Board of County Commissioners - Regular Meeting

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so sometimes she drops off during the calls so we'll let you

I'm going to call this meeting to order at 10 a.m. on September 15th. And we're going to call the Washoe County Board of Commission's meeting to order. So welcome. I'll go ahead, if I could, and ask for a roll call, please.

Would you like the salute first? No.

Yeah, I can do the salute to the flag if you want. We were just doing something, but I was going to do the roll call, but I'll go ahead and follow the protocol. Mr. Bennett, would you ask your class to please do the Pledge of Allegiance for us today? All right, here we go.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America,

Well, thank you. Did you feel like you were in school?

All right, we'll go ahead and call roll call please. Terry Andreola president vice chair Garcia here. Commissioner Hill. Commissioner Clark is absent. Commissioner Herman here here by phone. County manager Kate Thomas and our da today is Lindsay Liddell. Madam, you have a quorum.

Thank you. We'll move now to item three. Invocation manager Thomas.

Thank you, Madam Chair. This morning we are joined by Cesar Monera, who is from Word of Life Ministries, to lead us through the invocation.

Good morning, dear commissioners. I'm happy to see some familiar faces, and thank you for the opportunity to give me to be here and to pray, and thank you, everyone, for being here. I would like to read a passage of Scripture taken from the book of Timothy, chapter 2, And verse 2 that says, pray this way for kings and all who are in authority. And that is the instruction that we're given. And then it says, so that we can live peacefully and in quiet lives marked by godliness. So I think it's cause and effect. And when we pray and when we include God in everything that we do, I am sure we all understand that things are going to go well. So if you can join me in prayer, I would greatly appreciate it. Heavenly Father, in the precious name of Jesus, again, I say I thank you for the opportunity to be able to come and pray and declare your blessings, Lord, in all the commissioners, their particular lives, their families, their children. their health, everything that is related to them. And just like the scripture that I read, it says that we should pray for those who are in authority so that we could live better lives as you lead them and guide them. And they bring peace and good things to our region. And I pray for this region as a whole. that as you are included in our thoughts and our living, so that, God, this will be a good place to live for our families, for our children, for everyone that is going to be a part of this community. We pray all of this in the precious name of Jesus. Amen. Have a great day.

Thank you. We are going to move item 7A1, which is a proclamation just due to the conflict for the sheriff's office. And so, County Manager, if you would be so kind.

Absolutely, thank you. 7A1 is a proclamation for the week of September 20th to 26th, 2026 as National Forensic Science Week. And we are joined by Vice Chair Garcia as well as members of the Washoe County Sheriff's Office in recognition of this proclamation.

Good morning Madam Chair and Commissioners. I'm happy to stand here with some amazing people. You guys can come on down. There's plenty of room. This is a proclamation, so there's lots of whereases, but I'm just gonna skip through this really quickly and just recognize what an important moment this is. So forensic science service providers play a critical role in criminal investigations by delivering objective science-based information that supports justice and public safety throughout Washoe County. And whereas these professionals serve as an essential component of the criminal justice system, providing accurate and timely scientific analysis to law enforcement agencies, attorneys, the courts, and whereas the Washoe County Sheriff's Office Forensic Science Division is composed of 50 dedicated scientists, support staff, and volunteers who specialize in a wide range of disciplines including DNA analysis, breath alcohol testing, controlled substances, crime scene response, firearms examination, latent print processing, which I don't know what that is, and comparison and toxicology in serving 13 of Nevada's 17 counties. And whereas the week of September 20th through 26th, 2026, marks the 14th annual National Forensic Science Week, a nationwide observance that highlights the invaluable contributions of forensic scientists in the laboratories in which they work. And whereas this week offers an opportunity to raise awareness about the critical work of our forensic science providers, recognize their achievements, and advocate for the continued resources and support to strengthen forensic sciences, or services, excuse me, across our communities. And whereas the Washoe County Board of County Commissioners encourages all residents to learn more about forensic science and its vital role in enhancing safety, fairness, and effectiveness of our judicial system. So now, therefore, today, we hereby proclaim the week as National Forensic Science Week. So congratulations.

Thank you very much. Um, my name is Steve Johnson for the record. I am our forensic science division director and with me I have some of our staff. Um, I just want to, I know I emphasized this last year during forensic science week and I can't, stress this enough, the team we have in our laboratory is made up of incredible individuals. The work they have to do, whether on scene or reviewing cases on a normal daily basis, it's difficult work, but they are incredible people, hardworking, humble. Most of these individuals, you wouldn't recognize if you met them in the grocery store. And so I just, I want to take, I'm grateful as a leader to be able to work with such incredible people. And to emphasize, it's not just this county that they serve. They serve northern and central Nevada and even parts of California. So from my end, I thank you for recognizing my team and my staff. And with me, I have Tori, who is a member of our crime scene and DNA team. I have three members of our DNA section, so Savannah, Jen, and Gabe. One of our supervisors, Anastasia, who's in charge of our comparison group, so firearms, latent prints is fingerprints. And then I have Robert, who's part of our firearms team. So thank you very much.

Thanks. Well, we are going to take a picture after we vote. So is that in the form of a motion? Yes, Madam chair. Okay. We have a motion, a second, any discussion hearing none, all those in favor signify by saying aye. Any opposed motion carries unanimously. So we'll take a picture for just a moment. That's the rule.

We're going to take two. One, two, three. One, two, three. All done. Congratulations. I know. Okay.

Just to make sure I was responding. Thank you, Manager Thomas, for your efficiency. Do we have any public comment? There was none. Thank you. That worked out. Right, Lindsay? That worked out. Lindsay would have been on it. Appreciate it. I was so enamored with the latent part that I lost track. All right, we are now going to call for public comment.

Manager Thomas, please. Yes, we are. Thank you. We are on to item number four, which is public comment. Comment heard under this item will be limited to three minutes per person. It may pertain to matters both on and off the commission agenda. A news time may not be allocated to other speakers. The Commission will also hear public comment during individual action items with comment limited to three minutes per person. Comments are to be made to the Commission as a whole, and virtual public comment may be taken when facilities are available.

First up, we have Terry Brooks, followed by Tammy Holtstill.

Good morning. It's me, Terry Brooks, again. And today I'm sharing my presentation on culture and employment when it comes to discrimination. When discriminators prevent those of other cultures from being employed, then they criticize people of other cultures for being less employed. Some employers don't hire people who refuse to work on Fridays or refuse to work on Saturdays or refuse to work on Sundays. But if they want their business to be open all seven days of the week, then if they hire some of all three cultures, then they can be open all days of the week. Some employers discriminate against people because of their cultural language. But if they hire them, they can communicate in more of their customers' language. When you have several diverse workers who know several ways to communicate, then you have fewer problems with customers who communicate. With multiculturalism, you have more collaboration, which will then lead to more appreciation. With multiculturalism, you have more interaction, which will then lead to more innovation. With multiculturalism, you're more interactive, which will then lead to being more productive. With multiculturalism, you have more diversity, which will then lead to having more creativity. When you have workers of many cultures instead of just one, it's a lot easier to get a lot more done. If your toolbox has a lot of tools that are mixed, it's a lot easier to get things fixed. If you have a lot of workers with different points of view, then there won't be anything that they cannot do. I would like to thank you all for listening to me today, and I look forward to coming back when I've got a lot more to say. Thank you.

Tammy Holt Still, followed by Barbara Smith. Can we have the overhead, please?

Tammy holds still for the record. I am here regarding the Hawk fire. I'd like to start off first with the fact that it's disappointing that the county manager was not at the cab meeting last night after the horrendous fires we had to endure in the North valleys. As you can see, it says Povil on that map. Povil is a very derogatory word. If you watched outer banks, and we don't appreciate it. It was originally called the Carr Fire. That is your model that showed you exactly how the Hawk Fire was going to burn. At five to 10 minutes after that fire started, this was posted. Do you see any emergency fire crews up there trying to handle the fire yet? At 12.30, this is from Walmart and you can see it's coming over the hill. At 7.50, I contacted the county manager to find out where the emergency services were and why the state of emergency hadn't been called and why we didn't have planes putting slurry down on the north valleys. This is unacceptable. You knew this fire was out of control because of the fact that your Truckee Meadows fire states right there that he was hoping for a calmer weekend. So you were sat back on your heels. You weren't ready to attack. It's even noted in this that it was a high wind warning weekend. It should have been on alert. They should have been ready. There is no reason that 47 homes were lost in the hawk fire, except for the fact that we were not protected. Not one Somerset home was lost. But the North Valleys, because they're older homes, you want that higher tax rate. because of the way that your code is written, you made it a point to put in wildfire so that when those people rebuild, they are taxed at the higher rate of the new homes. And that is not fair. You are double dipping on these people. They have lost their whole lives and you're turning around and you're gonna re-tax them. Also, those that are on RTC and don't represent us, You keep approving things and development with only one way in, one way out. As a representative that has been out here since 2017, I have been called chicken little, stupid, don't know what I'm talking about. And everything that I have talked about since 2017 came true. And your staff has lied about me to legislators and everybody else.

Thank you. Barbara Smith followed by Kunis Tasmim.

Good morning. My name is Barbara Smith. I'd like to thank the board for all the work that you do. It's appreciated in the community. I'm here to talk about the ICE detainees again. Um, and I have the same ask. I saw the sheriff's report that was put out for today, and I didn't see anything on it about the ICE detainees being held in the Washoe County Jail. And I would like to ask that they report out the numbers that are going through the jail, either being held there or held and then sent to other locations. I've been watching the ICE flights still, and... You know, they're shackled at their hands, their waist, and their feet before they're flown out of here. It would be nice to know how many detainees are being held. They're our neighbors. I don't think what's happening is right. Most of them aren't criminals, and I just think it's wrong. So can we please ask the sheriff to at least report out the... the number, I understand they can't report out the names for privacy concerns. And that's my ask. And you'll be seeing me again. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good morning, Commissioners. My name is Kanese Tasman. I'm a student of Washoe County and a concerned citizen. I'm here today to speak about automated license plate readers, also known as ALPR cameras. I will refer to them as flock cameras during this comment as it will make it easier for everyone. To begin with, flock cameras have been implemented in Reno and Sparks since the end of October of 2025. Many people were not informed of the use of flock cameras in our cities. I personally did not know of the implementation until around August of this year when I saw a post about a flock camera that got knocked down. Second, I want to talk about how flock cameras have been used in Reno and Sparks as well as around the country. In June of this year, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, also known as EFF, found that the Sparks Police Department receives immigration violation lists from ICE, or Immigration and Customs Enforcement, also known as ICE. This is actually prohibited per the Sparks Police Department Fox Safety Transparency Portal. Moving from that, I would also like to point out what has happened so far in the country with the use of vlog cameras. 226 incidents have been found by the Institution for Justice. There are four categories that incidents are grouped into from errors, non-law enforcement use, stalking, and other misuse. 61 of those are... are incidents of stalking and 106 of them are for non-law enforcement use. That is a total of 167 incidents of dangerous use of block cameras. Not to forget that those are also illegal uses. In my personal opinion, I think this should be a call for change. We can't forget that 91% of ALPR cameras in Reno and Sparks are flock safety cameras. Sparks recently approved a five-year, $1 million contract with Axon to use their ALPRs. Axon may have less causes of misuse, but that does not mean that it won't go up as more and more states decide to pursue Axon. Many residents and myself suggest that flock cameras should not be used in Reno and Sparks or even anywhere in the United States until there is a safer and more beneficial version of this technology. But if Reno and Sparks continue to use ALPR cameras, residents should be notified of the use of ALPRs. Thank you for your time, and remember, we as a community should flock out and ice up.

Drugs in school, what's happening? Good morning, my name is Deidre Nolan, and I would like to raise awareness on teenage drug use. Out of the 50 states in the U.S., Nevada ranks as 42, tying with Connecticut and Montana for teenage drug use. This is not a good number to be at, but how are so many teens in Nevada getting a hold of these substances? Teenagers are able to get illegal drugs such as fentanyl, oxycodone, LSD, and more either through black markets or handouts at school, and anywhere close to them. Not only can these kids overdose on said illegal substances, they can also get addicted. Since we have brought up illegal drugs, we should also bring up vapes. Vapes are as deadly as drugs. Vapes are highly addictive not only to adults but also kids. New vapes on the market not only have colorful packaging but also interesting flavors. Some vapes are even shaped as cool supplies to fool teachers and parents. Just like drugs, many students get pressured into using vapes. In 2020, drugs were sold as painkillers but were deadly. These mean people are smuggling illegal drugs and selling these to their friends or strangers as safe drugs. This is giving the idea of counterfeit pills when students do this. Many students do not think to question what it is. We should also be asking, why are teenage students using drugs? The education system in Nevada is one of the lowest out of all states in the US. Nevada is ranked about 48th place in education in the entire US. Nevada spends about $3,663 on each student, while Massachusetts spends about $36,000 per student. While in school in Nevada, many students may feel the need not to go to school or not to do schoolwork. This could often lead to doing things they shouldn't be doing, such as drugs. As you can see, education in Nevada has to be fixed. School isn't the only reason. Social media... peer pressure and drug dens are also a very big part of why people do and get addicted to drugs. Messaging apps are allowing teens to contact strangers asking them to buy them drugs. So telling students not to do drugs won't help the situation. As I stated before, education in Nevada is not good. If we made a bigger budget and focused more on student academics, there would definitely be a few changes. I believe that Nevada and other states should create a database to identify if people are at the legal age to buy substances such as marijuana and vapes. If you were to create this database, people would have to be over the age of 21 to buy any sort of legal drugs or vapes. If we also make campaigns and teach schools about the dangers of doing drugs, it could benefit lots of kids who believe that drugs are good and or do them. In this day and age, many teens do not like to hear what adults have to say, not to mention that they may not care what the adults say. But if we are to show the effects of illegal drugs and legal drugs, we can make a change. Thank you for your time. Let's end teenage deaths from drug abuse.

Thank you.

Kathy Meade, followed by Sandy Tibbet.

Good morning. My name is Kathy Meade, and I live at 2155 Warrior Lane in Washoe County. The City of Reno Project Meridian 120 South is about to cause major flooding problems for me, and for Washoe County. I have spoken with Kerry Chisholm from Wood-Rogers, their engineer. He explained that there will be a 42-inch pipe collecting their flood water off the subdivision and moving it into a detention pond behind my house. There will be two 36-inch pipes discharging that water into a small irrigation ditch in my backyard. This water will go under Washoe County roads and over Washoe County roads. The pipe releasing this water from my yard is 18 inches big. I repeat, two 36-inch pipes are coming out of this detention pond. The pipe that will remove this water is one 18-inch pipe. My yard and house will flood. The county road, which this pipe goes under the county road, the county road will flood. When it does, my first call will be to the county, not the city of Reno, because the county is responsible for it. At least take a look at this problem in the making. When I spoke with Wood Roger's engineer, he suggested I dig trenches around my house and berms. This is for a subdivision in the city of Reno. All at my expense, because once the water is off of their property, it becomes my problem and the problem of Washoe County. I welcome any of you to come out to the site, take a look, and see so you can more fully understand what's going on. I understand this is a City of Reno project, but it will impact you guys and me. And I thank you for all the work you guys do. I appreciate you being here, and have a good day. Thank you.

Sandy Tibbett, followed by Penny Brock.

Ms. Tibbet, may I? Oh, okay. Thank you. I wanted to make sure she was connected with staff, but she is. Thank you. Sorry.

You can't see me. All right. Good morning, Commissioners. Sandy Tibbet, for the record. I am here to speak about the Hawk Fire as well. Specifically about Haiti, Medina, Valiente, and her family that was burned out. of this fire. She was the one that was found in the ditch. She was the one that waited overnight, scared to death, waiting for somebody to rescue her. That's my neighborhood. That's my ditch and my neighborhood where she was at. The man, the fiance that's mentioned in this article, his name is Francisco. Francisco came running out of the smoke and my husband picked him up, saved his life. I walk every day where these people lived. They lived on your parcel. They were evicted from 082092071617 and they moved closer to my neighborhood. And they were on 08209213. Their RVs and cars are destroyed. You have something to clean up. You and the city of Reno. Start of the fire. From my front yard. You see the direction of the smoke? It never changes. Where is our air support? I blame the death on Chief Edwards, on Sheriff Balaam, on Washoe County. This could have been mitigated. My neighborhood could have been saved. Look at that fire. Look at the smoke. It doesn't change direction. Never does it change direction. You guys had six hours to put this fire out. We had one airdrop, one airdrop, too late, one airdrop. That's what you have to clean up now. That's my neighborhood. My neighborhood is Horizon Hills. My neighborhood is not Seneca. There was a sign that would welcome you into our neighborhood. It's no longer there. It was a humble and modest sign. It was taken out when they built the warehouse on the corner of Virginia and Seneca. I want it back. It welcomes them in. It's not as fancy as Somerset, but it's mine. It's our neighborhood. Where was the air support? I blame her death on you. And every time I walk my dogs now, I think about the ditch. What ditch was she in? I got to meet Francisco again, and I got to give him a hug. They crossed my path. They're homeless. They were homeless. Now they are homeless. They have no houses.

You need to clean this up and I want my son and I want... Penny Brock, followed by Eileen Eklund.

Penny Brock for the record, Washoe Election Integrity Team. Well, we're getting ready to go into our general election. It's not gonna be another pretty sight for voters again. Just take a look at the polling places. This one is for Early voting, when you look at it, why does district three have more early voting locations than any other commission district? I'm in commission district two. 90,000 people, residents, voters, South Reno and Washoe Valley, and we get two early voting locations. Why? I know that the election manager used heat maps. What does that tell us? I looked at that heat map when he presented it. It didn't say the number of voters per heat map locations. No, we go by commission districts. Commission districts. Our nation was founded on precinct voting, as a matter of fact. That's the fairest way to do it. But now we've got vote centers. Large numbers come together to vote. Then we go into the general election, the same story. Our district, I didn't go through the whole list, but I'm particularly interested in commission district two. I think we get three. And there again, Commission District 3 gets the most voting locations of anywhere in the whole county. Those of you on the commission that do not represent Commission 3, you should be concerned. Your voters are not going to have fair votes. place, it's not fair. It discriminates against voters in other districts. This is not fair, and it discriminates. It's wrong. Then if you go to the ROV site, he put the Reed and Reno High School on the voting locations, and yet they're drop box locations. This is the most accurate list. Why is what is on the ROV site not accurate? This needs to be addressed. Also, we're going to have super centers for the first time for the general election. Super centers, those come out of California. Our ROV Andrew McDonald is from California. He's bringing more and more things from California into Washoe elections. We know from press releases there's a huge issue with California elections, a lot of voter fraud, et cetera, et cetera.

Eileen Eklund followed by Deanna Radcliffe.

Good morning, commissioners. Eileen Eklund for the record. And thank you for the opportunity to speak. I'm here today to also comment on the situation of the ICE detainees who are being held in our county jail. Over 60% of these detainees have no criminal record, and many were jailed for minor offenses such as traffic violations or had their charges dismissed before they were put on ice holds. These people are our neighbors. Most have families and jobs and pay taxes. Their children go to our schools. Many are here legally navigating their way through an immigration system that's badly broken. Their only crime is that they wanted a better life for their kids. Yet now they're in our jail, their lives torn apart, waiting to be deported. Some to countries that they've never even been to and where they don't know the language. For minor violations that the rest of us would never end up doing time for. These folks are invisible to us, to our community. We have no idea how many are being held or what their condition is. We don't know how many are being put on those planes that fly out of our airport every Friday. Worst of all, their families and legal representatives can't find them because ICE detainees don't appear in the booking report or the inmate search system. We are literally disappearing people, and that's not right. I understand that federal law doesn't allow the Washoe County Sheriff's Office to release the personal information or immigration status of federal detainees being held in our county jail. However, nothing in federal law prohibits them from releasing non-identifying data about ICE detainees. I'm here today to respectfully request the commissioners to require the Sheriff's Office to provide a monthly public report showing aggregate non-identifying data on ICE detainees and ICE activity in our jail, including detainee counts, ICE holds, transfers, and releases. Providing this data would not violate federal confidentiality laws and is the minimum information that should be made available to the public so that we can better understand how our jail is being used and determine what the legal and fiscal ramifications might be. We cannot and should not continue to allow this situation to be hidden from public view. As a society, we are better than that. Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Good morning, members of the Washoe County Commission. Thank you for your service and for hearing our public comment. My name is Deanne Radcliffe, and I ask that my comments and my PowerPoint be lodged on the public record. I'm back again to talk about the Meridian 120 project with a bigger AV device, so hopefully this will go better today. So I'm a Washoe County resident and reaching out. Couple things you'll notice so county properties are over here in the blue They are the steamboat ditch is over here, and this is again where an artificial spillway is being created It's transitioning to a detention basin there is a 30 inch pipe that necks up to a 42 inch pipe to that one acre detention basin. That can hold 1.43 acre feet of water. That has two 36 inch pipes that are the outlets. So that's the setup here. Kathy, my neighbor, it really is going to discharge to a ditch that of course was never designed for that because they are taking flows off of the property that they're developing and they're making it all go to the county. So, that's sort of it in a nutshell, but again, here we are to, and that drains through this small drain into 18 inch pipes that go underneath the county road again. So, my first ask is please make the developers do this the right way. Please remember, you're not the only lovely, getting this presentation. So I've been to the city twice already on this. This is from the Truckee Meadows Regional Drainage Manual, which I think everyone has to follow, but really they are taking flows from their project site. They are bypassing it, and it's all coming to the county drainage system. No thank you, and that's really not the right thing to do as human beings. Here's more reasonable use rule about drainage. When I was here last time, and this is not the stuff that's going to that one acre detention basin, by the way, that's over on the side of the property, the 53 acre property, that's a major drainage way. You can see the water is not levitating that five foot and trucking down to the county and bypassing that city of Reno. That's no. Again, we want the water flows on that property because that's the design. Completely bypassing the 53 acres and putting everything on the county is not the right thing to do in any stretch of the imagination. Again, more detention basin rules have all that. And most importantly, thank you for hearing resident concerns and really for acting. Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Sarah Downey, followed by Deanna Newcomb.

Good morning, and I don't know why every time I come up here, my heart starts pounding for like three seconds. I bet everybody's like that. For the record, my name's Farrah Downey. I just wanted to come up and change the mode a second of what people's concerns are. I just know that you guys are accepting applications for the Washoe County Home Consortium Board. And I've put my name out there to see if I am trustworthy and if you guys believe that I might be a good fit for it. I do believe that I can allocate those federal funding because I have been on both sides the housing situation, helping people find housing through great crises, and also now being on the real estate side providing housing. So I kind of have both aspects of what it comes to being low-income. I was homeless myself, I've helped people out of homelessness, and so I just wanted to come say, hey I'm here, you guys haven't seen me for a couple of years because I've started to do my philanthropy kind of behind the scenes, but we're still out there, we're still helping people, helping the community, and Yeah, and I just wanted to change it up a little bit, bring a little positivity and say, you know, I know you guys have a hard decision with who you're going to pick as your citizen seat. And I'm sure everybody's going to be, like I said, well-intentioned and going to do a good job. But hopefully you guys believe that I can help. you know be that representative for washoe county um and then secondly i want to say everybody that's made comments and stuff it's very passionate being on this side listening to everybody's situations back and forth and i understand everybody's side but it matters to me that you guys do here that you guys i believe are doing a really good job too so not to sit here and stroke anybody's ego i know that i need that's another situation for the board seat but You know, I think you guys have done phenomenal jobs through great crises because people don't see what you do on the back end, and I happen to. So I just want to throw a little positivity. I want to say I appreciate everybody else who's been here because I see it from both sides. And, you know, hopefully you guys will choose me for that seat. And if not, then I know that you guys are going to pick someone great. So thank you. Have a good day.

Thank you. Deanna Newcomb.

Good morning, Commissioners. For the record, my name is Deanna Newcomb, and I'm here just to put a few words in for item 18 that's on the agenda. Unfortunately, I'm probably not going to be able to stay until the item comes up, so I just wanted to say that I support the code amendments for the equine businesses. I think we've done a Great job. I want to thank Cat Oakley, Kelly Mullin, and all of the county staff for all the work. This has been years in the working, and so I just wanted to say I really think that we've addressed most of the concerns. There's still a few things, you know, that are on state level that we need to go forward with, but overall I think that we should continue have your vote to support and approve the business code amendments. Thank you very much. Thank you. There's nobody else signed in.

Thank you. All right, we'll move now. We'll close item four and move to item five, commissioner and county manager updates. Manager Thomas.

Thank you. These are your updates and announcements. They include board and commission updates, requests for information or topic for future agendas. Thank you.

Commissioner Herman, do you have anything?

No, not at this time.

Vice chair Garcia, commissioner Hill. I do. Yeah, Chair Andrew, I have a couple things. One, I wanted to share, and maybe not everybody is aware, but hopefully in a minute you will, that Washoe County actually has been in a partnership with the Nevada Department of Veteran Services. And it's my understanding that Washoe County is the first county to have actually hosted in this partnership where you have veteran service officers that literally are helping veterans those veterans to identify what benefits they may be eligible for. It's pretty remarkable the numbers that we've seen since January of this year, 2026, but I want to just remind everybody that the VSOs will be at the Reno Senior Center the first and third Monday of the month, and then they'll be at the Reno Cares Campus the second and fourth Monday of the month. So I just wanted to make sure everybody knew that that was available for any veterans that are here or any veterans that you know you might want to help spread the word. It's a great opportunity. to look at helping those veterans who've earned many benefits that they may not even be aware that they are eligible for. And then I want to move to a request We all know that the occurrence at Hidden Valley has had an impact. We've certainly been through a lot with the fires and what have you, but this topic that I'm gonna talk about is specifically related to the flash floods. And so Washoe County, you may be aware, hosted a meeting on August 19th to share the outcome of the emergency response to the June 19th flash flood. that impacted part of the northern part of Hidden Valley. The meeting was well attended. It was very well attended, and I want to again thank staff and everybody for participating. The meeting affirmed the support, for the community by Washoe County and also gave the community space to ask questions of staff and representatives from emergency management and also the National Weather Service. So what came out of it was really a central question, which is like, well, what's now? What do we do? So while we greatly appreciate all that Washoe County staff has been doing, I think that there's an opportunity to have a continued discussion with this board and continued engagement with the residents to look at bringing back options, having Washoe County staff bring back options for the board to consider regarding the flash flooding not just for Hidden Valley, but also for Washoe County as a whole, and Sun Valley is certainly a part of that. So we all, all of us have to recognize that we do live in this arid West and the extreme weather events are increasing. And so I would appreciate having that brought back for discussion and looking at identifying funding because that is a part of what is going to have to come is how are we going to pay for some of the mitigation and the research and some of the things that need to be done. I've had, um, many discussions with Dwayne Smith, the engineer here, and staff as well, and I think that there are some opportunities to look at both what the short-term, but more importantly, what is the long-term plan for our county, and so I would appreciate it, Manager Thomas, if that's an item that you could bring back when the time is right. I also want to share with everyone that especially Hidden Valley residents, that we're looking at having another community meeting. We want to have a meeting that is informative and can give particular information. So I have been in conversations with many of the residents, and those conversations are always welcome. I wish things could happen a lot faster than they seem to appear, but I do think there's a lot that's been done that That the residents aren't aware of and so I think giving updates is really important every Month I write an article that goes in the Hidden Valley Alliance newsletter For the residents there and this month Dwayne Smith was kind enough to include a lot of what I'm talking about so we will be having a community meeting upcoming to be scheduled. But in the meantime, I think this board should be looking at flash flooding again, not just from Hidden Valley. Sun Valley is impacted along with Washoe County as a whole. So thank you so much for the time. I appreciate it. That was a long message, but because no one else said anything, I went ahead and took that opportunity. So let me say, does anyone else have anything else? All right. We'll go ahead and close Item 5 and we'll move to Item 6. Manager Thomas.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Item six is a presentation and update on the fiscal year 26 fourth quarter status report for the Washoe County Regional Detention Facility. This includes security of the jail, conditions of confinement, staffing, and medical care of inmates housed at the Washoe County Sheriff's Office. We are joined this morning by, who do we have here? Captain Stewart is here. Hi.

Yes, ma'am. Good morning, Commissioners and County Manager. Here to present the fourth quarter stats on the jail, on Washoe County Jail. First thing I usually give you guys is the medical refusals. Our medical team, NAFCARE, obviously we house, our current housing right now is 1,260 inmates. So it's a lot of inmates that they service every single day. For that quarter, we had 64 refusals. What that means is when somebody comes in to the facility and has an ailment that might be beyond the medical needs or the medical ability of NAV care, they'll actually be referred back out to a hospital. That's limiting our liability on the county before they come in and make sure that they have a good bill of health when they come in that we can handle. Grievance at 94, 26 complaints, and ER referrals 113, meaning we actually sent them out. This goes through April, May, and June of different screenings that NAFCARE does. All of them are pretty well within the range of what we normally see. Nothing jumps out that I would say that we need to address at this moment. Different medications, daily average, 828, 827, 833 for the respective months on medications that they're giving out on a daily basis. Mental health medications, a daily average. Obviously that's a very high, 522 out of 1,200 inmates, 1,260 inmates. I think we all understand that we do have a mental health need in the community, not only in the community but within the walls of confinement as well. Our MAP program numbers, those still seem to be doing great, which is our medically assisted treatment. So when we have people that come in with substance abuse issues or addictions, that's one of the programs that we utilize to try and help them off of that and get them back in the community where they can continue their treatment out in the community. ADP, average daily population, For the fourth quarter, went up to about 1,212 for our average daily population. In the next quarterly update, you're going to see that even go higher. Like I said, today we're sitting at 1,260 inmates, which is a lot of inmates, and I'll show you in a moment our bookings versus our releases. Total bookings, 4,049. Total releases for the quarter were 3,926. So obviously if we're bringing in more people or releasing not as many people, our count is going to go up. We tend to see that over as the fourth quarter went into the summer. We tend to see that go up as summer hours come in. People are out more hours of the evening, weather's nicer, so we tend to see that. For the average length of stay, this is the average how many days each inmate stays on average. Compared to last year, it has gone up a little bit in the first quarter. Second quarter, about the same. Third quarter was about the same. And the fourth quarter is a little bit lower. Our batteries by inmate, we do have a typo in there. Inmate versus inmate, it's 72. That's down from 102 for the third quarter. Inmate versus staff, it's 13 up from 10. and fights averted were 67 instead of 60 in the previous quarter. Suicide watch placements, 198. Suicide interventions, 10, meaning somebody was actively trying to commit suicide with some sort of item, and our deputies intervened, and zero completed for that quarter. And this goes over our inmate-assisted program, different programs that we're able to work with the courts and get inmates out INTO SOME SORT OF PROGRAM THAT AVERTS THEM BEING IN JAIL. AND SO WHEN WE AVERAGE UP THE JAIL DAYS SAVED FOR THE ENTIRE QUARTER OF 6,971 DAYS, WHICH EQUATED TO A LITTLE OVER A MILLION DOLLARS, ALMOST $1.1 MILLION SAVED TO THE COUNTY AND THE JAIL. And that is my last slide. I'm open for questions.

Thank you. Vice Chair Garcia, do you have anything?

I do. Thank you so much for your update, as usual. I was looking back through our records and I saw that $89,900 in ARPA-funded dollars went to a staffing study. I don't know if that study has been completed, but if it's not, I would love to hear you weave that into the next presentation so we can see if there's any things we need to advocate for in the jail, the daily operations there. I know that the budgeted allotment of deputy sheriffs has remained flat since 2014, 2015, and you're obviously doing a lot more with the same amount of deputies even though our population has grown tremendously since then. So yeah, I think a little bit more information about staffing levels would be helpful at the next quarterly report. And it's really nice having these updates because you can really hone in on the trends over time. And I'm just kind of looking back eight years worth of data in particular about the suicide topic that you address every time you come visit us. It's pretty amazing when you add up how many interventions have taken place over the last eight years where, you know, the suicide interventions, the suicide watch placements, you've saved lives being, you know, having those eyes and the ears in the jail. And I don't think that it gets acknowledged and Thankfully, we haven't had a completed suicide in many years now and want to continue to see that trend. But, you know, mental health, we've seen our jail population change a lot, especially since the pandemic. And it's a hard thing to go to jail, I imagine. And it's even harder when you're facing so many mental health issues or issues. needing medical intervention. So I'm just grateful that we have those interventions in place to help stabilize and save those lives. So thank you.

You're welcome, ma'am. If I could just have one minute to just expand on that.

Yeah.

When we have great deputies, we have great teams, and the sheriff has made it a point to ensure the safety and security of the inmates and our deputies and our staff alike. When somebody makes a statement or somebody tries to do something to harm themselves, part of that intervention is our deputies go get control of them. We get them cleared by medical, and they go into a suicide watch status, which would essentially mean that we have to check on them every 15 minutes, whereas others are checked on every 30 minutes, and that's to ensure that we want to We want to keep them safe, safe from themselves. And oftentimes we put them in a camera cell so that even not on those 15-minute watches or when we have multiple deputies in those units, we can intervene if they still want to harm themselves. So I think our agency does a very good job at preventing that. So thank you for acknowledging that. I appreciate it.

Thank you. Commissioner Hill.

Thank you for the report and the great work you're doing in the jail. I love coming down, especially for our graduations and when we can ensure that inmates get out quicker, if they're going through our programming and all the investment that you and the sheriff have been committed to and ensuring that we treat everyone who comes through our jail like a resident of our county and that they deserve the support to be successful when they leave. I wanted to touch on some of the public commenters that you may have heard earlier discussing whether we could report out raw numbers of ICE detainees, knowing that we are not arresting sheriff's offices, not arresting community members in coordination with ICE like they are in different parts of our state. and that you are trying your best to continue community policing despite this federal, um, uptick of, um, you know, uh, detaining our community members. Uh, what, what can you provide as far as transparency there?

So I'm not at liberty to discuss numbers. Uh, the way that this works is, uh, We have a contract with the federal government. Obviously, they have to house inmates at certain different places, and that's been in place for a very long time. I don't even recall how long it's been before since I started the agency. With that, when people inquire about a federal inmate, they have to go through the federal entity to inquire about information about that inmate. So as I heard from the public comment, a lot of it's about ICE. It could be the Marshal Service or anything else. We house them, but in our contract, we're not at liberty to give any information out about them. if that makes sense. So we keep them safe. If they go to the hospital, the federal entity has to go to the hospital with them. We do not use our services to go to the hospital with them, but we are not allowed to give any information out. They have to contact those federal entities to get that information, unfortunately.

But not even raw numbers for the community of, you know, when we are not detaining these folks, like obviously Reno brings in folks, Sparks brings in folks to the jail. You know, we do at the sheriff's office and I'm assuming these, I mean, we have numbers. I'm just curious why we can't do the raw numbers.

So I can give any raw numbers on, um, Inmates that are brought in on local charges, I can give any numbers on that. If they are brought in on federal charges and they are a federal inmate, I'm not at liberty to talk about that due to the contract with the feds.

Okay. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you.

Madam Chair, may I have a follow-up to the same topic? Is there, I understand what you're saying about what we can and can't do when it comes to this federal agency, but is there a place where the public can go? Like, is ICE required to document or publish the number of people, raw numbers, that pass through Washoe County Detention Facility? Is that publicly available?

I don't know, but I can get a hold of our contacts at those different agencies and see if they have a venue for that or some sort of literature that the public can request.

Okay.

Thank you. Thank you. Commissioner Herman. Commissioner Herman, can you hear us?

Yes.

Do you have any? Am I?

Okay. Yeah, I also wanted to thank you for your report. You have a tough job, but you do it very well. Thank you so much.

Thank you, ma'am. Thank you. Thank you for all the information, and it is amazing. The jail-based program that you have has been extremely successful for all parties, for taxpayers as well as for those folks that have a success in terms of being released and having a productive life. So I think it's very unique. We've been recognized for that, and it's really all of your hard work, and thanks to the sheriff and all of you. So thank you, Captain Stewart. Appreciate it. Thank you very much.

Well, I just tiny bit on that. NCHC has an online conference and Lieutenant Phillips is going to be speaking at that. And I think they have 700 something registrants from all over the state that want to hear what we're doing. Wow. When is that? I can get you guys. Oh, can you?

Yeah, that would be great. Thanks. Well, I teed that up for you, Captain. I teed that up for you. All right. Thank you so much. Appreciate it. Anything else you'd like to add?

No, ma'am. I just appreciate the opportunity to be here and present what we're doing in the jail.

All right. Thank you so much.

Thank you.

All right. We'll close item 6A1. And we had already done the proclamation 7A1, so we're going to move to 7B1. Manager Thomas.

Thank you. We are recognizing today, September 15th, as National Voter Registration Day. We are joined this morning by Registrar of Voters Andrew McDonald, as well as Deputy Vetter and Greer. So we'll welcome them and Commissioner Hill for the proclamation.

Well, I'm honored to deliver this proclamation to our Registrar of Voters Office. The Board of County Commissioners proclaim, whereas one of the most precious and fundamental rights of the United States citizens is the right to vote, whereas registering to vote empowers eligible citizens to exercise their right to vote, and have a voice in the electoral process promoting civic engagement. And whereas Washoe County has over 322,451 registered voters, which continues to increase as our community grows, whereas the voter registration process in Nevada and in Washoe County is now easier and more convenient than ever, with in-person registration available at the Office of Registrar of Voters, voter registration applications through local libraries, post offices, and at state voter registration agencies, and through online voter registration available at registertovotenv.gov. And whereas September has been proclaimed... National Voter Registration Month, and whereas Americans across the nation have celebrated National Voter Registration Day in September serving as a single day where we reaffirm a strong sense of civic pride and encourage our fellow citizens to register to vote. Therefore, the Board of County Commissioners does proclaim today, September 15, 26, as National Voter Registration Day and signed by our chair. Come on up.

Thank you very much, Commissioner Hill. To the board, I just wanted to thank the board for recognizing National Voter Registration Day today and for helping bring attention to something so important to our democracy. As registered voters in Washoe County, I have the privilege of seeing firsthand how much our community cares about having a voice in decisions that affect our lives. Voter registration is the first step in making that voice heard. Whether someone is a first-time voter, just turned 18, moved, or simply wants to make sure that their address or information is current, today is that day. That is the reminder. It's the first step. Our office is committed to making sure eligible voters have the right information and resources they need to participate in upcoming elections that are accessible, secure, and transparent. But democracy works best when participation is involved by the people. So I encourage everyone to take a moment today to check their voter registration, update their information, and make a plan to vote in the next election. Thank you again for recognizing today is National Voter Registration Day.

Thank you. Can you remind everyone where they can go to check their registration, please?

Yeah, so they can either go to our website, but the fastest website, I think, is vote.nv.gov. Vote.nv.gov.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Madam Chair, may I ask a quick question? Of course. Can you remind us when mail ballots will start hitting people's mailboxes, please?

Sure. So this Friday, our E's, our absentee for elective... What is it? Effective absentees for elections. For all of our ADA voters, our military and overseas voters, this Friday, actually this week, that is hitting. And then ballots will start hitting in, I think, two weeks from now. Is that correct? What was it? Next week is out-of-state ballots hitting, and then the following week would be in-state ballots. I apologize, I didn't have the dates prepared for you.

That's okay. You weren't expecting any questions during a proclamation. That's okay.

Thank you.

Is there anything else you'd like to say, Addie or Reggie? I mean, I don't want to. I mean, there could be some. Is there any news? All right. Do we have any public comment? There is none. All right. So is that in the form of a motion, Commissioner Hill?

Yes, Madam Chair, it's in the form of a motion.

And I'll second. We have a motion and a second. Any further discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries unanimously, and we are taking a picture. It's my understanding.

Let's do it.

That's awesome.

All right, we'll move now to 7C1.

Manager Thomas. Thank you. We are now proclaiming the month of September as Emergency Preparedness Month, and we are joined by your Regional Emergency Manager, Kelly Echevarria, and some of her staff. I see Francisco and Sabrina joining us as well.

Fancy meeting you here.

Hey, I am. So you all are going to help me. The vice chair started this, so I'm going to keep on going. So I'll say the first one. You guys can go. Oh, yeah, you're right. We went for a picture. Okay, on behalf of the Board of County Commissioners, I'd like to read the following proclamation. Whereas National Preparedness Month creates an important opportunity for every resident of Washoe County to prepare their homes, businesses, and communities for any type of emergency from natural to man-made disasters. And whereas...

Investing in the preparedness of ourselves, our families, businesses, and communities can reduce fatalities and economic devastation in our communities and in our nation and...

Whereas... The Washoe County Office of Emergency Management and Homeland Security and other state, local, private, and volunteer agencies are working together to increase public awareness in preparing for emergencies and to educate individuals on how to take action. And whereas...

emergency preparedness is the responsibility of every citizen of washoe county and all citizens are urged to make preparedness a priority and work together to ensure the individuals families and communities are prepared for disasters and emergencies of any type and whereas

All citizens of Washoe County are encouraged to participate in citizen preparedness activities and are asked, encouraged, please visit ReadyWashoe.com to learn more about the three steps to preparedness. One, make a plan, including a communication plan. Two, assemble a kit with enough supplies for a minimum of three days. Three, stay informed about the types of emergencies and related emergency actions that can occur in our local community. Now, therefore, on behalf of the Board of County Commissioners, we do hereby proclaim the month of September as National Preparedness Month. Congratulations. Thanks. So I'd like to, if I could, take a moment and ask that we really, really take this very seriously. We all have heard various different disasters that we've all encountered in various ways and various information. And I think it's really, really important that we look at accurate information. And so speaking to that, anyone who has been impacted by the fires, please, please go to emergency washout.com. There is more information that you can sign up in terms of how you can get support. Any other information that seems to be filtering around and social media land or wherever, is actually validated if it actually matches everything that emergencywashoe.com states. And I think we're really here to make sure that accurate information is provided. And I don't know if you'd like to share just a little bit about what you'll have to do when you go and log on if you're impacted by the fires. Thanks.

Yeah, so you don't have to log on, but if you go to emergencywasho.com on the resources tab, there is now a bright red button that takes you to kind of our case management website, if you will, so we can track what your needs are. And if resources or opportunities for those impacted become available, they'll be shared through that platform. So it's a central hub to receive information. We just had an email with potential opportunities for those impacted come through today. So we'll be sharing that through that platform. So if you were impacted, please click that little red button and sign up. And if you need help, please call Washoe 311 to navigate that. But I also, since I have the mic, I wanna share, we met with a great group last week, the Latino Stakeholders Council, and they actually came up with an awesome phrase, which was preparedness is love. And so that starts with yourself, with your family, and with your community. In being prepared, you're showing yourself, your family, and your community love. And I did tell them I'm gonna steal that now.

It's gonna be our new, we're gonna adopt it, sorry, not steal it.

So preparedness is love, and please take this month to show yourself and your neighbor's love.

Thanks, so I'll make a motion, but since I'm just gonna be here, is there any public comment? Okay, great. So we have a motion. Second. We have a second. Any further discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries unanimously, and we're going to take a picture.

I know it's a surprise. Are you ready?

Do you want to read this again? I'm good. Thank you.

One paragraph is my limit.

I think I have a great idea. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you.

Okay, we're gonna go ahead and close item seven. We're gonna move to item eight, which is the consent items. Item 8A1 through 8G4. Do any of the commissioners want anything pulled or any additional information on anything?

Madam Chair, I just want to acknowledge your leadership on the board. It doesn't matter what kind of disaster takes place in the county. As Chair, you really stepped up and helped all the districts, and so I just wanted to say thank you.

You're welcome. I do feel like I do need to get a little bit of a shout-out to several organizations, and just in the interest of time, I'm not going to name all of them, but not only just the 13,000 that was collected in terms of direct support, for those that are in North Valleys. An additional $50,000 was donated by some phone calls. It could even be more that went to the Community Foundation in terms of long-term recovery, and that's what the Community Foundation's Wildlife Relief Fund is set for the long term. So I do want to thank everyone for their support and their hard work and everyone coming together, especially in the most difficult of difficult times. I also want to recognize the Washoe County employees receiving the Safety Awards by the Safety Committee and presented by Edwin Smith, if you would like to. That's item 8A1. Good morning.

Edwin Smith, risk management analyst and representative of the Safety Committee. Safety Committee wanted to receive nominations and wanted to recognize a few of our fellow employees. First would be Jabri Sharp of the HSA, Human Services Agency. The maintenance required to maintain safe conditions of our place and CARES campuses for both clients and employees is an arduous one. While walking through the facilities with Jabri, he was already on top of and in the know of any issues And the couple we did notice upon inspection, he was in contact with maintenance crews immediately. His leadership in regards to the safe operation of his facilities is to be commended. The other two would be Marco Markovic and Gloria Jimenez at District Attorney Family Support at the time. DA employee Gloria Jimenez received suicidal and concerning statements from a despondent subject after a meeting in the Family Support Division. The subject recently lost a job and was experiencing tremendous difficulties, culminating with a suspended driver's license. After witnessing the concerning behavior, she immediately contacted her supervisor, Marco Markovic. Marco and Gloria worked together to locate the subject before he exited the first floor of the building. Marco de-escalated the subject and encouraged him to remain in the building. After considering leaving, the subject took Marco upon his invitation to stay and clean. so close resources could be summoned. By utilizing patience and care with this volatile subject, trust was built, and they remained with the subject for an extended period until contact was made with appropriate resources. And I'd love to, if any of them are still here, I'd love them to come down and receive their certificates, and if we could take a picture.

Oh, good! Congratulations and thank you for all you've done and your heroic acts, keeping everyone safe. Do any of you want to say anything? Anybody want to speak? Oh, look, there you go. Thank you, board, we appreciate this. Yeah, you want a picture? Okay, sure.

This is a picture day. Picture day. It's a new year out, I'm glad you made it. Yeah. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Okay, do we have any public comment for this, these items? There are no speakers for any of the consent items.

Okay. Any other questions by any of the commissioners? Hearing none, I'll entertain a motion at this time, please. Bless you. So moved. All right, we have a motion by Commissioner Hill, a second by Vice Chair Garcia. Any further discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed? Aye. Motion carries unanimously. Thank you so much. We'll go ahead and close item eight and move to item nine.

Manager Thomas. Thank you, Madam Chair. This is a recommendation to appoint three candidates from a pool of applicants that are listed on the agenda. This is to fill vacancies of two regular members and one alternate member on the Washoe County Board of Equalization with the two regular members term beginning on January 1st, 2027 and ending on December 31st, 2030 and the one alternate member term beginning on January 1, 2027 and ending on December 31st, 2027. And this is presented by Alexandra Wilson from the manager's office to walk you through the process.

Hey, good morning. Alexandra Wilson for the record. So again, before you have 11 candidates for the three openings, the two regular members and one alternate member, this one is going to slightly differ from our regular process as we're going to take the regular members first, and then we'll go into the alternate members. So we'll have the clerk pass out the ballots for the two regular members where you'll select your top three candidates. The individuals with the top two votes will then move forward to be voted on for the regular members, and then the remaining members we'll consider for the alternate.

Thank you.

It's two on this one, right? She said two. Three. Oh, three.

Top three.

Oh, gotcha, gotcha.

And would you, how would you like, I'm going to actually ask the district attorney how you would like this handled procedurally since we have someone online. Would you like the clerk to read the information first and then she can share her top three? Is that something you'd consider?

Lindsay Liddell, for the record, I think that would be appropriate.

Okay. I wanted to clear it. I didn't want you to forget. We know you're here, too. So we wanted to make sure we knew you were here. All right. So I guess we'll read what we have.

Okay. Round one. Chair Andriola, Jamie Brimmer, Marilyn Desch, and Robert Lissner. Commissioner Hill, Karen Hayes, Nicole Mutley, and Robert Lissner. And Commissioner Vice Chair Garcia, Karen Hayes, Navdeep Singh, and Richard Berman.

Who is the second one? I'm sorry, I couldn't hear.

Navdeep Singh. Okay, thank you.

And then, Commissioner Herman, can we get your top three, please?

Yes, you may. Tracy Thomas, Mervyn Dash, and Brian Urbis.

Great. So it looks like we have listener for sure, and then we have Dash has two, Hayes has two, So I don't know how you want to do that.

Hi, Alexandra. For the record, so we do have a three-way tie, again, from Karen Hayes, Marilyn Dash, and Robert Lissner. So from those three individuals, you would select your top two.

Okay.

Yes, it's Karen Hayes, Marilyn Dash, and Robert Lissner.

Okay.

Round two. Chair Andriola, Marilyn Dash, and Robert Lissner. Commissioner Hill, Karen Hayes, and Robert Lissner. And Commissioner Vice Chair Garcia, Karen Hayes, and Robert Lissner. So Commissioner Herman, your vote please.

Yes, Commissioner Herman, would you be so kind to share with us the top two?

Yes, Robert Lissner and Marilyn Dash. Okay.

Perfect. So from here, it looks like we have Robert Lissner as having four votes. So he'll move forward, and then we need to select our top single candidate between Karen Hayes and Marilyn Dash.

That's exactly what we need to do. Sorry. It always sometimes feels like a little deja vu. Well... So we are just choosing from, just to be clear, from Marilyn Dash and from Karen Hayes. Those are the two. And we're going to just choose one. Just one.

Okay. Thank you.

You know, I feel like, what was that, the Johnny Carson show when he would do this? I feel like I could do that, but I'm not.

Round three, results. Here we go. Chair Andreola, Marilyn Dash, Commissioner Hill, Karen Hayes, Vice Chair Garcia, Karen Hayes, So now it's your turn, Commissioner Herman.

Commissioner Herman, would you share your vote, please? Thank you.

Yes, I will. Marilyn Dash.

And I would have done the Johnny Carson. So this will be the next round, the same two. It'll either be Dash or Hayes. Just choose one.

You're getting your steps in.

Round four results. Chair Andriola, Karen Hayes. Commissioner Hill, Karen Hayes. Vice Chair Garcia, Marilyn Dash. And Commissioner Herman.

Marilyn Dash.

I was trying to compromise. I know. You know what? This just shows why this commission is so great in terms of really looking at our community and compromising, contrary to what you may hear out in the public. So we are going to choose the two, either Dash or Hayes. Thank you.

Isn't round five like the highest one we've gone to so Round five chair and Riola Marilyn Dash Commissioner Hill Karen Hayes Karen Hayes

And we follow open meeting law. This proves that we... Commissioner Herman? Commissioner Herman, would you be so kind to give us your vote?

Of course I will. Marilyn Dash.

Okay. Here we go. We're going to do it again.

Can we do a roll call instead? Yeah. No, that's a good idea. You know what?

Let's do a roll call.

Well, and Madam Chair, I think that both these women are amazing. Don't get me wrong. And honestly, the applicants are amazing. They are. I was like really having a hard time. And the ones that you voted for, Garcia, I was thinking about voting for as well. Anyway, but I am going to tell you why I'm still going to vote for Karen Hayes because she explicitly explains why she wants to be on this board. And Ms. Dash says she wants to be on the library board, which is fine. So that's just where I'm having a hard time, just to be honest, Madam Chair.

And since there is an opportunity, right, Ms. Lindsay, we can deliberate without going into any lane that you're going to stop us from going into. So I think we're very familiar with the lane.

If you're familiar with the lane, I would just caution you to maintain that lane.

There's a benefit with being in public policy for so long. I do think the applicants are amazing. I call, as you know, all the applicants, and it was interesting running into a couple applicants, actually, who shared, it looked like it was a library application on And it turned out that they still are interested in being in the library, but actually it was on them, to be honest, and they said that. But they knew about the application that they were applying for. And I can tell you that the clarity that was given and why I do spend the time on the phone is exactly that, because an application doesn't always stand on its own and give the breadth that's needed. And what I have seen and how I am putting forward names is very clear that that person has the background to be able to do the job. And I do wanna also take a moment to acknowledge the preparation that you now have perfected in giving all the commissioners all the detail, not only what the board does, who's currently on the board, the statute or any compliance that's required, what districts they represent. So I'm gonna point out something. See how I'm staying in the lane, Lindsay? On this particular board, there are two representatives from District 2, and there's one representative from District 1. There's zero representative from District 4, 3, or 5. I didn't do that in order, 3, 4, or 5. So if someone doesn't have the applications in front of them, Miss Dash is from District 4, Ms. Hayes, and I'm not saying the district is the only, it's speaking specifically to the point about how all the applicants were so good Hayes is from District 4, and I didn't load this by the way. It looks like I did and I didn't. So both of them are from District 4. Ironically enough, there weren't any District 3 applications, which I thought was kind of interesting. So it's interesting to note that there are qualifications We're down to two that have incredible qualifications, and I would not let the library steer, I get what you're saying, but she clarified that, so. We can do this by roll call, and I'm happy to do that. It's a great idea, thank you, Vice Chair Garcia. So I'm gonna start. You ready? The name I'm gonna put forward is Miss Dash. Vice Chair Garcia. Ms. Dash, please. Commissioner Hill.

Ms.

Dash. Commissioner Herman.

Ms. Dash.

I think that we have a unanimous vote to appoint Ms. Dash. And I want to make sure, do we have any public comment for this item? There is nobody signed in. Okay. So I'm going to make the motion to appoint Ms. Dash to the board of equalization. And I realize that we have another round to go, but just to finish this one the way we're doing it, if that's okay. Absolutely. And I'll second, Madam Chair. We have a motion and a second. Any further discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor of appointing Ms. Dash, signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed? Aye. Motion carries unanimously.

Madam chair, if I may, you also need to vote on Mr. Listener as well.

Oh, I'll amend my motion. Well, I guess we have to do it again. I'll just make a second motion. Ooh, I know the lane. I'm going to, I have done this a while. Um, I'm going to go ahead and make a motion to appoint Mr. Listener to the board of equalization. Do I have a second? Second. I have a second by Vice Chair Garcia. Any further discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed? Aye. Motion carries unanimously. Congratulations to Mr. Lisner and to Ms. Dash. All right. So we're going to go ahead and close that item, which is item nine. Oh, we have to do the alternate. I even said that. The Lisner threw me. It just threw me. Now we're going to do the alternate. For item nine, and we're only choosing one, we're choosing top two.

For this item for the alternate, you're going to be choosing your top two for the single position, not including Marilyn Dash or Robert Liske. Correct.

Thank you. Boy, if somebody puts that down, that's going to be fun.

Alexandra and Richard Burnham already is good, correct?

Richard Burnham is still in the running. Oh, he's still in the running. Mm-hmm.

Well, this messed everything up for me, but you guys are going to laugh. Someone's going to laugh. Okay, so this is for the alternate.

Okay, round one. Chair Andriola, Karen Hayes, and Richard Berman. Vice Chair Garcia, Karen Hayes, and Richard Berman. Commissioner Hill, Karen Hayes, and Navdeep Singh. Commissioner Herman, would you like to share?

Brian. Brian Urbis. And the second one? Tracy Thomas. Thank you. Well, I don't know how you all see this.

I show Karen Hayes is having three votes.

Yes. That's what I'm showing. I move to appoint Ms. Hayes to the BOE as an alternate. I'll second.

Any further discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Chair, I'm sorry to interrupt. A public comment for that motion. Public comment. Is there any public comment? There is none. Thank you. Thank you. See? You were on it. All right. We have a motion and we have a second. No further discussion. And we all voted. I'm going to do it again because I wasn't sure. All in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed? Aye. Motion carries unanimously. Congratulations to Ms. Hayes. It's very popular today. Now we can close that item and we can move to item 10.

Thank you, Madam Chair. We are here to recommend and appoint one candidate from the pool of applicants to serve as the Washoe County Citizen Representative on the Washoe County Home Consortium's Technical Review Committee. This position is to fill a current vacancy for a three-year term beginning at the time of appointment, which is today, and ending on June 30, 2029. We have five applicants listed on your agenda for consideration, and again, we have Alexander Wilson from the Manager's Office.

Yes, Alexandra Wilson here. As County Manager Thomas had pointed out, we do have five applicants for the single position. This one should be hopefully streamlined a little bit in that you just select your top single candidate. But I do want to point out that we have extended through seven rounds just in case, so.

Thank you for pointing that out. Let's see if we can get under that. Now that you've got me with the seven, how many are we picking here? Just a single candidate. Oh, just a single candidate.

Madam Chair, if it makes a difference, we do have two people in chambers for public comment if you would like them to speak. Okay, thank you. That would be great. First up, we have Lawrence Dodson.

Good morning. My name is Lawrence Dotson. I'm applying for the citizen seat. I am a co founder of able the advisory board for lived experience that sits on your. I served on a work group where we voted to raise the chat score for domestic violence victims and for use 18 to 24. I co-lead a permanent supportive housing messaging work group with CSH. I've carried this county's case to Washington, D.C., and next week I'm to receive the Silver Star Award from Truckee Meadows tomorrow for poverty and homelessness. I've been homeless myself in this county and in others, and I've gone through the coordinated entry system, so I know what it's like to be on that end. Thank you.

Thank you. Next up we have Claudia Townsend.

Good morning. I'm afraid I'm going to have to withdraw my application for the Washoe County Home Consortium. I have other commitments that I have made, and it's just going to put me at a position where I'm going to put myself too thin as far as volunteering. And I know this is a volunteer position. So thank you, though, for your consideration.

Thank you.

There's nobody else signed in. Thank you.

Thank you.

Round one. Chair Andriola selected Farrah Downey. Commissioner Hill selected Farrah Downey. And Vice Chair Garcia selected Farrah Downey. Commissioner Herman, who would you like? Farrah Downey.

Thank you. Well, that may be the record.

Another round of exceptional applicants who really care about housing people in our community and spend a lot of their personal time advocating for people who don't have a voice. So I just want to say thank you so much and continue the great work. I'm really just kind of amazed by people in our community.

I would agree. Thank you. All right. It looks like we have one round and done. So I'm going to go ahead and make a motion to appoint Farrah Downing. Um, and second, I'll take a second, second motion and a second. Any further discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Any motion carries unanimously. Congratulations, Ms. Downey. Thank you for what you do. And thanks to all, honestly, all of the applicants were amazing. And I hope that we continue to see the dedication from everyone. This is an incredible board. All of the boards are incredible. But I think it's going to be really great to have, to see where you all go with the housing piece of this and how that's all going to work. with the home consortium.

So thank you. Thank you.

Well, you have a unanimous, you have a record I think for the day. So thank you. One and done. All right. We're going to go ahead and close out item 10 and manager Thomas, we're going to move to item 11.

Thank you Madam Chair. We have before us a recommendation to receive an update and provide direction to staff confirming or modifying the priority order of actions to implement Envision Washoe the 2040 Master Plan. The topics for prioritization may include but are not limited to dark skies, public noticing, high energy and water uses, prioritized development areas, landscaping and irrigation code, and standards related to emissions and resiliency, as well as sensitive area environmental review standards, and planning commission slash board of adjustment rules. We've got Kat here to help guide us through this process. Thank you.

Hello, Kat Oakley with Washoe County Planning for the Record. So this is a big picture item to talk about master plan implementation priorities. Of course, you've heard items like this before over the last few years. So Envision Washoe 2040, our master plan, was adopted in 2023. That was a comprehensive update. And it is a vision for how the county will develop over the next 20 years. So there are a lot of implementation items identified to help achieve that vision. It's a multi-year labor-intensive effort that has already been underway for the last few years. And the plan includes immediate, short, medium, and long-term actions that are identified. implementation of those action items is anticipated to occur in stages over the next 20 years and of course We've the day this plan was adopted. We got that initial list of prioritized actions from this board We've come back on an annual basis since then and so this is that conversation again to review the list and update it as needed we're asking the board today to confirm and modify as needed updated priority of implementation actions and including the consideration of new board requests and the intent of us doing this on an annual basis is to make sure that staff efforts align with board priorities because a lot of these actions are labor intensive. And so before we get into an update on the action items on the current list, I just want to go over what these implementation items are. So they're in chapter three of the master plan and really they come out of the principles and policies. So The actions are the steps we've identified that we need to take in order to achieve the vision that is articulated in the plan. That's where they come from. They include things like development code revisions, which you've seen quite a few of, the creation of plans, studies, and updated policies or procedures, changes to programs and resources, and capital projects. So those are kind of the different buckets that these action items can fall into. And so we're going to start with updates on the items that this board previously prioritized. So starting with the top priority item, countywide affordable housing initiatives. This has been that top item since the plan was adopted. And over the last year, since the last report to this board, we have made a lot of progress. And to highlight some of that, six code update packages were adopted since that last report to the board. They did things like create incentives for senior housing, for starter homes, and for affordable and attainable housing, enabling mixed-use development in commercial zones, and then also creating standards to support starter homes, smaller homes, different types of homes, and then also infill development. One more amendment is anticipated to create a fee waiver program to create some financial incentives when those are available. That's anticipated to be done by the end of this year, and so the scope Even though housing continues to be a topic, it's addressed in other items that we're going to get to on this list, but the scope of work identified in this item will be complete by the end of this year, and so it's recommended that it be removed from the priority list. Moving on to the number two item, permitting requirements for equine businesses. That item is scheduled for hearing and adoption today, and so if it is adopted, then it will be complete, and we therefore recommend it also be removed from the priority list for that reason. For the third item, code amendments relating to agritourism, a similar story. Those amendments were heard by the Planning Commission in September and unanimously supported. They'll be coming to this board by the end of the year. And so anticipating the completion of this item, it's recommended to be removed from the list. And then finally on this slide, the heat mitigation plan. This was heard and adopted by the board on August 25th. It still needs a conformance review from Regional Planning Commission, but anticipating the completion of that this year, it is recommended that it be removed from the list. So a few items checked off this year. And now moving into the last three items on the list from last year. And these are items that we've started work on. So the fifth item was a code update to address dark skies. We have started that with a community dark sky survey that occurred over the last weekend. The work is expected to continue through the end of this year and into early next year. And so based on the Existing order of the list it's recommended this be moved to number one public noticing we've also recently started work on and this is Reviewing our public noticing and neighborhood meeting practices to see areas of improvement. So we started this Again anticipated to continue in the coming months and into early next year We recommend moving this to number two and then last on this list high energy and water uses This ties to the regional conversation that's been happening around data centers. And the Truckee Meadows Regional Planning Agency has been coordinating regionally to develop policy recommendations. We have been participating in those conversations. And so we anticipate those recommendations to come out later this year and that they would lead to future plan and code updates on our end. And so it's recommended that this item be moved to number three, recognizing in terms of the timing that since it is a regional effort, we will want to make sure we're coordinating regionally and do it in a time scale that makes sense for that. So those are the existing items on the list. And now, since we've cleared some room, we get to talk about new items.

Sure, of course. Sorry, Kat, I just have a question on the seventh one. Is it true that the City of Reno, their staff has kind of rolled up their sleeves and taken the lead? I know TMRPA is coordinating the larger discussion, but are their staff currently doing the work?

Right now, we are all working together with TMRPA on that kind of overall direction that we want to go. In terms of the code work, I From my knowledge, which is obviously I'm not in the trenches over there, but we're waiting to see those recommendations and then that we would proceed to do the code work based on that direction once that direction comes out. So I cannot say for sure that they have started writing code and that sort of stuff. We're all kind of working together on that. DECIDING WHERE WE WANT TO GO BEFORE WE START TRYING TO GO THERE.

OKAY.

VICE CHAIR GARCIA, IF I MAY, I WOULD JUST LIKE TO ADD, I WROTE DOWN A NOTE HERE SO I THINK THE TIMING OF IT IS APPROPRIATE FOR ME TO MAKE A COMMENT, AND THAT IS SPECIFICALLY TO MS. OAKLEY'S POINT ABOUT REGIONAL, AS YOU KNOW, I SERVE ON REGIONAL PLANNING. And the board itself, although regional planning has been doing a lot, and they presented on the 13th of August their high-level recommendations of the research that they've done so far over the last year and a half. The board itself will be waiting for a recommendation to come from staff to look at what the next steps. They've gone as far as they can go with the information they have, and so they're looking at next steps, which probably will push it into early 2027 is my understanding.

I understand that, and I saw the local and state recommendations that was presented at the TMRP, but it was my understanding that the work – You know, you all work together, obviously, but sometimes a certain jurisdiction will take the lead. And we often mirror similar recommendations or follow similar codes and ordinances based on the work. Like City of Sparks may have presented something, and then Washoe County will amend our things to kind of mirror that. So there is more regional collaboration. So that's why I asked the question. Yeah.

Yes. And we on this item are definitely talking a lot and working together on what we want to do exactly with the code. Gotcha.

And Madam Chair, I know that we were in the middle of the presentation, but may I ask a question?

Well, you bet.

Okay. Without the guidelines in place and knowing that these type of uses are being invested in all over the world, actually, what kind of position does it put Washoe County in if this comes in before we adopt the code? like a request comes in.

Well, categorically for the record. So the, just to start with where we're at in terms of how we view data centers and what we have in place already, they are defined use in our code. They are allowed by special use permit in most places and by right and industrial. And we right now have no known interest in developing a new data center in our jurisdiction. And we haven't since the kind of start of this boom that you know, has been happening. And we do, there is a pre-application process that happens, so we do know ahead of time if there is interest in that sort of thing. Now, in terms of the TMRPA recommendations, as I understand them, really, they are recommendations for what we should be doing. In general, they're making, you know, recommendations based on their conversations with community participants, but it's talking about, okay, what should our code look like? And so there's no expectation that I'm aware of that our code would already match what they are recommending because the whole idea of their work is that their recommendations inform how we proceed as a community with our code. So in terms of like there being some sort of regulatory conflict in that sense, I don't see that happening. And I see the intent of their recommendations as

informing code updates right yes and i'm i'm excited about us working regionally i think that's really amazing and we don't always do that so that's awesome um and that that's good to hear that you're not hearing of any activity or interest uh right now while we're wading through the code the nice thing for me to know is that an sup is required at least we can put conditions on these things if SOMETHING DOES HAPPEN BEFORE WE ADOPT THE CODE BUT JUST UNDERSTANDING THE, YOU KNOW, IT PUTS THIS BOARD IN A REALLY TOUGH POSITION I THINK LEGALLY IF WE DON'T GET IT DONE SOONER THAN LATER SO HOPEFULLY EVERYONE IS GETTING IN THERE AND MAKING IT HAPPEN BECAUSE I DON'T, THAT'S MY WORRY AS A BOARD TO TRY TO PROTECT OUR COMMUNITY DEPENDING ON WHERE THIS WANTS TO BE LOCATED AND ALL OF THOSE KIND OF THINGS. JUST WEIGHING ON MY MIND SO THANK YOU.

Anything else? Commissioner Herman, do you have a question? Just because we might as well, I don't mean to interrupt, but Commissioner Herman, do you have anything at this point? Not that this is the only time.

I don't have anything to say about this right now.

Okay. Thank you. All right. Well, it was a, it was a perfect breaking point because we're finishing up in the items we've already talked about and then talking about some new items. So perfectly planned. And, Now we're going to talk about the new items that staff is recommending be added to the list. This first item is actually related to the strategic plan, which you will also be talking about more at this meeting. Based on those strategic plan workshops and that staff report, it is anticipated that we will be working on the establishment of prioritized growth or development areas as part of those strategic plan initiatives. and that will require significant work from the long-range planning team, and so we want to recognize that, recommend it be item number four, recognizing also that this work is going to happen over several years in parallel with some of these other items that we are working on. So that's recommended as number four, and then these next items all come out of the Envision WASHO 2040 Master Plan, and specifically, they are those immediate term action items identified in the plan. So those top priority items that we haven't hit yet, we've done quite a few of them, but these are ones we have not yet. And so the first recommended item to be added from there is updates to our landscaping and irrigation code. This is an area of our code where we can make some changes to address several different action items in vision washer 2040, including ones related to heat mitigation, to development in the wildland urban interface and to water conservation. So that's recommended as number five. Recommended as number six is standards related to emissions and resiliency. And this is really getting at site design, building design type standards. To update those to address, again, several of the action items identified in Envision WASHO 2040 related to things like emissions, heat resilience, and again, wildfire. So recommended as number six. And then the last item we're recommending be added from the master plan is Those is sensitive area environmental review standards. And this is a broader item getting at aligning our code with one of the cross-cutting themes of the master plan, which is the conservation of natural resources. That's a theme that came up. lot in public outreach where there was broad agreement around it and interest in it and so what it would be is going through our code and seeing where we can improve the consideration of natural resources in our various processes and so that is recommended as number seven lastly the chair requested that this board consider the an update to the Planning Commission and Board of Adjustment rules related to leaves of absence and so we're also asking that you recommend or you and if so, where in order it would be and also some more specific direction around what exactly you would want to see with those changes. So here, we've gone through a lot. Here's the list that is recommended and then also that item to consider from the board request. And then just to give you an idea of what this kind of work would look like, here's a bit of a chart of how the work might occur if the items were prioritized in this order. So you can see it starts in January of next year that we would be finishing up some of those items we've already started work on. We anticipate we would be working still on that high energy and water uses work that's happening regionally. That strategic plan work as well going over the long period of time, and then starting projects as we finish others. With that, it's recommended the board receive this update, provide some direction on this prioritization list, and I'm happy to answer any questions.

Thanks. I'm just going to ask for public comment first, if I could, and then I'm going to open it up to questions again. Do we have any public comment?

We do. Penny Brock? And as she approaches, I did receive an email that will be placed on the record.

Penny Brock for the record. I'm on the South Valley's Washoe Valley Citizen Advisory Board. I'm not here speaking for them. However, in our area, and I think this is appropriate to envision 2020 master, 40 master plan, the issue of buyer evacuation plans and the roads. When you drive out to our area and you look up, you look east to the Virginia Range, you see all this development going on. And I look at it and I go, where will the people go? When our area is primed for, there could be the fire over the Virginia Range. Also in our area, east of 395, our floodplain area is being developed on. We don't know where the floodwaters will go. We are in an area that has a 100-year flood. So we need an evacuation plan in the event of a flood in southeast Reno. Then we've got across the way on 395, we've got, we already had it two years ago, the Davis fire. It was almost impossible to evacuate those residents. Thankfully, the fire did not reach the roads, the streets that they were traveling down. But we could have another Davis-type fire. starting in, most of our fires are starting in Washoe Valley. Fires burn uphill. That fire was ready to crest Mount Rose, the Sierra Nevadas, and go down into the Tahoe Basin. We need to plan for this. This should be, I believe, this should be included in the Envision 2040 Master Plan since you're adding new items. This cannot be ignored throughout our county. You heard tragic stories this morning from the Hawk Fire and the North Fires. Please consider adding evacuation plans and roads to this plan, thank you.

Thank you. There's nobody else signed in.

Okay, great. I'll go ahead and open it up for questions. Commissioner Herman, do you have any questions or comments?

Okay. I think the last speaker added to number six, right? Because that was our wildfire. Can we elaborate on that one?

Kat Oakley for the record. So let me just back it up. Okay. So fire does come up in a couple places here. And this is some of the ways that fire does intersect with land use planning, right? So the first one it comes up in is updates to the Landscaping and Irrigation Code, WUI, or Wildland Urban Interface Development is referenced there. And what that really just gets at is making sure that our code is aligning and not conflicting with the best practices that we know exist related to development in the WUI. And so it would be touched upon there. And then also in item six, standards related to emissions and resiliency, again, some of those best practices from a site design perspective in terms of mitigating if there is a wildfire event, having the site designed to mitigate risks, right? So those are the two items here where fire is referenced and that we could do work to improve the community's preparedness for and resilience in the face of fire events.

Thank you. And roads too as well, yeah.

Thank you. I'll just add that literally we are waiting, it hopefully will be, September, October, we'll have the full evacuation plan that's been in the works through the emergency manager, the administrator for emergency management for Washoe County. And that is going to be not only shared with all of the cabs, but shared with everyone essentially in the community. And so essentially what you explained, Ms. Oakley, the standards related to emissions and resiliency that you pointed out would be connected to those evacuation plans and that could be matriculated in as projects are being looked at. Would that be a fair statement? Cat Oakley, for the record.

Yes, we can. So we in planning have the ability to know about, consider, and see how we can coordinate well with the evacuation plan, but I do just want to be clear that, of course, the evacuation planning itself is in the realm of emergency management, and it's important that we stay in our lane as well because communication is so important around those issues and so forth. So, yes, there's a nexus with our work. Yes, we can look at Again, on the private land side, how can we create more resilient communities through good and thoughtful site design? Thanks.

It's so around the corner. I think we're all anxiously awaiting for that document. I do think it's really helpful for you to explain what the purpose of this priority list is compared to other departments. And even though there are crossovers, things are looked at but but we're talking about today is for community services department so there is crossover Anyway, did you have a question?

I was just going to add to that because I know fire is at the top of every mind. So thank you, Commissioner Herman, for bringing that up. Just for the community to know that, you know, Washoe County has an evacuation, sheltering, and mass care plan. We've had that since 2008. That's the foundational document that we have. And to Chair Andreola's point, just to add a little bit more context, the SWIFT exit evacuation study was $185,000. that we received and accepted. And that particular plan is going to drill down to what many of our constituents are concerned about. It's going to include wildfire behavior modeling, traffic flow analysis, GIS mapping, and scenario planning, and that's all based on community input. Some of us participated in looking at areas of our district and actually creating those sections or quadrants, if you will, of, for example, I worked with the cab chair in Sun Valley, so I'm very excited. We're all very excited about that evacuation or the swift exit evacuation study, and we're almost there, so I just wanted to add a little bit more context. I'm comfortable with the recommendations from staff, but I really, Kat, can you please go to the slide? I like how you said that the little dash equals lower levels of work, the larger dash equals higher levels of work, and of course, Chair Andriola's recommendation didn't make it onto this chart. Can you tell me what her request is? Is it a lower level work, higher level work? How would that be rated?

Well, I We'll defer to her on some of the details there and would love to hear about them. But really what it is is a development code amendment, and it's one that would be smaller in size certainly compared to some of the ones we have brought before you. It would still take a few months just because of our process has many required steps and hearings, right? So I would say most projects like that, the way I would kind of chart it is, there would be one month of lower work, two months where it's going to be more work, and then one on the tail end that's less again. So really it's when you're deeper in the public hearing process, there's less day-to-day work. When you're in the bulk of the drafting, the public outreach, getting ready for planning commission, getting ready for the first reading here, that's when it's more work, right? So it would be like that in terms of the amount of work over maybe about a four-month period.

Okay.

Yeah.

That helps me understand.

Maybe it's appropriate. I'm pausing on giving everybody a chance because I do want to talk about topics. I think I'm just going to go to Commissioner Hill. Do you have anything that you'd like to add?

I want to back you up, Madam Chair, of making sure that we get that code amendment in there. I'm curious... So just to play devil's advocate. So the election will have passed by then. We're not going to have any elections till 28. Could we just condition that it happens before people file for office? I don't know if there's like, would that make sense? I just don't know.

Maybe I will speak to this. Okay. Okay. Let me, let me speak to it. So As you know, this board, through direction given to staff, to look at the updates for the Citizens Advisory Board, not only the bylaws, but the maps and everything that hadn't been looked at in quite some time. And I brought that up, and we went through that process, and that was a good year-plus process. And we're essentially, we've completed it all. Through that process, it was clear in working with the Deputy DA Gustafson, because that's who we were working with, with the Citizen Advisory Board process, it was looked at and we voted on it unanimously that if you are serving on a citizen advisory board and you file for a commission seat that you need to ask for a leave. And the reason that I'm bringing this up now is because for, in my opinion, the citizens advisory board, although a very valuable, we all support it, it's a critical piece to what we do and our responsibility. but the Planning Commission and the Board of Adjustment are two quasi-judicial boards that have a direct impact to an appeal process with the Board of County Commissioners. So it was from that premise that I started having discussions with Ms. Gustafson about what we could do to mirror the language that was approved by this body for the cabs and A lot of that work in vetting, I'm not speaking on her behalf or any legal behalf, but in my discussions, a lot of the work for incorporating this into the Planning Commission and Board of Adjustment has already been done in terms of the legal vetting because of the cabs. For me, I was hopeful that we could look at putting it at the very top because then we could have it just go through the process, which it has to go through for public input. But we could possibly see the second reading if everything works. were to be scheduled accordingly and followed by the process that has to be followed. We could see the second reading by December 15th, and then the new year could start. So it was from that premise that I was coming from on doing it, because a lot of that year and a half with the cabs, a lot of that was done by Ms. Gustafson, along with a lot of other hard work, by the way, it wasn't just that. So it was really from that premise request for me to bring these priorities back because you all have done such a great job. In fact, the last time that we had the housing piece, it was like, okay, this is it, although you mentioned that there is going to be another component. But it doesn't mean it's going to always be it. But it certainly started moving through very effectively. We've seen the benefits of that, and it's kudos to all of you on all that hard work. So I believe from what I know and the year and a half I spent in that space, putting it to the top would not delay, from my perspective, I'm not speaking on behalf of staff, from everything I know, would not delay the rest of the Gantt chart that's seen with the little dashes and the M dashes. that would still, it wouldn't postpone anything in any major way. So it's really from that angle that I'm trying to get it done. And then we have, we also would end up having not only the CAB be consistent with the Planning Commission and the Board of Adjustment, you would have that consistency as well from a process standpoint. So you're right in terms of timing, but we're here. And so I asked for this to come and I'm asking for consideration for it to be put in first. And I do appreciate vice chair's question on where that would go, because I don't ever want to assume that I know how much time things take, but.

And I'll just, since you made that statement, jump in categorically for the record and just say, If the order moves around or things are added or removed or what have you, there would be impacts, but of course it would all depend on what is the overall amount of work for an item because then we might then still be working on some of those other items, but they're maybe a little slower because we've got to dedicate some time to this other item, right? There would be those sorts of impacts, but, of course, I can modify this grant chart as needed. And then I'll also say that December 15th is a maybe. I do not know for sure. I would have to look at the schedules because it really depends on hearing dates, and we have planning commission once a month. I used the word.

It was projected. Yes.

How about that? But I'm hoping it's December 15th.

But yes, I mean, no one's holding you to that, so I'm sorry. I had just asked what it would look like, and it looked like it was December 15th, so I was just giving reference to other commissioners. So from my perspective, I'll just end it by saying I feel like you guys have done an incredible job and looking and planning, hence the planning that you all are professionals in. And also the clarification, I appreciate Commissioner Herman's comments. Question and vice chair Garcia's additional information to Swift and what that's going to do and how that's going to help But for this item, it's prioritizing these and so from my perspective I would like to see the item that I am recommending go to the top and leave the other recommendations as Outlined in the staff report with it being a leave of absence for the Planning Commission and the Board of Adjustment using the same language that was used for the Citizens Advisory Board since that's already gone through a vetting, which essentially says that. It says once you file, how it's worded is once you file for office at that time, then you would take a leave.

And Madam Chair, what if, I like the suggestion, but I'm curious, I'm just like, I'm super paranoid about the high energy and water uses getting done next year. What if we moved prioritized development areas to the bottom? Because honestly, landscaping, irrigation code, emissions and resiliency standards, sensitive area, environmental review standards, those are all things that community members are crying for, asking us to tackle. No offense to the prioritized development areas, but we can still... move that work forward, but maybe kick it down a bit and make sure that we really deal with the issues before us, which is like data centers fire and making sure that the public knows what we're doing. So that's part of that noticing that I know is a priority. So that's another thought I had of maybe so we can all make sure it shakes out in the way that, you know, we've envisioned it as well.

I would just add that, if you recall, the prioritized development areas, and I will point out that that discussion, which was really helpful, that Assistant County Manager Solero went over in one of our workshops, I think is also important because it does hit on some of the other areas, including high use users for water or what have you. And I think it gives a plan, because right now, I don't know, and I've asked the Assistant County Manager Solero, I've asked like, if we were to have an application come in, I'm trying to not use the word data center, because it's not just data centers, it's high use utilization. It's not only data centers. But if it were a data center, do we even have in Washoe County And here's the last thing. Here's what I'm going to say, and I'm going to interrupt myself. I wish we would quit using one word to determine everything. You use the word data centers as if they're all the same. They are not the same. I will be so happy when we come to, and I asked at regional if we could come to a recommendation for a descriptor for each data center description. use. Because they're not all the same. And the industry doesn't talk that way amongst themselves. So even in some of the meetings that I've participated even with regional on the work that they did and talking to some of the industry folks, it's like do you all use the term data center? I don't think they all use the term data center. They use the applicability of what that application is and give it a definition. And so it's from that standpoint of prioritizing that nomenclature and those descriptors are going to be helpful in a regional way. I don't know how long that's going to take either. But the point I'm really trying to make is those prioritized development areas will help to also define some of the other things. So I hate to kind of move that a little bit. I feel like it could be an important piece to what you're bringing up is what I'm getting at.

And I hear you. It's just that when property is owned by a particular person, they're going to come in when they're going to come in to ask for development. So that's where I'm like a little less like gotta have that. But I hear what you're saying as well. I'm just trying to find a compromise.

Well, what are you, what are you thinking out loud? Are you thinking about, making landscaping and missions and sensitive pushing that up.

Yeah. Or just kicking down prioritized development areas. It's a longterm planning. Like when I wasn't like, that can be something that someone does while they're, you know, between projects or, you know, and I, that's where I, what I was thinking.

But again, I'm not a planner anymore. I,

That was the hardest job I ever had. So bless you, Kat. Super hard, super hard job, planner. But that just was my thought of trying to find a way to get it all in there.

What are your thoughts, Vice Chair Garcia? Thank you, Madam Chair. Kat, can you share your personal opinion on the level of how timely is the prioritized development areas in your perspective as a planner?

Sure. for the record my main thought on that item is I see it as an item that we will be spending time on anyways just because it's tied to the strategic plan right so it's if if the strategic plan moves forward kind of as drafted at the moment that's work that is cross-departmental which means that we are not necessarily directly controlling the pace of it right so and I'm not sure exactly This is kind of a rough idea. I'm not sure exactly when it will be more or less work, but it is a bigger picture type thing that will take several years. It is a pace of work that will proceed slower than some of these other things. For example, landscaping and irrigation code update, why we are recommending it on top of the three is because it's something where you can hit so many different things relatively quickly in one go. And so- I THINK THAT IT WILL REQUIRE A LEVEL, THE PRIORITIZED DEVELOPMENT AREAS WILL REQUIRE A LEVEL OF WORK THAT IS HARD FOR ME TO PREDICT AND KNOW JUST BECAUSE THERE ARE OTHER FORCES ON IT, WHEREAS FOR THE REST OF THESE ITEMS, WE ARE DOING ALL THAT WORK INTERNALLY IN THE PLANNING DIVISION, AND SO WE'RE ABLE TO BALANCE AND MOVE THOSE WORKLOADS AS NEEDED. I don't know if that's helpful at all.

And I should have rephrased my question. I should have used the words like sense of urgency, your sense of urgency for the gray line.

My sense of urgency is just in this board knowing that it will take some of our time based on the other direction of the board.

Okay, thank you. I think that helps me. I'm leaning towards what Commissioner Hill had said about bumping that one down, leveling up the other ones. The one I'm still wrestling with is, If we were to push pause on the chair's recommended thing and just made it a priority for making sure that it was all buttoned up, ready to go before the next election, or I guess it would be March filing, if we backdated that, where would it rank, like, in terms of the timeline?

Is that March 2027 or 2028? It would be March of 2028, correct? Okay. I think that if it were... between just as, as it is like up there right now between the landscaping irrigation code and emissions and resiliency standards, then I would feel confident saying that it would naturally fall in that, that timeframe. Of course, if the board's direction was, you know, we're putting it in here and get it done by the state, then, uh, we will remember that and make sure that, It happens even if there are wrenches in the plans for some of these other items. So we could condition it and put a hard date, like it must be completed before such and such time frame. We would take that direction.

Okay. Yeah. I want to hear your thoughts, Madam Chair.

Listen, I'm only one person.

I just feel like it's already, so much has already been done, and so the timeliness of it is just the process. Staff time is critical. All of these things are important. I'm happy to move the prioritized development down, move the other ones up, but I really would like to hold it to be number one, because I don't think that it's going to And again, I'm not speaking for staff, but a lot of the research and the vetting has already been done. And so it's really just the process piece, which takes staff time. Don't get me wrong. I'm not suggesting it doesn't. But that's what I would ask. But I will acquiesce. I think we've proved compromise a few rounds ago. I'm happy to not be steadfast. If that's what you all want, I'm happy to follow your recommendation.

I do just want to indicate that if So if prioritized development areas is move to the bottom, just know that the work will continue in parallel, right? So just wanted to mention that. No, stop all work.

Don't do it. I mean, I do think it is all layered on top of each other. We understand that it's just figuring out like how to get these other priorities going. And I do think there's something to be said about people knowing that IF I WANT TO RUN FOR COMMISSION, PLANNING COMMISSION OR THE CAB OR THE BOARD OF ADJUSTMENT ARE NOT NECESSARILY AVENUES FOR ME TO EXPLORE. SO I DON'T KNOW HOW WE COMMUNICATE THAT WHILE ALSO MAKING SURE WE'RE KEEPING THESE PRIORITIES

And well, it's really simple. You could just make it to the top and then it would be plenty of time when the filing happens. So there wouldn't be a last minute surprise. Um, I wouldn't be pushing it so much if it had all this work had not been done. So it's just really fresh in the sense of we just finished the cab and Went through all of that. I mentioned it to Ms. Gustafson. This is the next process for us to move that forward, and that's why I asked for this item to come. As it turns out, it's helpful for staff as well, right, to have this discussion in terms of giving direction. So I'm happy to move the prioritized development area to the last, move the other ones up. but I am going to ask if we can consider having the item that I'm recommending that would mirror the language in the cab that's already been approved to be the top.

Make it a motion.

That was a motion. A second. Okay, we have a motion, a second. Any further discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed? Aye. Motion carries unanimously. Did you get everything that you needed and more? As always. Okay. Thank you. And thanks for what you do, all of you. All right. We are going to close Item 11, and we're going to move to the block. Commissioner Herman, just for ease, I'm going to ask if the Vice Chair could go ahead and recommend the block. Is that okay with you, or would you like to do it?

No, that's fine.

Okay, thank you. Madam Chair, I'd like to recommend items 12, 13, 14, and 15 for block. Great.

Is there any public comment on this? Not on any of the items, no. Okay, great. Anybody have any questions or need further information? Hearing none, I'll entertain. I'll second that. All right. And so we have motion to second. Any further discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries unanimously.

And just to clarify for the record, did you call for public comment? I did. Okay. Thank you. Sorry.

I did that too fast. Yeah, you were very fast. I was really fast. I did. Thank you, though, for checking, because that isn't always the case. All right, we are going to move now to item 16.

Thank you, Madam Chair. We are on item number 16, which is a recommendation to acknowledge and approve the Washoe County Fiscal Year 2027 to 2029 Strategic Plan, which includes strategic objectives, goals, and initiatives. And we are joined this afternoon by Assistant County Manager Solero.

Good afternoon. Assistant County Manager Dave Solero. Commissioners, this really is the culmination of a fairly lengthy journey to reimagine the Washoe County Strategic Plan. As you will recall, the assessment of the Office of the County Manager included a section related to the improvement of the strategic planning process. Manager Thomas has really taken the recommendation to heart and led the way to empowering the way that we process and synthesize the future of Washoe County through our strategic plan. So we've taken input from yourselves, from other elected officials, department heads. We have scrubbed the data that we received from the citizens and other organizations in our community to truly understand where Washoe County should focus our resources to create the future that is envisioned by the Washoe County Board of County Commissioners. So just to kind of ground us where we're at, we did not change the mission, vision, or values. And really the mission is the purpose that we are articulating why we exist as an organization. So that I think holds true in all of the information that we received back from all of the work that we had done through the workshops and everything, that we're working together regionally to provide a safe, and sustain a safe, secure, and healthy community. I think that still rings true even through this process. That is what we heard from you all in the community. Our values, that's really how we behave, right? And so I think we can still stand behind the integrity of our, you know, what we do, the effective communication that we have. There's things baked into the plan to assist even more with that. And then just really quality public service at the core. That is what we're here to provide. The vision, this is really the purpose of trying to, project the concrete future where Washoe County will be the social, economic, and policy leadership force in Nevada and the western states. That's really kind of the big vision that you've all set forward that we ground ourselves within. So the community, or for the community, I think, better, rather than yourselves, is that the strategic nature of the plan is is that these objectives are not necessarily the current work plan, although some of them are in there, but the majority of the work is really associated with objectives to be creating the what will be in Washoe County, right? So this is strategy. This is the strategy of where we want to be, not necessarily the day-to-day work. So our strategic areas or areas of organizational focus within this plan are fiscal resilience and stewardship, sustainable infrastructure and growth, community health and well-being, and really a culture of innovation. We're trying to make sure that we have the capacity to be able to do this work for the community because, you know, I like to say 20% of your workload ought to be envisioning the future and doing the strategy, but we all know that the workload is just, you know, there's a lot of work on the day-to-day for what we're trying to accomplish. You just went through an item where we prioritized for one division within the county on the work plan that they need to do because there is so much work to be done and we want to be able to focus our efforts where the resources are available to actually get something accomplished for you. So appreciate the leadership that you've allowed for the planning to occur in that way and hopefully we can get there with other departments and divisions within the county to really be able to focus and really project forward to do great things for our community. So Just a little bit about our planning process. We have an executive champion for each of our four objectives and a project lead. And so you'll see them on the left-hand side of this. Starting with fiscal resilience and stewardship, this is really where Washoe County is working to prioritize the sustainable fiscal planning, accountability, and transparency in the management of our public funds, assets, programs, and services. So this is where a lot of things come up related to THE REGIONALIZATION OF SOME OF OUR PROGRAMS TO BE MORE EFFICIENT AND EFFECTIVE WITH THE TAXPAYER DOLLAR THAT IS OUT THERE. WE WANT TO GO HERE BECAUSE WE WANT TO SET THE LONG-TERM VISION FOR THE COUNTY'S FISCAL HEALTH, RIGHT? WE WANT TO MAKE SURE THAT WE ARE HERE AND ABLE TO PROVIDE THE SERVICES THAT OUR COMMUNITY DID NEED WITH EACH ANNUAL BUDGET. SO OUR STRATEGIC GOAL IS REALLY TO ALIGN THE STRATEGY, BUDGET, AND DECISION MAKING, TO EXPLORE ADDITIONAL REVENUE STREAMS AND ASSESS AND ALIGN FEES. and then to control structural cost pressures. And so again, these are kind of, I don't want to say they're general things that we ought to be doing, but these are things that we should be doing with the public's funds, right? We should be making sure that we are spending them where it needs to be spent, why it needs to be spent, and how it needs to be spent. And so we have a roadmap over the next three years. We have teams of county employees that are scrubbing through these right now just to verify that these roadmaps make sense and they're attainable actions to be done. So these are really the actions that you should expect to see from us when we come back to you quarterly for fiscal year 27 to make sure that these are the things that we're doing to accomplish the plan. Sustainable infrastructure and growth. Again, Washoe County champions development patterns that create sustainable service delivery costs and infrastructure needs as our community grows. There's a lot of the information we hear from our community on a regular basis about making sure the infrastructure is there to sustain the growth and all of those types of things. And this is really, we want to go this direction because the community expects investment in resilient, fiscally sound infrastructure that maximizes the existing capacity and protects natural resources and insured services that keep pace with our growth. Some of this comes right out of our Envision WASHO 2040. So again, we're looking to address housing affordability as an economic risk, invest in sustainable infrastructure, and empower resident communications and education. So again, education, communications, this is an area where we've gotten direction from the board to really educate the community on why things happen the way they do. and how we grow and the reasons behind that. So we were talking about high energy and water users. A big piece of that is also going to be helping to educate not only yourselves but our community as well. And then again, we have a roadmap associated with this one. And then community health and well-being. This one used to be vulnerable populations was what you would recognize it as. So really to identify and triage the most vulnerable populations as identified by the community need and work together cross-departmentally and regionally to provide adequate resources and support. We really want to go here because we need to assist our low-income, indigent, elderly, or at-risk residents to regain and maintain their independence of their health and their safety, to ensure that the community is a safe, livable, vibrant place, enabling every member of the community to be successful and a contributing member of our community. Again, strengthen and sustain behavioral health and homeless services. shift upstream to prevention of some of the things that we know we can change so that we don't have to react to it later. And then prepare for that demographic change across the life cycle. You know, things change as time goes by. Some might say silver tsunami, all of those types of things. So we want to make sure we're prepared for that. Again, a series of roadmaps and action items to make sure we take care of that. And then finally, the culture of innovation. Washoe County employees working together to innovate public service and improve community outcomes. We want to build the culture of employee engagement and innovation, which encourages communication, participation, proactive organizational improvement, teamwork, retention, and innovative public service initiatives. So this is one. directly tied to County Manager Thomas' evaluation system set up with this board. So County Manager Thomas is the champion of this one. And so we want to elevate technology and information governance. With AI and some of those things coming out, we really need to make sure the information we have is solid, so that's where the information governance comes in, and then using technology to increase capacity, not replace service. I think we heard that from you as well. There are some areas where technology works really well. There are other areas where we need that human touch still. We really need to have that interaction to help people through their journey. Modernize service delivery and customer experience, and then build a culture of continuous improvement. And again, another roadmap, and I believe that's the last slide that I've got, because the roadmap on this one takes two. But with that, I really appreciate the guidance that you all provided to all of us as we work through this process to get to where we are today. I feel this is a very strong strategic plan. It really gets us moving in the direction that has given us a clear vision for how to make decisions within Washoe County. And as we continue to work through these, I think we'll do some really great things for our community at your direction. So with that, I'll turn it back over to the board for any questions.

Thank you. Manager Thomas, did you have anything you'd like to add?

Thank you for that opportunity. Just really wanting to ground the fact that we are finally at a point where we're aligning the strategic priorities with the budget, with the board's direction, with my goals that we've set forth together. And so it's really great to have all of that synergy going forward. Exercise you just went through with the prioritization of some of those but it gives staff such a clear direction On what we're working on and we're working on together I think it's really helpful for the community for the staff for the staff that we're hoping to retain and then future attract so I just wanted to commend the work of the board and of course Dave and all of the Gold champions and and folks that are involved. So thank you.

Thank you I'll open it up to questions or comments Commissioner Herman. Do you have anything? I

Thank you Madam Chair and thank you for the presentation. I'm so excited that we are specifically calling out housing affordability and making sure that we can prioritize our most vulnerable members and getting them housed. these really specific goals on how to do that. I'm very excited about this work. I know we've been triaging emergency shelter and now it's time to really figure out how we get people permanently housed. So thank you for making that a priority and I just commend this board because The work that we're doing, I just went to our place on Friday, and I need to take a tour. Cares haven't been there in a few months. But the work we're doing with these communities is pretty incredible, and we're really being lifted up on a national level. But we will only be successful if we can get them permanently housed and not living in a shelter, even though the shelter is actually – we're actually doing a really good job of providing care for people at that shelter. So I'm excited about the vision there and really excited about making sure that we're continuing to improve as an organization and provide that customer service. And I do believe like we need to remember we serve the public. And I think that making sure that that's an ethos that runs through the organization when we're helping people and that people feel like they can come to the county for that support and all the work that just I commend the chair and management on all the work that we did to stand up those supports for folks who have lost their homes and continuing to provide that support is amazing. And I think that's just one of many ways that we provide that service and make sure that people believe in government again, because I think that every interaction that they have with a government employee forms that opinion. And I really believe that the county is, the best to really show that we serve the public. I just hope that post-election we can get together with all the electeds, both new commissioners, because we'll have two new commissioners, as well as the other elected officers, and make sure that there's buy-in with this plan and if there's changes as needed, and just making sure that we're always continuing to reach out to those folks and getting their feedback getting their input and making sure that they feel part of the plan and the organization. And then just one thing, and I know that Commissioner Herman didn't say it, but she has been bothered by our strategic direction statement because it says leadership force. And I don't know if We want to take, like, just wordsmith that a little bit because she's, and I don't want to speak for you, Commissioner Herman, but you always thought that that was kind of aggressive. And so if there is, I don't know if this is the place to speak to that, but I did want to point out that one little change that Commissioner Herman had asked for months ago. I mean, even before Kate was manager, so. That's it. Thank you, Madam Chair.

It was before my time. I never heard that. But I think it's a good suggestion. If we're going to visit everything, might as well visit everything. Vice Chair Garcia.

Thank you for your comments, Commissioner Hill. You might have three new elected officials up here. You never know what's gonna happen in November or so. I really appreciate this presentation so much, and I really wanted to focus on the financial aspect of this. I know that our finances are on the top of everybody's mind. Every jurisdiction, we are facing these structural deficits, and when you peel back the layers on each of these four objectives, there are cost savings under each one of those headers. I really love that we've already begun to explore the diversion efforts under the community health and well-being in our child welfare system, in our judicial system, in our courts. We're already making some good headway there, and we'll see some savings. Of course, the culture of innovation, all the streamlining of efforts, the introduction to technology to help expedite things. We're at that point right now where we have to be very intentional. I think to Manager Thomas's point about us, that simple exercise of us just prioritizing what the planning department's going to do. I mean, we really have to be very intentional about the things that we put at the top of these lists because every minute counts and every dollar is important. going to need to be stretched as far as it can. So I really see a lot of potential for those cost savings just through this framework. And I really appreciate all the work that's gone into this.

Thank you. I don't know much more that I can add that's already been said in terms of how much we appreciate everybody's hard work because although there's only 17 slides, there's hours and hours and hours of not only what's been laid out in terms of the planning to get here, but then the hours and hours to move forward and what that looks like. And I think sometimes when you're looking at just a presentation, this is really, as you put it, the roadmap. And so really looking at where that goes and how that's fulfilled, I think speaks to manager Thomas, your point about alignment, because if everybody's or is in alignment, rowing in the same direction, you're going to get there a lot faster and a lot more efficient. I also think it's really helpful, and I really want to commend Manager Thomas for incorporating the data governance and information security. I think the culture of innovation came out throughout a lot of the planning and the workshops that we all participated in. And it's not just using technology, but it's using and thinking about how to apply things in a different way. I think Mr. Stiller, you said that, that maybe we need to, and maybe you don't remember, I remember you saying that we don't have to always look at everything the same way. We need to be thinking differently, right? But we all have to be aligned, and that's what's happening. So I think there's a lot to celebrate. I also think the fact that there's so many things embedded, whether it's the sequential intercept model embedded within various components of these is something that I think is going to be helpful in looking at not only the dollars that are saved in terms of taxpayer dollars, but the lives that are changed, like what we heard today even as an example with the programs that are put in, the jail-based program, the efficiency of that, how the HOPE team is helping and now Catholic Charities being a part of the case management for the HOPE team and being able to leverage those resources saves money as well, to the Vice Chair's point, The budget constraints, if you look at the number of people, if we remember the slide that had the number of people in 2008 to the number of staff that we have now, it really has not increased, but the population has increased significantly. So I know that we're staying away from that cliche, that adage of doing more with less, but we're doing more with more, right? And we're doing more with the same. It's not that we're doing more with less, we're doing more with the same. And so I think, to your point, I think the sustainable infrastructure and growth is going to be a really major, major topic. As land becomes less available, projects become more possibly complex. Not that a project isn't complex when it comes, but I do think how we look at building for growth and the projections by the regional planning, Truckee Meadows Regional Planning Agency, right? In 2044, they're projecting that we'll be at 600,000. That's not that far away. What are we going to do? So I think it's commendable. This is an actionable item. And I really, really look forward to having additional discussions about each one of these items and where we're at with each one of these items. And I think that will be helpful as a benchmark. I think that will also give the community an opportunity to understand all of these things that are going on behind the scenes. that are moving this forward, right? So I really appreciate everybody's hard work and thank you for reminding everybody about how much has gone into this planning to create the roadmap.

Yeah. And if, if, if I may, you know, I can stand up here and give you this presentation and make it seem like it's super simple to do all these things. Uh, getting here is difficult. where we're headed is even more difficult because the real work to do this and to prioritize those things that we can do. I think I've spoken with each of you about, you know, we can't do everything for everybody in our community. And so with some of the fiscal pressures, we're going to have to make some decisions. And some of that is baked into this plan on, you know, how to make those decisions and what that really looks like. But I'm not going to kid anybody. This is going to be very difficult work, and it's not necessarily going to be as difficult on staff as it is for the board. So maybe I'll apologize in advance for us bringing these difficult conversations to you all because they are going to be difficult. But I think this plan gives us the road map. to be able to at least focus our efforts in the direction that you all have said, this is where we need to go. So I really appreciate that part.

Yeah, and I think it's also helpful, even the adoption of priority budgeting, that has really been embraced. And so I think to all of the commissioners being able to speak with the county manager and with others, yourself, It helps in terms of framing when we get to a point where we have to make policy, what that looks like, and making sure we're aligned with what we agreed in the first place, right, even though there is flexibility for change. So, yeah, here we go. Here we go. So this is an actionable item, and I'm going to call for public comment, and I did that slow. We have Penny Brock signed in. Thank you.

Penny Brock, for the record, I'm on the South Valley, Washoe Valley Citizen Advisory Board, not here representing that board, but I'm here representing the people. Our commission district, too, pays the most in property taxes of any commission district in the valley, and yet we get very little for return. When I looked at the presentation, oh, it was beautiful, But I was confused by it. So what would citizens think about it? You know what, they're very practical, common sense people. They want specifics. Like in our district, the land for our South Valleys Park was donated by a wonderful doctor who has passed away. But he set down certain wishes when he donated that land. And one of them was a community center. That land was donated in the early 90s, and yet we do not yet have a community center. We've got the land, but we don't have the community center. We need it for a lot of reasons. Number one, we do not have a senior center in Commission District 2. We've got a lot of seniors in our district. Also, a community center could provide, in case of the catastrophic events. We've already had the Davis fire across the way. Well, and also in that area, it's an earthquake zone. Not only do we have it on the west side of 395, but we've got it on the east side. We've got an earthquake zone there too. And then on the east side, because our floodplain is gone, and because we get the 100-year floods, Where will those people go when the 100-year flood happens again? Where will they go when the Davis fire strikes again? The fire chief will tell you it's not if it will happen, it's when it will happen for another major fire. And then we've got lack of roads being developed in our commission district as well as throughout the others. So I would ask that it be in the strategic plan a very specific plan that the money be there to build our community center and the fire station in Washoe Valley. And then something needs to be done about the roads and emergency roads in case of these events. So I'm glad I'm first at the table here to give the needs for Commission District 2 and would ask that those be put in the plan. Thank you. Thank you.

There's nobody else. Thank you. Any other questions or comments from any of the commissioners? Hearing none, I'll entertain a motion at this time.

Madam chair, I move to acknowledge and approve the Washoe County fiscal year 2027, 2029 strategic plan as presented. Second. We have a motion and a second.

Any further discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Thank you so much. Thank you. Gotta get to work, you have five strategic plans. By five o'clock, no. All right, we're gonna move now to item 17, an introduction and first reading of an ordinance.

If introduced, this will be bill number 1961. and ordinance amending Washoe County Code Chapter 5, Administration and Personnel, by revising provisions to reduce the number of regular monthly meetings of the Board of County Commissioners.

Does anybody have any questions about this? We had adopted the resolution. Are there any public comment? Penny Brock. Okay, thank you. Thank you.

Penny Brock, for the record, in 2015, it was passed that our County Commission Board would meet three times a month instead of two. I'm wondering if Commissioner Herman asked for that because she feels as being a representative of the people, that we need to have our commissioners before us doing the business of the people. In our county, and growing the way it is like you've spoken about, it will take three meetings a month. This is also a First Amendment right. It's a First Amendment right under freedom of speech. We the citizens have the right to come before you. to make our comments about the different issues. But more importantly, in the First Amendment, it also says that we the citizens have a right to come before the government or an elected body to bring our grievances and concerns. If you go from three meetings down to two, that is infringing on the rights of we the people, the citizens you are to represent. You should be happy. to have three meetings a month, to hear from the people, the citizens that elected you, that are counting on you to protect the Constitution and our First Amendment rights. This is very serious. And I brought this up to you before, but then when you only meet twice a month, you give us long agendas, and then you consent item them. where we can only speak on one item at a time. And then you block vote a larger number of them. When are we the people? to come and speak before you as our Constitution says we have a right to do. And when I watched each of you, when you were sworn into office and you swore that you would uphold the U.S. Constitution, which includes the First Amendment, and to hear from we, the people, who you are to represent. Thank you.

Thank you.

Nobody else signed in?

Thanks.

I do think it's important just to remind everyone that one of the benefits for the Raftelis study that was done or assessment in terms of efficiency and was to include workshops, which I believe have been not only amazing in terms of the feedback that I've received from folks because they give a longer, time to digest sometimes deeper topics and get to the core of things and giving even a higher level of transparency, in my opinion, because you are getting into, I'll use the term, the weeds of things that are helpful, that are super helpful to understand because some of the topics are complex. And so when you're running a business meeting, the agenda, affords a business meeting professional moving along where the workshop allows a very, I don't know, four hour to six hour period of time for those topics and also helps staff in terms of direction. And we've seen that just by the previous presentation that we had. So if there isn't any questions on this particular item, We have heard public comment, and it is a first reading, so I'll entertain a motion.

Madam Chair, just before I make the motion, I want to echo your sentiment and provide some feedback to the county manager's office. The workshops have been really great. and um what i've really liked is the opportunity it's very informal um and we have the opportunity to interface with some other elected officials some other directors and you don't get that much time with people to take those deep dives so i i've really appreciated it i've i've been a commissioner since 2023 so i've seen what the three meetings per month looked and felt like. And this just, to me, means more meaningful conversation. And when we understand things at a deeper level, we're able to make more strategic and thoughtful decisions. So in a sense, saving taxpayer dollars is really what we're looking for. So I think it's been a great thing. With that, I'd like to introduce the first reading of ordinance number 1961 and set the second reading in public hearing for possible adoption on October 3rd.

Thank you. All right, we'll go ahead and close item 17 and move to item 18 for a public hearing. So I'll open up the public hearing. See, Lindsay, I did that. I'll open up the public hearing. Ms. Oakley.

Yeah.

Can't hear at all.

I'm sorry.

I'm sorry. Ordinance number 1767, an ordinance for development code amendments modifying regulations related to equine facilities, parking and landscaping requirements, and administrator review permit standards. It was formerly bill number 1958.

Thank you.

Well, here we go. Cat Oakley with Washoe County Planning for the record. Would you like the full presentation?

I'm going to ask if we would like, it is a second reading. Does anyone need additional information on this particular item? Commissioner Herman, would you like additional information on this item? It's a second reading.

I'm fine with it.

Thank you. I am going to, if it's okay, call for public comment. Thank you.

Okay.

Good afternoon. Catherine Yarte for the record. I own and operate Team Yarte Horsemanship in Washoe County, and I'm here to voice my full support for the adoption of this code. I also want to share a number with you. You guys have seen me talk about this for the last several years. That number is 1,114, and that's the number of days it took me to get a business license under the existing codes. Over $18,000 spent and we got our business license on September 10th of 2026 after navigating the existing code process. This began after a code enforcement experience with my business in 2023 and set me on this path I didn't expect to be on. Three years of meetings, drafts, conversations, and working towards not only my own license under the current code, but participating in this process to update the code to actually reflect how equine businesses operate in this county. This experience is exactly why this update matters. No small business owner should have to spend three years and tens of thousands of dollars just to operate legally doing work that has been a part of this region for generations. This code change closes that gap. It brings clarity where there was confusion, and it gives equine business owners a clear, workable, scaled path forward instead of years of uncertainty. I'm grateful to have had the chance to bring my firsthand experience into this process, along with members of the equestrian community. And I'm incredibly grateful to Commissioner Andriola for championing this process, the Washoe County Planning Department, Planner Kat Oakley, and everyone who has worked so hard and their willingness to hear our perspectives and our unique challenges. Thank you all for your dedication and taking the time to get this right. This wasn't a fast fix, but it was a thorough one, and that shows in this final product. Washoe County has deep rural and ranching roots, and our equine businesses are a part of that heritage. Adopting this code protects that heritage while giving small business owners like me the certainty we need to keep doing this work here legally and sustainably. So I respectfully urge you to continue to approve this process. Thank you.

Thank you. There's no one else signed in. Okay, thank you. So if there aren't any questions or comments, I am going to just thank... the entire team. This particular process has been thorough and it even opened up additional opportunities in terms of now we're looking at agritourism. So I think that this has done as much as it can from a county perspective and just for full transparency, I am working with a couple legislators to look at finishing the job, if you will, at the state level. So we'll see what happens with that. But I am happy to make this motion and I am going to move to adopt ordinance number 1767, which is an ordinance amending Washoe County Code Chapter 110 with Articles 300, 302, 304, 342, 400, 410, 412, and 809 as shown in Attachment B. And in making the motion, the Board is affirming the Planning Commission's findings of fact as presented in the staff report. Second. So we have a motion and a second. Any further discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Thank you so much for everybody's hard work on that. All right, we're now going to move to item 19, which is, well, I'm actually gonna, well, do I have to close the public hearing to open another public hearing? So I have to do that, watch. I'm gonna close that public hearing. I'm gonna open up a public hearing, item number 19.

Madam Clerk and Madam Chair, if I may, I know you're going to introduce the item, but I do want to ask Assistant Manager Solero to come down. We did have a clarifying item that we wanted to put on the record. Thank you. But I'll let you go ahead and introduce that first, and then we'll ask Dave. Thank you.

Okay, this is a second reading. Will become ordinance number 1768 and ordinance amending Washington County Code chapter 50, public peace, safety, and morals by revising provisions relating to the discharge of firearms. It was formerly bill number 1959.

Good afternoon. For the record. For the record, Dave Solero, assistant county manager. Just one brief thing in the time between the first reading and now. We actually did get an email from a resident who was a little bit confused over what we were trying to accomplish and read it differently than everybody that had been working on this. However, the resident has a really good point, and so I wanted to take a moment with this board. Deputy District Attorney Large and I kind of worked through this over the weekend to verify a few things here. But on the left is what we had in the first reading. So this is section five of the proposed ordinance, the determination of congested areas. If you go to item number two there, it says the congested areas designated by the Board of County Commissioners are listed as follows. And so all of those are the planning areas out of Envision Washoe 2040. What that essentially did in this citizen's mind was it created congested areas in every single one of those to the extent of the boundaries. That is not the intent of what we were trying to do. We were trying to make sure that the current shooting boundaries, as they exist in the meets and bounds, was carried forward in maps. And so on the right-hand side, we would like to remove the word areas and put area maps because that's really what we're trying to get the board to identify are the area maps by name. And then the next item, if this is approved, we'll talk through a resolution to adopt area maps. So that is the clarification on this item.

Thanks for the clarification. I'd also like to Officially, thank you for helping the constituent that had reached out to me about this and for going through the thorough process to land where we're landed now. So thanks to someone actually reading all of the detail, and it was very, very helpful. It was interesting for sure. Okay. Is there any other public comment?

There's nobody signed in for this item.

Is there... Any information that people would like to, any commissioners would like to hear about this other than what was stated in the clarification? Okay, then I'm going to entertain a motion at this time.

Move to adopt ordinance number 1768 as outlined in the staff report.

We have a second? Second. Second by Vice Chair Garcia. We have a motion and a second. Any further discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries unanimously. And thank you, Vice Chair Garcia, for helping with all of this as well. Well, the motion carries. So guess what? I'm going to close the public hearing. We're going to now move to item 20.

Manager Thomas. Thank you, Madam Chair. This is an adoption of Resolution R26-82, adopting the congested area boundary maps relating to the unlawful discharge of firearms, including the expansion of the current congested shooting area boundary south and east of Golden Eagle Regional Park and an area north of Sun Valley between Sun Valley and Hungry Valley. And we have Dave Solero still with us today to help us with this item.

Good afternoon. Again, Assistant County Manager Dave Solero. And so as we discussed in the last item, the board would like to define the congested shooting areas by planning area. And so there are a series of maps that will be adopted by this resolution, if you adopt the resolution. These are two examples of what those firearm discharge maps will look like. We have, let's see, the Verdi planning area on the left, denoted by the dashed black line. And on the right-hand side is the Tahoe area plan. And then so the colors, are representative of the congested area and the restricted area. So the congested area is in red. Those are the areas that translated directly over from the meets and bounds survey. Those are areas that are already considered congested area where no discharge of firearms is prohibited or permitted, unless you're law enforcement. There's a few little caveats within the code. And then the yellow areas are the restricted areas. So that's an area where you cannot shoot currently If you're within 1,000, sorry, 5,000 feet of a residence, and that's for long rifles. And then BB guns and shotguns and archery within 1,000 feet of residences. So those are what the two colors denote. And these are on our Washoe, our worms. I'm trying to remember what worms. It's Washoe Regional Mapping System. Yes. use worms all the time, but our Washoe Regional Mapping System, we have a specific maps just for the congested shooting areas. And so these are consistent now with all of that. So the definitions are the same. Now, as well as, you know, we started this whole journey working through the ordinance for congested shooting areas because we'd had some conflicts with shooting that was occurring in a couple of areas within our community. Started with the area kind of south and east of Golden Eagle Regional Park. And then also an area north of Sun Valley, just south of Hungry Valley. And interestingly, those areas that we were having trouble were in the yellow, which was restricted. However, our community really didn't understand. They thought, oh, it's yellow. I can go shoot there. Well within 5,000 feet of homes. And so, you know, giving tools to law enforcement and others, we've proposed. So on the left is the current map. of all the congested shooting areas in the lower portion of Washoe County. And then on the right-hand side, it's a little different scale. It's pretty close, but it depicts the planning areas in the black boundaries. And so on the far right-hand side, we have the red hashed area. So that is the area south and east of Golden Eagle Regional Park. And it's kind of a weird shape because part of what we're trying to accomplish as well is give the public something that they really can understand when they get out there. So it's based on a series of roads, and there's a pole line, a power line road and power line, and then another series of roads that kind of create that piece. And so that gives someone on the ground when they're out there, they know clearly that I'm on this road, I can shoot on the left-hand side, but I can't shoot on the right-hand side. As long as I'm, let's see, on the left-hand side, I can shoot as long as I'm further than 5,000 feet from an occupied structure or 1,000 feet of shotguns. And so then we also, the area on the left-hand side, again, denoted the same way with the red hash marks. That is an area north of Sun Valley and south of Hungry Valley where we've also had this issue. And again, this area, while it shows yellow on the map, there's really very few spots in there where you're further than 5,000 feet from a residence. And so the impact to the shooting community really should be almost nil. However, it has benefits because there's no longer the conflicts And we've actually had quite a few fire starts in that area as well. In both areas, we've actually had fire starts due to shooting that's occurred. So we would like to propose those two areas with the maps along with the resolution that you've got in there. With that, I'll turn it back over to the board for any questions that you may have.

Thank you. Well, again, I'd like to thank the vice chair for work. I started this a little bit, and then you picked it up, so thank you for your hard work on this, Vice Chair Garcia. Really, you put a lot in it. That's why she knows the definition of worms. She knew it immediately, right? Did you have any questions or comments?

Staff did all the work. It's okay. Anyways, thank you. I wanted to reiterate to the public anybody's interest in this topic. Washoe County is supportive of recreational shooting. but see the value. We know the interest. We love the hobby. We just want to do it safely. And we are obligated to make sure that we make these adjustments every now and again to accommodate the growing community we live in. we need this cleanup from time to time because the language is very confusing. And that's why I really like this, that you're using landmarks, physical landmarks that really clarify where you can and can't recreationally shoot. So I just wanted to put that on the record in no way, shape or form are we anti-shooting. And if I had a magic wand, I would make sure that we had more sites within our county that allowed for this hobby and interest for people to really access. I've heard time and time again that we need more. maybe if we ever get out of this budget crisis where we can explore that. Thank you to staff for these changes. And I think it'll make a lot of residents feel more comfortable knowing that it's clear communication and the wildfire, we didn't really talk about it last time, but there is wildfire risk. And again, I'm not saying every shooter causes a fire, but they do happen and the data shows that. So thank you. Any other questions or comments?

Commissioner Herman, do you have anything?

I do. So in this description, by changing it to maps, we haven't taken away areas or have we taken away areas where people could shoot? Are these the original, you know, the ones that we voted on before?

Commissioner Herman, for the record, Dave Solero, as a point of clarification, the majority of the maps are exactly the same as what the meets and bounds survey is. The only difference is the proposed areas north of Sun Valley and south and east of Golden Eagle Regional Park, where we've had essentially some conflicts that have occurred, but everything else is exactly the same as the meets and bounds.

I just want to be sure that we're not changing that. Okay. Thank you.

Thank you. I'll just echo the Vice Chair's comments. I have received some feedback from constituents who were concerned about this item, specifically in looking at it being a move to restrict and eventually stop any type of recreational shooting, and even to go as far as to say, is this Washoe County's plan then to stop hunting? And there is absolutely no indication, there's no inference, there's no direction by this body to staff or staff even inferring that that is anything that is going to be a plan. The cleanup that has been done is exactly that in alignment. So, you know, for me in 2023, I started this discussion because of Golden Eagle Regional Park, and that began the discussion. And it's not just... the Golden Eagle Regional Park area. It extended to Sun Valley. And as the vice chair said, if we had the opportunity, we could have facilities everywhere. It's really a cultural piece of who we are as a Western state and celebrating our Western heritage in Nevada. So there isn't any intent. This move to adopt this resolution is not intended with any strategy to stop or shut that down. at all. I had to get that on the record as well, because I've been getting a lot of feedback.

If I may as well, you know, you'd mentioned hunting. And the last time we went through this process, the Board of County Commissioners actually allowed us to work with the Department of Wildlife to allow, with a valid hunting license, hunting within the congested area. So that's one of the exceptions that's within our our ordinance and that does not change. And so if you've got a valid, you know, permit to harvest an animal that can occur within the, within the congested boundary, as long as you're, you know, the distances you're supposed to be in and all hunters know, know those distances and that. So I think it is important to put on the record that we, are in no terms trying to limit some of these things. This is truly a safety move, and that's part of what you all do as the Board of County Commissioners is the safety and the welfare of our community. So thank you.

Thank you. All right. Well, do we have any public comment on this? There's no one signed in. All right. I'll entertain a motion at this time. Okay, I'll move to adopt Resolution R26-A2, adopting congested area boundary maps relating to unlawful discharge of firearms, including the expansion of the current congested shooting area boundaries south and east of Golden Eagle Regional Park and an area north of Sun Valley between Sun Valley and Hungry Valley. Do I have a second? All right, we have a motion. Second. We have a motion, a second. What do you want to do? I made the motion and Commissioner Herman, you made the second. And any other discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Thank you. All right, we're going to close item 20. We're going to move to item 21, public comment.

Madam Chair, this is your final public comment, and comment heard under this item will be limited to three minutes per person. It may pertain to matters both on and off the commission agenda. Unused time may not be allocated to other speakers, and comments are made to the commission as a whole, please. Do you have anything?

Any public comment? There is nobody in chambers signed in, but I do have a couple of emails to place on the record.

Thank you. We'll go ahead and close 21, move to item 22, commissioners and county managers' announcements, reports, and updates.

Thank you, Madam Chair. These include boards and commission updates, requests for information, and topics for future agendas. And if I may, a quick report. I know we had discussion on item 17 about reducing the number of meetings, but I really thought that would be a good opportunity for us to highlight the greatly increased efforts we have put in place for public input and comments. We now offer remote and virtual public comment, as you know, through our meetings. We have the new e-comment portal. We have cabs. We have leadership programs. We have specialized planning engagement opportunities that we provide. We have community meetings that you've introduced. We have volunteer opportunities on boards and commissions. And I just wanted to talk about our increased social media engagement. We really pride ourselves, as far as the organization goes, on being not just good communicators out, but offering public input on what we do. So I just said I'd put that on the record for you. Thank you.

Thank you. Commissioner Herman, do you have anything? Yeah, I do.

And it's about the cabs, and it's about their middle name. And I think we ought to consider whenever we bring up the cab changes again and improvements to the program, I feel that... that the advisory portion of their name, it needs to be activated and we need to get back to it being, having the power to be an advisory board. and not just a meeting. And that's just something to think about here because I think that they've been a little bit shortchanged. I've talked about this a lot before, so it's not a new thing. So anyhow, just a suggestion for in the future when we deal with the CABS regulations again at any time that we consider that because And I don't want the name advisory taken out. Don't misunderstand me. I just want to give it some power. Okay? The people's voice.

Okay. Thank you. VICE CHAIR GARCIA.

THANK YOU. COMMISSIONER HERMAN, I WANTED TO LET YOU KNOW THAT THE SUN VALLEY CAB HAS BEEN DOING SOME OF THAT WORK, AND IT'S BEEN RELATED TO A POSSIBLE NOISE ORDINANCE. SO AS WE DID WITH THE FOOD SCARCITY, THE FOOD DESERT ISSUE WHERE THE CAB GOT TOGETHER AND DRAFTED A LETTER THAT CAME TO THE COUNTY COMMISSION, THEY REALLY DID COLLABORATE AND COME TOGETHER ON AN ISSUE THAT WAS IMPORTANT TO THEM WITH THE FOOD. grocery store issue, but it's happening right now with the noise ordinance. And so I've failed to fill you in on that, but I just wanted to put that on the record that at least the Sun Valley Cab is very energized and not only getting presentations. They are.

Commissioner Hill.

Yes, I have two, well, three transportation announcements. First off, we are going to be choosing a new executive director for ROTC on Friday. Bill Thomas is retiring, which is a sad day, but also exciting opportunity for new leadership in our region. And so whomever we choose, we'll make sure that they come to this board and so people can be acquainted with them. Additionally, on the 29th at 6 p.m., we are having a joint meeting, RTC and Story County, to talk about two potential roads and how Washoe County and Story County can work together on solving this true transportation crisis between... getting our community members who live in our county to work at TRIC. And so I think that's going to be a great, robust discussion. It's going to be a long meeting. I'm really excited that it's at night so we can make sure that workers can make it there and let us know their thoughts. But we're really excited to tackle this issue and looking forward to working with Story County. It's kind of like... monumental because it's never been done before. And some could argue the state should be doing this work, but whatever. Then the other issue, I'd love if this board could do a resolution of support for the Tahoe Transportation District to transfer the old elementary school property in Incline Village that is on Southwood Boulevard to the Reno Housing Authority. We're going through the federal process right now, and our manager, Manager Thomas, has already done a letter of support saying Washoe County doesn't have the capacity to really tackle affordable housing. We need to leverage our partnerships. But I think for this board to do full-throated support about the transfer and about keeping it in public hands and making sure that we get workforce housing in incline for tourism to make sure that all of our local businesses can stay open and that seniors who no longer can afford to live in a community that they worked in and served in can also retire in that community. So this is going to be a really exciting housing project. I'll get all the information so that the board is briefed on it before that decision is made, but I'd love the board to support that project. So thank you.

Well, it sounds like we'll have an agenda item that we're not going to talk about. I don't have anything other than to say thank you to all the staff and all the hard work. There was a lot of really big items on today's agenda and I think they should be commended and the county manager for your leadership in that as well. And then I just want to let everyone know that the 22nd through the 24th, which is next week, NACO is having its annual, the Nevada NACO is having its annual conference in Tahoe, and it's going to be hosting all 17 counties. And next year, just as a... Put it on your calendar. I don't have a date yet, but next year, Washoe County will be hosting the Nevada NACO annual conference. So as soon as I have that date, I'll let everybody know. And I'm sure that we'll all be there to participate. I hope many of you can attend, but I think it's going to be a great meeting. We're all looking forward to it. There's a lot of hard work that's gone into that as well. We'll see what kind of information I can bring back. In the meantime, I'll share that I had my first... I'm one of the vice chairs or several vice chairs on the National NACO mid-sized counties, and we had our first meeting yesterday, and it was amazing. So more to come on that as we look towards the legislative conference. in February in D.C. with NACO. So I'll keep everyone apprised of what that looks like as we, as Midside County. So it's only the second year. Last year was the first year it was created. And so it's really amazing because you don't necessarily fit in the small, you don't fit in the large. And so I felt like the three bears there all of a sudden. But anyway, it was just right. So it's really great to participate at a national level and hear that a lot of the things that we're wrestling, including planning, is happening. Growth is happening. What I learned, and I'll just share quickly, is that small counties and large counties... those are moving along but the midsize counties are all experiencing growth and how to handle that which the other two small and large aren't having the same exponential number. So I thought that was really interesting to share as we move in our priorities for dealing with things.

Thank you for representing us on a national board. That's huge. It's an honor. So thank you.

You're welcome. Well, with that, if there isn't anything else, I'm going to go ahead and adjourn this meeting at 1.30 p.m. Thank you.