Thank you.

Welcome to the Mesa City Council meeting for April 6, 2026.

Councilmember Goforth is unable to attend.

It is excused, Councilmember Heredi is participating by Zoom.

Otherwise, all other council members are present.

We'll begin this meeting with a moment of silence, followed by the Pledge of Allegiance.

So I would ask, please stand.

Thank you.

Please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance.

Thank you.

At uh Arizona Ford recently, the City of Mesa received two environmental excellent awards.

And we have city staff here, Catherine Bloomquist and Stacey Bass as well as representative from the Nature Conservative here.

Good evening, Mayor and Council.

My name is Lauren Whitaker.

I'm the deputy director for environmental and sustainability.

I'm here with Scott Boucher, Director for Energy and Sustainability.

Mesa received the highest honor, a Chris Gordia Award for our Mesa Youth Climate Action Fund.

Um we won the category of curriculum-based and youth environmental education.

The Mesa Youth Climate Action Fund is grant funded by Bloomberg Philanthropies, and Mesa has received 150,000 from Bloomberg.

In turn, Mesa awards microgrants to youth in the amount of one to five thousand dollars.

And youth go out into uh work with community partners like Child Crisis Center or Mesa Public Schools to implement sustainable and resilient projects for Mesa.

It's an amazing program that engages the community, builds confidence and workforce ready skills for youth, and creates a more sustainable environment for all of Mesa.

Some of the stories from this program are particularly heartwarming for me.

Um, and uh the impact to the community and youth has been tremendous.

The second award was won for the Reed Park Greening Project in the category of heat mitigation.

Um we received an award of distinction.

Um the Reed Park Greening Project took place last October, and over a hundred community members showed up to plant 94 desert adapted trees, 35 native shrubs, and build three stormwater uh capture basins for green stormwater infrastructure.

But what made Reed Park Greening Project so special, it was beyond just a regular tree planting event.

Uh it was truly an innovative partnership, and City of Mesa partnered with over five uh organizations and community partners.

That includes the Nature Conservancy, who submitted the award and is here today.

Um, unlimited potential, Trees Matter, Watershed Management Group, and Arizona Sustainability Alliance.

We the project was also supported by the Garden Club of America.

We hope this project will serve as a template for future collaboration between municipalities, nonprofits, and community-based organizations to increase urban shade and make our city more resilient in the face of uh increasing heat.

So thank you to Mayor Freeman and Councilmember Duff for attending and all of council for supporting these initiatives.

Uh, we hope to continue award-winning initiatives like this into the future.

Thank you, Lauren.

Yes, of course.

Um, shall we go down, Council, and take a picture?

Uh Mr.

Boucher, did you want to say anything?

Nope.

Lauren covered it all.

Great.

All right.

Thank you again for all the hard work and all the different uh people that work so hard on this.

And I'm sure we're so glad that you're we have the opportunity as a city to participate in these programs.

With that, we'll move over to the consent agenda.

Mr.

Christopher, I know that there's some off the consent agenda.

Yep.

4C 4D, 5A, 6A, and 7B is what I have.

4C, 4D, 5A, 6A, and 7B.

Yep.

All right.

Go ahead, sir.

Good evening, Mayor and Council members.

These are the items of the consent agenda.

All items listed with an asterisk will be considered as a group by the city council.

And will be enacted with one motion.

There will be no separate discussion unless the council member orders citizen request, in which event the item will be removed from the consent agenda and considered as a separate item.