Good morning everyone.

We'll try that one more time.

Good morning, everyone.

Good morning, good morning, team.

I was almost there.

Usually if I say hi everyone or before everyone, I expect a good morning, Matt, or a high.

Good morning, Matt!

Good morning, Mr.

Lerman.

Good morning, Matt!

There you are.

Thank you so much.

I will uh invite Candace up here in less than four minutes to uh get going on our agenda so we are exactly right on time.

Um as we begin the second day of the town's spring council retreat, let me take a moment to welcome anyone who may be observing here in the room or anyone watching online, thank you for taking an interest in the work of your town council.

For those who may be joining us for the first time, I'm Matt Larman with Social Prosperity Partners.

I serve as an independent facilitator for this retreat.

My role is to support the conversation, to help prompt discussion and clarify what's being said, but I do not play any role in leading the council anywhere.

No one's asked me to lead them to any particular conclusions.

Um I'm here to help them have the conversation and to uh enable staff as well.

Just a quick note again for anyone listening or observing uh about what you're gonna be seeing today.

This retreat is a working session for the council.

It's a place for questions and discussion and exploration.

Council members are hearing reports for staff, they're asking questions, they're comparing perspectives, and they're offering guidance about what policy options they would like to see develop further.

This is not a meeting where any final decisions will be made, those can only happen at a properly agendized council meeting.

This retreat reflects the partnership between council and staff.

It's a time for learning and guidance.

Council members have this space to better understand the town's current situation and the choices ahead.

So if you do have a side conversation, we ask please that you step outside the room so it doesn't interfere with the live stream or the recording.

Thank you all for helping us keep the discussion clear for everyone following along.

I am told that uh Vice Mayor Bangiovani is once again joining us by teams.

Hello, Chuck, I don't know if you can respond, but just want to know that we're we're here thinking of you and and we welcome your participation.

And Chuck, I can hear you guys fine.

I just FYI, I have um surgery scheduled sometime today.

We don't know when, so I might be I might be leaving at some point time if you see me disappear.

You're not gonna play this during the surgery for the probably would know you maybe, but um we're grateful to have you here and uh and we all wish you uh the best of health.

Um so with that uh context, I am oh and by the way, Chuck, I also sent you my uh a message by text, so if you want to text me anything directly, um and I can feed that into the conversation as well, I'm happy to do that.

So if you want to text me anything directly, um and I can feed that into the conversation as well.

I'm happy to do that.

Great, thanks.

So, with that context, let me just remind you how council answered one of the questions that we asked yesterday.

I asked counsel, what values do you want guiding Gilbert's financial future?

And among the responses, I won't read them all, but among the things that you said, counsel, you said trustworthy, responsible, courage, stewardship, innovation, realistic, and confident.

Confident comes especially by having candid conversations with each other, asking questions, talking together, and making sure that we understand what it is that we're doing with as much clarity as possible.

And I look forward to helping you uh achieve that clarity today.

Um with that, um Candace, it is time for you to kick us off on community engagement and talent attraction.

I attract your talent to the same.

Thank you.

Um we'll have Melissa Wallow.

I had to practice that several times.

Wait, if you're gonna stand up there, I'm gonna give you the microphone just for extra hours.

From the people team, and then Brenda and Commander Robert Kirk will also be joining us.

Yeah.

Okay.

So yesterday we had some really great discussion.

Uh, one of the topics, some really great sentiment was related around our people, our workforce, and how important it was to take care of them and support them.

And so, very timely, is we wanted to talk about how important it is to understand our workforce and why that matters.

Why it matters is because if we take care of our workforce and really understand those that we need to recruit, that's really gonna help us level up to our focus areas, maintaining that prosperous community, that strong economy, and of course, the exceptional build environment.

Because those people, our people, are the reasons why we have these focus areas and why they are um so strong.

So, what you're gonna see today is some really great national data insights that help us understand how we need to engage with our community, our people, um, and engage on a way that we can retain them and support them.

And then from there, once we go through that, we're gonna go and see some great strategic frameworks and how we continue to maintain that engagement, and then from an account standpoint, we just asked there's some great discussion, questions, feedback of any nature, but no clear direction, but just more so any comments.