit to the city, county, schools, and state is approximately $8.6 million direct revenue over that eight-year time frame. During the same period, the value of the foregone property taxes, the benefit to the developer, is approximately $2.4 million. In order to qualify for the GPLA, the property must also demonstrate the value of the property increased by at least 100%. In this case, currently valued at $332,000, projected value after completion, $34,636,692, thereby meeting that requirement. developer has negotiated one CBA with the current MLK apartment residence and is in active negotiations with other neighbors right now as well. Those CBA agreements will be part of the GPLAT lease agreement. And with that, I'm happy to answer any specific questions about the economic analysis. I do have Brandi Haga-Blackman here representing the developer if there's any specific questions for her. Thank you.

Mr. Joukowsky, I really appreciate your report. And you couldn't have been born when I first started council. It's just not possible. But these projects have been in the works in one way, shape or form since I first, way before I actually was elected council member in November of 2007. So these projects started even before my start at the council. So it's almost gonna be 20 years since all of these dreams were put on a napkin, and here we are today. So I just want to reiterate how noteworthy this opportunity is for the city of Tucson, for downtown, that this proposed construction and development would be fully activating a space that has been vacant, and as we know, not producing any sales taxes, not producing any property taxes, and not activating a very important space in our downtown. So for me to say that I am very happy this is starting, that I am fully supportive of this project is an understatement. So I want to thank... everyone involved to getting us to this point after many years of either one hiccup or the other. Saying that, I want to mention that one of the issues that I truly believe in as well is the opportunity for a good quality of life for the people that work in these projects. And so one of the issues that I wanted to bring up, if there was a possibility of adding language in the community benefits agreement and in the lease agreement, that neither the developer nor the operator of the hotel will stand in the way of the employees wanting to unionize. That's very important. One, because labor unions really are an added benefit to any city. Labor unions really advocate and work for good pay, good benefits, and good quality of life for their employees. I wanted to ask our city attorney about language to include for the community benefits agreement and the lease agreement to make sure that neither developer nor operator will try to union bust or stand in the way of the employees wanting to unionize.

Honorable Mayor, thank you. I think that's something that we can work with the attorneys for the developer to work on to include. It'll be a conversation we'll have to develop the form once we engage with them.

What type of language can we use for that?

So the type of language will probably be something similar to what you've already said. We'll have to just ensure that we're complying with Chapter 23 of the ARS, but we can work around that.

Okay, perfect, thank you. All right, doing that, again, 113 permanent direct, indirect, and dues jobs, 190 constructed related jobs with an $11.9 million tag in terms of wages for the construction jobs. These impacts are estimated to generate approximately 5.9 million in annual wages. 14.2 million in annual economic output i just want to again add what a great opportunity this is and that we want to make sure that it happens that the developers know that we're enthusiastic about this project and at the same time looking out for the workers in our city so with that i wanted to throw it over to council member schubert because i know this isn't ward six

Thank you, Madam Mayor, and thank you for raising the union aspect. As a dues-paying union member myself, I'm excited that we're aligned on this. Also wanna thank staff and Mike for walking us through the findings in this independent economic analysis and taking the time to answer our additional questions last week from the Ward 6 office. I appreciate seeing the numbers laid out this way, especially to get a better understanding of what we should expect from jobs and wages both during the construction period as well as once the hotel gets going. I was also really encouraged about the community benefits agreement, particularly with the MLK apartment residents, folks that I know within the organization Worker Power wanted to uplift that they felt appreciated and listened to throughout that process. And the mayor's already made some great points about how important and long time coming the activation of this lot is. I'll just add that turning vacant lots into active sites isn't just a source of revenue, but also contributes a diverse mix of people downtown, which is a safety and prevention strategy. So we are also very enthusiastic about this project within the Ward 6 office. So given that, I move that staff proceed with preparing a lease agreement to formalize an eight-year GPLAT financial incentive with the Depot Plaza Hotel LLC for the proposed project at 45 North 5th Avenue. Second. Second.

Alrighty, so can we make sure that the language also includes the additional language?

Absolutely.

Both the CBA and the lease agreement on the not standing in the way of unionizing?

Yes, absolutely. And that that that approval be contingent upon requiring that the developer not stand in the way of unionization efforts. And operator and operators, operators as well. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate it.

And the second second accepts that.

Yep.

Alrighty. So there's a motion and a second. Any further discussion? Councilmember Cunningham?

Because I've asked this on every G-PLED we've had, have we gamed out the bottom falling out of the boat scenario? What happens if they do not start construction within a certain amount of time? What happens if they do not meet the promise that they've made?

Thank you, Councilman Cunningham. On all of our G-PLED agreements, the beauty of all of our incentives is they are they're very low risk for the city of tucson you build what you're going to say and then you get the incentive in this case we do have required statutory timelines built into it that they can qualify for g plots that we are going to negotiate into the lease as well the good news is that the developer is actively working on getting this site built sooner than rather than later but we always do incorporate to make sure that we have language so we have a couple safety measures in place TIMELINES AND NO G PLAN OCCURS IF NO PROJECT IS BUILT.

THANK YOU.

THANK YOU. ANY OTHERS? ALL RIGHTY. WITH THAT, ALL THOSE IN FAVOR OF THE MOTION, PLEASE SIGNIFY BY SAYING AYE. AYE. ANY AGAINST? MOTION CARRIES. THANK YOU, MR. CZACHOWSKI. REALLY APPRECIATE YOUR PRESENTATION. Thank you, good job already. So we move on to item six.

What item six is?

Item six, time has been set aside for discussion and direction relating to matters pending in front of the Pima County Board of Supervisors and other regional jurisdictions. Mr. Manager.

Thank you, Honorable Mayor. Coming to the table is Stephanie Zamora from our office who will give the update on Pima County and local jurisdictions.

Good afternoon, Mayor and members of the Council. Submitted to the record is a report that summarized the adoption of Pima County's final budget, and I just wanted to highlight a few of the policy areas that the county is focusing on in their budget. Affordable housing, transportation, and infrastructure, the One Pima Initiative, and the Prosperity Initiative. The other part of the report summarized business happenings as part of Rio Nuevo, and with that, that concludes my report. Thank you.

Thank you so much, really appreciate it. Any questions, comments, observations on item six? Alrighty, thank you, Stephanie. Alrighty, so hearing none, we move on to item seven. Time has been set aside for the Mayor and Council to receive an update on state and national legislation and regional committees, executive orders, and direction to any associated litigation. Mr. Manager.

Thank you, honorable mayor, members of the council. Joining us at the table is Laura Dent, who will be giving a supplemental part of her update, which is a roundup of the legislative session here on the state level. So with that, we have a brief PowerPoint for you to go over the highlights. I turn it to Laura.

Thank you Mayor Romero, members of the council, manager Tamir. It's great to be with you. Today is going to look a little different as described. Typically we do federal and state updates and we're going to do a broad brush overview of the legislative session this afternoon. The legislature adjourned sine die about a month ago in mid-June. And at this point, Governor Hobbs has signed all the bills she's going to sign and vetoed all the bills she's going to veto. So we now have a good sense of where the dust has settled on this legislative session. So we can share some top lines for you now. This was a high watermark for the legislative session. They broke their own record. They've introduced more than 2,000 bills, which is a... watershed for this institution. 456 bills were passed, 151 were vetoed, 264 were signed, and 47 bills were weighed in on by the city of Tucson. For context, that's a little less than half of what historically we have weighed in on. in years past and part of that has just been an effort by myself to move with care and take a conservative tact and get a better sense and grounding with this body, with city staff, and with our legislative stakeholders at the capital to take away some good learnings that Tucson can implement into the future. So I typically try to think about the legislative session and the work that we're doing at the Capitol in three major buckets. The first is the traditional legislative work. So we're weighing in on bills that lawmakers are reviewing. We're testifying in hearings. We're communicating with lawmakers. We're asking them to weigh in in a way that favors the city of Tucson and your will as determined in your legislative agenda. And then the second bucket is really more about administrative engagement. How do we engage with state agencies and departments in a way that complements the work of subject matter experts that already have really deep relationships? So we're moving our work forward and building those relations and connections. And the third is a little bit more abstract. It's narrative and engagement work. So how are we telling the story of Tucson really effectively in an institution where we're sometimes going to look different in terms of our policy priorities and uplifting what the city does really well. So an example of that is water. Tucson water is obviously an incredibly recognized and esteemed institution, and so how do we make sure that not just other folks in that arena understand and appreciate and respect that, but also decision makers at every level of government, stakeholders around them, so that we build on the existing credibility of the organization and become the go-to for folks making decisions, having policy inquiries, now and into the future and whatever the political landscape looks like then. Another focus area of the narrative and education work is around housing and land use and zoning. You all are esteemed leaders on that, both this council, past councils and city staff around addressing the affordability crisis using land use tools and zoning tools to support infill and help folks get housed at every level. So that's another place that we're uplifting the leadership of Tucson. So some legislative themes. In the budget this year, there was a three-year moratorium on the data center tax incentive. That was part of your legislative agenda. It was also part of Governor Hobbs' state of the state address. So many bills around restructuring that incentive were introduced, but also lots of bills relating to energy, land use, how and where these data centers fit into our communities and into the state. So very much the same conversation happening in the public square is also happening at the legislature now Another strong theme housing zoning and land use and talking to some of our delegation members I really heard loud and clear that lawmakers are looking for ways to address affordability and the challenges that folks are experiencing and this is an area that it can be easy to reach towards as a solution that implemented at the state level might look one way, but of course in every community we're all different. And so this is a theme that I think we're going to continue to see. And on a positive note here, we did have a win on one of the housing bills that was moving, 2946, which actually would have restructured our impact fee system and reworked how all cities developed their impact fees and we were able to grandfather our community in. So sometimes we're not running with the flag on certain bills, but we're also just making them work for the community a little bit better. Revenue was another theme in that affordability vein, freezing rates and fees, undercutting local revenues. and always water. We should be expecting a decision any day from the Bureau of Reclamation around the immediate future of the Colorado River, and so communities across the state are in really different places around that. So this theme, we expect to continue coming up, and I want to shout out Attorney Avery, Chris Avery, and Natalie DeRook, who joined us to testify on some bad water bills at the legislature this session. Highlights in relation to the budget, the governor did sign an $18.2 billion bipartisan budget. In relation to southern Arizona, Rio Nuevo was protected in that budget. You might remember that Republicans had previously attempted to zero that out. I want to also... uplift in this theme our delegation who always takes meetings calls and emails from us we are very lucky in southerners wanted to have members of leadership in both chambers leaders generation in the senate assistant leader gutierrez in the house and ranking member stahl hamilton on appropriations in the house that really took our budget feedback So I want to recognize and acknowledge them for that. Tax conformity was part of the budget. That included alignment with HR1, which folded in both corporate and individual tax cuts. So that was structured in a way that the impacts tapered down a little over time, but that was a big impact on our revenues at the state level. the data center tax incentive moratorium that i referenced which has a savings around 38 million dollars and uh 2.5 percent agency cuts across the board so there was a lot here um but this did end up being a compromise bipartisan budget that the governor signed last month In terms of the political landscape, I just wanted to obviously name we're in an election year. It is an election day today. So this is sort of the water that we're swimming in at the legislature. We have very prominent stakeholders in the legislative process also either running for election or running for reelection, including Senate President Warren Peterson, who's running for attorney general. And of course, Governor Hobbs is running for reelection. So that... that energy and that kind of dynamic is very apparent in the legislative process this year. And also very interestingly, this is the first year since 2014 that Arizona doesn't have a federal ticket at the top of the race, whether it's a presidential or a Senate or a Senate special. So that really changes the political ecosystem because it brings revenue into the state to support electoral work. So the dynamic is leaner and the landscape is very charged. I also want to acknowledge here the leak of cities and towns for being our policy home in a lot of ways at the legislature that we work with pretty closely. In terms of legislative referrals, there are many. We have 10 referrals that are going before voters. This is a lot, but I wanted to just make sure and name it for y'all since I'm sure you're going to be getting questions and engaging with constituents about it, but we would probably expect a two-page ballot again in November of this year. The first three were passed in 2025, so really what's new to us is seven referrals that came out of the legislature this session. I'll touch on a couple of them. HCR 2001 is an effort to reform... Our democratic process and how we access vote by mail, it creates some new constraints around voting by mail. Representative Calden, who's running for Secretary of State, shepherded this forward. Some have called this a mini SAVE Act, an Arizona SAVE Act. So that's coming to the ballot. There's also a referral relating to athletes using facilities related to their biological sex in schools. There's a pretty sweeping anti-DEI referral. And then moving into the education realm, a lot happened at the legislative session on this one. There's a citizen's initiative that's moving forward right now that you all are probably aware of, the Protect Education Act, which is being led by Save Our Schools and the Arizona Education Association. And that effort would create some guardrails around ESA, which are commonly known as vouchers. Arizona has one of the most permissive voucher programs in the state. So this effort would create some guardrails around that. In the 11th hour of the legislative session, efforts to create a compromise, neutralize the citizens initiative by some folks leading that and create a modest middle ground referral fell apart. And as such, several new referrals emerged that are pretty tough on the education sector and on the labor sector. So there is one that caps administrative spending in school districts, particularly in our major counties of Maricopa and Pima. There is one that limits union release time for teachers that has actually sparked a lot of conversation among labor groups across the state because both police and fire unions have named that some of the language here is a bit broad. So there are concerns that move beyond the education sector around how that could impact working families and unions across the state. And then the third is HCR 2048, which is a military families referral to retain access to ECAs. This is being characterized in the press as what's called a poison pill that would undercut an affirmative outcome on the Protect Education Act. So this is a lot that is being asked of voters to think about, but that's some context on the education piece. And then lastly, very relevant to this body is the photo enforcement conversation. There is a referral going to the ballot that is essentially forcing the hand of communities to opt in or out of asking voters to weigh in on photo enforcement. And for cities that either have it or are open to having it, the cities need to essentially take this to the voters in the next general election or that technology be banned. So it's really putting cities in a situation where you've got to make a move on that, and that'll also come before voters in November. So that's a lot. I wanted to acknowledge and thank staff. I've been doing a significant number of legislative debriefs with staff to get a feeling of how we do intergovernmental relations at the city. How do we engage subject matter experts in making sure that we're weighing in on the right things that the legislature wants? I'll be doing legislative debriefs with all of you in the coming weeks and our contract lobbyists, which will be post-election, so we'll get a chance to really see the landscape and deep dive more on the legislative session and any issues that you want to bring forward. And I also wanted to thank you all for being at the legislature many of you made it up to the capitol this year in one way shape or form and that really doesn't go unnoticed our lawmakers have appreciated that and I think stakeholders see that and so I encourage this body to continue building those connections so with that I will wrap up my report

Thank you, Ms. Dent. Really appreciate your incredible work during this legislative session. And always, I want to just recognize the incredible work that you did behind the scenes and working that session, making sure that Tucson came out at the best place possible considering this legislature. But I also wanted to let all of my colleagues know and you that all of the legislators had really good things to say about the work that you've done this season. and so i just wanted to make sure that you all know that we have an incredible and awesome um director of federal and state relations and she's doing amazing work i know that you're also getting us all ready for the arizona cities and towns conference in which because of Ms. Dent, we have several sessions that we're going to present in, especially we have water panels that she's helping us with, affordable housing work that we're going to be doing. So really appreciate all the incredible work. Any questions, comments, observations, anything at all? Okay, Council Member Schubert.

I'll make it super quick. Thank you so much. I just wanted to check in about any opportunities related to gun violence legislation. Is there anything that we can add to our city, state, or federal agenda in the upcoming year? And did the city weigh in on any gun violence related legislation during the last session?

Thank you, Council Member Schubert. So there was quite a few bills that moved through in relation to gun violence. We didn't weigh in on them, and I think it's a real opportunity for us to look at the next legislative session and see how we want to make sure that, one, we're reflecting that priority in the legislative agenda and making sure that that's prominent and reflecting all of the good work around Safe City, but that we're also bringing those voices up to the Capitol.

Thank you.

All right, thank you so much for the presentations stephanie and Laura appreciate the time and all of the incredible work that you do. alrighty so I know that. Our city attorney has some updates on amicus that we are participating in.

Thanks, Mayor. I just wanted to update the council. I know I've updated them by email, but also I wanted to clarify for a couple of things. One is the city attorney's office, on the advice of mayor and council, did weigh in on a proposed rule change by the Office of Management and Budget for the United States, which would, we think, inappropriately interject the administration's executive orders into the OMB process, especially for grant making. And I know the mayor and council has been clear about our office litigating to the fullest extent anything that might affect our federal grant position. So that rule comment period just ended on Monday, July 13th, so. We're hoping to hear what the results of that role making is and how we might continue to litigate against those kinds of interferences. And just also real quickly, I wanted to update you on the Mayor and Council's direction to enter an amicus brief with our litigation partners on the Louisiana v. FDA. Mephepeston case at the Fifth Circuit. We did intervene on the initial request for a stay. In that matter, we've also intervened now on the merits. So we're on an amicus brief on the merits so that our voice will be heard in that case as well. Thank you.

Thank you so much, Mr. Attorney. Anything else? Okay, there are none. We're moving on to item eight. Does anyone have any items to remove from the consent agenda for tonight's regular meeting? Council Member Schubert?

Yeah, that was item D. I wanted to pull just to make a few comments.

And item 7G, the Don Odom Resolution. Any others? Right here, none. We move on to item nine. Does anyone have any future agenda items for today? Seeing none. Study session is adjourned. I can't believe it. We're running a little early. So we will have an hour and a half to take a little bit of a break, stretch our legs, do a walk, have a coffee, and then come back. We'll see each other here at 5.30.

Thank you. Take a nap. You can do that too. We'll see you.

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Good evening, everyone. Thank you so much for attending the Mayor and Council meeting of Tuesday, July 21st. We will now stand in session and we will have a roll call.

Council Member Cunningham.

Here.

Council Member Dahl.

Here.

Councilwoman Lee. Here. Council Member Barajas. Here. Council Member Schubert.

Here.

Vice Mayor Santa Cruz.

Absent, excused. Mayor Romero. Here. Before we go to item two, the city attorney will go over the rules of decorum for mayor and council meetings. Mr. Attorney.

Thank you, Your Honorable Mayor. Arizona's open meeting laws provide that members of the public may attend and listen to the proceedings during tonight's public meeting of the Mayor and Council. Arizona law also allows the Mayor and Council to enforce rules and procedures for public attendance of the meetings to ensure orderly behavior and to prevent unnecessary interference with the public meeting. Here are the rules that apply. The rules require decorum and orderly conduct by the members of the audience. No person attending the meeting shall engage in conduct that disrupts or otherwise impedes the orderly conduct of the meeting. including any statements or conduct that interrupts the persons who might be addressing the Mayor and Council or that disrupts the discussion of the Mayor and Council. The Mayor has the authority to ensure compliance with the rules of orderly conduct. If disorderly or disruptive conduct continues after a warning, and this is that first warning, the Mayor may direct the removal of persons from the chambers and or recess the meeting itself. If disruptive behavior makes it necessary to clear the chambers, the persons who disrupted the meeting will not be allowed to return to the chambers for the remainder of tonight's meeting. As a final note, please be aware that interfering with or preventing this lawful public meeting from being carried out in an orderly manner not only violates the rules of participation, but also violates Title 13 of the Arizona Revised Statutes.

Thank you, Mr. Attorney. And then now we move on to item two.

Invocation, Pledge of Allegiance, and appointments to boards, committees, and commissions.

We will start today with a land acknowledgement and then go to the Pledge of Allegiance. Let us begin by grounding ourselves and acknowledging these lands. The city of Tucson is on the lands that have been stewarded by the Tohono O'odham since time immemorial and the Pascua Yaqui people who have lived in the Sonoran Desert for thousands of years. Please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance. Thank you so much. Item 2D. Appointments to boards, committees, and commissions. City managers, communication number 200, dated July 21st, is received into and made part of the record. May I have a motion to approve the appointments and the report? So moved.

Second.

There's a motion and a second to approve the appointments of Elaine McPherson to the Commission on Equitable Housing and Development, Lucy Howell to the Pima County Tucson Women's Commission, and reappointments of Darby Davis to the Landscape Advisory Committee, and Anne Lopez to the Public Art and Community Design Committee. I would like to thank you for your willingness to serve the city of Tucson. Any further discussion on this? Hearing none, all those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Any against? Motion carries. Are there any personal appointments to be made at this time? Seeing none, we move on to item three.

Mayor and Council report summary of current events.

City managers communication number 201 dated July 21st is received into and made part of the record. This time has been scheduled to allow members of the mayor and council to report on current events. These are to be current events of activities within the community, not position statements on policy issues. I know some of my colleagues have some STATEMENTS, BUT I WOULD REALLY WANT TO START OUR SUMMARY OF CURRENT EVENTS BY MAKING A STATEMENT ON THE HORRIFIC EVENTS OF THIS WEEKEND, THE SHOOTING IN OUR DOWNTOWN. AS YOUR MAYOR, ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT THINGS THAT I CAN DO IS TO KEEP OUR COMMUNITY SAFE. Last Sunday, Tucson experienced another serious and senseless act of gun violence. I'm horrified. I'm sad. I'm mad. And I know that events like these have a lasting and negative effect on our sense of safety in our community. I want to offer my sincere gratitude to our police officers, our firefighters, our 911 call takers, the medical professionals who help care for the victims. I want to thank our county attorney and her staff that joined the scene immediately. I want to thank the Downtown Tucson Partnership Rio Nuevo for their support to pay for additional police officers. on weeknights in our downtown. I want to thank our community members who helped in the incident. and everyone who is supporting the people who were impacted by this tragedy. Our downtown is safe. Our downtown is filled with activity and vibrancy. It is the heart of our city. And in spite of events like what happened on Sunday, we all need to rally around our local businesses, especially those downtown. We need to keep working together to keep ourselves and each other safe. I'm grateful to Crystal Moore at the Downtown Tucson Partnership and TPD who have been working for months, for months to plan a training for our downtown businesses that'll be occurring tomorrow to work on violence prevention, de-escalation, preparedness, and working together to make sure downtown remains a place where people can gather, work, play, and enjoy our beautiful city. There are actions all of us can take as well. As policy makers, we need to continue to push our state and federal governments to do their parts in providing funding for the work that the City of Tucson Mayor and Council and our police department are doing. We also need our families and our parents uh grandparents and parental figures to talk to their kids about not solving their problems with violence and guns we need our schools libraries houses of worship to lean into teaching de-escalation skills most importantly working together we can do so much more so i ask our community to stand together this is something that not only mayor and council should be focused on, but all of us can do together. So thank you to all that acted bravely, especially our police officers, our firefighters, and all those that helped on the scene Sunday morning. With that, I invite my colleagues on the council to add to summary of current events. I'll start with Council Member Schubert.

Thank you, Madam Mayor, honorable members of the council. I'd like to open my current event report at this meeting by reading the statement that was issued by the ward one office of vice mayor Santa Cruz, as well as the ward six office. We've released this statement on our social media accounts, and we'll also have it in our Friday newsletter. Our hearts are with the victims, their loved ones, and every person who witnessed this horrific act. We are wishing everyone affected a full recovery, including access to the mental health care and support that will be essential in the days and months ahead. We are deeply grateful to the Tucson police officers, firefighters, paramedics, and all first responders who ran toward the danger, rendered immediate aid, and acted quickly to stop the suspected shooter before even more lives were harmed. Their swift response undoubtedly prevented an even greater tragedy and their quick response is due in part to the fact that Tucson invests in a dedicated TPD presence downtown on weekend nights. We also want to acknowledge the downtown businesses, employees, residents and visitors whose sense of safety was shaken by this violence. Downtown is the heart of our two wards and a place where people should be able to gather, celebrate, work, and enjoy our city without fear. The person responsible for this shooting must be held fully accountable. but accountability cannot stop with one individual. Tucson's leaders have tried repeatedly to act on gun safety, and each time the state legislature has preempted us, stripping cities of the power to protect our own residents. Congress refuses to pass even the most basic reforms most Americans support. Our community pays the price for their inaction. As the council members whose wards include downtown Tucson, we will continue using every tool available to us to reduce gun violence, invest in evidence-based violence prevention, support our first responders, and advocate for policies that will help prevent tragedies like this from happening again. Thank you. And then moving on to the rest of my current event report, We wanted to acknowledge the artists behind our Summer Stampede program at the Ward 6 office. We added some new stamps this week. Watch for even more to come next week. This is a program designed to activate our public spaces and get people out into the community. So we just wanted to acknowledge Ian Crombie, who's been an integral part of the Summer Stampede, designing multiple stamps, as well as the beautiful golden passport booklets we used to collect them. We're so grateful to Ian for his hard work and creative designs that highlight major areas of Ward 6, including Himmel Park, Toby the Griffin, the Turtle Pond, Snake Bridge, Reed Park Duck Pond, and Malvern Plaza. Alexa Salazar designed our stamp for the Catalina Pool where she is a regular swimmer and chose to honor Billy Sassy, an immigrant who dedicated 40 years to the Parks and Recreation Department and trained many of our city's lifeguards. As a reminder, the Catalina Pool is free for everyone through August 1st. Colin Holmes designed a stamp to honor a hidden gem in the Garden District neighborhood, a keychain library and rock garden started by longtime resident Judy Ostermeyer. When you visit to get your stamp, feel free to bring a painted rock to add to the collection. Heather Free is a neighbor of the Broadmoor Broadway Village neighborhood and chose to highlight the community's beloved Poetry Mailbox. Hidden on the Treat Walkway, the Poetry Mailbox has been a longtime neighborhood project, offering a unique space for thought and connection. Janet Miller is a multifaceted artist who has long time been a supporter of stamp scavenger hunts, leading her own in 2013 alongside Seclovia. She provided designs for the Blandman-Alm Butterfly Garden, Randolph Skate Park, Postal History Foundation, Inc., Tucson Bird Alliance, U of A's Moon Tree, and Southern Arizona Transportation Museum. Lawrence Willie is a Colonia del Valle resident who chose to highlight the urban animals we love who appreciate and thrive in the green space of Loma Verde Park. For humans, this east side park offers a playground, frisbee golf and nearby community garden, and the city is in the process of drafting up plans to build a better connection to the space via the Alamo Wash Greenway. Lex Jurassic's work is some you have probably seen around town, as she's worked with the Southern Arizona Arts Foundation to paint some of the utility boxes downtown. Her work bursts with often, her work bursts with flowers and colors, so of course we had to highlight her with a stamp at the Tucson Botanical Gardens. Monique Laraway designed the stamp for U of A's ENR 2 building, spotlighting urban wildlife that we grow accustomed to. And we sometimes forget their unique beauty as a result. Her hummingbird stamp sits at the ENR 2 seed library, which is another special place in the Ward 6 community. And finally, I want to acknowledge our own Ward 6 intern, Jolina, who made a stamp for Summer Fun by highlighting the Catalina Park splash pad. It's not out yet, but it will be released soon. And in closing, I wanted to provide an update about the Ward 6 chill space, a.k.a. our cooling center that we are operating out of the kitchen of the Ward 6 office. As of last week, we've had 661 total visits over the past seven weeks with an average of four return visits per guest. We're happy that people are seeing this as a valuable, welcoming resource center that they feel comfortable returning to. We're currently offering eight different services. Top services used by visitors are housing outreach assistance from the city of Tucson and Pima County, followed by health support offered by El Rio. And we're still seeing an average of five first time visitors a day. So word is continuing to spread. And then in closing, I wanted to shout out Water Waste and Tucson Water. A constituent says, please convey my appreciation to the staff members that respond to Water Waste submissions on 311. My submission was resolved by the next day. It was not the first time either. I've probably submitted half a dozen or more, and each time there has been a prompt resolution. So thank you so much. That concludes my current event report.

Thank you, Council Member. Council Member Barajas. Thank you, Mayor. Well, good evening, everyone. I have a few updates I would like to share this evening. Before I begin, I would like to extend my heartfelt condolences to the mother, Bernadette, the family, and loved ones of 29-year-old Ernesto Ojeda, who tragically lost his life after being swept away by monsoon floodwaters on July 17th. Our thoughts are with his family during this difficult time. I would also like to acknowledge the tragic shooting that occurred downtown. As somebody born and raised here in Tucson, it hurts to see this happening to my hometown. My thoughts are with the victims, their families, and everyone impacted by the senseless act of violence. I want to thank the Tucson Police Department, Tucson Fire Department, the community members and local businesses that stepped up to help, and the dedicated staff at Banner who provided emergency care. As Mayor and Council, we remain committed to working together to help our community feel safe through strong public safety partnerships, proactive prevention efforts, and continued support for the first responders and our community partners. THESE LAST FEW WEEKS HAVE BEEN FILLED WITH HISTORIC GROUNDBREAKINGS AND RIBBON CUTTINGS IN OUR TUCSON COMMUNITY. ON JULY 8TH, WE CELEBRATED THE RIBBON CUTTING OF THE NEW SOUTH SIDE PUBLIC SAFETY COMPLEX JUST DOWN THE WAY FROM OUR OFFICE HERE AT WARD 5. THIS NEW FACILITY BRINGS TOGETHER THE TUCSON POLICE DEPARTMENT SOUTH SIDE SUBSTATION AND TUCSON FIRE DEPARTMENT STATION 10 UNDER ONE ROOF. creating a shared home that will strengthen collaboration, improve response time, and enhance the services our residents rely on every day. I would like to congratulate everyone who helped make this vision a reality. Thank you to you all, the voters who supported the Tucson Delivers Safer City initiative, to the construction teams who built this facility, and the dedicated members of Tucson Police Department, Tucson Fire Department, city leadership and staff, and community leaders who made this project possible. As we prepare for a new school year, I would like to wish all the students who are here in the room and who are listening, teachers, staff, and families in both Tucson Unified School District and Sunnyside Unified School District a wonderful and successful 2026-2027 school year. I hope everyone has a safe, exciting, and productive year. To help students start the school year right, our office will be delivering a limited number of backpacks to each school located within Ward 5. It's a small way to support our students, teachers, and families as they begin another year of learning and growth. We wish everyone a fantastic school year. I would like to invite everyone to join us for our next lunch meetup with Ward 5. I will be alongside my staff at El Taco Rustico, located at 1830 South Park Avenue on Friday, this Friday, July 24th, from 12 to 1.30 p.m. Let's come out and support owner Chef Juan Almanza and his family. Chef Juan began his journey with the food stand at the Tona O'odham Swap Meet before opening his first El Taco Rustico location on North Oracle Road. Today, we're excited to celebrate his second location here in Ward 5. We would love for the community to come out and support his local business during this ongoing construction in the area. Parking is limited, so please plan accordingly or consider taking Suntran Route 25 along South Park Avenue. Whether you stop by to pick up an order to go or stay and sit down for lunch, it's a great opportunity to connect with neighbors, share ideas, and support one of our Ward 5 small businesses. I hope to see many of you there. At Santa Rita Park, we're continuing to see exciting progress. In addition to the ongoing improvements, beautiful new public artwork is being installed, thanks to the Arts Foundation. bringing history, culture, and community pride to this important neighborhood space. I look forward to seeing the project continue to take shape and hopefully reopen sometime this fall. Finally, I'm excited that we're moving forward with a seven million federally funded pro-housing initiative grant. THE INTERGOVERNMENTAL AGREEMENT BETWEEN THE CITY, PIMA COUNTY, HOUSING AND COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT, PLANNING AND DEVELOPMENT SERVICES AND ARCHES AT THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA. I WOULD LIKE TO ALSO ACKNOWLEDGE MY CHIEF OF STAFF, MANISHA BOOTRA, WHO HELPED CRAFT THIS GRANT DURING HER TIME AT HCD. this grant is an important step toward addressing tucson's housing needs by helping reduce regulatory and process barriers to building housing while lowering the cost of developing affordable housing it's a great example of what strong partnerships can accomplish and i look forward to the positive impact this investment will have throughout our community thank you councilman lee no announcements councilmember dahl

Thank you, Mayor. Amazingly, it's back to school time. It's not even August here, but already one school district is in session. So it's time to help kids with backpacks, and there's lots of programs doing this. In Ward 3, we're going to be at the Marty Birdman Center, 2536 North Castro, on July 31st from 5 to 7 p.m. with free backpacks and school supplies. Now, teachers need help, too. And I'm not going to get into the policy that requires us to be helping students and teachers rather than funding education the way it should be. But there's a great nonprofit called Treasures for Teachers that provide low-cost or free materials that teachers need in the classroom. And you can contribute even if you don't give them money. Teachers are inventive. They use things like bottle caps, baby food jars, coffee cans, egg cartons. And rather than throwing those away or trying to recycle them, you can take them to treasures for teachers. Finally, if you're new to town and are thinking about schooling, there is a nonprofit, myschooltucson.org, that provides information, makes it easier to find out the school district that you're living in, what the deadlines are, what's the timetable, and other options you might have in education. Thank you, Mayor. That's my announcement today.

Thank you, Council Member Cunningham.

Just first about the thing Saturday, I talked to the business owner, and I think we're lucky that none of the employees were harmed. I think it's important that we acknowledge the idea that we had some folks that were physically harmed, but we also had some folks that were emotionally traumatized, and we should commit ourselves as a community to backing them. Also, a shout out to the first responders, both police and fire, who basically managed the scene in what could have been much, much worse. So I have a statement online as well. I just didn't want to read the whole thing after this long deal. For the third time in six years, the Tucson Sugar Skulls have made the playoffs. And I know it's a different tiered sport, and we've been watching World Cup, we've been doing all this other stuff, but The Tucson Sugar Schools are owned by a collective of 15 Tucson locals. They've given us something that's a little niche here in Tucson. It's got a nice little group that goes. They've had 3,000 or 4,000 people at some of their games, and they've made the playoffs. And here's the interesting thing. On August 16th, we're actually hosting the indoor bowl. We're hosting the bowl game. which is something fortunate. You know, we've had a couple misses this year. We had a local baseball franchise, and we couldn't get visas for the players on the opposing teams, and we were supposed to host a World Cup team, and we couldn't get visas for them to host the team. So we've had some of our sports commerce things fall through. So I hope that... The sugar schools and the bowl game that we're hosting is a success. So I wish them all the success there. The other thing is back-to-school bashes. There's robust programs. Council Member Dahl mentioned it. There are robust programs throughout the city where you can get school supplies for your child at very low cost or no cost. And you should check. There's a care fair. There's back-to-school bash. I think there's three of them on the east side. And we'll get some more information out on the website for all the specifics. But yeah, believe it or not, for a lot of people, school starts in two weeks. I really don't like to think about that because the 17-year-old kid in me dreads that day. So anyway, thanks. That's the end of my report.

Thank you, Council Member. And I forgot to say at the beginning, but if you are a registered voter and you did not vote, you have one hour exactly to go find your polling location and vote. It's a beautiful thing that we have. as citizens of this country to be able to practice our right to vote so one more hour you can leave and it'll be okay um but thank you all so much i'm not i'm not inviting you to leave just just saying if you want to vote you still have an hour item four city manager's report summary of current events City Manager's communication number 202, dated July 21st, is received into and made part of the record. This time has been scheduled to allow the City Manager to report on current events. Mr. Manager.

Thank you, honorable mayor and members of the council. One item for tonight, it might take me a moment to say it, but I'm going to add my voice to all of your thanks to our police and fire and 911 operators. And I've asked for a list that I can read to you of all of the units that responded to the shooting event from Sunday morning. We've talked about how there were 20 officers, two CSOs, and five sergeants, and a force commander that were on site from TPD already before the incident occurred. These are the officers from Operations Division West, Downtown District Squads 30 and 40, and both Operations Division West Community Response Teams. This was augmented by off-duty officers hired through the Downtown Violence Reduction and Ronstadt Transit Center programs and the on-duty force commander. Those numbers were supplemented as soon as the calls went out through our 911 operators, our police dispatchers, and our fire dispatchers. Additional officers came out to the scene from every patrol division in our city. Tucson Fire Department and a couple of our neighbors, we had 27 total units from 12 stations. This included from Tucson Fire, Battalion 1, Executive Captain 1, Engine 1, Engine 2, Ladder 1, Paramedic 1, Paramedic 3, Paramedic 4, Engine 6, Battalion 4, Executive Captain 4, ENGINE 3, LADDER 4, PARAMEDIC 8, PARAMEDIC 10, PARAMEDIC 15, PARAMEDIC 45, RESCUE 8, RESCUE 10, PARAMEDIC 7, STAFF DUTY OFFICER 1, AND BATTALION 1A. WE IN ADDITION HAD ONE UNIT DISPATCHED FROM NORTHWEST FIRE AND FOUR UNITS FROM AMR, WHICH IS the private ambulance company that provides backup service for us that was 27 total units from 12 stations all of that coordinated through our 911 operators police and fire dispatchers so for my team members that were involved thank you for all of your service for those of you that were on site already we appreciate you you stopped things from getting worse than they were and you immediately rendered aid that saved lives and for all of the units that responded from across the city both police fire and and 911. Thank you. That's what I have, Mayor.

Thank you. Really appreciate it. Item 5.

Liquor license applications.

City Manager's Communication Number 203, dated July 21st, is received in tune with part of the record. Madam Clerk, please read the liquor license agenda.

Your Honor, on the evening's agenda, we have five applications for new licenses and seven applications for a special event. All applications are in compliance with city requirements. An appropriate motion would be to forward items 5B1-5 and 5C1-7 to the State Liquor Board with a recommendation of approval. So moved.

Second. There's a motion and a second. Any further discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor, please indicate by saying aye. Aye. Any against? Motion carries. Item six.

Call to the audience.

Madam Clerk, please read the announcement.

At this time, any member of the public is allowed to address the mayor and council on any issue except items scheduled for a public hearing at this meeting. Call to the audience will last for 30 minutes and speakers are limited to three minute presentations. The green light will turn on when you're called to speak. It will turn yellow when you have 30 seconds remaining and it will turn red and beep when your time is up. At that time, please conclude your comments.

And we have a little bit of a stack of people wanting to speak. So if you can keep it really concise and keep it to three minutes, we can go through all of the speakers. Our first speaker is JD Wallace. We're having a little bit of technical difficulties trying to connect the timer so that we can keep it at three minutes. Just one second, JD. TAKE A SECOND. GOOD? ALL RIGHT. WE'RE READY.

GOOD EVENING, MAYOR AND COUNCIL. I'M J.D. WALLACE, A TUCSON RESIDENT AND RETAINED SPEAKER FOR TUCSON ELECTRIC POWER AT 88 EAST BROADWAY DOWNTOWN WITH SOME UPDATES ON HOW WE'RE WORKING TO REMAIN A TRUSTED ENERGY PROVIDER. WE'VE WELCOMED THE RETURN OF THE MONSOON AND HAVE BEEN ANSWERING THE CHALLENGES DEALT BY ITS STORMS. A week ago, Saturday, storm damage left 11,000 customers without power. By 7.30 the following Sunday morning, that outage number was down to 350, with seven poles either blown down or damaged requiring replacement, potentially more. On Sunday night, storms took 4,400 customers out of service. All but 80 were restored by the following Monday, with a handful of poles needing replacement. And then on Monday night, 6,400 customers experienced outages. They were restored within an hour, though, by rerouting power. And all of those affected were restored by the following Tuesday. Approximately 55,000 TEP customers have private solar systems, and about 6,500 of them are located within the city limits. For customers considering rooftop solar or energy storage, we now have a qualified installer program to help them get started. It's strictly a research tool and does not guarantee contractor performance, but those on the list have an active solar license through the Arizona Registrar of Contractors, an active good standing registration with the Arizona Corporation Commission, have operated under the same license and business name for at least 36 months, and have completed training on our solar price plans. Find the list on TEP.com. These summer months are the time of highest demand for our customers and their cooling needs, and while we do not shut off customers for non-payment during the summer moratorium, we're making sure they know about a variety of resources that can help them pay their bills. We've shared PowerAZ with the media and in public outreach. PowerAZ is a statewide fund from the Department of Economic Security that offers relief to working families and others who might not qualify under other assistance programs. TEP also offers all customers the opportunity to round their bill up to the nearest dollar or another amount they're comfortable with. That's called the HERO program. The money goes to the Salvation Army for bill assistance. From June through October, we're matching those donations up to $50,000 in the summer from our corporate resources, not from ratepayer funds. The HERO began in 2011 and has raised more than $2 million. Our customer service representatives offer a variety of options for our customers, from bill management to payment assistance, and from the state's low-income home energy assistance program, that's called LIHEAP, as well as to our own Lifeline monthly discount program. Please send any constituents with questions our way to either TEP.com or to our customer service representatives. Thank you all for your time this evening.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Kevin Lugenbill.

Good evening. My name is Kevin Luckenmill. I'm a longtime resident of Tucson, and these statements are a reflection of myself, not any other company or individual. What I'm speaking about today or like to address is the fact that it's been decided to change A Mountain Fireworks to a drone show. So founding father, second U.S. President John Adams believed Independence Day would be celebrated by succeeding generations and should be commemorated with pomp parades and fireworks. Every year, thousands upon thousands of people gather for this celebration and observe and watch the fireworks that take place on A Mountain. I've been a resident for Tucson for over 48 years. My parents used to take me to watch these fireworks. Now, in the early 2000s, I began working with the company that conducts this fireworks display. And in 2019, I was asked to do A Mountain's fireworks, and my team and I have done it every year since besides 2020 for COVID. You know, I understand what was stated in the Arizona Daily Star about dangers with fire and safety in that. Paul Cunningham referenced the fire from 2017. That was over nine years ago. We have not had a single fire since on A Mountain. Because of the measures taken, A Mountain is a secured, controlled environment, very specific time limit. But what is not is all the neighborhood fireworks that take place. We have a great vantage point from up on A Mountain to observe all the fireworks that take place in and around the city. We observed several fires start before we even started our show. Tucson Fire, Tucson Police, they're understaffed, they're overworked, we understand that. I have reports here from Tucson Fire Department. Let's pick a random day of July 7th from 8 a.m. till 8 a.m. the next morning. There were 36 incidents or call-outs for fire-related incidents. On that 24-hour period on July 4th, there were 117 call-outs for fire-related incidents from Tucson Fire. Reasonable to assume most of those probably were from fireworks, but you know what? None of those came from May Mountain's fireworks. Because of the measures that Tucson Fire takes, the City of Tucson takes, we take as the company and individuals ourselves, And we did not, Tucson Fire informed me that we did not start any fires again this year. And we're very proud of that. So we do fully recognize and respect people with PTSD and animals. Again, our show starts at a specific time. It goes for a specific time. What is mayor and council gonna do about the neighborhood fireworks instead of just canceling our show, which is very structured and specific? Lastly, I'd like to state, you know, drones, they do some pretty cool things. I understand that. I wish I had more to speak, but before you arbitrarily make a decision, it'd be nice if you came up and saw what we did.

Thank you, sir. I appreciate you being here. Patricia Burrell.

My name is Patricia Bowerly. I'm a longtime resident of Tucson, city of Tucson, and I am here to speak about a potential remedy for a previous honoree not applauded, and also for thanks to the bus drivers for continuing service. During a previous Tucson City Council meeting, on or about October 8th, 2025, Maya Romero honored numerous Girl Scouts. The first girl who was honored that evening happened to be a young, dark-skinned girl who unfortunately didn't receive any applause, though all the others seemed to receive lots of applause. I personally feel very guilty and ashamed for not applauding that young Girl Scout honoree that evening and for taking so long to raise this issue in front of Mayor Romero and the other members of Tucson City Council. The reason I unfortunately didn't personally applaud for that young Girl Scout who deserved applause that evening is because I had read that the Tucson City Council's rules prohibiting interruption include disciplinary action, which included being excluded from Tucson City Council's meetings. Instead, I wanted to increase the likelihood that I would be able to speak during the call to the audience. So that evening, as well as all the other evenings I've attended, I've only applauded after someone else has initiated the applause, with the exception of during the call to the audience when there seems to be more pause between different speakers. Thus, I am asking Mayor Romero and Tucson City Council to consider creating some kind of appropriate remedy for that young Girl Scout honoree who unfortunately didn't receive any applause. if not already provided. Unfortunately, I've already, I've experienced much difficulty trying to attend other Tucson City Council meetings to try to speak on this topic. Although I haven't been employed for a long time and have gratefully been receiving social security disability income, my own personal schedule has been extremely busy with having to commute via public transportation, combined with much difficulties walking to my several exercise classes at Armory Park Senior Center, all my mental health and physical health medical appointments often five times a week, including physical therapy, all my grocery shopping and having to do all my errands, such as replacing my keys, et cetera, that I've lost three times, twice outside and once inside, and also my wallet most recently. To attend two Sun City Council meetings and our Pima County Board of Supervisor meetings, I've had to sacrifice either much-needed counseling sessions or a much-needed wellness group in addition to a hearing voices group that I've attended via telephone. In addition, on Monday morning of June 22nd, my personal desktop computer died without my being able to access any files since then. Although I'm very grateful that my husband is willing to try to see if he can remedy my computer, at least temporarily, my computer desk is a catastrophe that has been so overwhelming for me to try to clean out for my husband to access my computer. So in the meantime, I've had to engage in very time consuming commutes to attempt to access a computer at a public library. Also, I want to thank the Sunshine Drivers much for continuing bus service when contract negotiations were still ongoing and for not striking. So many of us Tucsonians depend upon public transportation for so much. Thank you for your attention.

Thank you so much. Brittany Eldridge.

Honor Mayor and Council, I wanted to share a few things about Carlos De La Torre, our recent Environmental Services Director whose last day was Friday, July 17th. A few weeks ago, he announced to the department he was resigning. With this notice, a somber change occurred for many of us throughout the department. Tears filled co-workers' eyes. Office doors were shut so they could cope with the news privately. It was a shock to say the least. For me, I couldn't believe it. Since the moment Carlos started, I have personally worked side by side with him since day one. Initially, when he came on board, I was a little skeptical about this new director, a change from the previous one. But as time went on, I learned to work with him almost to the point where I could predict what he needed during meetings, and we built trust in one another. As years passed, I saw Carlos not just as a director but as a friend. I valued his input and his perspective on things, the outward way he solved problems and was always intrigued by how smart he is and the wealth of knowledge he had on all topics. Not only did Carlos bring change to our department at difficult points, navigating the city's budget restraints and changes from China's national sword, but he also brought heart to the office. Carlos wasn't just the director who stayed in the corner office, delegated work, and kept to himself. He was present. He was involved. He participated. He was a part of a family you surround yourself with for 40 to 50 hours a week. He valued the work every staff member did. He advocated for us when there was red tape. He didn't just show up for photo ops opportunity. He was boots on the ground. He worked many staff events, the zero waste event. He participated in team up to clean up events. And he was dedicated to our drivers for our rodeo competition events. It has been upsetting to see so much change throughout the city, especially when hardworking, dedicated employees leave. It hurts their organization when that knowledge leaves and you no longer have that longevity. Carlos has been one of the longest standing directors or department directors that the city has seen in the past 10 years. And he would have given another 10 years if it was under different direct leadership. And I wanted to take the time to acknowledge what an honor it has been to work with him and I wish him the best on his new career path. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Aldridge. Chris Yarder.

Good evening, honorable mayor and council members. My name is Chris Yarder. I've lived in the city of Tucson for 56 years. It's where I went to college. It's where I got married and where I raised my sons. I'm chair of the Environmental Services Advisory Committee, and all committee members are volunteers. Here's some history that I do not want mayor and council and the city manager's office to forget. Carlos de la Torre was the director of ESD until July 17th, 2026, which was his last day after resigning from ESD. I'm standing at this podium to remind Mayor and Council about the amount of responsibility Carlos took on when he was appointed by City Manager Ortega. Not only was he in charge of the Los Reales landfill, City Manager Ortega added general services to ESD. This was a major addition of personnel, totally different from running trash and recycling pickup and managing a landfill. Then the failing PDSD code enforcement was moved to his supervision and they finally had offices at the Thomas O. Price Center where EGSD offices were located. Code enforcement had a skeleton crew, inspectors had no computer tablets, they needed trucks and uniforms. EGSD found the money and outfitted them, assigning temporary help to catch up with the 1,400 cases they were behind. In addition to all of this, TEP gave five years notice that they would no longer take the landfill gas to their power generating station. And now ESD has to figure out what to do with the gas and that is still not settled. The city council changed the name of our old Los Reales landfill to the Los Reales Sustainability Campus with the goal of zero waste and developed a plan to get there. Carlos and his staff jumped right in. They had to deal with the volatility of commodity markets, continued improvements in MRF contamination rates, expansion and stabilization of food cycle at home, and the green waste diversion programs. The bifusion facility construction that was just finished, equipment modernization, and recruitment efforts, especially after COVID pandemic. and now planning for long-term landfill gas utilization and infrastructure invested i want all of you to know that carlos de la tory was supported and appreciated and the staff valued him in closing i would like everyone to hear what ESAC committee member Fred Ariza wrote to me this morning. The departure of Carlos De La Torre, his position with city environmental services deeply saddens me, but I feel he leaves the department with a strong legacy, always striving for quality, confidence, and expertise.

Ms. Yardo, your three minutes are over. but you can finish, you can finish.

I'd appreciate it.

Your thought, but I mean, you have to do it right now.

Okay.

Okay.

Thanks for listening.

Thank you. Shay has slept. I believe it's Shay or Shaya has slept. Shay. Shay.

Good evening, Mayor and council members. My name is Shea Heslop, and I'm here tonight on behalf of multiple neighbors in the Hedrick Acres neighborhood. And my late 93-year-old mother owns a house in the Hedrick Acres neighborhood near the private easement between Park Avenue and Santa Rita Avenue. For several years, my mother's property has been repeatedly targeted by homeless individuals and criminals using this easement as a pathway to our neighborhood. This is not an isolated incident. It is an ongoing public safety crisis. Since May of 2025, we have experienced multiple break-ins, trespassing incidents, attempted burglaries, vandalism, property damage, drug use on the property and theft-related activity. Homeless individuals have climbed over walls, attempted to enter the home, broken into storage buildings, damaged gates, covered security cameras, and left behind fentanyl foil, drug paraphernalia, trash, and even human waste. The documented repairs cost alone exceed $3,000. That does not include the most devastating loss. On June 5th of this year, potential buyers walked away from purchasing my mother's home after seeing homeless individuals passed out against a storage shed on the property. The sale price was $416,000. The closing was set for June 10th. The neighbor behind my mother's house lost his sale when a buyer saw a homeless guy passed out on the sidewalk right in front of the house. I've spent months working the proper channels. I contacted Ward 3, obtained petition forms, gathered signatures of all the neighbors, attended meetings, and personally walked the alleyway with Councilmember Kevin Dahl and City staff. During that walk, everyone agreed that gates at both entrances of the private easement would be an appropriate solution. After several months, the gates were finally approved, and Ward 3 said in their letter that the neighbors needed to pay for the gates to close the easement because there were no funds available. Meanwhile, on the block next to our block, they have received monetary assistance from the city close to similar easements, and they have installed the gates at Euclid and Tyndall. Our block deserves the same consideration and the same level of protection. And here we are months later with no gates, no solution, and continued criminal activity. This issue is no longer just about property damage. It is about the safety of residents, many of them who are elderly. My mom was 93 years old when she lived in that home. Okay, no senior citizen should have to live in fear. The strangers are climbing over walls, checking doors, or attempting to break into their property. I'm asking the mayor and council tonight to prioritize this closure and gating of this easement before someone is seriously injured. In the last break in my alarm company, dispatched the police to my mother's house. And when I arrived at the house, and this was on June 16th, No police were on the premise. I entered the house by myself, hoping there was nobody inside. I had my gun, my taser with me, and I secured the house on my own. The police were dispatched at 9.30 AM. They showed up at 6 PM. My parents moved in this house in 1970. We grew up here. I'm a 68-year-old native of Tucson. And ever since 1970 when we moved into that house, they've had access to Tucson Water and Tucson Electric Power and utility companies that need access using the side of the house to get to the easement. For this reason, I'm requesting the same courtesy to be given to us. I do not want to close that area with the fence so I can cut the homeless traffic by the house because that will hinder the ability for the utility companies to do their work. The residents of Hedrick Acres have waited long enough. We need action. We need compassion. No more delays. Thank you for your time and consideration. And thank you, Tucson Police Department, for doing what you guys do, especially being understaffed. Thank you, sir. Thank you.

Thank you. We will make sure that the city manager's office follows up on your request. Robert Royce.

I became prepared to do a presentation to promote my Jefferson Party petition for next year's city council elections, but I'm going to put that off for another time. First of all, directly to the mayor, how dare you tell the people of this city that downtown is safe less than 72 hours after nine people were shot, mere months after a person was hatcheted to death at a bus stop? It's fiction. You're telling people downtown is safe is fiction. It is not. But the city would be, there'd be a greater sense of order in our city if you would actually enforce the laws that you passed Some months back you passed a ordinance banning solicitation in the medians. People are still doing it. I don't give money to people in the medians because 90% of the money goes for drugs and all I'm doing is expediting these people's death. if I give them money. But even beyond that, when I get in my automobile, I have four goals. Number one, not to hit another human being. Number two, not to cause an accident. Number three, not to have an accident even if it's somebody else's fault. And beyond that, My fourth goal is to actually get where I'm going and do what I got in the car to do. So when there's people in the medians juggling, demanding attention, getting close to my car, begging, that is a safety issue for me. My first priority is to drive with 100% attention, which can't be done when people are in the median demanding my attention. Number two, another issue is some years back, you passed an ordinance that construction companies could only close lanes adjacent to their work up until they close for business for the day, and then they're due to take the obstructions down and open up the lane. This law was never enforced. Recently, the right lane in Craycroft at Glenn was closed for months, continuously, in direct contradiction to a law that, you know, there's only three of us in this room that were actually in the room when the ordinance was passed. But now you've passed a ordinance demanding steep fees for construction companies to close the lane. You wouldn't need to be demanding steep fees from construction companies if they were made aware of the law as it stands at this moment and it was enforced. So, once again, when you pass ordinances, you must enforce them or it cuts down on your credibility and people do not take you seriously. Thank you.

All right. And our last speaker is Amir Quaresby, I believe. Quaresby.

I'll have to make sure I'm on this too. What up? My name is Amer, and I'm someone who was actually present during the shooting. So not on the scene, but I was actually helping out a friend of mine because she lost her phone at IBT's and I had to sit down with another friend. I basically was able to check in on Empire, which was the place where the shooter happened. And another one of my friends is currently working with someone who was there at the shootings. whose friends are currently in critical condition. But the thing that I want to bring out that I quickly noticed through all of this process is people fundamentally don't trust you, which, of course, you're a politician. But a lot of them are young kids who are like 18, 19, 20. Some of them, let's be honest, are straight up sneaking into bars. And a lot of them basically grew up watching a lot of TikTok reels, a lot of Instagram reels. of just basically about how cops shoot people, how they'll bust everything in, how basically they'll do anything. So kind of to extend its point, it's not that laws aren't enforced. It's that people don't know what laws are going to be enforced against them, that the cops are actually going to protect them. I do know a lot of the cops here, they have to take certain steps and procedures, but the fact is they don't have the, a lot of kids are coming in from California, from around the world, largely to a party school to do drugs. They have offered me drugs. That's beside the point. But the point that I want to get at is this. What we need is more than a police force, a peace force. And for that, I would offer the following suggestions. One, not just a bunch of tough cops like this, but nice ones that can sit down at different street corners, offer things like clean needle, Narcan, and water. You can come talk to them. You can develop that trust. And above all else, let kids know that we know you're going to make mistakes. We don't want you to die from making mistakes. Because a lot of them are still trying to find their way through life, and that's sometimes why they come to college, to figure out how to make mistakes, but then also that they can recover, that they have resources, that basically the cops aren't going to burst down their neck. I literally had to call the cops for a kid who was actively being threatened. What's going on is a lot of the kids don't think that you guys are here to actually serve them, to protect them. protect them and make sure that they're actually gonna be well and well taken care of. Having that type of outreach, having those types of resources is what's necessary for a lot of those people and why a lot of them are still struggling right now. Thank you very much.

Thank you, that was our last speaker and we move on to item seven. Consent agenda. Reports from the city manager on the consent agenda are received into and made part of the record. Madam Clerk, you are requested to read the consent agenda.

Upon no objection from Mayor and Council, items D and G will be removed from the consent agenda and addressed separately as discussed during today's study session. Item 7A, approval of minutes. Item 7B, Fiverr to the premise license agreement for use of public right-of-way. Wired Connect LLC project. Item 7C, financial participation agreement with Arts Foundation for Tucson and Southern Arizona for fiscal year 2027. Item 7E, acceptance of award funding for OJJDP fiscal year 25 strategies to support children exposed to violence grant program. Item 7F, intergovernmental agreement with Pima County for the incarceration of city prisoners for fiscal year 2027.

All righty, may I have a motion from my council colleagues, please?

Mayor, I move to adopt the items on the consent agenda.

There's a motion. There's a motion and a second. Any further discussion? Hearing none, we do have to go to roll call. Council Member Dahl?

Aye.

Council Member Schubert?

Aye.

Council Member Brahas?

Aye.

Councilwoman Lee? Aye. Council Member Cunningham?

Aye.

Mayor Romero?

Aye. The items on the consent agenda are approved by a vote of 6-0, and the ones we're considering separately.

Item 7D, Intergovernmental Agreement with Pima County and the City of Tucson Housing and Community Development Department for Tucson Pima Pathways to Removing Obstacles Housing Initiative.

Would you like me to read the resolution number? Yes, please.

Resolution number 24152 relating to intergovernmental agreements approving IGA between the city of Tucson and Pima County for Tucson Pima Pathways to Removing Obstacles Housing Initiative and declaring an emergency.

Thank you, Ms. Clerk. This item was requested to be considered separately by Council Member Schubert. Council Member Schubert.

Thank you, Madam Mayor, members of the council. I just wanted to pull this item from consent to say a few words. I want to highlight the efforts of the city of Tucson and Pima County staff to bring $7 million federal dollars to address the region's affordable housing crisis. The Tucson Pima Regional Pro Housing Initiative was one of only 18 communities to be awarded a pro housing grant out of over 200 applicants. These funds will support developing new affordable housing through gap funding, impact fee subsidies, and development on city-owned parcels. It will also include funding to change zoning codes to make it easier to build more housing, including changing parking standards and expanding opportunities to build middle housing. Our community needs real solutions to the housing crisis, not to waste our time and resources moving and arresting people living outside when there's nowhere for them to go. So thank you to HCD for working to make Tucson a place where everyone can thrive. Thank you so much.

May I get a motion to move this forward?

Yes, and with that, I would like to make a motion to approve and adopt. I'm so excited. I could make his motion before.

Oh, okay. Oh, okay. So before we make the motion, I know that our city attorney has additional language or has to change some language and then we'll go with the motion.

That's correct. Thank you, honorable mayor, members of council, council member Schubert. There's a correction that we need to read into the record on page three of exhibit A for this item. That is the intergovernmental agreement determination. If I could read it, the correct language should be the foregoing intergovernmental agreement between Pima County And the city of Tucson has been reviewed by the undersigned. Each of whom has determined that it is in proper form and it's within the authority granted under the laws of the state of Arizona to the party they represent.

Alrighty. So with that language, if you'd like to move the motion forward.

I move to, excuse me, I move to approve and adopt resolution number 24152 related to intergovernmental agreements approving the IGA between the city of Tucson and Pima County for Tucson pathways through moving obstacles housing initiative and declaring an emergency.

So there's a motion, I need a second. I second. Motion and a second. Any further discussion? I DID WANT TO ADD SOME DISCUSSION ON THIS BECAUSE I APPRECIATE YOU, COUNCILMEMBER SCHUBERT, PULLING THIS ITEM AND PRAISING THE WORK OF OUR HOUSING COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT DEPARTMENT. I TOO WANT TO SAY WHAT A WONDERFUL TEAM WE HAVE THAT PUT THIS TOGETHER. I ALSO WANT TO BRING ATTENTION TO THE WORK THAT THIS MAYOR AND COUNCIL HAVE BEEN DOING. This is not something that just the housing community development department is doing. And I just wanted to make sure that I brought this up because you very specifically called that out. We have an incredible team and this is a continuation of the direction that mayor and council have given our department for many years and making sure that we expand on the work of the housing affordability strategy for Tucson and us taking advantage to be honest of the Biden-Harris administration, being able to have that relationship that we've had as a city with that particular administration. We applied in 2024. We were granted in January 22nd of, I think it was 21st or 22nd, earlier, but we were told in January 22nd of 2025, just in time for us to be able to receive our grant under the Biden administration. So this particular grant is a huge step forward in a continuation of the housing affordability strategy and another example of how we're leveraging federal resources to create local solutions. and the work and the continuation of our work that started more than six years ago. So it is all of our wish to create affordable housing and putting together the Housing Affordability Grant and going after federal funds We were able to create more than 1,200 affordable housing units that otherwise six, seven, eight years ago would not exist because of the direction of the mayor and council. So with that, congratulations. Thank you so much for the work, both the Planning and Development Services Department, Housing Community Development, and our partners at Pima County. This is really an incredible step forward, and I'm already seeing the fruits of the work that is being funded through the program. So with that, any other comments, observations? All righty, congratulations to all of us. And with that, do we need to go to roll call? Okay, let's go to roll call.

Council Member Schubert.

Aye.

Council Member Barajas. Aye. Council Member Dahl.

Aye.

Councilwoman Lee. Aye. Council Member Cunningham.

Aye.

Mayor Romero.

Aye. Item passes by a vote of 6-0.

7g yes we go on to 7g item 7g resolution supporting the tohono o'odham nation's opposition to the border wall construction in southern arizona thank you miss clerk i requested this item because um

I wanted to make sure that we had a resolution and a method by the mayor and council to support the Tohono O'odham Nation and to express our sincere support and appreciation for the Tohono O'odham Nation bringing this lawsuit against the federal government. Our Tohono O'odham siblings are entitled to be able to make the decisions that they need in their land that they have stewarded since time immemorial. I am in full support of their opposition to the expensive, unnecessary border wall. The Sonoran Desert is one of the most biologically diverse deserts in the world. and a border barrier would further erode the greatness of our environmental diversity in our um in our in our in our sonoran desert but more than that um this border wall is expensive one two it separates land that has for time immemorial been the ground that the Tohono O'odham people and the Sonoran Desert people have been able to travel back and forth. The Sonoran Desert covers both sides of the border. It is one desert and this barrier will continue to be a negative impact on how the Tohono O'odham people move to support each other, to visit each other and to be able to use this land as they have the right to do. So that's why I wanted to make sure that the city of Tucson, the mayor and council had an opportunity to take a position against this border wall, the destruction that has happened already on environmentally sensitive land is devastating and we should all be very upset and mad at what this administration is doing on these lands. So I know that there are representatives of the Tohono O'odham Nation here. I appreciate your presence in all of the work that you're doing. Know that you have my complete support in this action and in what you do. So just wanted to add that. and open it up for our colleagues on the council. And I know that our city attorney has some language to read into the record as well.

Thank you, Mayor and members of council. We just want to reiterate, as you already mentioned, that it's unfortunate how expensive these projects are and how many taxpayer dollars are wasted here when Arizonans have so many other unmet needs and how important it is that the council will take a stand as you are. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Attorney. So I believe the best way for us to do it is to have a motion to approve the resolution.

I'd be happy to read the resolution title. Resolution number 24154 relating to intergovernmental relations, a resolution supporting the Tohono O'odham Nation's opposition to border wall construction in southern Arizona and declaring an emergency.

May I have a motion? So moved. Second. There's a motion and a second. Any further discussion? I know Council Member Barajas, you would like to add your voice.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I would like to express my support for the Tohono O'odham Nation. And I would like to thank Chairman Berlin Jose and Vice Chairwoman Carla Johnson for their continued efforts to protect the land, culture, and people of the Tohono O'odham Nation. Last year, I had the honor of visiting the nation alongside Chairman Jose and seeing firsthand the history, beauty, and significance of this region, including the lands along the border. That experience was a powerful reminder of the deep connection between the land, the people and the generations who have cared for it in the seven generations to come. I would also like to acknowledge and thank the Pima County Board of Supervisors for standing alongside our indigenous brothers and sisters and for their commitment to honoring and protecting the history, culture and region of the future of the region. As Chairman Merlin Jose constantly reminds us, we are stronger when we stand together. The partnerships we build and the respect we have for one another are what allow our communities to move forward and create a better future for everyone. So thank you for bringing this up, Mayor.

Thank you, Councilmember. Any others? Councilmember Dahl?

Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Mayor, for bringing this, and thank you, Councilwoman Barajas, for your strong words. There's two aspects to this. We should obviously support the Tonotum Nation. They're a sovereign people. They've always been our allies. They need to control their lands, which exist not just on our side of the border, but there are family members living on the south side of the border, and they've always had easy access back and forth. To put a wall there is such an insult. The second aspect is that this wall is not accomplishing what it was intended to do. It doesn't stop the flow of people because people go under it, over it, through it. For a $100 skill saw at Home Depot, you can make a door that you can close and no one can detect it. wanting to stop the movement of people. And I'm not sure that we should be necessarily. But we have great surveillance. We are the mightiest military in the world. And we can certainly observe where people are moving and interdict them. The traditional Taunotum lands extend beyond their nation lands into Oregon Pipe Cactus National Monument. And I was there at one of the most sacred sites Quito Baquito, springs and a pond, an oasis in the desert, the most magical, special place, endangered species, when the bulldozers were building the wall right next to it. And at this pond, you could hear the rumbling. It was such an insult. I later videotaped people bulldozing saguaros. They were supposed to transplant them, but I got a picture. That went viral. There were people from Europe who were outraged. And recently, in Cabeza Prieta, which is also traditional O'odham land, A sacred site, or you might call it an archaeological site, an intaglio, a figure created on top of the earth, probably through dancing, but somehow the rocks were rearranged. And from the sky, you can see it. It was just bulldozed without following any of our basic laws of architectural protection. That was a cultural artifact, not just to the Tonantum, but belongs to all of us, because it was in a national wildlife refuge. The wall is an abomination. I'm really happy to be voting for this. Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you, Council Member Dahl. I do want to add my gratitude to Chairman Verlin Jose and Vice Chairwoman Johnson. Chairman Jose called me immediately when they submitted their lawsuit against the federal government and just to let me know that this was happening. I truly believe in the words that he uses, that we are stronger when we work together. AND THIS IS ONE OF THE REASONS WHY I WANTED TO BRING THIS RESOLUTION TO YOU ALL. AND IT IS NOT SOMETHING THAT WE HAVE JUST GOT ON BOARD WITH. BACK IN 2017 THE MAYOR AND COUNCIL ADOPTED RESOLUTION NUMBER 22763, which stated unequivocally in part that the city of Tucson publicly and vehemently opposed Trump's border wall because we knew of the devastation and the lack of public input that the Trump administration would practice putting together a useless, expensive border wall. So with that, the motion is on the floor. There's a second, and we need to go to roll call.

Council Member Dahl?

Aye.

Council Member Schubert?

Aye.

Council Member Cunningham?

Aye.

Councilwoman Lee? Aye. Council Member Schubert? Aye.

SHE VOTED ALREADY.

I THINK YOU VOTED ALREADY. DID I MISS YOU?

I'M SO SORRY.

COUNCILMEMBER BARRAJAS. AYE. MAYOR ROMERO.

AYE. JUST FOR THE RECORD, WE'VE ALL VOTED AYE. AND THE ITEM ON THE CONSENT AGENDA, ITEM 7G, PASSES BY A VOTE OF 6-0. THANK YOU. THANK YOU SO MUCH. THANK YOU. Thank you so much for being here and our kind thoughts to chairman and vice chairwoman and all of the council and all of the people of the Tohono O'odham Nation. Thank you. Item eight. Public hearing rezoning city manager support. City managers communication number 205 dated July 21st is received into and made part of the record. This is the time and place legally advertised for a public hearing to rezone on approximately 11.26 acre parcel from SR Suburban Ranch to RX1 Residential to allow for the development of a new 12 lot single family residential community. The subject site is located approximately 700 feet south of the intersection of Tanque Verde Road and Bear Canyon Road. This site is currently developed with eight dwellings and a number of accessory structures. The rezoning would bring the site into compliance and facilitate subdivision of the site into 12 lots, six of which would contain existing dwellings, six primary dwellings, and two accessory dwelling units. The other six lots would be developed with new homes. This public hearing is scheduled to last for no more than one hour.

The address is 8800 East Jakonda Way and the T-P-E-N-T-1-1-2-5-0-0-0-2-3.

Alrighty, so speakers are limited to five minute presentations. We do have a big amount of speakers wanting to speak. And please come forward when I call your name, make your presentation, state your name, whether you live in the city of Tucson, whom you are representing, and whether or not you are a paid speaker. Our first speaker is going to be Julia Tabor, or Tapper. Julia Tapper or?

They have a batting order. They actually sent you an order of the number.

Oh, okay.

Can you please go sit down, Council Member?

And the first person we have is Julia. Who exactly do you want us to call on? Okay, go ahead. Please introduce yourself and do your presentation.

Good evening. My name is Julia Sprott.

Can you make sure that you put the microphone close to your... There you go.

Good evening. My name is Julia Sprott. I'm not a paid speaker, and I'm representing the Tanque Verde Valley. I grew up in the Tanque Verde Valley. I'm now a student at the University of Arizona, and my family owns a local business. This community has always been my home. I'm here tonight because I represent the generation that will inherit the decisions that you all make today. People don't choose Tucson because it looks like every other growing city. They choose Tucson because of places like Sabino Canyon, Reddington Pass, Mount Lemmon, Tanque Verde Falls, Tanque Verde Guest Ranch, our horse properties, our trail systems, hiking, biking, and the beautiful open Sonoran Desert. Those places are not simply recreational amenities, they are Tucson's identity. They are the landscapes that inspire people to visit, convince the families to stay, support local businesses, and make this valley unlike anywhere else. Growth is part of every community. The question is whether we have the vision to protect what makes this one special. If every remaining open space is viewed only as the next opportunity for development, we will eventually lose the very places that make people want to live here. Our planning documents recognize the importance of neighborhood character, open space, and conservation, but I hope they can do more to recognize the Tanque Verde Valley as one of Tucson's defining landscapes and make preservation a stronger part of our vision for the future. My generation should not have to look at photographs to understand what made this valley extraordinary. We should have the opportunity to experience it ourselves, to raise our own families here and to pass it on to the generations that follow. Growth can always continue, but once these landscapes are gone, they cannot be recreated. Please let preservation be part of the legacy you leave for my generation. Thank you.

Thank you. I'M GOING TO CALL OUT NAMES, BUT I DON'T KNOW WHOEVER WANTS TO COME UP. OKAY. THIS IS JULIA. OKAY. GO AHEAD. INTRODUCE YOURSELF AND DO YOUR PRESENTATION.

Hello, my name is Ella Tabor. I'm also an unpaid speaker. I'm 19 years old and I've had the blessing of growing up here in the Tanque Verde Valley. Although I attend the University of Arizona and have watched many of my peers choose to live downtown, I've chosen to remain in this charming community because of everything it offers. I'm studying veterinary science with the goal of becoming an equine reproductive specialist. I'm asking you to oppose the proposed rezoning of the property on East Hawk Ronda Way from suburban ranch to higher density residential use. The U of A is home to one of only 36 accredited veterinary colleges in the country. Its veterinary program can attract students from across the nation at a time when large animal veterinarians are desperately needed. According to the American Veterinary Medical Association, The U.S. has lost 90% of its livestock veterinarians since World War II. Today, only a small percentage of the veterinary workforce focuses on food animals, leaving hundreds of counties across the country facing serious shortages. For students interested in equine and large animal medicine, the Tinkoverty Valley provides something that cannot be recreated in a classroom. This valley is a stronghold for livestock education. Woodland Road alone has a high concentration of horses, goats, sheep, cattle, working dogs, and other farm animals. When I'm not at school, I spend my time at Bandolero, a world-class equine facility located at the threshold of the valley. I care for my own three horses there, and I also have access to client horses and hands-on learning opportunities. The breeding barn visible from the road supports important advancements in equine reproduction. Its technology allows equine semen to be imported internationally, making it possible for mares here to be bred to stallions located on other continents. That is only one example of what this facility contributes from a scientific and business perspective. Beyond its innovation, its greatest impact is on the people it serves. For trainers, young riding students, horse owners, and future veterinarian professionals, the barn is more than a workplace or riding arena. It is a community that teaches responsibility, perseverance, compassion, and purpose. Facilities like Bandolero exist because the Tinker Verde Valley still contains suburban ranch land capable of supporting horses, livestock, barns, trailers, veterinary work, and agriculture. Thankfully, this area has not been converted entirely into housing and commercial development, both of which are already available nearby. You do not have to be a horse person to understand the value of this valley. From Mount Lemmon and Reddington Pass to the washes that serve as a freeway of the desert, it is easy to understand why this area should not be overdeveloped. Lands like this must be preserved intentionally. This land is already serving a purpose and its zoning should remain the same. Once it is divided and developed, the opportunity to use it for horses, livestock, agriculture, and veterinary education is gone. We cannot wait until these places disappear and then realize how much Tucson needed them. This valley supports animals, education, veterinary medicine, agriculture, local businesses, and future careers like mine. That is why the Tanger Verde Valley should be specifically recognized and planned Tucson as a rural, equestrian, agricultural, veterinary, and educational resource. Preservation is not opposition to progress. It is thoughtful planning for the future. Please recognize what this area contributes to the entire city and protect what cannot be replaced once it is gone. Please oppose this rezoning and allow this suburban ranch land to remain consistent with the community around it. Open horse properties, ranch homes, agricultural uses and veterinary resources rather than high density development and additional commercial uses that are already available nearby. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next speaker, just come up and introduce yourself.

Julie Tabor, I'm Ella's mother. Finally. I hope I can express the same compassion for our land in Tanque Verde as you did so well on the Indian land, the desert and the beauty of the Tanque Verde Valley. My name is Julie Tabor and I am not a paid speaker and I'm a resident of Tucson. I'm asking you to oppose this rezoning because the sewer capacity, stormwater protection, enforcement and emergency access needed to support more density have not been proven adequate. Sewer capacity. My family knows what happens when public infrastructure fails and describing it in a few minutes is impossible. We experienced a catastrophic sewer system failure. The public record documents The failure in approximately the 15,000 gallons of raw sewage flooding our home. The pictures are only a glimpse of the devastation. It came through every drain. Everything that entered the surrounding public sewer lines flooded our home. Before that happened, we were raising a toddler we had recently adopted. It was a very joyful time in our lives. During the sewage flood, I was frantic. I reached into the sewage water trying to save our child's original adoption records from Mexico. A mother desperately trying to save any part of her child's history while her home was filling with raw sewage. Our home was destroyed through no fault of our own. The health department draped yellow tape around our home, declared it condemned and told us not to reenter. We were locked out and forced to walk away with nowhere to go, not even a bag in our hands. Then five years of displacement, financial uncertainty, litigation with the city, while our family tried to recover from the infrastructure failure. Some remediation was done, but when our home was returned to us, it was severely damaged and unlivable. Records confirm the sewer system that flooded our home had serious defects, including sags, improper elevations, and a manhole configuration that caused surcharge. This proposed development would flow through the same configuration that failed and caused the backup in our home. But sewage isn't the only threat. There's stormwater. The development would add more hardscape and runoff. Stormwater from the shopping center above discharges down our street. Their retention is a failure. While additional water barrels through the Ferringer Wash, across the Ferringer's property, onto Bear's Path Road, and ultimately onto my property. The photographs demonstrates the erosion and hazardous conditions in front of our home. Enforcement and the lack of enforcement. At 8721 East Woodland Road, a seven-foot iron structure with large swinging gates was installed in the Ferringer Wash along our property line and within the FEMA floodplain without permits. The city engineer determined that it created a flood and safety risk and ordered its removal. It was not removed. During the first monsoon with the structure in place, the wash backed up to a level we have not seen before. The next morning, my husband went to check on the Ferringers as their home can become completely cut off. He slipped in the silt, struck his head open, it required staples, and he fractured his jaw. The iron wall and gates were later permitted with conditions requiring the gates to be opened during the storms, the wash to be clear, and annual engineering inspections and reports. None of those conditions are being followed or enforced. The gates are never opened during the storms. and I found no annual engineering report. Now we're being asked to trust more conditions, including some that depend on an HOA that does not exist. Lastly, emergency access. We know how quickly flooding can make our roads impassable and access disappear. This community includes homes and facilities with horses, foals, sheep, cattle, and other livestock. This danger also threatens TROT, Therapeutic Riding of Tucson, an organization helping veterans and children on the county land where numerous therapy horses live. We have all seen the unforgettable images in the media during fires and floods, families desperately trying to evacuate while horses and livestock are frightened, trapped, injured, or left behind. Recently, more than 30 acres within one square mile of our homes have already been rezoned from suburban ranch to high density apartments and commercial development. Every household, rental apartment, and business depend on one road, Tanque Verde. We have one way in, one way out. Evacuating livestock, evacuating our families, would be a tragedy. I ask that this horse property remains the same. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Traver.

Our next speaker, please. Thank you.

Good evening. My name is Tom Adding. I am a Tucson homeowner, I am not a paid speaker, and I currently serve as the Bear Canyon Neighborhood Association president. I join my fellow BCNA homeowners in strongly opposing this proposed rezoning and planned construction work. My opposition results from my primary focus on public safety and my ongoing four-year evaluation of dangerous development efforts within BCNA that are within or very close proximity to washes. I will speak to two primary areas of concern. First, the complexity of the terrain within which the proposed development exists. And second, continued high-risk city engineering development decisions. So first, complexity of the terrain. There are high risks to public safety by any additional building in this proposed development area. Adjacent to or within both a critical basin to the north, that's the Ferringer Wash and watershed, and a special flood hazard zone to the south, Tanque Verde Creek. In 1988, the shops at Bear's Path were built within the Ferringer Watershed directly adjacent to the Ferringer Wash and have been consistently tied to its constant drainage and flooding challenges for 38 years. My colleagues have spoken and will speak to the challenges and pain they've dealt with since. Panger Wash acts as the neighborhood's main natural drainage corridor. It cuts right along the borders of the residential areas on East Bears Path Road and properties flanking the shopping complex. The shopping center's storefronts and parking spaces, engineered on raised graded parcels, directly discharge their stormwater toward the earthen creek bed wash basin. As the Ferringer Wash runs at maximum capacity during summer monsoons and winter rains, the immediate area remains highly prone to flooding. Drainage overflows routinely force the closure of Bears Path Road just south of Tango Verde Road, and flooding within the neighborhood from the north is already at a tipping point. Any development within the neighborhood will seriously enhance FLOODING OF OTHER HOMES TO ITS SOUTH, ESPECIALLY WITH AN EXISTING HIGH GRADE DOWNHILL SLOPE FROM THE WASH THROUGH THE DEVELOPMENT AREA TO THE WOODLAND RANCHERS BORDERING THE TANGOVERTIE CREEK. That creek poses additional flooding risks to the development area from the south. In fact, the Tanque Verde Creek Special Flood Hazard Area runs through the southwest portion of the proposed development area. In essence, homes to the south of the proposed development area will suffer additional strong flooding by being sandwiched between the flooding from the north and the south. These two charts that have been passed out show the Ferringer Wash just south of Tango Verde Creek, in which most of these homes are developed, which then fits right into the top of the Tango Verde Creek below. This entire area is in a flooding zone and is a huge problem. Now onto negative impacts of outdated hydrologic data. During my four-year effort to prevent unwise development in flood-prone BCNA areas, I have frequently addressed flood model weaknesses with city and county floodplain management personnel. I provided both offices with documents which illustrate the validity of my concern. such as one from the Flood Plane Management Association that states, quote, the most effective method to measure a flood model's performance is through calibration to past historic events. For this reason, all flood engineers should place significant emphasis on model calibration, end quote. And then I recently received a letter from the Pima County Flood Control District Office, which stated, quote, BCNA correctly states the FEMA special flood hazard area was delineated based on hydrologic data that has not been updated for several decades. Although this may appear non-intuitive, reliance on the best available data for establishing regulatory floodplains and associated hazards is a standard practice. I found that statement very concerning. Engineering decisions made by these standard practices seriously underestimate the risk of flooding, drainage, and erosion dangers. In fact, accurate floodplain modeling and mapping are impossible using these standard practices and without calibrating updated models. There have been substantial damages caused by flooding, adjacent floods to this area over the past 40 years. NOAA and PEMA recently forecasted a 15 to 20% increase in flooding events, which portends greater damages in the future. The last two weeks of the monsoon rains point in that direction. I close strongly encouraging this council to put public safety back as its top priority and deny this rezoning.

Thank you. Our next speaker, please. We could get it to a clerk, one of the clerk staff, and she'll make sure that we receive them. Thank you.

Go ahead, ma'am. Good evening, honorable mayor and council members. My name is Heidi Schuel. I'm a Tucson resident. I'm not a paid speaker and I'm representing Bear Canyon Neighborhood Association. I am a Tucson native and have lived in the Tanque Verde Valley for 52 years. I oppose this rezoning. Let me begin by asking a few questions. What do you think when you hear the words Yarnell Hill, Paradise, California, Bighorn Fire, and Camp Mystic? On June 30th, 2013, 19 firefighters were trapped and overrun by a fire and killed during the Yarnell Hill fire. In Paradise, hundreds of people were trapped in gridlocked traffic during evacuation from the campfire. Some perished while trapped inside or fallen beside their burned out vehicles. In 2020, Foothills homes here in our own backyard were evacuated during the Bighorn Fire and homes later flooded. During the summer of 2025 near Austin, Texas, 25 children and two camp counselors were trapped and swept away by floodwaters from Camp Mystic. There are some tragedies you just can't erase from memory. A valid concern for limiting population growth in the Tanque Verde Valley is the fact that we are landlocked, bounded on the north by the Santa Catalina Mountains and on the east by the Rincon Mountains. We have only two major arteries for ingress into and egress from the valley, each putting considerable constraints on access for emergency vehicles and escape for residents in the event of an evacuation due to wildfire, flooding, or other causes. These constraints are even heightened for those moving livestock and mobility-challenged individuals, both of which are prevalent in the Valley. I worked for the U.S. Forest Service for over 30 years, partially in wildfire and all incident emergency management. That service is relevant in this case and included frequent assignments on wildfire and other incidents where evacuations were necessary. For example, in 1993, I worked with Pima County Sheriff's Office, Army Corps of Engineers, and Coronado National Forest to evacuate residents who were trapped by flooding in the East Tanque Verde Valley. So we've already seen these kind of evacuations happen here. Also, we're getting hotter and wildfires are becoming more difficult to suppress. NOAA, National Oceanic Administration, Atmospheric and Administration, I'm sorry, reported 2024 was the hottest year on Earth on record, with 2025 the third warmest. They also predict 2026 will rank above the top five hottest years on record. And regarding wildfire season, This is now year-round. Fires are becoming more difficult to suppress with increasingly damaging results. These factors contribute to the fact that wind-driven wildfire coming west from the Rincons or south from the Catalinas is a distinct possibility in the Tanque Verde Valley. Flooding following wildfires common there and around the Tucson basin in the areas of wildfires and also a possibility along with weather driven flooding from nearby watercourses. Ingress, egress capacity is a major concern during emergency evacuations. for example from wildfire and flooding, our roads will already be over capacity in such cases. Avoiding human fatalities during wildfire is a key public policy objective. Outward road access or the number of egress routes is widely assumed to influence wildfire fatalities. In a recent study shared in the proceedings for the National Academy of Sciences, wildfire fatalities were highly concentrated in communities like ours with very few exits. Limited or poorly connected road networks restrict both firefighter access and civilian movement during wildfires, potentially increasing mortality and turning otherwise survivable fires into fatal events. With wildfires spreading faster, the climate gets hotter, evacuation is becoming even more critical. When high winds drive wildfires like we've seen recently in the Catalinas, firefighters have little chance of slowing or stopping the blazes until winter or weather helps with the efforts. We will see more frequent, hotter, destructive, and unstoppable wildfires putting our residents at risk. I ask again, what do you think about when you hear the words paradise, Camp Mystic, Yarnell Hill, or Bighorn? There are some tragedies you just can't erase from your memory. Do you want the word Tucson to become one of those memories? Please reject this proposal, which would add to a situation putting more people in harm's way. Also, personally, after living for over 50 years in the area, I love horses, open space, wild out trails, horses. Thank you, ma'am.

Thank you very much. Really appreciate it. Our next speaker please.

Good evening. I'm a Tucson resident. I'm not paid. My name is Steven Smith and my wife Anna and I live at 8900 East Paris Path Road where we've had a ringside seat to many of the serious flooding issues experienced by several of our neighbors. My topic is related to hydrology, but first I'd like to provide briefly some background. When we moved into our house over 33 years ago, it was to be our retirement home, and thus we began attending meetings of the Bear Canyon Neighborhood Association. And ever since, we've seen far too many instances where our neighborhood has expressed genuine and often very serious concerns to the city related to flooding issues, raw sewage backups, traffic safety, scenic corridors, violations, the list goes on. And over the decades, the responses from the city of Tucson to our concerns have commonly been a series of smooth, assuring statements that essentially said, don't worry, everything will be fine. But a major and distressing detail is many of those concerns expressed to the city often don't manifest themselves immediately, putting it to take 10, 15, 20 plus years until they've metastasized into major league problems that can seriously affect property values, livability, and possibly even people's lives. But by then, The city staff members who gave us all those assurances or even approved some very questionable actions within our neighborhood, they're long gone. They've retired. They're gone. And then we're stuck. So you'll have to pardon us if we're a bit skeptical about receiving any more assurances from the city or developers. Now, on to hydrology. We have several concerns about the rainwater retention basins as indicated on the overall plan developed by Ms. Larrabee's engineer. Primarily, how the basins will be inspected, maintained, and who will be responsible. When the issue who will pay for the maintenance of basins came up in an earlier hearing in this room before there was only an examiner, Ms. Larrabee's blithely stated, the HOA will pay for it. And to my amazement, the presiding examiner basically immediately moved on to the next topic as if to indicate, well, that takes care of that. But her statement on HOAs certainly caught my attention, and at the second hearing I raised a few points. Now, just for info, my wife and I were members of an HOA in California, and so we do know a bit about how they function, and that it's routine for an HOA to cover the expense of maintaining what are considered common areas. But in our present case, most of the proposed retention basins are fairly large, with several I would call huge, with the largest being, to the best of my knowledge, 90 feet long and 57 feet wide, with a total footprint of over 5,100 square feet. Now, just to provide a bit of comparison, that largest basin's footprint is easily double the square footage of most of the houses in the neighborhood. And while not a civil engineer, I think it's safe to assume that when it's time the accumulated silt and debris need to be removed, it's not going to be just a guy with a shovel and a wheelbarrow. It's likely to require hiring a contractor equipped with backhoes, skid steers, whatever, and that will not be cheap. And so when Ms. Larrabee says an HOA is supposedly going to pay for the contractors, I can't help but see major problems. Since the typical HOA distributes the maintenance fees among 20, 50, 100, however many households, the cost for each household can be viewed as reasonable for what they get. But in this case, the supposed HOA will likely consist of seven households, the six new subdivided lots, and only Ms. Larrabee, since the other households on the western portion of her property are renters. So can you imagine the size of the basic maintenance bill for each household when it's divided only seven ways? And does Ms. Larrabee or a developer really expect that prospective buyers of the rezoned eastern portion to not recoil when informed, oh, by the way, down the road they're going to be on the hook to pay for maintaining structures that offer them no practicable benefit? And if they still go on to purchase the property, I personally think they'll throw a major hissy fit when basin maintenance is eventually needed and they get the bill. And then I fully expect a long nightmare of citations, refusals, recriminations, perhaps even lawsuits that could take years to resolve. And during all that resulting turmoil, the simple fact is that many homes will remain in danger. Now as to making sure the maintenance is accomplished on time, I'll finish then. We asked the engineer here how the maintenance said, and he said, well, we'll do the best we can. Is that the best the city of Tucson can do, is say, we'll do the best we can instead of taking decisive action to make sure this maintenance will be committed? Or are we just gonna have more assurances? So Mayor, City Council, and I ask you with all sincerity, are you gonna let all this happen again to us? Thank you.

Thank you. Our next speaker, please.

Good evening. My name is Katrina Trevor. I'm unpaid and I live in the city of Tucson. My spouse and I have lived at 8755 East Bears Path Road for 16 years, and I support preserving this property's SR zoning and oppose further urbanization of this area. I'm going to make several key points here. First of all, changing this property from SR to RX1 may seem modest on paper. But it would significantly shift our neighborhood away from the suburban ranch character residents have relied on for decades. Since the 1984 annexation and the creation of the Bear Canyon Neighborhood Association, this property has been and has remained SR. It's alongside nearby SR properties in the BCNA and west along East Woodland Road. Many of us bought here because of the open space and the semi-rural character. And I've given out figures, but I'll show you one figure. This will be hard for you to see, but this is the Jacaranda property here. I live here. This is the rest of the SR property within the Bear Canyon Neighborhood Association. And it runs all the way west, all the way around the Woodland Loop. And I would say that from my house over to Woodland is only less than a mile and I walk it almost every day. So I wanted to emphasize that. The existing zoning, SR zoning, reflects an intentional choice for open space and natural character. We are not an isolated neighborhood. We exist along the Tanque Verde Scenic Corridor, bounded by the Woodland Loop and Tanque Verde Road North, and we have featured this great semi-rural character. We have desert vegetation, we have wonderful open spaces, horse and livestock amenities, access to trails. So a lot of people, hikers, walkers, including myself, birders, Families all enjoy this whole strip of property that is out here in that part of Tucson. This is a jewel. We don't want to lose it. And I think once we start getting rid of SR property, it's gone forever. And we have to think about that. This rezoning would also accelerate the loss of the character that I was mentioning and leads towards further urbanization. The current existence of RX1 in our neighborhood does not by itself compel this rezoning to RX1. It only sets a precedent for future destruction of SR1 property. and the detrimental hardscape, the flooding in our area, I invite you to come out here to see our area. It really is, the topography is such that everything goes downhill, including all the water. Our neighborhood is not an established urban area. We feel that we're being pushed in that direction. The zoning examiner suggests that we should be moderate, load intense, infill. Well, that's really a description that you use for urban areas. That's not what we are. I have another figure here that I want to show you of what's really happening. And it's almost frightening for a lot of us who live in this neighborhood. So here is Tanque Verde Road. Here's the Jacaranda property we're talking about. Up here is all the developments that are happening. As we mentioned, in the past few years, 30 acres of SR1 property has disappeared. This is the Mason Ranch apartments that are going in. This is the new Casitas on Catalina. These are some of the apartments that are already there. This is all the commercial property that's gone in. These intersections are turning into nightmares. In total, we're going to have 1,273 rental units. in very, very soon. So we've already talked about that, the roadways. We're already moving into an urban kind of situation, even based on definitions by the city. And we've talked about the rezoning threatens the equine and the livestock infrastructure. So in summary, we asked the city to preserve this property. in our neighborhood and surrounding area, especially this Tanque Verde Road and the Woodland Loop. Our area's natural open spaces, Sonoran Desert, mountain views, equine heritage, help define its character and that of Tucson and attracts residents and visitors from worldwide to come here, especially some of these characters that are in our neighborhood. So please protect these qualities by voting against this rezoning. Do not let one individual's desire result in irrevocably eroding a unique environment that benefits so many of us. Our neighborhood and Tanque Verde Valley as a whole truly deserve to be celebrated, protected, and preserved. Thank you.

Thank you, ma'am. That's our next speaker.

Mayor and Council, my name is Aaron Korff. I am not a paid speaker. I live at 8951 East Bears Path Road. I oppose this rezoning measure for several reasons. I represent the neighborhood at Bears Path Road. We are stakeholders because our house sits directly south of the Jacarenda property proposed for rezoning and will be directly impacted by the proposed rezoning. My wife and I bought our house in 2022. We were in our mid fifties and our first time homeowners. We were drawn back to Tucson by what the Tanque Verde Valley offers. Easy access to nature, cycling, hiking, and the wildlife that comes right to our backyard is one of the gems of the Tucson Valley. And we fell in love with it the first time we saw it. That is all being threatened by recent development, though. The Tanque Verde Valley is rapidly expanding, and we've seen how developments north of Tanque Verde Road, like Mason Ranch Apartments, the casitas on Catalina, and the proposed casitas at Mariposa have already altered the area. We don't yet know how these developments are going to impact all the areas downstream below them, like our neighborhood south of Tanque Verde. What you need to know about this area is very simple. The Jacaranda property is the highest point in the neighborhood south of Tanque Verde Road. We border the Jacaranda property directly to the south and sit three to four feet below it. Whatever water is on Jacaranda comes down onto us and the neighboring lots. The rezoning proposal by the owner's engineer includes seven retention basins to catch water runoff. These basins are gigantic and out of proportion for the lots being rezoned. Two of the basins would sit right on our property line and would be over 6,300 square feet, three times larger than our home. They would be placed less than 15 feet from 50-year-old mesquite trees, walls, and our garage. Looking up from our backyard where these basins will be placed is like virtually like looking up at the Hoover Dam from below. I am most concerned that the impact of hydrology and erosion from the proposed rezoning will further damage our house and property and our neighbors feel the same way. We have spent tens of thousands of dollars to repair erosion and water damage since inhabiting our house. We have had to raise our 50 year old foundation as it has shifted in the past four years. Since April, all neighbors surrounding the Jacarenda property have been united against this rezoning measure. 39 neighbors have signed a petition opposing the rezoning. We have worked in good faith with Ms. Larrabee, attempting twice to meet with her to discuss our concerns and develop CCNR's guidelines that would protect the area. All attempts were ignored by Ms. Larrabee. We presented these concerns and objections twice before the city of Tucson zoning examiner. It has been a long road to get here, but my neighbors and I feel more connected by a common cause, protecting the area which we love and is so unique to Tucson. Lastly, I conclude by saying that I am thankful and hopeful to hear of city council member Paul Cunningham's determination to protect the area. Mr. Cunningham took the time to come to our neighborhood in May to meet with our neighbors and hear our concerns. He looked up at the Jacarenda property from our backyard and immediately saw the threat that rezoning poses to the surrounding lots. I really appreciate Councilmember Cunningham coming out in person to see what is at stake and to hear us. It is heartening to hear that he shares our concerns. We are really grateful for his commitment to preserving the uniqueness of the Tanque Verde Valley and hope that you too will oppose this rezoning effort.

Thank you. Our next speaker please.

I'm Nancy Ferringer, I'm 90 years old. I only mention that because I just realized the other day that more than half of my 90 years has been spent next to the land in question. The land that we have and the house. borders the entire west property line of 8800 East Hockeronda Way. That's the proposed rezoning land. And so we know it very well. This area is unique, as you have heard from so many people. It's a rare mix of rural and residential and also flood prone. People mentioned the Ferringer Wash. It wasn't named that because they loved us. It was named that, I heard. We didn't even know it was going to be named that. We happened to walk down the end of our driveway and we saw a sign that said Ferringer Wash. We said, what? Well, it was because they used an expletive before it when they would deal with it. That's farangawash. But anyway, it's very, our whole area is very flood prone. We've had floods that have come down our bear's path with, well, if you've ever tried to lift sheep and get them into a horse trailer when they're sodden, when they're full of water, It's quite an unusual experience, and we've had even more than that. Water has gone through many of our houses, not ours, but it's getting closer and closer. This area... has a lot of birding hotspots. In fact, some people call it a birder's world destination. So it brings a lot of people from all over the United States just to see the birds that are in the Woodland Bears Path area. Once it's gone, as someone else just said, it's gone forever, so we are quite united in our opposition to the rezoning which would bring in streets and of course houses. We hope that this decision will be reconsidered. A long time ago, I guess it was somebody mentioned that we were brought into the city in the 80s. I thought it was around 1980, I guess it was 84. I actually attended that meeting with the city representative. He reassured us in the county that though they were bringing us into the city, along with parts of Woodland Road, the city would do its best to maintain the special rural character of our area. He said, he was quite a charming guy, I have to say, he said that the special rural character of our area would remain a scenic corridor with several churches along that road as focal points. On the south, that was on the north, on the south, our Bear Canyon woods could stay the same. with our horses, our ponies, even a 4-H flock of sheep, which we know very well from having experienced them at close hand. We loved living there, and part of the reason that we loved it was because it was so close to the Tanque Verde Wash, riding trails. It was paradise. And we trusted the city's spokesperson to make every effort to keep his word. And as you know, the city assurance was not necessarily kept. So as one of our neighbors just said, our next door neighbor said, Surrounding that same church that we had spoken about earlier, that lovely Lutheran church, are 500 houses going up, a car wash begun, Circle K plans a large gas station complex, and the promised scenic corridor is a dream of the past. The land in question already has seven buildings. Rezoning would add roads and intense development. I hope you'll consider denying the rezoning and keeping our area as it is right now as we love it very much. Thank you. Thank you, ma'am.

And any other speakers wishing to be heard on this item? Was it? Okay.

My name is Carolyn Larrabee. I am the owner of the property that is trying to get the zoning change. And good evening, honorable mayor and members of the council. I have lived at 8800 East Hawkeranda Way for nearly 20 years. I am not an outside developer trying to make money. And I have paid a high price for that land. because I bought it in 2007 when prices were very high. I am a neighbor. For two decades, I have poured my heart and my body's energy into restoring and improving the existing 1940s homes that are on my property. Updating kitchens, bathrooms, heating, cooling, stucco, painting, you name it, I have been doing it for 20 years because I love that area and those old homes. And because of many days that I worked from sunup to sundown, I was called the ever ready bunny. because I did it day after day, many times. It has always been my goal to preserve the peaceful, quiet, and rural character of our neighborhood. I have worked diligently in making sure that the people on my property respect that peace. My request is to match not change the neighborhood. Now, yes, there is SRs, but they're all around horse areas. My particular lot would not do for a queen horses because it's backed up to commercial property. You would constantly have problems with the horses. I am requesting a rezoning from SR to RX1 for my land so that I can build one home per acre as RX1 calls for on the six acres that are undeveloped currently. Now the other five acres are already developed. It's already been established that it's a residential, not for horses and animals right there. This is not a radical change. I'm not asking for 30 apartments or whatever. I'm just asking to be like the rest of the people around me. And they're all RX1s. While yes, RX1 technically allows for accessory dwelling units. But all we have to do is look around our neighborhood And for over several decades, only a very, very few have built a second home because they came to that area because they love the one acre lots, one home, and not an additional two little homes, especially in a neighborhood like that. That's not the reason they would buy in there. They chose the area because the nice homes are spread apart. Now I completely understand there has been many tragedies in the past for the area with flooding and sewer. But the city has stepped in, even though they don't say that, the city has stepped in and done things about it. They put a new larger sewer lines. They put in new manholes so that they could monitor those sewer lines. And so far, It has all worked out fine. Now, I completely understand and respect that there's also other issues, but most of them are all the past. They are not now. Things have changed. The city has done some work. on the washes. They have made additional requirements since all these problems occurred that the new developments have to have this, this and that so that there can be no runoff. I have added these basins because I wanted to make sure that there wouldn't be any runoff. Now, how much runoff are you going to get from six and one little tiny road to go to them, the different lots.

Please come to a conclusion. Your five minutes are over. Okay, thank you.

So adding six additional sites to a custom single home area is not a big change. And change can be uncomfortable because it's been so static for the last 40 years. And I have proven that I care about the neighborhood by all the stuff that I do for my property and for the rest of them. And all I ask is for support to bring this property into harmony with the zoning that's already around it immediately. Thank you for listening to me.

Thank you, ma'am. All righty. If there's no others wanting to be heard, all righty. Come on up, sir.

My name is Paul Delegati. I live at 8725 East Bears Path. I'm a neighbor and I'm in favor of Caroline's development simply because we were promised back in 84 that when we got into the city it'd be a house per acre. She started with a much larger project. She's whittled it down. She's made concessions. She's tried to help every neighbor's concern and i find her efforts to be commendable and i'm not opposed to this project but i do share some of their concerns with the flooding i think if the city hydrology people work closely with the developer. We can mitigate some of these problems and that Carolyn can enjoy her dream just as much as my neighbors and I enjoy our dream. Thank you very much.

Thank you, sir. Any others wishing to be heard on this item? If not, may I have a motion to close the public hearing?

So moved.

There's a motion. Second. There's a motion and a second. Any further discussion on closing the public hearing? Hearing none, all those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Any against? Motion carries. Council Member Cunningham.

A few things. First of all, this area is in a very sensitive situation. One thing I want to clarify on Mason Ranch. Mason Ranch, of the 22 acres that Mason Ranch was being built on, 18 of them were pre-zoned. So I just want to make that clarification. But that being said, Mason Ranch, the Circle Ks, that both had hard zonings, and the La Mariposa redevelopment, which is on the other side, is the south side of the wash, which has 27 conditions attached to it. There's a lot of things going on at once in this area. So adding to that brings up, Degree of uncertainty as far as drainage, as far as traffic load, as far as every study we have, we have all this uncertainty because we have all these other four projects that while they were pre-zoned, we don't know how that's going to affect all the numbers that we have. So I think that's a big piece to this. And I just think the timing, because of all those projects being involved, The other thing I'll talk about is sewage capacity. That is not a red herring. Despite the changes, we just went through that with Mason Ranch. And not only was it so difficult for them to replace the sewage, they had to go back four times to the Department of Transportation to shut that road down. And I don't want to go through that again. They just went through that piece. And so we can't, I do have questions about the sewage load because we just went through that with the Mason Ranch apartments and we, and that, the expansion of that sewage line took five months longer than it was supposed to. And it wrecked traffic in the area. And it wasn't fair to the residents of the Tucson residents adjacent to the Tanque Verde Valley and the Rancheros who live outside the city limits. after the discussion or during the discussions of the Mariposa project, my team started working on drafting an equine project for this area. What we're talking, the area that we're talking about between Castle Rock and Houghton Road has 33 active ranchitas that actually work, are working horse and agricultural properties that are residential. And it has three agricultural properties. commercial properties including trot the Tucson therapeutic the therapeutic ridership program Which is a really special program for Tucson. It makes Tucson unique People come from around the country to participate in trot programs and they have voiced their concerns with this project Not only that On top of those 35 properties that I'm talking about, 36 properties that I'm talking about, there's another 146 acres of open space. That's only that's north of the wash. It doesn't count the other 90 acres south of the wash. So there's 146 acres of open space north of the wash, including, partially including, I mean, it's not, fully open space because the Castle Rocks Lake, largest lake, is included in that. And so again, this property is connected to the Ferringer Wash. One thing about the Ferringer Wash, and I want to make that part of the record tonight, I don't know if it was ever officially named the Ferringer Wash because on Google Maps and Apple Maps, it doesn't come up as Farringer Wash. Nancy, you knew my grandmother, and I think it's fitting that we name it officially. So I'm going to start that process as soon as I can. Yeah, go ahead. Go ahead. That's fine. The next concern is that when we're talking about the We don't have a developer per se. We have a plan, site, to divide six properties. And as I told Ms. Larrabee when I met with her, what she's asking is actually pretty modest. It isn't the worst thing in the world per se in that she wants six Rx1 things. But because we don't have an actual mechanism for the HOA, we don't know who the developer is, and we're leaving the other six properties on her 12-acre lot as is, we're really not developing the property into 12 congruent HOA new properties. We're really taking half the property, which could be causing some of these problems, and leaving it the same, and then half the property may get developed, but we don't know by who. AGAIN, THAT LENDS TO THE UNCERTAINTY OF THE FLOODING THAT WE'RE HAVING. SO NOT ONLY IS OUR TIMING POOR, OUR UNCERTAINTY IS THERE. AND THIS BRINGS ME TO A SITUATION WHERE I DON'T THINK IT WOULD BE RESPONSIBLE FOR ME TO RECOMMEND TO THIS COUNCIL THAT WE PASS THIS. THERE ARE SOME CODE ENFORCEMENT ISSUES ON THIS PROPERTY THAT HAVE BEEN RESOLVED AND THE CASES ARE CLOSED, BUT THE STRUCTURES THAT CAUSE THAT ARE STILL THERE AND OUR NEIGHBORS STILL HAVE CONCERNS ABOUT THEM. SO WHEN I TAKE ALL THIS INFORMATION INTO THIS DISCUSSION, I HAVE NO CHOICE BUT TO MOVE THAT WE REJECT THE REZONING.

There is a motion on the floor. May I have a second? Second. There's a motion and a second. Any further discussion? Council Member Dahl.

Thank you. I want to support Paul in this. Not only the talks tonight, but I read a bunch of the emails. And they're very convincing about the concern about flooding. I've birded the area. I was executive director of Tucson Audubon Society, now Tucson Bird Alliance. And it is a special area. I think we need to be very careful. And once we rezone it, it's rezoned. If we don't rezone it, there's a possibility of a better plan would come back, something that the neighbors might be able to support. But at this point, from what I've heard, I'm with Paul. I'm not going to support the rezoning.

Thank you. Thank you, Council Member. Any others? I too have been receiving many written protests and input from the community. Although I feel for you in terms of your property and wanting to do something different and comparable, as you say, to the rest of the neighborhood, I'm very concerned about the big, big, big concerns brought to the table from the residents in the area. I value this area. I think Ms. Tabor talked about the love of the land, right? And the value that land, very specifically open spaces and what they add to the quality of life of Tucsonans is very important. And so, you know, the issues of flooding, the issues of sewer and capacity are big ones. And I think that those need to be resolved further in order for us to move forward with any additional development. So I too will be supporting this. Any others? All right, hearing none, then do we need a roll call? JUST, OKAY, WE'LL DO A ROLL CALL VOTE JUST TO BE SAFE. SO LET'S GO TO ROLL CALL.

COUNCILMEMBER CUNNINGHAM?

THIS IS THE MOVE TO DENY, RIGHT?

THIS IS THE MOVE TO DENY.

AYE.

COUNCILMEMBER DALL?

AYE.

COUNCILMEMBER BRAJAS? AYE. COUNCILMEMBER SCHUBERT? AYE. COUNCILMAN LEE?

AYE.

MAYOR MIRROW?

AYE. ITEM PASSES. MOVE TO DENY WITH A VOTE OF 6-0. THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR COMING. REALLY APPRECIATE IT. All righty, we move on to item nine.

Rezoning city manager support ordinance adoption TPENT042600007, the well properties Prince Road 03 to C1.

City Manager's Communication Number 206, dated July 21st, is received into and made part of the record. This is a request for ordinance adoption to rezone the subject parcel of 0.51 acres from Office 03 Zone to Commercial C1 Zone in order to allow personal service land uses such as barber, beauty shop, nail salon, massage therapist, etc. within an existing approximately 3,000 square foot building. The subject site is located at approximately 850 feet west of North Campbell Avenue on the north side of Prince Road. The city manager and zoning examiner recommend approval of the rezoning request. Is the applicant or representative of the applicant present?

Good evening, Madam Mayor, members of the council. My name is Brian Underwood. I'm with the Planning Center to East Congress here in downtown.

Are you agreeable to the proposed requirements?

Yes, Madam Mayor, we are.

Thank you so much. Really appreciate it. Madam Clerk, you are requested to read Ordinance 12264 by number and title only.

Ordinance number 12264, related zoning, amending zoning district boundaries in the area located approximately 150 feet west of Campbell Avenue and Prince Road intersection on the north side of Prince Road in case TPENT042600007, the well properties 03 to C1, and setting an effective date. What is the council's pleasure?

Madam Mayor, I move to pass and adopt ordinance number 12264.

SECOND. THERE'S A MOTION AND A SECOND. ANY FURTHER DISCUSSION ON THIS? HEARING NONE, LET'S GO TO ROLL CALL.

COUNCILMEMBER DALL.

AYE.

COUNCILMEMBER BARRAJAS. AYE. COUNCILMEMBER LEE. AYE. COUNCILMEMBER CUNNINGHAM.

AYE.

COUNCILMEMBER SCHWART. AYE.

SORRY.

MAYOR ROMERO. AYE. ORDINANCE 12264 PASSES BY A VOTE OF 6-0. ITEM 10. Adjournment. Council will stand adjourned. The next regularly scheduled meeting will be on Wednesday, August 5th, 2026 at or after 5.30 p.m. Thank you all. Have a wonderful rest of your day.