Okay, everyone, welcome to our Mesa City Council study session for February 9th, 2026.

Uh, Vice Mayor Summers is participating by Zoom.

Uh Councilmember Heredia may participate, he's not feeling very well, but otherwise all council members are present.

Item one is to review the agenda for tonight's council.

I know we went over the agenda previously, but council, are there any other questions for staff?

I know we talked about 4A, the purpose of uh 12-inch high pressure gas line out in the uh new magma area.

Mr.

Hassart gave us some intel.

Let's see here.

Okay.

Okay, I I have some questions about 4A based on some information that was pinged on me from some of the residents.

Okay.

Oh hi.

How are you doing, Mark?

Great.

And we apologize.

Mr.

Boucher is home sick today, so uh Mr.

Hirschberg is pinch hitting for him, but has some information, I think, based on some questions that you all had received.

So that's very helpful.

Thank you.

So it's my understanding that it's our utility line, but it's servicing Pennell County.

Is that right?

Mayor, Councilmember Taylor, that is correct.

That's part of the it's Pennell County, but it's part of the Mesa Area gas service territory that we have.

Just for the sake of answering some questions, why do we service another county's residence and they aren't using their own utilities, et cetera.

Council member, this was a decision that was uh the um made back in the 70s.

Uh the magma service areas purchased in 1979 for the opportunity, knowing that there would be the potential for growth and potentially another revenue source uh for the utilities at that point.

And that's as it's continuing to grow and and grow out out in that area, that's exactly what's proving true.

And and these as Mr.

Boucher mentioned last week, um, the magma service areas and it pays for itself uh through those services.

And we use revenue bonds for this build out, is that right?

We use utility obligation bonds when we do these services.

Okay, like a two-fold question.

One, I know District 6, which is part of Mesa, but goes pretty far south, they're all on Southwest Gas, right?

There are portions of MACE of Southeast Mesa that are on Southwest Gas.

It's how the service territories were established and defined by the um uh corporation commission.

Okay, and that was also back in the 70s.

Right, as the utilities come online and their services territories are established.

Okay.

This new gas line that we have slated to build out five million five hundred ninety-eight thousand.

Um maybe I missed it.

Sorry if I did.

How are we planning on paying for it?

How long will it take for it to pay itself back?

Yeah.

Thank you, Mayor, Councilmember.

These are um again would be ob utility system revenue obligation bonds that we would use to purchase it.

Um the planning they come back relatively quick.

Part of why we're going to a larger pipeline is there is some vacant space down uh vacant land in that area that is slated for um industrial growth.

Um if it if when an industrial customer comes on within one year of servicing that customer, it could pay for itself.

Uh, we're seeing that with an existing um customer that's industrial customer that's uh we're turning on gas later this month or within the next week or two.

Um we have uh for 2627.

We are estimating 1.5 million dollars in revenue for that.

Uh and next year up to three point just over 3.5 million.

Okay.

And continuing to grow as their load increases.

So we have one industrial customer already, is what I'm hearing, and we're slated out for more that we know are absolutely coming on to that territory.

We have multiple uh industrial customers throughout the service area and in the city, but those would continue to grow.

We anticipate that land being it's out being marketed uh both by the state and Penell County and Queen Creek for future growth.

So we're building on a little bit for future growth, just assumed future growth based on what we're seeing.

Correct.

Okay.

And then some of that line also, council member serves residential growth that's continuing to happen.

And we think it will pay itself back within about what a two-year, maybe less time frame.

It's a timing situation, so it kind of depends of when it gets out there, but uh they're typically Brian might need to answer this one of those bonds or rel paid off sometimes sooner than than later based on how how much revenue is coming in.

Okay.

So it may not be the full length of the bond.

Okay.

Usually very helpful.

I think that answers the questions I received.

Oh, and then one other thing.

There was some speculation that there might be a possible violation with the corporate commission around this.

Can you clarify that?

Or maybe the Corporation Commission did a audit in 2019.

Um and they were requesting requesting pressure test records on part of the lines between the periods of 1965 and 1970, which again we purchased it in 1979, that service area, so we don't have those records.

So this is the corrective action to be able to perform those pressure tests.

Yeah, and and mayor, council member, if if I know that part of the question you would ask me about whether even the service territory complies with the ACC, and yes, all this is defined.

We going back as as Mark alluded to to the 70s when the city of Mesa purchased this uh utility and and uh that all of that went through the cor Corporation Commission for approval, and so we operate under those uh delineated boundaries under under the corpcom of serving the boundaries of the magma service territory.

So we're in alignment with them.

Correct.

We're not gonna have any problems that arise down the road as a result of doing this.

No like a oops, gotcha.

No, no, this is this is uh established precedent now dating back for for decades, and we are in full compliance with the corporation commission on that.

Great.

Thank you.

I appreciate it, gentlemen.

Sure.

And mayor, if I may, I know Vice Mayor was uh Summers was texting me earlier.

Uh he had a question about if there is a master plan that could be viewed online.

And uh we do not typically post all of our utility master plans online for security purposes, and just trying to make sure that uh bad actors don't know where all of those resources are on those utilities.

Okay, very good.

Uh Vice Mayor, I see council member who ready joined us.

Either you have a question on this particular agenda item.

No, Mayor, uh it's uh thank you for all the questions and answering of uh a little history on this.

I remember uh probably 20 plus years ago uh under uh Mayor Hawker, there were discussions to try to swap uh the magma area with Southwest gas so that the city's gas was congruent with our uh city limits.

And at the time, Southwest saw more value in the uh Southeast Mesa opportunities and magma.

And I think at the end of the day, we're gonna find that uh we're gonna do much better uh with the the growth that's happening out in the magma area now, even though it does create uh some issues like this, uh in addition, looking at the the background and the detail.

This is uh, if I recall, it's a six-inch line installed about sixty years ago, which puts it at the end of its useful life anyway.

So, regardless, this infrastructure was gonna have to be replaced in the coming years, not just for the growth that's happening in that region.

Uh but also because it was coming to the end of its uh useful service life.

So it was uh it it comes at a good time to replace this infrastructure.

Okay, thank you.

And Mr.

Redio, whenever you want, just let me know.

I I think more importantly, as we identify, especially this particular improvement to our gas line that we did there was no record keeping back at that time, and so consequently we had old records.

We want to make sure that the pipes again to Scott's point, they were not pressurized to the pressures they were capable of because of we didn't have a testing record.

So it's great to replace these lines and eventually with this 12-inch diameter high pressure line to help prepare for future development.

And I think maybe Southwest Gas might, you know, rethink their uh position today, but uh it's too late.

Um council, anything else on this topic?

If not, I know a council member go forth.

You have six A, the Sun Devil Auto.

What's your pleasure on that?

Mayor, I do.

I I um it's my understanding that um this is only one major site modification um of several on this parcel.

It's a larger parcel.

This is only one part of it.

And um I would propose, I know that some of us had some questions concerning that, that maybe we postpone this action tonight, and that the applicant comes back and shows us the plan for the entire parcel so we can look at it holistically and we can work together um coming to some agreement on the entire parcel rather than doing it piecemeal.

Um and and um and risking backing the council into um kind of a corner with uh making a decision without a lot of options.

Good.

I I think that's very prudent.

Uh so we can do a continuation, say for 30 days.

I mean, that's very fine, and we can leave it on the consent agenda.

You could leave it on consent.

May uh if you would like to do the delay, we might um suggest not to a date certain just so that we can um work with the applicant and and have these discussions that council member go forth just alluded to, and then and then bring that bring that back to council.

And so if it's 45 days or or you know, whatever the case may be, but just to give some flexibility so we're not boxed into a corner on those discussions.

Council, you okay with that?

Okay, all right, we'll just do a continuation with that.

And so it stays on consent or does it get so it'll it can mayor and council member it can stay on consent for continuation to a date not certain.

Um, and if the applicant wants to pull a blue card and talk before that continuance, uh the applicant can do that and express any concerns that they have with that or um you know, or or support them so it can still get pulled off consent by the applicant.

Okay, but it would it would just be read into the record though for the consent when Mr.

Christopher's reading the consent agenda, it would be read in as a continuance for uh a date uncertain and would stay on consent unless someone pulls it out pulls the item.

Great, thank you.

Can I ask one question about it?

I just want to make sure I'm coming up aboard this.

Um is it is it going to cost the applicant more money to do this?

Are they already invested in this project?

Can't really do we know?

I'm I'm not sure.

I can't answer that.

Okay.

My guess would well, I think time is an investment, but regardless, I think it's prudent that we step back.

And and I like the concept, the whole, I don't know how many acres it is, but we're only dealing with the front part, right?

There's still acreage behind it that I think that should still be.

And only part of the front.

Yeah, part of the front.

Okay.

Parking.

We've done this many times before.

Okay.

So all right.

Any other questions on tonight's agenda?

Um, I don't need to discuss it, but I want 8A taken off the consent.

I'm just one of vote on that separately.

Okay.

8A is off consent.

That's uh it's adopting titles and schedules, term rates and fees and charges for non-residential water utility services.

Duly noted.

Vice Mayor Summers, uh, Councilmember Heredia.

Anything you'd like to hear from the agenda for tonight.

I I have nothing else.

Thank you, Mayor.

I'm good.

Thank you.

All right.

Ms.

Taylor, anything else?

All right.

Okay, then we'll move on to uh item uh 2A is a presentation and discuss the rollout of an AI training program, which will be made available to all Mesa residents.

Good afternoon, Mr.

Mayor, Vice Mayor, Council members, Scott Kahn, CIO, IT director for City of Mesa.

And my co-presenters sitting to my far left, Ian Linson, head of the innovation, uh excuse me, Office of Innovation and Efficiency.

To my immediate left, Polly Bonnet, the uh director of all of our public libraries here in the city of Mesa, and to my immediate right, Harry Meyer, deputy CIO at Do It in charge of innovation, infrastructure, business relationship management.

So we're here this uh this afternoon to talk to you about a new program that the four of us have been highly collaborating on, which we think is uh a first in the city first in the city, first in the valley, first in the state, to educate or offer education to not only city staff on how to use utilize AI, but also to the residents of Mesa, the same type of education.

And we can do this with no additional cost in the budget using our existing budgets.

So this group here has figured out how to make that happen.

So we're going to introduce the idea to you.

It still has a couple months to go before we're ready for the rollout, but we can explain what we believe the benefits will be to the residents in particular, in addition to city staff, and then out to outline some of the implementation guidelines, guardrails, safety things to make sure that uh we don't we don't create issues by making AI available to certain individuals.

So why AI training matters for Mesa.

Um, you can see on your screen there, basically AI is becoming everything to everybody, particularly from a productivity perspective.

There is some very low-hanging fruit that can make things more productive for individuals at a lesser cost that we're going after.

Uh, there are also some very expensive return on investment things that we are learning to stay away from so that we don't misuse taxpayer funds here.

Uh, cities that invest early, it's been proven already that it improves their service efficiency, and we're seeing that here as well.

Uh we uh the do it team has recently won a Smart 20 award for our introduction of the AI Mason chatbot on our website.

Only 20 of these awards are given out worldwide, and we were able to jump in with AI, uh develop this in-house with our existing team and deliver the goods, and it has been judged by the world community that Mesa is one of the top 20 in the world.

Well done.

Thank you.

So we're gonna give you a quick program overview, and again, the funding I mentioned.

This is this is capable of being done with existing budgets, so no additional spent.

We're gonna be using the Mesa Public Library as a platform for the residents.

This is beautiful because you need to get a library card if you want to learn about AI.

So we're gonna drive traffic into our libraries, uh, and actually online.

You can get your your card online.

And then for city staff, we're gonna use our existing iLearn training tracking system to deliver the same same types of courses.

The courses themselves, we're putting them into various tracks that we think make the most sense.

I mean, there's for beginners, there's just the basics.

And then anybody that wants to get more advanced or learn a particular type of AI tool, they can go into other tracks that teach them those things.

This can be open AI, you've heard of Chat GPT.

This could be Microsoft Co-Pilot, uh, can be Claude, is another one you've heard a lot about.

But we are leveraging the LinkedIn learning software that we already pay for to deliver these courses, and I believe there's over a hundred of these, am I correct?

Over a thousand.

A thousand to choose from.

We're trying to package it down so people don't have to make that many choices.

With that, I'm going to turn this over to Pauly and let her talk about how the residents will be served by this program.

All right, thank you, Scott.

Good evening.

Um, as Scott mentioned, the importance of AI literacy, um, one of our primary purposes as an organization is to create access to resources that's responsive to topics and to information changes that we encounter and work with every day.

And one of the ways that we do that at the libraries through LinkedIn Learning, as Harry mentioned, there's 1600, over 1600 courses on AI training through LinkedIn Learning.

And it does target adults, though.

So you do need a library card to access those, but these are courses that are geared toward adult learners, whether that's entrepreneurs or job seekers, seniors, this training is geared towards adults, and it is self-paced courses, so you can take your time to go through these courses, or it can't be as as fast as you'd like it to be.

We have curated topics that we provide through the library if you're an intermediate beginner, advanced learner.

So we do have those available for our residents, and you can do this from your home or from the library, whichever you prefer.

We have some sample topics there.

Um, just to let you know, you know, AI coding is not always what people are looking to access, how to learn how to code AI.

It's really how do you interact with it, and how do you use it in everyday to make informed decisions?

So those are a lot of the topics that you're going to see as well.

And the benefits, of course, are to reduce the digital divide.

We're focusing on community literacy and its many forms.

That's digital literacy, and we want to provide free access to those high-demand skills that you can skill build over time to be more competing.

Competitive in the workforce.

The other reasons we do want to be a pipeline.

We see ourselves as a pipeline into skilled trades and into the workforce in Mesa.

And how we would do that, we have a landing page here.

Our team's already created this.

So this is what you would see when you go to the Mesa Public Library AI literacy page.

The first link is to an e-card.

We'll be launching an e-card campaign surrounding this initiative.

It's free, it's easy to get.

And we will start rolling those out in May.

And then the implementation plan is very simple.

We're almost ready to go.

We have the page set up, and you can access those e-cards and courses now.

But we would do a launch, a citywide launch, and that would be in two to three months.

We're ready to release that out in more of a comprehensive messaging campaign.

Library cards, you can get it any time.

So you can access those now, but it is available through our website.

We would make that easy to access.

And then validating users.

This will be for Mesa in Maricopa County residents.

You will need to be a county resident to access these courses.

And we do use a third-party vendor to validate those users.

And then lastly, this is anonymous, so if you're using these courses, we wouldn't be able to track that back to a particular cardholder, but we can see how many views those courses receive.

And with that question.

Sorry, I might have misunderstood.

Did you say a county resident or city resident?

Both.

So you do need to be a Maricopa County resident to get a library card, a Mesa library card.

But we can also identify Mesa users.

Okay, thanks.

With that, we'll switch gears over to Harry, who will discuss how we're gonna train city staff.

Thank you, Mayor and Council.

The AI staff training program that we're building out here is based on a year of testing that we've already undertaken.

Over a year ago, we uh undertook a AI sandbox approach, uh, giving a limited audience across all the city departments a handful of licenses to see a how they would use it, um, give them some guidance and develop a uh patterns and practices uh within the departments to find what they're useful for in all the different departments.

There's because you can imagine there's different use cases in every context in the city.

So uh we recently polled that audience, uh did a survey of everybody who's had access to the tools for the last year, uh, and came up with what exactly are they looking for?

What guidance do they need, what training is going to be uh useful for them, and uh you know what what's really needed to get the biggest bang for our buck out of uh these tools?

Um, particularly in that uh the those responses to the survey.

We found that uh just the essentials, uh, what are they good for?

What uh how do they ethically and safely use them, um, especially when handling resident data, uh, when uh handling uh uh potentially uh private data.

Um how do we how are they sure that um they're protecting the residents' data?

How can they get you know safe and ethical use out of it?

And so that was the first question.

Um comes the particular use cases like uh the data analytics, um, you know, how do you use it in governance?

So to encapsulate all of this, we've uh done similar to the library and curated a uh a list of classes from that LinkedIn learning catalog, and uh came up with tracks that uh we can present out to anybody who's interested in learning in the city.

Uh how can they be sure that the uh the the data that they're producing is accurate, uh free of you know AI hallucinations, as you've probably heard of.

Uh we we want to make sure that the the humans are in the loop, as they say, that uh the everything that we produce as a city is is vetted by a human intelligence, um, that everything that is put forth uh on behalf of the city is accurate and secure for the city and the residents' data.

Um so we've we've got those courses all laid out.

Go to the next slide.

Um and similar to the library, we'll be uh rolling this out uh within the next month.

We'll actually start the release to the city employees um with the the introductory AI essentials and safe use classes.

Um then beyond that, uh we'll also be engaging with the the state's AI committee.

Uh the governor set up a committee that uh is talking about this very topic of how AI will be used in uh local governments throughout the state.

Uh we'll be engaging with that committee here in the coming month to talk through what we expect to see coming down from the state level, um, if there are any potential regulations or uh uh or legislations that they'll be talking about at that level.

Uh so we want to stay ahead of all of that.

Um then in the coming months, we'll uh pilot additional modules to find those champions for the other use cases and uh continuously improve and roll out these courses.

So with that, we'll pivot to Ian who is gonna talk to us a little bit about how do we keep everything on the rails here and make sure things don't go far afield.

Great, thanks, guys.

And yeah, so to kind of dovetail off of Harry, um so this content is uh um considered like best practice, right?

It's so it's it's going out to the field, seeing what works.

Um it's being updated regularly, so we'll keep track of that.

That's the nice thing about the platform is as new techniques come online, it's gonna be part of the training.

Um as you guys probably know, stuff is changing almost every day, literally, so we get to stay up to date with that.

Um and the one thing I will mention though, as you know, council uh Scott and I mentioned to you probably about six months or so ago, we do have an internal AI policy for use for our employees.

So they do understand some of those things uh that are okay, some of those things that are not, but the training will re-emphasize uh that.

Uh we think there's uh community and workforce benefit here, both for our employees, but for the broader city.

Um just strengthens our competitiveness overall, hopefully helps out the small business job seekers, that sort of thing.

And yeah, definitely positions us as forward thinking for sure.

First in the state.

Um so we want to track this because it's the first time that this has been done.

Uh we kind of we want to see uh are folks interested in it, do they like it, how do they use it?

Um as was mentioned previously, it's anonymous, but we do want to know if it's working.

If it's not, we want to know why, and and maybe tweak it.

But we think there's gonna be a lot of excitement around this um once it gets rolled out.

And then I won't go into too much uh detail on this, but just to whet your appetite, some uh tips and tricks for how to use chatbots right here.

Um some of these came from me actually, not from our learning platform.

So uh take it for a grain of salt, but I'm happy to go through it with anybody if you're interested in what I find to be the most useful.

But please, you'll be available, you'll be um have access to all this too.

So we look forward to you as a counsel digging in and seeing what the the community and the city employees think.

Sounds good.

So we could just ask Ian, is that what he's saying?

I'm pretty sure I'm an AI already.

Yeah.

Yes.

We forward all our phones to Ian on questions on AI these days.

I'm sure you're just capable just as capable.

Mayor, I'm sorry, I just got was that like I just got that AI ask Ian, okay.

I just wondered what voice you're gonna use, Ian.

Okay.

Council, any questions on this AI rollout?

I won't totally geek out on this, but have you guys also looked at the Khan Academy because they have a pretty structured workflow for AI ethics?

Mayor, council member Taylor, we actually looked at multiple different training opportunities here.

Uh there's only one other city that I am aware of in in the country that is doing this for their residents as well as staff, and that's San Jose, California.

So we took a look at their model.

They're actually partnering with six or seven different training companies in Silicon Valley to offer this to their residents.

Yeah.

Con is free too.

I just wasn't sure which one.

Mayor and Council Right, it's great.

And they have AI like first training through copyright.

They have like what is a computer before you even start it.

That's true.

Um my other question was you said you're gonna be tracking the data and the information.

So are you going to track the prompts that people first are you gonna train people on how to write prompts?

Because that's really one of the biggest.

Actually, that is one of the training modules that you can go into where they will teach you tips and tricks and shortcuts on how to write a proper prompt and get a better answer.

Okay, but you're not gonna actually metadata, all the prompts and look at okay, what are the average questions, what do they look like?

Right.

We can give examples of use cases and prompts and and so on that that we have in in our AI sandbox learned about over the last year.

Uh that'll be available to staff as far as dealing with the residents.

There is no plan at this point to point them any direction.

It's just to offer them an opportunity.

I'm sorry, I should have prefaced that for the employee side of this.

What are the more common prompts that you're seeing coming in?

What kind of questions are they asking?

Are you gonna be looking at that data?

Because I've without associating it to anyone, it would be extremely fruitful for you to understand what is the umbrella that your employees are sitting under, like what do they commonly think of?

What are they asking it for help for?

And then you can modify your trainings.

So if I may, Mayor Mayor and Councilman Taylor, so one of the things I I we are gonna look at doing too is maybe not necessarily the monitoring aspect, but creating it an opportunity of forum for folks to talk about maybe what has worked and what hasn't.

Um because the one thing I would say is the tips and tricks for prompting literally change every time they release a new a new iteration of their model.

And so monitoring, it might not be the right approach, but having a place where we all can kind of share what has been working, I think is gonna be really beneficial.

So it's something we're looking at.

I appreciate that you're doing it for free.

Thank you.

Correct mayor and council, uh, as Ian said, the the internal use cases uh is really a collaboration portal.

Uh and we'll have the training portal where we will uh for the employees will be able to track um who was assigned to what course and uh the fact that they took it.

Um but not with the public.

The with the public, it's fully anonymous.

Um but on on that internal side, we'll have that tracking.

We'll also have the availability of the internal teams where people can uh can collaborate, share those use cases, um, the the stories of what they've used it for and be able to collaborate on that.

Since it's kind of integrating itself into everything nowadays, it's like a you know, it's got tentacles that are just touching everything.

Is the city does the city have several layers of artificial intelligence that touch our databases in the server?

And like, are we looking at how to train our employees on ethics within using AI?

Are we locking certain departments down to only have access through artificial intelligence to certain information?

I mean, it can get pretty complicated from a security aspect, and then people leaving the company or the city, sorry, you could tell they worked in private sector, what they have access to and how to there's just so much to it.

Yeah, mayor and council member Taylor.

Thinking as you're training people, like being very careful and judicious.

Yeah, yeah it we have outlined a multi-layer set of protections and strategy to deal with the very issue you're bringing up.

It starts it all starts with the AI AI policy that has been put in place and that that all employees must see and adhere to.

Uh it goes further than that though, and it goes down in the cybersecurity world where we are controlling who has access to what, and we are ratcheting that down tighter and tighter and tighter.

Okay, good as we as we move forward in the this coming year.

Thanks.

Thanks for answering my questions.

I could go on, but I won't.

So I could tell.

Uh Vice Mayor Summers and Councilmember Red.

Any thoughts on the AI topic?

Anyone from council here on the dice?

Yeah.

Um, I just kind of wanted to understand more of our direction.

I understand the the approach that we're taking and having this available for the public to use so they're educated about AI and how to make it work.

And then from what I understand, um, and staff, it sounds like it's more like task-oriented um things.

But at what point will we start collecting data to analyze what we're doing and start predicting?

We spend a lot of money on studies.

There are five years looking in the past.

AI sometimes can gather data from cross-plot, you know, departments and stuff, and just say have a deeper dive into what's going on right now in order to make decisions about streets or whatever.

You know, we make decisions and stuff, but we should be able, are we going down that pathway to start gathering our own data so that we can be more you know, not so past-based and studies and all those kinds of stuff?

Absolutely.

Uh mayor, council member Duff.

Uh you heard Harry mention earlier that we had already looked at a bunch of the existing use cases that were discovered over the last year by letting early adopters play in what we called the AI sandbox.

Uh, and that's where our initial ideas behind what course tracks should we offer to city staff based upon how how uh much those things were used.

It was 50 individuals uh representing all departments in the city.

So we have an idea what engineering looked at, we have an idea what traffic looked at, we have an idea what what water looked at, and so on.

So we we have those use cases.

We did capture those and they did develop the first part of the course tracks that we will be offering out there.

We will constantly track what's going on with city staff, as uh Harry mentioned.

When you're assigned a course, you know, it it's gonna show up in eye learning, right?

In in our learning system, just as you would if you took uh harassment training or or you know, safety in the workplace training.

Yeah, we track those things.

Okay, we won't do that for the public.

Okay, they they're free to to go where they need that.

Well, that data will be anonymous.

But for city staff, we'll keep a very close eye on okay.

What are people using?

What courses are they taking?

And then we will be following up with them for user satisfaction.

And what did you do with this now that you have this knowledge?

What are you doing with it?

And and Mayor and Councilmember Duck, just real quickly, I'd add what what you're describing to me.

I I call enterprise use cases for AI.

We are absolutely looking at that.

Super exciting stuff.

It is very expensive right now.

Um it's time consuming to implement, but we are absolutely looking at it.

I was just looking at something today, just looking at stuff last week.

I mean, so it's it's definitely a direction we want to move in.

Yeah, there's some cities doing some tremendous work, especially around transportation, um, whether it's managing lifetime, you know, your lights and all that kind of stuff, uh looking at what's going on, as well as doing deep dives into crash analysis and being able to see through public safety records and instances and blah blah blah, and then making recommendations.

You need you need to do something here, you need there.

This is the recurrent problem.

Um, and we're able to really see our city immediately instead of going, yeah, we have a problem, do a study, analyzes it, spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to say, yeah, you need a crosswalk there.

So, okay, thanks.

One of the uh mayor and council member Duff, one of the pieces of low-hanging fruit is the data analytics capability.

We have the data.

We we are assuming it is good.

We just need to run the analysis tools on it using AI, and it will help us determine those things without the assistance of a consultant.

Great.

All right.

Sounds good.

Anything, Vice Mayor or Councilmember Haredi on hearing nothing, uh item two B.

Thank you, everybody.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I will look forward to the report and the data you're gonna gather, and I'd like to know how many people actually you know show up to the sign up at the library and participate.

Okay, item two B is to take action on appointments to various boards and committees.

Is there a motion to approve that?

Thank you, Mr.

Adams.

Thank you, Miss Duff.

All in favor say aye.

Aye.

Thank you.

Thank you, Miss Duff.

You're gonna serve on the education and workforce round table.

Yes.

Uh item three is to acknowledge receipt of board minutes.

Is there a motion to that effect?

Thank you, Miss Taylor.

Miss Goforth, all in favor say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

All right.

Okay, that motion passes unanimously.

Next is current events and conferences attended.

Council members, do you have anything that you wish to share?

Okay.

There's a ton of stuff because we missed last week.

So I'm not sure how deep into the past we got.

And I want to take this point of privilege to recognize the profound contributions, resilience, and achievements in America's history.

Today was women leading Mesa's Galantines events, pretty exciting.

Thank you to everybody, Priscilla in particular, because I just works in my office and does a tremendous amount of work on that.

And I'm so amazed with the talent and dedication of all our employees, especially the women and what they do.

I love them all.

So happy Galantine's Day.

Last week we I did was it last week?

I don't know.

We run Mesa as a kickoff at Keno Junior High.

Thank you, Nicole Lab, for running that program.

No pun intended.

The idea museum launched the group Goldberg exhibition.

And so check it out.

It is quite fascinating.

Simon from the Arizona Natural History Museum did a talk at the Temple Visitor Center last week.

Why dinosaurs still matter?

Such a gem to have the natural history museum in our city.

And over that previous weekend, I also attended the Arizona Music Educators State Conference that was here at the convention center.

It's amazing.

We have a new opening in downtown Mesa, Twisters.

It's frozen dessert, frozen frozen yogurt with toppings.

Please check them out.

They're at 58 bus Maine.

I'm very excited, especially as we get closer, warmer months to perfect treat right before counselor when dinner's gonna be late.

What was the address again?

58 bus Maine.

Maine and McDonald's.

Yeah, there.

Okay, okay.

It's only like two minutes right here.

Um and the Asian festival.

I'll let uh maybe you speak about that or Councilman Heretia.

Um it was a tremendous turnout.

It was at MCC.

Um, it was not this Saturday, the Saturday prior.

They had great representation from across the state.

We had Congressman Greg Stanton, Tom Galvin at Maricopa County Um Board of Supervisors, Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallega was there, and of course, our mayor and consulates and ambassadors from multiple countries.

Um international gathering and had striking performances, uh, especially with those Chinese dragons.

Um I attended um also that same day a documentary that was at the ASU mix called Sanctuary, and uh it was a very moving, very powerful documentary about LGBTQ families and and the plight of religion and trying to um uh you know work through those uh things it was um it's going to be on say Amazon soon.

It will be on one of the streaming services, and the Citizen of a Year of the Year event.

Um last week, I think.

And I've lost track of the days.

Marcy Hutchinson was recognized.

She's on the Mesa Public Schools board and has a lifetime service of our school.

She's such an advocate for education, very powerful.

I appreciate that she is um recognized, a very important person for education in the city of Mesa.

And Ron Williams, um, also a veteran and does a long long list of uh volunteer and community work and serving on boards, very valuable in our uh city.

Appreciate both both of them and wish my congratulations.

Is that enough?

Okay, Mr.

Adams.

I'll turn to this side.

You have anything?

Okay, well, Jen got most of mine.

I okay, okay.

All of them were great.

I I just also wanted to mention um I can't remember how far back we went, but I don't think we talked about um maybe we did the point in time morning.

We were at um New Hope Community Center, and I just wanted to give them a shout out, and their director Mark Zerserski, I believe it's his last name, hopefully I pronounced that correct.

They're doing um such great work over there in providing resources and food um to our homeless population, and they have a great staff, they have lots of volunteers, and it's a it's just a really great facility.

So it was um nice to see him again.

He gave it uh Allison and I another tour.

Ms.

Taylor.

My week was not quite as packed as Jen's, but I had the opportunity to tour our North our Northwest water reclamation plant on Monday the second.

I went um for about three hours and was basically just awe-inspired with how Mesa manages our um our sewage water, how we bring it in in the incredible engineering process that it goes through so that it can become effluent water.

And I'm from the South, and we I think what we call effluent water here is what we would call reclaimed water there.

And so um I was telling the tour guide, I said this is almost this is almost clean enough to drink.

And he said, Don't you know, don't advertise that.

And I said, but that's just I want the public to understand if you can if you want to take a tour of this.

I don't know where the cameras are, but you can go take a tour of the Northwest Water Reclamation Plant.

You can be anyone from the general public.

I would highly advise any homeschool co-ops or parents who have children that are interested in engineering and um and water.

Uh if you're a public school group, please go.

You should understand the incredible engineering that Mesa has structured that takes our water, cleans it up at the very end, UV treats it so that there's no salmonella, there's no uh you know, concern concerning bacteria, then sends it now in two different places.

It can either go essentially to the grass, which is the granite reef.

Um, it's it's almost like the trickling area where it trickles back down into our aquifers so that we then can use that water again, or it will go through the grig, which of course we were discussing how incredible that process is that we can now send it to the Gila River Indian community.

So I just kind of got my mind boggled, and I I geek out on this kind of stuff.

So we were there, and I was asking all the questions about how every little piece works, and um, I just want to advocate for Mesa again.

Our water process is incredible.

We are an incredibly well-structured, organized city, and we have, in my opinion, the best water in all the valley because of that, because we've worked so hard to be in front of the game the entire time.

So that was my big wow for the week.

And then I was honored to be invited on Saturday to there was a veterans launch party for the Arizona Veterans Resource Center.

It's in District Three, it's right almost on the corner of um Maine and Dobson, and it's it's a new not-for-profit that's opened up, and they are going to kind of be that premium location for veterans to come from all around the city, including other cities, and just get resources for counseling and therapy, um, resources for where to go next if they've had a problem, even with the VA medical resources.

Uh and in that launch, there was another launch for an app called Project 24-7, which I know Vice Mayor Summers, you've heard of this.

Um, it is a suicide prevention app, and it's specifically geared to help people that are coming not just out of the military, but that work in our public safety that have had very traumatic situations that they do go through.

Um, and the app is specifically designed to help them have a very tight circle of resources that they don't have to think a lot.

You open the app, I need help, I'm not doing well.

It pulls up the people that you need to be in touch with.

It sends them a message hey, so-and-so is not feeling great.

They don't know why, but it's a trigger for them to reach out.

And so we celebrated uh the launch of the application and the launch of the Veterans Resource Center, and so I was just really excited to see those two groups come together and right here in Mesa, but they both decided to have that launch right here.

So anyhow, other than that, we went four-wheeling in the Mesa wilderness right off of the 60 and in Meridian.

Got to see some beautiful Mesa public parks back in Bulldog Canyon.

Want to promote this to everybody, go outside, get some fresh air.

It's gorgeous out right now.

Go see your city in a new view.

Right, that's all for me.

Well, thank you for sharing.

I'll just add that uh both of us, all three of us went to the Mesa Public Schools Foundation dinner, and uh enjoyed that opportunity there to be with our Mesa Public Schools uh individuals.

So I graduation, I attended a graduation solutions and smart schools graduation ceremony, and they graduated about 475 plus graduates, and I spoke there.

Also, kids incorporated at Cadence filled in for the Vice Mayor who could not go, and that was this Saturday.

And lots of stuff happened out at Cadence and East Mark area.

With that, Mr.

Butler, what's our future meetings like?

Well, Mr.

Mayor, we of course will have uh our regular council meeting upstairs immediately following adjournment here, and then on Thursday, we'll convene for a study session, um, Thursday, February 12th at 7:30 a.m.

Just a couple of reminders.

On the 14th, we'll uh join thousands of runners who will be participating in the Mesa Marathon on on Saturday.

So just please be aware of that and plan accordingly.

And if you have any questions about how to navigate around road closures, please go to the Mesa website, and uh we have great uh opportunities for for citizens to engage through that.

Also, just to uh note that on Monday uh is President's Day and and city offices will be closed, but that is the day of our annual fallen firefighter memorial, and so we would welcome anyone from the public to join us uh 8 30 a.m.

at Firefighter Memorial Plaza here in downtown Mesa near Fire Station 201.

And it's a great opportunity to remember remember uh former colleagues who gave so much for this community.

So with that, thank you, Mayor.

And that's at Second Street and Mesa Drive, second street and Mesa Drive, sir.

Mayor.

Yes, sir.

Um if I may uh Councilmember Taylor reminded me of um something.

There's an unsung hero here that had a role in the uh Veterans Center locating where they are now back in the early fall.

Nicole Pogue reached out and uh think both myself and Councilmember Duff when they received a very uh surprising notice of eviction on their quarters in the property uh just across the street from the Delta.

And uh we reached out to Mr.

Butler, who intervened with uh the community college district and got an extension of time that allowed them to engage with uh the necessary resources to find that new facility they're in.

So uh I don't think you ever uh received a thank you or credit for that, Mr.

Butler, but you made a I can tell you in speaking to Nicole, uh you made a huge difference and you caused that that that reprieve to happen that allowed them to find their new facility.

Well, well, thank you, but but the credit certainly goes to to staff um who who were so instrumental in and uh making that happen.

So it was a team effort, but we appreciate that the many of you highlighting um the concern that they had about the timing, and we're always glad to try to troubleshoot through situations like that.

So so thank you for that.

I just like to comment on that.

I I at the time it was very trying for them to meet the deadline to get out of the building, and we were so afraid that we were going to lose them outside of Mesa because they had to make quick decisions and trying to make finding the right property.

Fortunately, with a little extra time, they were able to find the right property in Mesa, and it was so important for them and their model that they were near the light rail.

They can't serve their many of their population if they're outway from the transit.

So being able to retain them in Mesa along the light rail has been very, very important to their model and part of their success.

Thanks.

Okay, with that, thank you everyone.

I'll entertain a motion to adjourn.

Thank you, Miss Taylor, Miss Goldforth.

All in favor say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

We'll see everybody upstairs.

Thank you.