Again, I'll welcome you to the Mesa City Council study sessions for March 26, 2026.

Council members are ready and go forth or participating by Zoom.

Otherwise, all council members are present.

Item 1A is a presentation on the proposed programs to support redevelopment priorities and initiatives.

With that, um we'll move over to the next team.

Jeff McVay, Jeff Robbins, Angelica, and Jay O'Donnell, and Nana.

Thank you all.

Morning, Mayor, uh Council.

Uh as you noted, um, we've brought the the lineup of subjects today to to present to you the redevelopment toolkit.

Um with me, I have Jeff Robbins, Angelica Glara, Jay O'Donnell, and Nana Paia.

Um we have been working hard since last January when we present to the full council.

Um and I'd also like to um just take a moment to acknowledge the hard work of the teams that are behind us from development service and account development and urban transformation, particularly you know, Mass and Cox, Amanda Elliott, and Rachel Phillips have been very instrumental in developing these of these tool kits.

Um we last presented uh to the full city council in January.

We we came to you with the framework for a set of tools that would make up the redevelopment program.

Since January, we went back to our to our offices and we've been working hard to get the toolkits to the state that it is today.

We're at about what we would call an 80% design state, which means that the toolkits are pretty well built out, but with council's final direction, we'll take it to the next step and be able to finish off the development of the tools, including things like application materials and and specific program guidelines.

Um before, if you want to go to the next slide, I'm sorry.

We since we since we last presented, we have refined it down to the now we have eight tools, and um we're going to go into and describe each of these tools to you, um, provide a summary of what they are intended to accomplish, the uh the the budget around it, as well as some administration and overall budget for a program.

Um but before we get into the toolkit, Jay is first going to share uh an overview of our stakeholder engagement and what we learned from our focus groups as we do as we uh presented these tools to them.

Thank you, Jeff.

Good morning, Mayor and Council.

Um we initially presented this uh council asked us to actually go to the market to get feedback to make sure that we were on the right track.

And so we did hold focus groups with private uh companies, small businesses, developers, and property owners, and the feedback was actually very positive, um, very receptive to these programs.

Uh the one of the things that they stressed was if we do anything, we need to have a strong marketing plan and a marketing effort to talk about the programs and make sure that we're doing the right kind of outreach.

Um they also wanted reasonable reporting requirements, so trying to minimize the red tape and a simple application process, one that was fairly turnkey that was easy to understand with fast approval or denial.

And then they also um provided strong support and feedback for the infrastructure tool with published timelines and very clear timelines so that they could understand how this would work from start to finish.

So we felt confident that we were on the right track and that the programs that we're presenting to you today would be um well received by the market but also utilized by um the developers, the property owners, and the small businesses who were trying to attract for these redevelopment areas.

So the the first program that we're presenting today is the demolition and remediation program.

The the point of this program is to really improve neighborhood confidence and market perception for a particular parcel or neighborhood.

This would um be exactly as it sounds, um, really removing those obsolete buildings and structures, uh particularly those that are unsafe.

Uh and the goal is to really reduce blight and to prepare the site for re-iminvestment.

And the mechanics, how this would work is we would really target those areas in redevelopment areas that would be determined to uh to be hazardous or functionally obsolete.

The maximum award that a property owner could could receive is 75,000 for the demolition, but that would be a one-to-one match.

So the the property owner would actually expend the the money first and then they would be reimbursed.

So it's a reimbursable grant.

Three bids would be required to qualify for this this funding.

Um and then we would also be exploring some additional um options with the Department of Environmental Quality.

While we might not be able to get funding for demolition, there would be potential for remediation support with uh environmental analysis uh analyses or uh phase one uh environmental studies.

G mayor?

Yeah, yeah, I'm just curious.

I this is a broad question, so I'll try to paint it correctly.

But assuming no re environmental remediation is needed, what's kind of a range for a demolition project, say for a you know, uh an old gas station that doesn't need remediation, smaller building or a drive-thru building that's obsolete versus a small strip mall that they want to clear out.

We know this.

Mayor, vice mayor.

I I think that every project is different.

It's hard to say.

Um for the this particular project, we were estimating smaller sites.

Um I don't I haven't worked on any of the smaller projects.

Maybe you could speak more to it, but and have you done a recent development project, Jeff?

Jeff, have you knocked over a building?

How much did it cost?

We tend to that way you have a nice.

We we've we've knocked over some structures, um, but not necessarily buildings uh uh uh demolition costs.

Um uh mayor vice vice mayor, I guess the the short answer is I don't have the uh actual number, the how much it costs.

We can look talk to some of our development partners and get some ideas of uh from a cost per square foot, what they usually um bake into a project for demolition.

But it I think it's important to know it it can be a significant component of redevelopment cost and demolition can be.

Um so in in future discussions we might want to look at what those costs are and and see if this is a properly funded um tool or if we need to go seek some more.

Great point.

I'm gonna piggyback you actually asked the question that was on my mind.

I was holding it.

How did to kind of train off of that?

How'd you come up with 75,000?

Like, where did that number come from if we don't know how much demolition necessarily costs?

Uh Mayor Council member, when we were looking at um this program, we did understand that demolition can range wildly, and for a lot of projects, it's gonna be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

I think our intent was that we aren't coming in and doing all the work as the public.

We wanted to be able to assist and incentivize, but not to put the uh burden of the full demolition of a private site on the public.

And so we were trying to balance that um those those needs.

And this is a number we can continue to look at and adjust, but that was part of the thinking of why we came up with 75.

We did look at some um general numbers for for demolition that that did give us some insights, but um we will come back with you with those exact numbers and the sources for those numbers.

I think that would be helpful because I'm am I wrong in understanding that you kind of took your total amount that you were thinking it would cost for this program and you deducted like this is what we think an offset cost for just even this one part of the project would be.

And I love this already.

I mean, I'm you know, I'm a big redevelopment girl.

But I'm thinking if we're not sure what those numbers actually are, we don't have a specific range, then what other areas have we deducted an assumed cost from from the total amount that we really don't have those specific ranges?

So then the numbers become kind they kind of become nebulous, like how much does it actually cost to do this?

And we're well, and Jim, please speak up here as well.

But um, mayor counsel, I think what you'll hear as a theme as we talk about all these programs right now.

Um, what staff's trying to do, at least in this initial first year is a guesstimate of of what we think we're gonna have to true up uh and we'll get that feed feedback from the participants.

If if if we get if people are interested in the program, and then they come and they say, well, you're you're not really moving the needle at 75,000.

You needed it to be double uh that amount.

But though those are some of the feedback that we'll get as people express interest in trying to utilize these funds and partnering with the city um on that, and and I think it is going to be, especially the first few years.

Um this is envisioned as a pilot program, but every year we're gonna have to tweak and adjust and move based on what the results have been once they've actually started working with uh potential um partners in in this endeavor.

So could we say that administratively we can maybe preempt some of that by having more static numbers to work with?

Like we basically go out for bid on the phone.

Hey, what would it cost your company to demo this much?

How much would it cost to put in asphalt with this much square footage?

Like, so we have some good ideas of redevelopment costs.

That way, when you come back and you're like, here, here's some numbers that we actually got on the phone with contractors, and we got an idea of what their bidding process would look like for us.

Oh, sorry, gonna mayor and council.

Maybe I'll give some context and you understand why uh you know, maybe in the future we could do that, but there's other there's other concerns that are sort of driving some of these numbers.

Let me give you sort of some history on the re the concept of the redevelopment area.

The RDAs were created um in conjunction with the central business district to be able to use the G P Plit deals, right?

And so this that was why it was done.

The RDA statutes themselves also um have language, which Jeff brought last time um to empower the city to do some additional incentives.

The language is ambiguous and it's not well developed within the statute.

Um, but as as we've seen over the last several decades, the ability to use um government property lease excise tax deals have become more difficult because the state legislature has winnowed down that tool, and in keeping with sort of the tool metaphor, it's a very big tool, but it's become a very difficult tool to use.

And so the the purpose, the original purpose of creating the RDA in the central business district was to be able to use that G Plit tool, right?

That tool has now become very difficult to use.

And so now we're looking at looking at other tools.

The the reason uh why it's become difficult in part is also because of the courts and how they've interpreted the gift clause.

And so, what we're trying to do also is balance the fact that um we want a very expedited process where we don't have to do a very specific one one-on-one sort of analysis that the courts might do um on a gift clause analysis where we can say, well, we have a match, the numbers low, um, we're gonna fund something.

We feel that that's going to satisfy any court on the gift clause analysis.

If it's a larger number, we could still, and Jeff will get to this.

We can still do a development agreement, we could look at the tools, it's still a possibility, but we're probably gonna need to invest that time, and it's not gonna go through this expedited process.

If we by keeping the numbers low, we feel like we can expedite the process and move it quickly.

It doesn't eliminate the ability for some some much larger project where the demolition is going to be much higher than this, but then we're gonna have to probably employ multiple tools and also look at how to use them in a more um systematic approach.

Very helpful.

Thank you.

Thanks so much.

Quick question, if I may.

Um you're gonna explore with ADEQ a partnership.

Um I would think that that's important because if you look at demolishing something built in the 60s or earlier, you're at a minimum gonna run into asbestos.

So tell me a little bit more about that.

Is that something they're open to?

Is that a an important piece of that?

It would seem to me it is.

Uh they receptive.

Mayor council member, we've had a very preliminary discussions, and and I think most of our time has been spent working with our internal sustainability department on this, and we've looked at every angle on how to approach this.

We explored whether or not the city goes, and typically we'd be going for remediation funds that are provided through Brownfield's grants or through uh the EDA.

And so um we discussed does the city go after those, and after exploring those avenues, we found that there was disadvantages to the city doing that.

Um, a lot of uh strings.

We'll get into more strings with federal money later.

But uh we we uh decided we're gonna approach this the partnership with an organization that can carry those grants and we can apply for them as needed, but we're not the administer of those grants, and so that would take a lot of the administrative burden, a lot of the reporting, a lot of the compliance off of us and put it onto ADEQ.

And so we have worked in the past with ADEQ to do this.

We did it for CyberCore, so we have experience, and now it's trying to now formalize that.

And you are exactly right.

Um remediation was its own tool when we began this process because every site, especially the redevelopment sites, have at least suspected contamination, and most developers will not touch those sites with a 10-foot pole until we're able to remove that spectrum of contamination.

Okay, sounds like you've I'm I'm satisfied you've delved into that extensively, so thank you.

Okay, Miss Steph.

Um, I just wanted to uh pull away from getting those ranges of demolition.

I think it's so vast in as far as materials as it frame or thing, whether the access is whatever.

It's huge, huge amount of information.

The range can be very small, they're very big on the same square footage, depending on a lot of factors that you couldn't anticipate.

But the other point is I appreciate the the comment from um uh Jim on you know, making sure it's not getting into the gift clause conflict.

Um and also I think our program, I'd like to really keep it to helping small businesses getting that incentive to help them.

Um 50,000 or 50 percent or 75,000 as a max, you know, that'd be 150,000 for remediation or demolition for a small business that's significant.

And if we had it, let's say uh it needs to be, you know, to satisfy the range, maybe it needs to be 250,000.

Our fund that we've set aside is going to go by deplete very quickly if we have large amounts, and it's also going to attract larger projects, maybe developers, and when you get into large developers, there's some other tools.

Most of our RDA is an opportunity zone.

There's investment, there's all kinds of incentives and tools for developers, but for the small guy, this is it.

So um I want to make sure that we are reach as many businesses as possible within the funds that we can squeeze out of our budget and um assist those small businesses, because that's where you it's almost impossible to get financing sometimes for these projects.

You don't aren't large enough to qualify for the um incentives or even go through the paperwork for that.

So I think keeping it manageable prices so we can spread the peanut butter a little thinner and uh and reach more small businesses, I think is uh um uh really strong for this program.

Thanks.

Okay, thank you.

Where did we leave off?

But Jay was speaking, then it went to Jeff and Jeff.

Angelica hasn't said anything yet.

So just wait, Mayor.

Next slide.

Are we back to Jeff?

Uh Angelica.

Everybody else is ordering.

Okay.

Thank you, Mayor.

Council members.

This next program that um I'm going to before you start, since we have a I I just want to finish up when you talk about this um demolition re meeting, who's handling what departments handling this?

Who are you tag teaming it all together?

Do we have uh I wanna know do you have staffing of to do this work?

I mean, how's this plug and play?

Mayor, if you're if you're okay, uh holding on uh we do have a uh section on administration and how we plan to administer this.

We can we can cover that.

No, we're all good.

Thank you.

Jay.

Or no, Angelica.

Thank you.

This next program is the code compliance revitalization grant.

The purpose of this program is to be able to work with property owners and small businesses to be able to help them provide a greater impact when they're trying to remove blight and beautify their property.

Um, because we know that whenever we have um code issues at a property, it will deter investment of surrounding properties.

It reduces business activity, it has an impact on health and safety, and it just negatively contributes to areas with already struggling economic activity.

So as part of this program, we're it's a one-to-one match with a maximum award of $25,000.

But the purpose behind it is to be able to help small businesses and property owners provide improvements to their property that are visible from the street.

Um they the property owners in order to qualify can have an open code case or just any type of determination that there is blight on the property.

So it doesn't require that they have existing violations on the property, but if they have some type of blight factor um contributing at their property, they would qualify for this um grant, provided that the property is located within a redevelopment area, or that the property has the conditions of blight.

Um this would also apply to legal non-conforming structures.

Um we would exclude any non-fixed assets and improvements that are not visible from the street.

Are there any questions?

That's it.

That's all we get.

As part of this program.

Okay, I have a question.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So the maximum award is 25,000.

That's a one-to-one match.

So if somebody came in for 25, the total would be 50, I'm assuming.

That is correct.

Okay.

What's the total budget allocation for this?

How many of these awards do we have budget for?

Is there is there a overall budget and how much is it?

So, Mayor, Council Member Adams, if you don't mind towards the end of the presentation, we do have a slide that specifically addresses.

I'm sure Mr.

McVay has is stayed up late trying to anticipate every question.

So thank you.

Okay, thanks.

Because Blight is so bad in my area.

I actually just thought of something.

Is District 2 an RDA?

Because I think you said it wasn't.

Mayor Councilmember Taylor, if you don't mind waiting until the end of the day.

I'm dreading that it's coming.

Can we start at the end?

Maybe like invert this whole thing.

I'm anticipating that part of this.

Okay.

Well, we're gonna wait.

So mayor, council members, we'll move on to the next program.

So the next program is the vacancy registration.

This program would require property owners to register their properties that are vacant with the city.

As part of that registration process, they would be opting in to the police department's trespassing, no trespassing program.

Um in addition to that, they would be required to provide the city a local contact.

So name, address, phone number, a way for the city to be able to contact somebody if there is an issue on the property.

It's part of the registration uh for vacant property.

A code compliance officer would visit the site, inspect the property for any violations that exist so that we can share that information with the property owner.

There are a lot of property owners that are that are not local, um, so that is valuable information that we can provide them.

We would be in communication with them to inform them of any violations on their property so that they can address them.

Um the purpose of this program is really to connect, help us have a method to connect property owners with resources.

The information that um will be gathered as part of this vacancy registration program is really going to help code compliance.

Whenever we identify an issue, when we have a property owner that is not um local, we we mail them a letter, and that is time consuming.

Um having a registry with local contact will allow us to pick up the phone, call somebody, inform them of any issues.

This information will also be available to the police department, and it will also be available and used by staff in economic development, in urban transformation office, um, and be able to connect any potential businesses with these property owners to help them provide them resources and provide connections with potential tenants.

So the idea is to help those vacant buildings get occupied a lot sooner.

Um in addition to that, it would save a lot of staff time from the police department and from code compliance and having to track down the owner and local contact information.

So we are excited about this program and are really looking forward to it.

As part of the program, registration initially would be free.

There would be no fee to register as part of the program, and registration would be required within 90 days of a building going vacant.

As our code officers um identify properties that are vacant and are not registered, we will reach out to property owners to provide them the information so that they can register and same thing.

The registration initially is free.

We are anticipating um fees for registration annual renewals that would increase as the years go on if a building remains vacant.

And the reason for that is because as a building remains vacant longer, it requires additional staff resources in having to perform inspections and calls for service to the police department because we know that vacant buildings attract trespassing fires, vandalism, illegal dumping, um, and then just buildings start to deteriorate and become unsafe, which does require a lot more staff resources and attention to it.

Um we're excited for this program.

As um property owners do renew, they would continue to have annual inspections by a code compliance officer.

If the building um has no evidence of any violations, we are um considering having a either reduction in the renewal fee, so no fee, or a 50% reduction in the fee.

That's one of the points that we're still finalizing with any of your guidance.

Is there a consequence if they don't register?

So this is an optional, you know, opt-in situation?

It the registration would be a requirement of all property owners after a building is vacant.

For 90 days.

So this would be a city ordinance.

Yes, is what you're asking for.

Yes.

Okay.

Um my other question, hold on.

Oh, if I can finish addressing that as well.

Um the idea behind it is that uh property owners register voluntarily, but if they do not, and we identify a building that is vacant, we will reach out to the property owner just like we do with a uh violation on a property to inform them and educate them that we have this ordinance, we have this requirement, and invite them and give them the resources and information for them to register.

Um if they do not register, we will follow up with them as we do similarly to a code case to inform them again, hey, you know, you need to register.

Um at a certain point, if they fail to register, we can um start enforcement process as we do with the code violation because it would be considered a code violation.

But our focus is really to approach them with education and information to get them to voluntarily comply.

Okay.

I remembered my second question.

So I when you started talking about this portion of it, you mentioned if I was a property owner and I registered my property, along with that would come the trespass enforcement.

Yes.

Through the Mesa PD.

Forgive me, but did the Mesa PD not have permission to enter a property if it's privately owned but it's vacant to check to see that somebody has trespassed or hasn't trespassed.

Is there some sort of so mayor, council member Taylor?

It's my understanding that Mesa PD can enter a property if there is a crime being committed, or to do uh welfare check of a building or a person.

Okay.

Um, but in order to trespass a person, they do have to have authorization from the property owner.

So including that as part of this vacancy registration will help speed up that process for them.

Got it.

Okay, and just for the public to hear, this is being proposed because we have so many properties in Mesa that are owned by individuals who have decided to let them become derelict and has neck have neglected them, and so the surrounding areas, neighborhoods, shopping centers, you name it, have become very concerned about the level of safety and the value of their properties going down as a result of other people's negligence.

Mayor, Councilmember Taylor, this program is proposed specifically to address those issues because we do know we've looked at our data.

We know 7.7% of our commercial buildings are currently vacant.

Say that one more time, how many point seven percent.

So we're getting closer to the 10% of Mesa.

Okay.

That is correct.

Thank you.

Question, if I may.

Yes.

Um actually a couple.

I'll I'll ask them and then let you respond to them all at once if that's more convenient.

Um do other municipalities in the greater Phoenix area have a similar vacancy registration.

Uh in other words, what what did you model this after?

Uh that's part one.

The second is okay, you say fines for non-registration will match commercial civil violation fines.

Describe for me what commercial civilization civil violation fines might entail.

I may have another question after you answer.

That's okay.

Mayor, council member Adams.

We've have uh staff that have done a lot of extensive research throughout the state um for programs similar to this.

We have specifically modeled this program after the existing program that the city of Phoenix has.

Um City of Phoenix has a robust program that they've had in place for several years.

Um so we were very happy to gather that information as well as um add into this program specific key points from other programs from other jurisdictions that we thought would be complementary to our use.

So Phoenix is it or other communities as well?

There are additional ones.

Um yes, uh Mayor, Councilmember, they are smaller, tombstone and Wachuka City.

And mayor, um council, I think to that point, Councilmember Adams, this is really common um nationally, and and I think it's maybe a reflection of the newness of Arizona cities relative to cities maybe on the east coast, but if um but the further east you go, you you start seeing uh a lot more of these vacancy um registries.

So it it is a common tool in in other states and municipalities.

So thank you.

Mayor Council member, if I may jump in on that as well.

This was not codified until only a few years ago.

So Phoenix began their program, I want to say around 2022, and they started right after the law was established by um the status state legislature.

So it is truly very new to Arizona, and we expect other cities will come on, but we're we're at the forefront of that process.

Okay.

Mayor, council member Adams, to continue answering your question about the fees for annual registration.

Um the City of Phoenix currently charges 250 dollars for the first year, 500 for the second year, and then it escalates to a thousand dollars.

We actually started uh modeling our fee structure um with Phoenix's fees, but heard commentary from the subcommittee regarding um the thoughts that the fees were a little high.

So we have um come back and are looking at, like I said initially, no fee for initial registration, but then after that, it would be 150 dollars for the first year, um, 250 dollars for the second year, five hundred dollars for the third year, seven hundred and fifty for the fourth year, and then the fifth year would be a thousand dollars.

And um the the reasoning behind that is just because the longer a building sits vacant, the more staff time and staff resources across the police department, code compliance, economic development, um, urban transformation development services that staff time is spent on trying to help property owners um find tenants for their buildings or just answer questions or um address any issues that come up at those specific properties.

As far as the proposed fines, the current fines that we have for um civil citations are 250 dollars for the first fine, three hundred and fifty dollars for the second, and five hundred dollars for the third.

Council does have a proposal that they will be considering in the next couple of weeks, where we are proposing higher fines for commercial properties.

And so um, I'm aware of that.

Okay, thank you.

Um just a couple follow-ups.

Do we uh do we does the city still own the northeast corner of Stapley and Maine, the old Mervyn store?

Mayor, council member Adams, yes, the city does.

Okay, that'll be the example of my question.

Would city-owned properties also be subject to what we're talking about here?

Mayor, council member Adams, yes, they would be.

Fines included.

Mayor, council member Adams.

We we typically contact our real estate office if we do see a violation or are informed of a violation on city property, and we typically do not have to get to the point where it we are issuing ourselves fines because the city is typically good stewards of our property and do provide maintenance.

We have a great example.

If we get to the point where we're not upkeeping our property, we should be fine and we should pay that fine.

We're just like any other property owner in the city.

That you know, we we should be held to that same standard.

I'm looking for fairness here.

Yeah, I'm looking for fairness of enforcement.

Um I'll be honest with you, I find this a little bit big brother-ish and maybe conflicting with some of my standards and tenants in private property rights, but I'm willing to continue to learn more about the basis of this.

So thank you very much.

Thank you, Mayor, Councilmember Adams.

Mayor, can I ask a question?

Yes.

Thank you.

I you know, I have to say I'm I'm a little bit with council member Adams on this.

I I understand the issue that we're I think that we're trying to solve here with long uh you know, helping these vacant properties.

But I I guess I'm trying to understand what the fine is actually gonna do.

Are you trying to incentivize them to rent lease?

Or we just I mean why would you know they can't why are they gonna be um motivated to pay 250 dollars when they're missing out on thousands and thousands of dollars of of lease.

I I need a little bit more time to sort of understand, understand what we're trying to do here.

Um and I'm I'm I'm kind of with council member Adams on, you know, they can't lease the property and we're gonna fine them for that.

Mayor, co um council member, um one thing, and as we come back, this is obviously as it's been alluded to that this would require um code change and and something that uh council member Rams we can continue dialogue on.

Um there's a there's a discussion that we've had about rewarding um property owners that upkeep their property by not having to pay that annual assessment.

So if you have a vacant property that's registered, but you have no um code violations during that time, you would not be subject to needing to pay that that fee.

So if you have a vacant property, if but if you well, if you maintain that property and and it's not causing hardship on um the community or city resources, the police department, anything like that, no um violations, then you don't need to pay that fee.

And that that's a concept that we're looking at as well, and can further explore that and and bring that back to you uh as we discuss that further.

So that seems to make sense to me.

I yeah, I I would like to hear a little bit more about that.

My other question is on the percentage.

So you gave us this percent.

I I have no context for that.

Well, is seven percent high?

Is it low?

What what is the the valley-wide um level?

I mean, is I I'm not quite sure is seven percent vacancy rate.

Is that a problem?

Uh mayor, council member go forth.

I'll try to frame this.

It's not necessarily we didn't come to this tool because Mesa is having rampant vacancy.

I I think why we came to this tool is because we do have bad actors in the city.

They are typically property owners, they're part of very large funds of real estate funds owned out of state.

And it is an equity issue when we have a property that is not being uh taken care of, where code enforcement is spending hours and hours of time, which is funded by taxpayer dollars to try to find where these people are, get them to take care of their property.

There are issues that are spreading to nearby neighbors who are trying their best to run their businesses and and be good small business owners.

And so it's about the bad actors, and we have plenty of great actors who are trying to fill their buildings, and we understand that we are not trying to punish them in any way.

In fact, we're trying to help them by understanding what resources the city has to help them to fill their space.

We want them to be active, we want them to be full.

But in the case of the bad actors, this gives us a way of getting contact quickly, reducing staff time to try to track people down.

Um and I I I to answer the question this is not about trying to punish or leverage your right uh for a large REIT or other real estate organization.

A few hundred dollars is not gonna matter.

Um, this is about trying to not shift the burden of the upkeep onto other taxpayers.

And maybe Jeff.

And I I agree with all I understand all that and agree with it.

I just am wondering if this is effective.

It when you looked at Phoenix, is it effective?

Is it working?

Uh Mayor Council Mergo Forth.

We had an interview with the team that is running it for Phoenix.

They have reported that they found this to be helpful.

And they did also admit that this is rather new to their city.

They're still getting people to register, and uh that that's a process.

Uh, for us, we would be sending out notices and letting people know, trying to inform business owners that that this and property owners, excuse me, that this is a uh a new ordinance in the city, and they're having the same thing as they ramp up.

So I I I would say, council member, to the best of my ability that that this is still a new tool, but the initial findings are promising, and and Phoenix said that it is helpful.

Thank you.

And I I I do appreciate that you all are looking for solutions here that we're you know that that it is new and that we're we are trying to find solutions to um some of these issues, and that it's not a broad stroke.

I'm hoping, you know, that we really are able to come up with a solution that targets those actors that are are neglecting their properties and causing all kinds of trouble for the city and their neighbors.

So anyway, um I have questions about it, but thank you though, for you know, um the c trying to come up with uh ways to to solve and address these issues.

So thanks.

Just quick comment.

I I'd really like the registration, so that we have a contact information.

I've been on ride-alongs, police and fire, and there's been an incident at the property.

They couldn't get a hold of the property owner.

One of them is under, it was um it was on fire, and they sold guns there, and so they just needed to know what was inside.

So when the firefighters entered, you know, what were they where was this, you know, what they could encounter, things like that.

And it burned and burned while they're trying to search for the honor.

And he was out of town and whatever.

So having a contact for public safety, also for our code compliance, because that's an issue overall, is getting a contact for um a property and having them be aware and respond is is very difficult.

Also, without um many times we have encampments or crime going on into property, and we can't get a hold.

This has happened many times, my district.

We can't get a hold of the property owner to let them know so they would register with the trespass enforcement so that we could have public, you know, an officer pull push the people out.

Um without the trust process enforcement, we couldn't do that.

So it allows that to build.

So there are some really good advantages, just having the information and the trust enforcement, the registration and trespass enforcement is really key to keeping the properties safe for everybody.

Just one real quick follow-up.

Uh I know I don't want to belabor this because I know that uh I appreciate what Mr.

Butler said.

We're this is a work in progress.

Um the the one of the biggest concerns I have is that um, you know, you mentioned a real estate investment trust, big outfit out of somewhere in on Wall Street, right?

Versus the small commercial property owner who's a local guy, maybe having trouble get getting his building leased or whatever.

Um my concern is is that our enforcement and our fining process is fair and equitable and doesn't simply go after low-hanging fruit.

It's real easy to go after someone local who has a struggling commercial building and find them and lean them and go through all this process.

It's easier than to go after the REIT that has a few billion dollars in net worth and has a bevy of attorneys ready to deal with us.

My concerns here have to do with fair and equal enforcement, and I'm gonna need to be convinced that we're doing that.

Mayor, Mayor uh Councilmember Adams, I'm gonna use that response to that statement as an opportunity to transition to the next slide.

Um because I'm gonna be the third or fourth person to say our intent behind vacancy registration is not punitive.

Really, the opportunity, not only for the opportunity for code and police and fire to have a contact, it's really for you know, Jay and my teams to have contacts so that we can go out to those property owners and say, we see that you're vacant.

What is the problem?

What's stopping you from being able to lease that building?

Let's go to the next slide, please.

Reuse ready is an answer, right?

It there is oftentimes long-term vacancy, there's a reason why there's long-term vacancy.

There could be an issue with the building.

There could be something from a current code perspective, life safety um accessibility, that those renovations are so cost prohibitive that it makes it challenging for a small business to take over a space and lease up a building.

The vacancy registration gives us contact information, uh, and uh essentially an entree to those property owners to future small businesses to be able to go and say, hey, do you know we have this new redevelopment took program and these tools that are available to you and your businesses that you want to lease to to help address those conditions that might be making you vacant long term?

So the reuse ready program is an is a reimbursable grant program that we can use with property owners as they lease their buildings to small businesses to provide uh uh essentially some offsetting grants to to address those very costly issues that may be why the building's vacant.

You know, the addition of fire sprinklers to allow the adaptive reuse of a building from from what it is today to more active use like a restaurant can be extremely expensive today.

Um if you have to change out a restroom to get 36 inches of of room to have ADA accessibility, that can be extremely expensive, and it can be prohibit those buildings from being reused.

So our I I believe all of us sitting here want to use the vacancy registration as the way that we get to the next stage of Premier being able to offer tools and assistance to help fill those buildings so that this isn't an issue down the road.

Mayor, I have another question.

Go ahead.

Can you give us a sense?

I mean, uh you've always obviously have looked at the vacant properties in the city.

Can you give us a sense about the owners?

I mean, are we looking at these tools because we have a lot of small business owners that need help or the majority of these property owners?

Mayor Mayor.

Do you know?

Yeah, Mayor Councilmember Goforth, it it is it is a mixed bag.

And and as council member Adams um described, the small the small local property owners, um, you know, they have a lot, they have some good real estate, might be in a good location, but the cost to them, you know, the when we first presented the the redevelopment program, we talked about the three different stakeholders.

They're the the small businesses, the property owners, and the developers.

Each of those have a a stake in this, and the local property owners, you know, it is cost prohibitive to them as well.

Oftentimes when you have a large, you know, say you have a REIT and they're doing uh leasing, they have a significant significantly greater source of capital available to do tenant improvements on behalf of the tenant and then just charge them lease rates that are commensurate with the improvements they put in.

Smaller um local property owners don't often have that source of funding, so they often um require their small businesses to be the ones that take on those improvement costs.

Um they may get a lower rent rate because of that, but those improvement costs become a bar that are difficult to to get over in order to get them in the building in that first place.

Um Councilmember Gulfarth, I'm not sure if I answered your question or not.

Uh no, no.

Thank you for trying.

I I was really just wondering of the 7%.

What are we talking about here?

You know, this is a great, it seems like a great program, but are the majority of our problem areas actually owned by local local uh are they local property owners or the majority are REITs, and and this is really not gonna these programs aren't really going to affect or or help many of these vacant and blighted areas.

I get I and I can I can talk to you further, maybe offline if that and is getting us off track.

Sure.

Mayor Councilmember go for then we we will look into that.

We do not currently have the ability to give you an answer as to what the what the proportion is between local and out of state REITs that are ownership.

But I can tell you that, you know, just from anecdotal and just personal experience, it is often those those locations that have the greatest challenges, those that are often the the most uh uh I guess have the most conditions of slum and blight.

Those are often the local property owners because they are you know they're the the the one-off buildings, the small retail center or the the individual standalone building.

Uh so um we will continue to to dig in and try and get you some answers to that, how that's split.

But uh, you know, it is our is our belief that there is significant amount of local folks that that this can benefit.

Okay, that's helpful.

Thank you.

Jeff, I'm sure that Angelica's teams out there, and they're probably boots on the ground, they probably know that answer to that.

They could probably do a snapshot for you for us.

So you don't have to answer, but I'm I think that they're very cognizant of who is property owners here and abroad or outside the state.

Okay, who's next?

I'll keep going, Mayor.

Thank you.

All right, the next tool that we're just to describe is the strategic strategic acquisition and analysis.

Um this tool recognizes there's there are locations across the city that the right redevelopment or reuse of a building can be have a catalytic effect on redevelopment, the broader redevelopment goals in the in the area.

Um while strategically located, these sites are often blighted, bypassed, and or locating an area that isn't proven to the market where people are not willing to invest today, be first to market.

Um occasionally the strategic nature of these sites uh uh warrants that the city ownership is is necessary to be able to ensure that redevelopment matches and aligns with the city's goals and visions occasionally.

Um in those instances the that an acquisition would follow our normal process and it would be considered individually by the council for for acquisition.

However, what this tool does provide us is with the ability to go out and conduct analysis and feasibility studies to determine the redevelopment viability for a location in partnership with property owners, and hopefully be able to create um uh a framework in which we work with property owners to help them identify and understand the redevelopment potential of their site to be able to market and reposition their property for for redevelopment, as well as um provide help understand the economic benefit benefit, broader economic benefits to the city should they go through a redevelopment.

There is um there are a couple case studies that we are currently working on as a an example where conducting an economic benefit analysis of different redevelopment options on a property can help us understand what is the right way way to proceed forward.

Council's uh well aware that you know in the next month or so I'll be coming forward with the with the final purchase agreement for one West Main Street.

That is a site that the council agrees was has strategically located and having control over the next stage and what happens there is very important.

Now there's a next step after after purchasing is what do we do next?

And so we were conducting uh an economic analysis of what is the right thing, an adaptive reuse of the property as it exists today, or a broader redevelopment that would look at raising and rebuilding the site so that we can bring to council the options and they can consider from an economic uh economic benefits perspective what is the right path forward.

The strategic strategic acquisition analysis um tool is intended to continue and allow us to do that on more properties across the city.

One of the things that it's council continue to discuss is really how we can focus on enhancing our urban landscape, how we can really be strategic when it comes to placemaking.

So one of the things that we're looking at is how the city can strategically directly participate in this improvement or airline landscape.

We look at ways that we can incorporate things that strategically enhance the Airbnb landscape, things that really improve our, you know, landscape and when we're talking about policemaking, what are the things that it all entails?

So we're looking at um those high items and things, example of things that we're looking at is example at gateway monumentation signs, which we did have the discussion with city council about four or five months ago, which will be coming to council.

We've identified those specific locations and how the signage uh going to look in um, you know, the shape form and all the other things.

We're also talking about way finding signs, we're finding opportunities to really clearly identify the city itself.

And then we're looking at things like the canal improvement, you know, along uh cities.

So those are the specific things, all tools that we are going to be using for us as a city to directly participate.

But it's also important to really note that this is not isolated from the partnership with the private developers because we do have so many private development coming in, and sometimes when council is talking about placemaking, we're talking about placement of buildings, orientational buildings, and landscaping connectivity.

That is still taking place.

We have been very conscious about this when devolvement comes in, how overall we can really improve uh heavy on landscape.

But this too, it's very specific to how the city can directly participate in improving the urban landscape.

Uh Mayor Council, the next tool is public infrastructure.

This is one that our focus groups really latched on to and liked because without having the public infrastructure to tap into private development does not occur.

Our small focus group, uh which is focused on small business owners, really latched on to this idea, and they told us it was incredibly important to them that there's a solution quickly.

And this has been built by our own experience from our personal office and in downtown, where we've seen lots of businesses who have tried to open, they've gone to tap into the electric, the water, wherever it may be, and there isn't capacity.

And the challenge that brings is that um, even though our energy resources, water resources departments have been excellent partners always with us.

It it there is time that takes to figure out who's paying for this, what is the agreement look like, and so having funds that we can rapidly deploy to make sure that our assets, the public assets, are capa at capacity and sufficient, is going to help to make sure the small businesses can open quickly, start operating, benefiting the community and generating uh tax benefits for the city.

There is a second tier uh to this uh tool now, and that's above 50,000.

And the reason we have that break there, uh you may be wondering is because typically those small improvements are going to be under 50,000.

But once we start getting over over 50, we have to really start analyzing what is the true benefit to the public, and that's going to usually take a negotiation.

So we are proposing the two different tiers: small, very fast and deployment of funds, and then for our larger being able to look at those, work those out, and put together a structured uh public benefit agreement and be able to still help those big high impact needs that are dependent on public infrastructure.

Uh the next is the uh EDA revolving loan fund, revolving loan funds again, they are exist to fix a funding gap in the institutional lending markets between 50,000 and 250,000.

These are very common across the United States, and the EDA has launched uh over 500 of these programs with other cities around the country.

We like this tool a lot, and um at our last presentation back in January, the council asked us to bring a bit more information to really understand this tool.

So there is a bit more content here, and I will walk through it as quickly as I can.

Uh the city's role in this uh type of arrangement would be to be the trustee of federal assets.

And we would handle all of the administration reporting, and we'd also have some local control about how the funds are deployed, what are the city's priorities, and we'd also have some control over how the money is lent, including the interest rate.

We like this tool because of the amount of impact.

It can be lent up to uh excuse me, ceded up to two million dollars by the EDA.

And I did mention at the beginning that we would be the trustee of these funds, but that interest by the federal government we can be released after seven years.

In fact, that's what Flagstaff did, and now they have local control of their fund.

So we we like that.

And we also did look at some research on a question we had our last presentation about the city's responsibility if there is to be a default by a small business.

The EDA understands that that's part of lending, and you can do the best underwriting possible, and it's still possible that a loan can default.

And so if that was the case, the city's not responsible.

The fund amount would simply go down, but the EDA would not be coming to the city and asking for us to replenish the fund in any way.

I won't go over all of the strings.

There's a lot of strings when you're dealing with federal money.

There is uh two things that really do matter though, from a redevelopment perspective, and that is environmental review and Davis Bacon, um, which is the prevailing wages, that can slow down significantly construction projects, and that's something we want to be very aware of.

But the two big obstacles that we want to discuss with you today that are that the city has to provide, or I shouldn't say the city, but somebody has to provide a 40% match to the EDA funds.

And we have in investigating this found that the city cannot be the ones to do that with general funds.

And so we've begun conversations with different CDFIs, those are community development financial institutions that have a public purpose in economic development.

Those early talks have been promising, but it would take some time.

The other obstacle is that the region must have a plan, comprehensive plan for economic development.

Maricopa County, unfortunately, is the only part of Arizona that does not have an EDA accepted plan.

So we would have to work with the region or find another alternative compliance method, which again takes time.

So our proposal, Council, is that we'd like to keep EDA in mind.

We'd like to work through these problems, and we can come back to council at a future date if we're able to work through those and have a discussion then to see if it still makes sense.

In the meantime, the EDA is not the only way to fund a seed program or to cede a revolving loan fund program.

So we are we are wanting to explore uh talking to local banks, looking at grants, looking at foundations that maybe help us to get a program faster, maybe a little bit smaller, but also with less strings that we could deploy sooner for our small businesses.

Okay.

Jeff, I'll ask a question.

Uh what other buckets of funding would be available besides what you discussed?

Have you explored all of them?

I mean, other federal dollars, other grants.

Um we did look at CDBG, CDBG can fund a revolving loan fund.

But our, and we're not the experts on this, I want to be clear, Mayor.

Um, is that if EDA is complicated, CDBG is even more complicated.

And so it is it is possible it is done in other places, but um it's one that we're we're not as keen on.

Or come back with all the options.

Okay.

Quick question.

Yes.

I ventured into this questioning last year about this time, and I don't think I got answers that satisfied me, but when you come back, you mentioned that if EDA is complicated, CDBG is even more complicated.

I'd like you to really drill down into that so that a simple guy like me can understand why.

So when you come back, I'd like I'd like to have you cover all that.

Uh Mayor, Councilmember Adams, we will come back with the community uh services department.

They are the experts.

Thank you.

We have a chance to explore that a little bit more in the next presentation.

Okay.

So mayor council, we've now drilled down into the tools, and we're gonna get to the part that we uh would like to lead with, which is how, from a very high-level perspective is the program going to be administered.

Hearing our focus groups and really listening to what they were saying, uh, again, I'll repeat something that Jay said that was very on point, which is they said, we like this program, you're headed in the right direction, but please cut the red tape down to a minimum.

And so we are envisioning that there would be support from um the Office of Urban Transformation, although any of the core team can jump in and help uh different applicants go through the process.

We'd have a single point where um anybody could apply for these programs, they could apply for any of that work for them.

So we're not sending them to different places all over the city's website, just one portal.

There would be an intake and review to make sure the applications are complete, and then we envision a decision process that is criteria-based so that we know immediately are they in or are they out?

That's what they asked for.

We just need to know are we gonna qualify or not?

And then that we like that too from a staffing perspective because that frees us up to really focus on the experience of these applicants after they are approved.

We want to make sure that they are having a great experience, that they are able to get through the program quickly, get the funds they need.

We know development can be complex, and if you're focused on running your business, you're not an expert in development, but that's why we exist.

And so we want to be able to make sure that we have time for that.

Redevelopment area plan.

Uh council member Taylor, getting to your question earlier.

Right now, uh you may have noticed a lot of these tools are designed to work within a redevelopment area.

And if we look at the total coverage of the current four redevelopment area plans, they cover 4.5% of the city.

I think we all know that there are probably other properties around the city that could benefit from being within an RDA and could benefit from these tools.

And so one of the very first tasks that we would like to begin is the creation of a fifth redevelopment area plan.

This would in no way modify the existing RDAs.

They're gonna stay in place, they're gonna keep their plans working.

This would be a new plan that would cover new territory.

We would envision this extending out east.

I do envision a large portion of District 2 would be involved in this, but this could go out.

We've talked about properties on Power Road that could benefit.

And so we need to do a full analysis to see where this would land.

There is state statute requirements that exist that we'd have to comply with to make sure that we're meeting all of those.

But we would like to begin that process so that we can deploy these tools to a larger area.

Marketing.

So again, just reaching out to our existing networks and also forming new relationships with architects and engineers and other developers who we might not have engaged with over the years because these are new and different programs.

Okay.

Mayor, uh to start answering the questions at the early stages that we're there.

Um to fund the redevelopment toolkit that we've presented.

We're we are requesting establishing a three-year pilot program with an annual budget general fund budget of three million dollars.

Uh the funding, as you see on the on the screen, the funding would be to be divided among the seven redevelopment tools.

Um but as shown, uh, the flexibility needs to be particular in these early days.

Flexibility needs to be built into the funding so that we can be responsive to funding those tools that are having the most impact and are being um accepted by the market responses.

Um, but at the same time providing expenditure caps so that we are able to ensure that funding is available for a full comprehensive program so that no single tool um can eat up the entire um redevelopment program funding.

Uh the impact of this funding, as we as as one of the addressed one of the questions uh earlier, I think, Councilmember Taylor.

Um we are going to be continually analyzing the re the outcomes that we are achieving with the redevelopment program and these tools so that we can adjust funding, that we can be able to move money within these buckets to be able to address and get and move and and be able to respond to the market and what is having the most impact.

Um we will uh you know we will be looking at things such as what is the dollar of a private ROI, I'm sorry, private private Cap X as it as a proportion of public dollars that are are being used to support redevelopment, so that we can be adjusting these these budget figures.

I mean, we can come back to you and be able to provide um uh uh a reasonable um amount of reporting, you know, by month bi-yearly or annually come back and give you reporting on on the outcomes of these um these expenditures and mayor council going back to this concept of public benefit, we we realize that in many cases our goal here is is going to be pretty swift and increasing tax revenue, especially for bacon properties that are activated.

But in the cases, especially, for example, the the larger infrastructure um tier, that's one that's negotiated.

And we want to make sure that no matter what we're doing, we are always ensuring that there is a clear public benefit when when the city is participating in economic development.

So we're proposing a menu style of different benefit options.

If we're working with a small mom and pop shop, it may make sense um that it's not complicated.

We don't want to make it overcomplicated.

And so volunteering with cities uh Mesa's citywide volunteer program may be a solution.

If it is a larger development, uh, that may be a deed restriction, or uh we see this a lot of times, improvements enhance improvements in the public right of way to beautify the environment.

So we'll be looking at these carefully and and plugging them in as they make sense to ensure that the public interest is always maintained and impact.

This is uh a high priority council that we've heard from you, and we've thought about this in three different ways.

One, measuring the outcomes of the program to make sure we are achieving what we intend, measuring the efficiency of the program itself, how well are we administering it, and then looking at the long-term impacts because it doesn't make a lot of sense for us to have an intervention and then for that property to immediately fail and not produce long-term results for the city.

So when we look at the outcomes, we are looking at how much private capital are we leveraging?

If the city's going to contribute, are we able to do a three to one, four to one?

Are we bringing more investment that otherwise would not have occurred in the city?

Are we creating more tax base for the city?

Are we remediating the blight?

Are we creating and retaining jobs?

And when we're looking at our program, it's how many of these properties and businesses are are we helping?

Uh as Jeff mentioned, we want to be monitoring which programs are being used the most, and if there's programs that aren't being used, why is that?

Is there something there that's unattractive that we need to go back and fix?

And then we are also going to be looking at are we just getting the dollars out the door?

And for our long term, uh Jeff mentioned that we would be doing a three-year pilot program at that time.

We'd like to look back at some of the earliest projects that we've worked with, look to see how they are doing, have a full measurement of the impact they've had, and bring those back to council so that you can have an informed decision about the efficacy of this program.

Quick question, if I may.

Yeah, can you uh on this slide?

I assume that all of these bullet points and presumably more will be data points that you will be tracking and reporting back to council on whether or not you've are you gonna set goals here?

In other words, we want to achieve uh XYZ, and then we will see on some periodic basis annual, I would assume, how well we're tracking with these data points.

Mayor plan.

Mayor Councilmember Adams, I don't know that we're gonna be able to to to establish goal targets because uh you know things like catbacks are a tough thing for us to be able to establish a goal.

But uh I can tell you that we are working with the performance management team today to establish those those metrics and those those key performance indicators that we are going to measure on a regular basis so that we can come back to council and and provide that analysis to you so you can see the efficacy of the programs of yourself.

Mayor Councilmember Adams up, I'll jump in on that a little bit too.

We are trying to manage the red tape.

That was the number one warning we got from our focus groups, and we understand there has to be balance.

We have to have the data to know if this is working.

We also need to make sure it's usable.

So we um we talked about this a little bit, but I'll make this point again.

We're doing something that has not been done in the rest of Arizona.

We're taking programs from across the country, best practices, and we're putting together and we're launching them all at once.

This is pretty new.

And so we understand that we're going to be learning and adapting and growing and changing, and we'll be taking feedback as we go and making adjustments.

And I think as we go through this and we we start to firm up what's working, what's not, we make changes.

At that time, we may be able to look at goals.

We may be able to set more of those things, but this first year it may be worthwhile to look at it as a learning and adapting year.

Well, there's two ways of looking at that.

You're asking for three million dollars.

I'd like to see some goals attached to that.

I also understand that you're you're entering some uncharted waters here.

But if somebody on one of my teams came and said I'd like three million dollars to do X, Y, and Z, I'm gonna ask, what are your goals?

So that's just feedback for what it's worth.

Councilmember, go forth.

Mr.

Redia.

Thanks, Mayor.

Um Yeah, I just wanted to say thank you for the presentation.

Thank you for um, you know, listening to the council.

We have said redevelopment is a priority, and you all have gone out and got creative and collected um several ideas and and put them into a toolkit, like you said, that has all uh several programs that are done maybe on their own in other areas and put them all together, and I appreciate that because I think it shows that you that you heard council, and we're gonna be aggressive on this.

At the same time, I do agree with council member Adams.

We have we do have it does have to be, we have to be accountable for the money.

Um so uh let's just keep that in mind too.

But thank you for the presentation, and um I appreciate you tackling this aggressively.

Thank you.

Yes.

All right, so thank you for this awesome presentation.

Um I do have some questions, I just held them towards the end, so you know, you guys could get through and we I wouldn't interrupt anymore.

Um, in the beginning, you said you had a list of businesses that your economic development team spoke with for the redevelopment program.

Uh could we maybe get a some data points?

So, what list of businesses did you talk to?

What categories were they in?

Um you said you had feedback that was very strong support, and I think that's great.

I love that.

But I mean, what caliber?

Like, was that two small businesses that gave you strong support?

You know, I'm thinking of this from a statistical perspective.

You could say 50% of Americans support this, but if you've interviewed two people and one said they support it, that's 50% of Americans.

So that would be very helpful for us.

I think for maybe a few of us, not all of us.

I speak for myself specifically.

Um the businesses that you did speak with, I'd like to understand, and you might be able to answer this now.

Were they the businesses that need the redevelopment?

Like they are the ones who are asking for some help, or was it a culmination of those, and then peripheral businesses who said, hey, my next door neighbor, their their office space looks pretty terrible.

I would love to see this program take effect so that I'm not suffering as a result of their shortcomings.

Um does that I don't know if that's Mayor, Councilmember Adams, um, excuse me, Taylor.

I mean, he's cool too.

So he'd have the same question, maybe.

Um, the the focus groups that we conducted were a variety of developers, property owners who have done redevelopment in the past, and then the small businesses were a mix of um retailers, restaurants.

Jeff, I know you have had had the list, but um I think there were 17 individuals totally 17 or 18.

Nine and eight, nine in our small business, eight and the and the developer.

Okay, that's very helpful.

Thank you.

It gives you a at least a good range of individuals.

Yes.

Um, okay, give me two seconds because you answered some of them, so I'm skipping a few as you went through your presentation.

The reuse ready slide, I thought that was very helpful.

Um, one of the things that I was wondering about though is I'm I'm a limited, this is a real struggle for me because I know we need redevelopment, and I'm a huge fan of it, and I have some areas in my district that I would love to just see blossom.

Uh but I'm also a limited government girl and I love the free market.

So I'm in a really tenuous internal struggle right now because I want the free market to rule through this and change, and we see good things happen.

Unfortunately, that doesn't always happen, and sometimes it spans enormously long periods of time.

So I was wondering instead of having more of a negative consequence.

Would it from a psychological perspective, have you considered for the businesses to have more of a positive consequence in instead of us giving them necessarily just a cash-forward reimbursement, giving them better tax incentives and saying, hey, for X number of years, we're gonna reduce the cost of doing business in Mesa if you can prove to us that you are willing to redevelop your area?

Have have you thought about any of that?

Has that even come to the table?

Mayor, Councilmember Taylor.

I don't know whether or not you saw Jim fidgeting or not.

But I we're gonna let Jim answer this question.

I didn't see you fidgeting.

Yeah, but you know, um, and it it's sort of similar to like um we can't change the tax base on on a particular business or in a particular area, either down or up.

Um and so uh we do enter into some development agreements occasionally in which we reimburse people for public infrastructure from the sales tax that are generated on that particular site, but we don't reduce the sales tax.

So um we don't give an incentive to like a specific business owner or anything like that.

No, you you can't change this, you can't change the sales tax on one particular business or one area.

Okay, um, all right.

Well that answers that question.

Thank you.

Thanks, guys.

Uh okay, so then that's done.

Do we have fees that we currently?

I don't think we ever address this.

Do we have fees that we charge right now for any type of blighted property?

Are we doing that at all other than the code compliance fees that when they're out of code?

Is there anything additional that we have?

So this would be a first.

Okay, this would be the inception.

Uh did you want to say something, Jeff?

No, okay.

Yes.

Okay.

And then uh for strategic acquisition and analysis, um, would this be.

I wanted to make sure I understand.

Are you kind of saying that the city would almost operate as its own real estate investor, saying, like, hey, we want to buy your blighted property, we'll fix it up, and then we'll flip it.

Mayor, Councilmember Taylor, I would consider that to be the rarity.

It's uh our goal is to help the private property owners, the private market understand the value of their property by providing them with some analysis of what the potential of that site is.

There are going to be cases such as one West Main where we where we feel that the city's control of the site, complete control of the site is sufficient enough that or important enough that we want to go down that path.

But that is that is going to be the the very limited.

And if you if if you remember the the budget slide, we've we put we put a re uh expenditure cap, I believe, of one million dollars on pro strategic acquisition analysis.

Knowing today's real estate market, that one million dollars, if we were going into the actual acquisition wouldn't get us very far.

So really our intent on this is to be more about helping other people understand the value of their redevelopment.

I understand, yeah.

I'm just thinking it would be helpful to have some guidelines so that we don't become a real estate acquisition firm, essentially, because that is not what the general public would want the city to turn into.

Okay, I'm almost done just going down.

Placemaking, this was one of our big topics for our strategic planning session.

Um this was actually something that came to mind, unfortunately, a little bit delayed.

How many other cities has Mesa staff studied or it can you give us an idea of how many cities you've looked at where you've seen them really drill down and create placemaking that's been successful and fruitful in the long run, you know, where we've seen, oh, five to ten years down the road, this is still doing awesome.

Mayor Council actually is so much embedded in so many cities that we're talking about.

And when we talk about placemaking, even with a strategic session, you could see we were looking at so many angles.

So placemaking entails, are we talking about activity centers and are we talking about activity centers that are walkable that are kind of a place of attraction?

Are we talking about placemaking in the macro level where you enter a city and nobody tells you you are in a very well-planned city?

So there are so many diverse ways.

And if you look at, I'm sure you've traveled a lot, you go to well-planned cities, nobody has to tell you this is a well-planned city, and some of the things that they do, it's identification.

You know, there is a strategic way of identifying that you are in Mesa that nobody really has to tell you.

You know, when you enter a public space that is really well planned, people are looking, buildings are facing those public spaces.

If you're Mesa, is when we talk about placemaking, there's been strategic actions that we as a city itself has taken.

If you go to River View, the park, if you go to Low Tech Corridor, the reason why we have those identification, those are all strategies that the city basically in the past have undertaken, but we realize that we've there's been a shortfall.

We need to be more aggressive in a way of improving our placemaking and example signage.

If you go to other cities that you're talking about, you can clearly identify that you are in other cities when you are entering our city entryways, and yeah, I've send this to the city manager, so I can say you see our small sign, Mesa.

And it doesn't clearly identify a city.

So when you talk about if we've studied example of cities, it's really a common practice for most well-planned cities that to be um able to focus on placemaking strategies for various taxpayers and various um areas in the city.

So not necessarily a categorized list of locations.

You're looking at a broad sweep.

And and I'm looking at how that ties into this redevelopment plan.

You know, the cost, the the overall aesthetic.

Yeah.

Because uh Mayor Councilman Martilla, because placemaking is broad.

Oh, it is.

That's why when I started, I said this is one of the tools that the city can strategically actively uh active, well, I can't even say that way, actively participate directly.

But that's just a small minute piece.

If in the way buildings are design and the orientation of buildings, it all really entails and really contribute to placemaking.

So to tell you that we've looked at examples, it's a basic function of city planning, actually.

So then for redevelopment, when we're pitching to help a business, we're talking about almost potentially reorienting some of these businesses to better fit our future placemaking schematics.

We talking about specific things that the city can actively make sure that I mean it's done.

Like if you come in, we have a couple of large developments that are coming to Mesa, the city can partner with them to make sure their signage in a way identify Mesa because sometimes, even in a great area, you enter and you don't even know this is Mesa, whilst you go to other cities, even though you have the companies or the development signage and all that the entryway monument, you can still see Mesa at the bottom.

That itself identifying even if you look at the the way the landscaping is designed in a way, it all really creates a place that is inviting to the public and improve the public realm.

So those are some of the things we're going to be doing.

And even when we're doing CIP projects, we know when we're doing CIP, we have opportunity to look at places where we can either put an entry monument sign or what can we incorporate.

Sometimes it could be just a mural.

It could be just an artwork when we're doing a CIB project to really just enhance that.

But one couple of, well, one example that I know downtown, um, Jeff has worked with some of the um places in downtown, is even if you look at um about transformers.

I know in the past years we were, instead of having those, you know, borrowing um transformers, we started wrapping them with City of May's outlook and all that.

And as much as it not be, it may not be so visible, there is a sense of attraction when you see them.

And if it's done well, incorporated into our Airbank landscape, you will start to see those improvements and ways of attracting and making the place attractive to people.

Okay.

These are just, I'm thinking of the nuanced details of how this ties into redevelopment, potential requirements, or what we would look at suggesting for businesses, because it's not just a basic, hey, we'll help you do better on your landscaping.

That means we have some forward ideas that we would be trying to slide across the table as recommendations.

Yeah.

And Mayor And I want to clarify that for the public who are listening right now.

And mayor, councilmember Taylor, and another thing to to to note, and and Jeff touched on it when he was on the public benefit slide.

You know, this is placemaking is also an opportunity.

If we are providing um an incentive through one of the other RDA tools, say the demolition program, um, placemaking can be, if we if we're negotiating a benefit that's you know beyond that 75,000 dollars, or or placemaking can be a negotiated benefit that is an obligation of the private development to provide to the city.

Um, you know, we've we've had this in multiple projects actually in downtown.

If you look at the Grove on Maine, I'm sorry, yeah, not the Grove on Maine, the Melian Main project, and you look at the surrounding streets.

They all, all those surrounding streets now have wider sidewalks, greater landscaping, landscape islands in the street, none of which existed um prior to that development, but was a negotiated public benefit in order to receive the incentive they receive from the city.

There's other cases where we've had we've required the mad murals to the building as a benefit to help in creating place.

So not only are we looking at this as opportunities where where the city is installing placemaking interventions such as entry monumentation, this is part of a broader, broader initiative, and that we are considering placemaking as part of all of our redevelopment programs.

Yeah, there's a lot of details to just the word placemaking.

Um I I don't have any other questions.

I do, I would like to learn a little bit more about some of the other funding opportunities that you discussed uh outside of just the EDA and the CDFIs, um, particularly like grants, the bank grants, public infrastructure, not necessarily just relying on tax dollar funding.

Again, I love this idea.

Um I think I need a little more time to think about the pitch to the public and saying, hi, we would like three million dollars to do a wonderful thing for you, but I need to have more approval just from at least my district.

So thank you.

Thank you so much.

Ms.

Redia, Miss Gilforth, any further thoughts, questions.

No, thank you.

Okay.

No, I'm good.

Thank you.

Vice Mayor.

Ms.

Steph.

Mr.

Adams.

Okay.

I'll just summarize some thoughts that I had.

Number one was I think we have a fiduciary responsibility to understand vacancy in our city and what may impact our just everything that we do, what the business-wise, neighborhood-wise, and and I appreciate you know coming up with this program.

Uh as a former public safety guy, I remember responding to calls when we cannot find the who's the building owner.

And whether regardless, I think it's important that we know through this registry who the building owners are.

Second, uh well, or third, I thought that we could also look at Phoenix's success rate, Councilmember Adams for data.

Well, I think you can have some type of baseline through what Phoenix has been doing uh previously or currently, and then help kind of guide us into what what we're doing today.

Uh I believe, you know, there's some buildings that are probably not all leasable, you know, they're not all marketable.

Uh you know, what do we do with those?

What does the property owner do with the building that's not really scale or what however functionality it you know that we'll we have uh to deal with that?

Um I I'm kind of trying to figure out who's the lead department.

Uh you know, there's four of you here, and who's gonna take the lead or unless it's uh co-mingled with everybody.

And then, you know, I'm looking at the staffing for the departments.

Who's running this, what department?

Do you have enough staff to run it?

Um second of all, the uh I'm looking at the job creation here.

If if we're successful, just bring small business, medium businesses to some of our uh RDAs that are necessary, and then obviously that increases our sales tax revenues.

So uh I I think there's some more work we can do, and I I applaud everybody for doing this, and because this is one of the strategic goals that we have as a council.

We need to reinvest, as I've said, in ourselves and help our city grow foundationally, and it's gonna take all of us combined.

So I'm very happy with that.

Mr.

City Manager, did you?

Yeah, mayor, council.

Um, thank you.

Thanks for your feedback too.

Um, I mean, we're standing up something new, right?

And so there should be these good questions and and uh staff's taking that to heart, and so we'll be able to tailor um some of these things moving forward based on those suggestions and then accountability that council member Adams and and many of you have have spoken about, um, will of course be part of that.

That's why um I've really wanted to characterize this.

I think it's important to characterize this as a pilot program too.

What I've what I've heard from council is that they want to see action in this area.

They want to see um some of our blighted portions of our community, vacant properties, other things turned around for the betterment of of our residents, for our neighborhoods.

So this is the city intentionally getting engaged in um a process to try to better the community.

And and but this is new for us.

We these these are new programs.

We're gonna learn a lot through this process, and we're gonna have a report back, we're gonna track, we're gonna report back, we're gonna learn.

We're I'm sure we're gonna shift, you know, based on responses that we get from from partnerships along along the way.

So that's gonna be really important too.

Um, Mayor, to your question.

That's why we we um we think we have the capacity to administer this right now.

Um if if it's wildly successful, then we may have to talk about staffing in the future.

Um, but as part of a pilot, I I think we have the capacity that we can we can see what the response is and see how we can manage this, and and then we can make decisions down the road if if council deems this to be worth the investment that the the city's making in this.

But I also just want to say too, this isn't this isn't the end all be all of the things that you all have challenged us to do.

We're looking at the development review process right now.

How do we streamline it?

How do we make it more business friendly?

How do we allow small businesses and large businesses to get through our process quicker, get to market quicker?

All of those things that you've heard.

So redevelopment's part of it, the development process is part of it, the regulatory environment is part of it.

Those are all things that we we hear you, and they all function together in a large ecosystem.

It's not one magic bullet that's going to you know solve this, it's going to be all of the above that help change some of the trajectory of of uh the the developments in the community that we'd like to see maybe um in a in a better light moving forward.

I said no, but I would like to add on when it's appropriate.

Sure.

Let me so I didn't did I miss where the three million was coming from.

So, Mayor, we'll bring that back as part of the budget.

Um we've um we've had some funds that were earmarked um in the general fund for for a different purpose that we might be able to use other uh funding to go for that wouldn't give us some of the flexibility to pay for this pilot program.

So um that's something we'll bring back as part of um as part of the budget.

Okay, Ms.

Doug.

You know, I was thinking about back on how we got on this road.

Of course, we shall share the the common goal of uh redevelopment in our city.

But in my experience, just in my district is Russia around downtown.

I could write a book uh the number of projects as small businesses who attempt to fill a space, enter a space, do their tenant proofs, something happens, and there are detrimental things that happen that are just like, oh my gosh, how do I suddenly come up with $50,000 for that?

How do I it it is on the brink of sometimes taking a business who has spent a long time trying to get open, extending that six months, possibly they're going out of business, or they're just in it, and then a discovery, and maybe they just collapse.

There's been like urgent sad stories of a number of small businesses trying to do the simplest thing of they were just got an occupancy um permit, and the inspector came in and noticed something, and now they have to rebuild something because it was an up to code, or it wasn't on some plan, or there are things again and again, just adding on a patio, sometimes well, there are all kinds of things again and again and again that stop small businesses from taking the next step to really be successful.

And small businesses are the culture and the social fabric of our city.

No one goes, oh, I've got to go to Chandler because they have a cheesecake factory.

I no one does it, but they're you will go to another city because you hear about these great little individual businesses doing great things.

But I tell you, as a small business trying to make it in your own space, it's it's a huge challenge.

And there aren't banks who give you money for this.

If you need some money, they'll say, how can you secure it?

Like, well, if I had a hundred thousand dollars, I wouldn't be asking for a hundred thousand dollars.

Well, you have to secure it.

This is really stopping a lot of opportunity in especially the older part of our city and smaller spaces from being really rich and productive is these um spaces that are difficult to occupy, are difficult to transform, or they don't know, or maybe a property owner has a business, whatever's happening isn't working, and they have no idea what kind of options might have.

Maybe it could be in mixed use.

Jeff has been in those conversations, so they take properties and find creative solutions, and like, wow, I didn't realize I could do that in the zoning, I could turn these pro so it's just a concierge services, all these little things to really turn our city around because the current status, we're in a great economic development, you know.

Uh real estate boom.

The current status is there's a lot of properties out there need help.

A lot.

So in a recession is just gonna get worse.

I I don't think the status quo is okay.

I think we have to do something.

I appreciate all the work that you have done to bring a multitude of these little things that I've heard and you've discovered from across the nation and best practices and putting into one program.

We don't have one silver bullet, but we are able to talk to you and find out what is that one thing.

And the thing is, when you make that one thing successful, we've seen little strip malls sometimes there's depressed and blighted for the longest time, and then one great little business comes in and it creates some traffic and it creates some activity, and the next time I go by, there's another, another, and pretty soon that whole strip mall is filled up with wonderful businesses, and it looks good, and there's been investments in the facade from the property owner, and and it's working, it's working.

So sometimes just that one little step, maybe it only helps that business, but it's exponential and the effect and what it can attract and other investment coming in.

So I I don't want to us to really deny an opportunity that we so desperately need.

And yes, we can create those performance metrics.

Look at that ROI.

How can we shape this isn't working and that is, but as a leader, a city that is a size that can be a leader for so many other cities that are struggling, we can create a program that'll be remarkable by shaping it as we go forward.

Um three million dollars, yes, three million dollars.

The offset of what it could provide for our city in an investment sales tax pride reduction of blight and and service hours for the properties that aren't working, it's huge.

So thank you.

Right.

Thank you, Ms.

Dove.

It's not a question manager that I say really quick.

Um my husband works in the contracting field, so I asked him, hey, how much is it to demo?

Approximately a 1,300 square foot building, like completely gut it down to the studs.

He did say it's around $50,000.

And if you were gonna rebuild it really nicely, just but with basics, it would probably cost you around 250.

So just so the public heard that.

Yeah, mayor counselor duff, while we were sitting here, uh Lance Webb Texas city projects recently arranging 13 to 20 dollars a square foot for demolition.

That of course the city project's a little bit higher, but yeah, that's a fair range.

I'm trying to check this.

Thank you.

I just said a 1300 foot foot building, so I didn't specify it.

He just said if you want to rip it down to the studs, that's about what it would cost.

He's gutting everything.

No, I didn't.

Would you like me to poke in on that?

We'll do that at a later date.

I'll come back to you all.

Thank you, everyone, for your time here.

Appreciate it.

And we'll take a 10 minute recess.

Well, welcome back, everyone.

Uh item one B is a presentation on funding recommend recommendations for community development block grants, the home investment partnership program, emergency solution grants, human services programs, and off the streets program presented by Michelle and Justin and Cadmus.

Time is yours.

Good morning, Mayor Freeman, Vice Mayor, and City Council members.

Thank you for having us today.

Um, today we're gonna hear a presentation and discuss the fiscal year 26-27 funding recommendations for the programs that you just mentioned, which include the community development block grant, home investment partnership program, emergency solutions grant, and our human services programs, which also consist of the ABC program, which is a better community program.

We are seeking direction on all of these funds.

The city does administer several funding sources to support the community needs, which we'll go over in the presentation.

We'll also outline how the federal and local funding sources are recommended to support critical housing homelessness and human service programs in the community, and we'll walk through the funding process priorities and the specific recommendations for consideration.

The City of Mesa is a HUD or housing in urban development entitlement community, and what that means is we qualify under a formula grant of a population of 50,000 or more, and that uh formula is based on the census data, including population and poverty.

We have participated in the community development block grant program for approximately 47 years, and the home program for 38 years.

So each year, the city will conduct an annual application process to see seek applications from nonprofit agencies as well as to allocate set-aside funds to core city programs.

We begin in August with a notice of funding opportunity, which goes out to the community, and then we have our funding kickoff, which is our large meeting to present all of the funding sources to the nonprofit agencies and city departments as well, and cover all of the regulatory requirements and what type of applications we'll be accepting.

Applications undergo an extensive internal review to confirm that each proposed activity for that particular funding source is eligible and meets all of the program guidelines and regulatory requirements.

Staff develop follow-up questions to the agency's applications if there are any unclear areas or information or budget on the applications, and those applicants get an opportunity to respond, and those go into their application packet.

So when we're developing our annual process, we do have to take into consideration very many elements which include aligning with the city council strategic priorities as well as the five-year consolidated plan that HUD requires us to develop, and we came to the council last year.

That was the first year of our new five-year consolidated plan that was approved.

We also have a combined scoring process with both staff and the advisory board, which is our housing and community development advisory board, who plays an extensive role in reviewing all of these applications and scoring as well.

There are specific scoring rubrics that are used.

Staff are looking at specific regulatory compliance, the agency's capacity to manage the funds, and also any past performance.

That percentage of the score is 70%.

And for the housing and community development advisory board, they are looking at the need for the service, the impact in the community, and how that agency proposes to collaborate with other agencies.

So we'll get into each individual funding source.

For the community development block grant, this is one of the most flexible federal sources that we have.

However, there are onerous reporting responsibilities and regulatory concerns.

All activities must benefit low to moderate income residents, including any projects such as community facilities or parks that are located in a low mod census track.

And CDBG is designed to address a wide variety of community development needs.

Typical uses for CDBG are housing rehabilitation programs, infrastructure, and public services to stabilize vulnerable populations.

So on the screen, you do have some eligible activities, and I did want to go through individually.

We have two categories in CDBG.

We have our public service activities, which is limited to 15% of our annual allocation.

So while it is a small amount, it does make a large impact in the community.

These are more services or beds for persons experiencing homelessness, and really to provide stability.

For our non-public service activities, that is 65% of the annual allocation, and that includes more of the bricks and mortar type projects.

If you think of building things, housing rehab programs where we go into houses and provide improvements so that it doesn't affect the immediate livability of the home.

Public facility improvements, such as a recreation center at a park that's located in a low mod area, and code enforcement and economic development are also eligible activities.

As I mentioned, there is a variety of activities you can do, but there's lots of considerations for each project.

I just lost it, uh, cross-cutting regulations.

And those are in addition to the CDBG regulations, such as environmental reviews, which take a significant amount of time.

Also prevailing wages that are set by the Department of Labor.

Those are just a few as examples.

But I did just want to explain that we have three park projects that we have assisted through the non public services.

And just to give you an idea of the length of time for some of those projects, we funded the Reed Park improvement that we're so excited to say opened a couple months ago for all of the playground equipment.

That was funded in our fiscal year 22-23 for 1.4 million dollars, and it was completed in two and a half years.

So you can see how some of those projects do take quite a bit of time for complying with the regulations.

Michelle, was that two funding cycles or just one funding source?

Mayor Freeman, it was just one funding source, so it was for that fiscal year.

We awarded that that portion of the 1.4 mil.

Yes, that's correct.

Okay.

So we'll get into some of the higher-risk non-public service activities.

Economic development is probably one of the more difficult activities to do.

Michelle, um, that's for the higher risk.

Is that right?

Councilmember Taylor, that is correct.

Okay, and then I think when we were talking, uh, just so I have a clear understanding, if we wanted to apply our funds to some of those higher risk projects, uh, you and Justin had mentioned there are some stipulations like for construction, Davis Bacon, and then section three, which requires we do use um we employ people from lower income households to do the job.

Is that right?

Yes, that is correct.

So if I wanted to allocate some of those funds to hire a code enforcement person, they would have to stay within that C BD CDBG area, and then they would need to also be somebody who is employed from a lower income household but has the skill set to do that job.

Um council member Taylor, not necessarily for code for for that activity that you're talking about.

It doesn't have to have a low-income person doing that.

So if you have somebody hired to do code enforcement, they just have to be working in a low mod area and be designated to that, and their time is tracked to that specific grant.

Got it.

Okay, thank you for calling it.

You're welcome.

Did you adopt that the time in that week?

Yes, that's a good uh the one other um big consideration when you are looking at different projects is with CDBG, HUD has a expenditure deadline and our ratio.

So every May, May 2nd, we know that date very well.

Um, HUD will look at what's called our line of credit, how much money we have in there, and if we have more than one and a half times that line of credit, they will put us on a workout plan, which basically we have to report to them every month how we intend to meet it for the following year.

If it's not met the second year, you can get sanctions, and so it is really important that when we're looking at projects, we have a balance of those that are gonna move quickly.

Um, for instance, with the the Reed Park that we had, that was quite a bit of money that sat there for a year and a half until we were able to get the environmental review done, all the plans, all the process that's involved, and so it's important to have other activities that are moving the money during that time.

Okay, so now we'll get into the um estimated funding that we have available for the fiscal year 26-27.

Our anticipated allocation from HUD is $3.6 million, and I say anticipated because HUD has not released our actual allocations.

It's anywhere between March and May that they will announce those.

So we use the previous year's allocation to base our funding recommendations on.

With CDBG, there's a 20% program administration as the staff are grant funded and pay are paid through the grant to manage these activities, and 65% of the grant must go to non-public services, and again, those are those bricks and mortar type activities.

And then there is a maximum limit of 15% on public services.

And you can sometimes during the year we'll get what's called program income, and that's repayment from any loans that somebody may have gone through a rehab program, and so that program income a portion of that can be used for public services.

So you'll see that although the 15% of public services is the 551-312, we did have a small portion of program income of 21,928, which brings our public services this year to 573-240.

For the public services, we received six requests totaling $754,000.

We do have a set aside for a core city program for city navigation services of 292,526.

And so the remaining balance is recommended to fund four activities within the public services category.

These recommended awards would be family promise, child crisis Arizona, CAS, which is um shelters, and a new leaf.

These programs do provide direct services that help residents remain housed and connect to critical services.

For the non-public services activity, we have a set aside for the core city program, our emergency repair program for $2.3 million.

I did want to quickly give you some statistics on that program because it is very impactful.

Sorry, it's back here.

We assisted $165 homeowners in the community.

So for this program have to be a homeowner.

We can do mobile homes through there as well.

Out of the 165 projects, 102 of the work those were for AC repairs or replacements.

And we do work very closely with Office of Homeless Solutions Human Services for their heat relief with the portable air conditioners.

103 of those projects were mobile homes.

And just to kind of paint a picture of the average income of participants, 57 households were at 40,000 or less, and that can be for a party of one or five.

We don't have those specific numbers, but under 40,000, and 108 of the households were under $30,000.

Primarily the folks that we serve through the program, 76% are elderly, 61% female head of household, and 48% disabled.

So that's from the non-public services correct.

Yes, this is your set of that was the set aside.

The city of Mesa set aside emergency rehab program for the 2.3.

Okay.

And that that helps to keep those individuals in their homes.

Absolutely.

They are more stable as a resident, yeah.

Okay.

Some of the improvements that we do also are accessibility improvements, particularly on a lot of mobile homes, they'll have ramps that are very dilapidated, or if somebody needs a roll-in shower or grab bars, we can do that as well.

But this program's designed specifically to address the immediate livability of the home.

So in the summertime, air conditioners is pretty much all we do.

If we get them on soon, we get calls for roof repairs.

So it's not upgrades to the home that are you know fancy, it's just to help individuals stay in their home and preserve the housing system.

Necessary.

Okay.

Yeah, thank you.

I appreciate it.

You're welcome.

Okay, we'll move on to our home investment partnership program.

And this program is HUD's primary tool for creating and preserving affordable housing.

And while their activities are limited to what we can do in this program, the impact is very significant.

It does preserve existing housing stock as well as increase the availability of new safe affordable housing options.

And activities include new construction of affordable housing, rehabilitation of rental housing.

So if there's a say like a duplex that's dilapidated, it can be acquired and renovated through home.

And also rental and deposit assistance for folks trying to get into a rental unit that they may not have that first and second last month's rent.

So for home, our estimated entitlement this year is just about 1.3 million, 1.29 with 10% program administration.

And we are required under the regulation to hold 15% for what's called community housing development organization, or we refer to it as CHOTO because it is a mouthful.

They are nonprofits that develop own and own affordable housing, and their main mission is to provide affordable housing.

And at least one third of the organization's board members must be low income.

There are not a whole lot of COTOs in Mesa or within the Maricopa jurisdiction, and so it is challenging to use those dollars.

So sometimes HUD will allow us to use them for regular home activities if we don't have those chotos.

Really quick question.

Um going back just a little bit.

You mentioned the particularly the mobile homes that were under construction.

Could we use these funds for pre-1975 improvements?

Because I know those are pre 76 standards, so they have wiring issues, stud issues, a lot of stuff.

Can we use that money there?

Yes.

Um Mayor Freeman and Councilmember Summers, yes, we can.

Again, we're going in and doing just minor repairs that are affecting the ability.

So yes, we we would be able to do that.

On all homes that um are 1978 or older, we do have to do environmental review process on.

Okay, because I I believe that pre-76 standards for those mobile homes even have some copper wiring in there, and that those are starting to catch fire.

Yes.

All right, thank you.

You're welcome.

And this is in Mayor and Council.

This is one of the very few funding sources that can be used on mobile homes.

Very good.

Thank you.

Next slide.

So for our um home program, we have a total of uh three million dollars available.

We have a four hundred dollars set aside for City of Mesa rental and utility deposit program and uh recommending award to a new leaf to their Lama CITA phase four construction.

So they do have three completed um phases, and this would complete the last one.

This is going to be housing um 54 units of senior and veteran housing.

I do want to mention that a new leaf will be applying for low-income housing tax credits because home is really gap funding.

So with a small amount of funding of home, you can't really develop an affordable housing project.

However, it becomes gap funding and on LITEC applications.

If you have home dollars leveraged, you do get additional points.

So the funding would be contingent on their LITEC application.

So Michelle, to that point, I I understand from Candace's briefing that they have applied twice and did not receive the LITEC funding.

That's that's correct, Mayor.

And so they're applying again for the third time.

So if that funding is not allowed, what are we gonna do with this money?

Go ahead.

And we have uh Mayor, we have um a few projects that are going through the LITEC process for this application.

Uh we also have a COPA Health project that's going through as well as the Commonwealth project that was that was brought to council this last Monday.

So we've got a few projects in this round.

Um, as we go through and and they're if they are unsuccessful in multiple years, then we will reassess and see.

We we don't we want these funds to be productive.

So after a few years, if they're not receiving the LITEC awards, those are unproductive dollars, and we would convert these over to other projects.

One of the things we are really having a lot of success with is when we partner with the developer up front and try to find out um try that's more successful.

We have 400,000 dollars set aside for habitat for humanity who is not going through the LITTECH project, and they will be developing three vacant parcels that the city owns in the Washington Escapito neighborhood.

And so that's not reliant on LITEC.

And so we would look for more of those types of projects, projects that we can assist with the home dollars, but are not um reliant on the LITECHERE MACHERES.

Question, uh please.

Uh why have the two previous applications uh uh the newly submitted failed?

What were the reasons?

Um council member Adams is very, very highly competitive, and there's just a lot of projects and a few amount of dollars, and the dollars just run out for those.

And those are state dollars or those are federal dollars that are administered by the state.

By the state.

So no reasons were given.

I'm just curious because you know, a well-established organization here in Mesa.

Yes, Mayor and Councilmember Adams, there are many very good projects on the list, and it's really just a matter of funding.

Um, not having enough funding for those.

Each year, there are sometimes of a priority.

Last year was the probably the most competitive process there was, or was that two years?

Your last year two years before.

Um what they were doing was actually allocating, they were pre-allocating.

I don't think that's a correct term, but pre-allocating.

Um they were because there was such a high demand, they were actually allocating future federal funds through in one year, and that created kind of a gap.

So they did it in one year, so the following year they had less funds they could allocate, so that kind of created that um gap.

Understood.

Is the uh so the state administers this is it a scoring process like we use similar groups?

Yes, yes.

So mayor and council member Adams, that's a score of 185 points total that you can get through their scoring matrix.

Um, and if you um recall on Monday when we were talking about the Commonwealth program, they have scored at 180 points, so that should make them a very good contender.

Only five points that they're not eligible for because that was a historic reuse.

Um and new leaf is also a new build.

So they would need they would be competing against that same thing.

So all of these um COPA is a new build, and that was uh it's a demo of an existing property and then a new build of new um family units.

So none of our projects have historical reuse in them.

So we'll be missing those five points.

The COPA project you refer to is the one on uh Beverly on Beverly.

Okay, thank you.

Just to final up, uh you know, if these monies are not allocated this year, I'd like to find other ways to use the money.

You know, have other opportunities for investment in our city.

Yes, and Mayor, with the with the creation of the um urban transfer office of urban transformation, we have been this team and that team have been working very closely together to how to best leverage all federal dollars with all various economic development projects.

Okay, good, thank you.

I have a quick question around that.

So you said you said if they weren't allocated within this year, right?

Okay, then we could reuse, and that's allowable, like if we're good if they don't get allocated within the next fiscal year.

Yes, so uh mayor and council member taylor, unlike C D BG that has a spend down requirements, right?

Um, home dollars because they're made for brick and mortar and expected to be multi-year projects, it it is much more lenient with the timing.

Okay, so we can piece together these projects.

If you see from the the previous slide where it talked about our dollars, um you're seeing our home allocation itself is only the 1.3 million, but we actually have total availability of 6.2 million.

Yes.

That's because that has accumulated over the years, and we piece those together and try to work into an economic development project.

Okay, okay.

I'm looking at the one you gave me, so it's very helpful in making all my notes.

Thank you.

Okay, so our emergency solutions grant.

Um, this program supports um homeless type activities in the community.

It can be used for shelter operations or rapid rehousing, so getting folks from shelter to more stable um longer-term housing as well as homeless prevention with navigators in the community reaching out and giving resources.

For this grant, um, this is one of our smallest grants.

We received approximately 340,000 dollars, which we'll see on the next page here.

We do have a 7.5 uh percent program administration, which um brings the total funding available for 314,515.

We do have a 60 percent max on shelter service operations, so within those activities, we make sure that any activity that is an operation of homeless facility is no more than 60 percent of our allocation.

I have a quick question about that.

So I know that we use Phoenix Rescue Mission as our navigation service, and that particular location offers I my understanding is sheltering and and non, they that's quite a large organization.

Is it possible to give our ESG funds to just further help that single organization because they're so large and they're doing so much for the entire valley?

Um mayor and council member Taylor, it goes through a competitive process.

So with our HUD federal dollars, um, it does need to go through a competitive process.

Like they would have to apply for the apply.

Okay.

So we don't have the jurisdiction as council to say we want them to go here.

They need to apply to that process, and then we would look at them like everybody else.

Yes, and if you have information on that organization, we can add them to what's called our interested parties list, and they'll get all notifications on our funding process.

Uh got it.

Well, I think we have lots of information on that.

Okay, thank you.

I appreciate you clarifying that for me.

Okay, so for our emergency solutions grant, um, we are recommending award for three agencies.

Two of the agencies, um, Tempe Community Action and a new leaf would be shelter operation for Save the Family.

It is rapid rehousing, and so that brings our total to 314,515.

Um, those are the end of the HUD grant allocations, and so now I'm gonna go over our human services and a better community.

So you'll hear us talk about ABC funds.

That means a better community.

So ABC funds are funds that are donated by our residents to these particular purposes for um crisis uh crisis services, prevention and early intervention, transitional services, and long-term support is what we have on our website and all of our um documents that go with this, and so those are donated funds.

Human services funding is as a general fund allocation from the city council that has been in place for a very long time, um, where there's an allocation over to the human services funding activities.

The allocation for uh ABC funds is based on uh again donations received, so that can move from year to year, but it's been pretty steady around this.

It's 104,500 that we're anticipating that would be available for next year.

Um, our human services allocation is 547,163.

Um, there's this category, every all the is combined when it comes to the application process, so it's still a competitive process.

It goes through the same advisory board, it goes through the same uh scoring criteria.

It's a little less rigid because these are not HUD funds, and therefore it allows the smaller nonprofits who don't have the administrative ability to do the HUD reporting, um, are usually where we kind of ask them to look at this funding source rather than look at the HUD funding because the HUD funding would be too onerous for them.

Um as we go through and look at the ABC funds, um the ABC funds we have allocated to you or recommending allocation to three agencies Valley of the Sun, YMCA, um, House of Refuge.

I know there was a question at an earlier study session about House of Refuge.

We have supported them over the years.

It has been through the human services funding and not through the HUD funding because they are a smaller organization.

And then also Arizona Brain Food would round this out to take up the total of 104,500.

For the human services funds, um, one of the things that the committee had asked us to look at was when we had those other conversations about the off the streets program and how could we find alternative funding to the funding that was um has been in this um is in the budget.

The committee asked us to look at these particular funds.

We didn't identify that both C to BG funds and the human services funds are both eligible for the off the streets activity.

Uh the committee did give staff um the direction to hold the off the uh human services funds for the off the street program while we look for other alternate funding.

Staff is still continuing to do that, so we have not stopped looking for the other funding.

Council has given us direction to please look for that.

Are there's any other funding that we can use for off the streets?

We are in the middle of that process, so we have not stopped that process.

But in the meantime, this process was taking place.

And so committee did give us direction that they would like to hold the office street, the this particular funding for off the streets while we finish the other one.

Um then we could still come back and reallocate those.

What we did complete um include here as well, though, is we included another slide of the nonprofits.

So again, this was a competitive.

There is this is probably our highest area where the nonprofits apply because again, it is limited reporting for them.

So it's an easier uh lower barrier to access.

This one does have a maximum award.

Um, and I don't know if we mentioned it earlier.

Things on CDBG and HUD funding.

We have minimum awards of 25,000 because of the reporting requirements.

In this particular category, we have a maximum award of $50,000 because we do want it to be spread over multiple nonprofits if we continue to move in that direction.

These would be the nonprofits that scored the highest that would add up to that same $547,000.

Candace, I have a question on the previous slide 20 off the streets program.

547,000, that goes to which agency to fund which windomirror.

This is this is for the office program, regardless of whether it's at Windermere or Sunair.

It's for the off the streets program.

So it's going to Wintermere right now.

It would be if this that this is not currently allocated.

But prior, it has been allocated.

It has not.

So Mayor, this is a new allocation.

So this year at Windermere, we have a combination of ARPA and general fund.

The budget for next year was supposed to be 2.5 million dollars of general fund.

Council gave us direction to look for alternate funding.

In that alternate funding, we identified 1.7 million of home ARP dollars, which is a different, it's not part of these um buckets.

And the uh funds we were looking for was the $800,000 gap.

So Mayor and Council, I think as um we had the discussion um about the future of the Al Streets program, and we're continuing to work through some different um options about what that could look like.

Uh knowing the importance though, uh I I we don't need to identify these funds for off the streets.

We're we'll we'll come back with other alternatives that can help us um make a decision about um how we'd like to see that program evolve in the future, and knowing just how important these funds are to some of these um community-based nonprofits and others, this this is um you know important to to an oakwood or to um to um bring uh Arizona Brain Food, all these organizations that have uh benefited from um from these donations um in the future uh from these and from from these contributions in the future, I think would be short selled when there's other options um that we can uh look to for the off the streets program.

So um council, I would I would recommend focusing more on the alternative proposal, slide 21 that that's in here and um focusing your effort on that regard versus um the off the streets program and and again that's something we'll come back to you um in the near future with some options about how to move forward with that.

Vice Mayor, you had a comment.

Uh a moment ago, you candis you mentioned that human services funds is where House of Refuge usually finds some of the funding, but this alternative doesn't have House of Refuge.

Um Mayor and uh my Vice Mayor Summers, that's because they scored really high, and so they were funded in the ABC category.

Oh, they're back in the ABC.

And so we allocated the ABC categories first.

Um, knowing that there is no alternate to that because of the way that those funds were donated by our residents.

Yeah, that's where I faded out.

Okay, good.

Thank you.

Can we give can we give a House of Refuge ABC funds and human services funds?

Is that something that was the same?

Um Mayor and Council Member Taylor, this is what they applied for, and we do have a maximum of $50,000 in this category.

For oh, out of both of those, like they just get $50.

Correct.

Okay, thank you.

I guess just to follow up uh the funding for with the mayor, you said ARPA monies.

Um how many dollars in ARPA and general fund dollars are we using to fund currently, Windamir?

Um, I would need to look at that for this year.

For next year's budget, we do not have any ARPA dollars budgeted for next year.

Yeah, because they they expire.

They uh mayor, they expire in December of 20 uh 26.

But we actually, yeah, we'll have we will have a little bit that we will be carrying over, because we do have savings from this year, so we'll carry over for next year.

So at this point, I would just say starting next year, we do not have any ARPA funds for that program.

Right.

General fund dollars.

What are we appropriating for that?

Mayor, that's what we are in discussion right now because council gave us direction to look for alternate funding, and we'll be we're in the middle of that right now.

We'll be coming back to council with those officers.

But for last year, we funded it with some general fund dollars.

We did.

So council the included in this year's budget was eight hundred thousand dollars.

Yes, that's what I would say.

In the gap funding, correct.

I'm sorry, nine hundred thousand dollars this year.

900, okay.

All right, thank you.

Carry on uh question, please.

Um looking at slide 21, the 547163 with the various uh agencies.

Um and this is probably because I I can't follow two tracks of thought at the same time, and you may have covered this, but um, these numbers here that we see are these amounts that these agencies have applied for, and they they made the cut in the scoring.

Is that where these numbers came from?

So, yeah, so mayor and council member Adams, um, we do have an additional attachment in Legistar for you that shows their their request for and their award.

But yes, if it's fifty thousand dollars, that's the maximum they could apply for.

Okay.

Um if it's lower than that, that is probably what they actually requested.

Um until you get toward the bottom.

So if you go down to big brothers and big sisters, that would be the dollar amount that was remaining.

Understood.

Okay.

If there um and mayor and and council member Adams, if there is um a change in what they requested versus what they received, sometimes that has to do with the fact that they had funds this year that they didn't fully expend.

I see.

So the staff will still look to see do they have the capacity to spend the funds that they requested.

Understood, thank you.

Um so with that, um with the staff recommendation then to go with human services funds um to the nonprofit alternate.

Um, unless we hear otherwise, that's what we would move forward with.

And then we can talk about the schedule.

But are there any questions on anything that we have presented up to this point?

Mr.

Radio, you're out there somewhere.

No, I text it.

He said he was back on finding the mute button, you know, to turn it off.

Um I I was just curious to know when we are making decisions on the HUD funds.

Just gonna read my own note.

How much when we set these up, is it set in stone or we locked in if we make a decision today, and we just can't make any future decisions on those funds for the next year.

So what once we decide what we want to do, it's done for a year.

Can we pivot at all?

Do we have any flexibility?

Because I remember you saying we need to know what to do with the HUD funds.

So I just want to know how's like how set in stone are we when we make that decision?

Um, Mayor and Councilmember Taylor, when we say I did say yes, we need direction today on HUD funds.

I listen.

And the reason why we need direction is because there is a specific timeline that we need to follow.

And so we do need to go out once we have direction from council today on the HUD funds, we need to do a 30-day public notice, and then we actually come back with the resolution.

So the resolution itself would then um um do those HUD funds.

That's what we would send up to HUD and say that's what we're doing.

Now, can we change once we go up to HUD?

Yes, we can.

Now for the nonprofits, the past through the nonprofits, we will start working on those contracts, and the contracts would be in effect on July 1st.

So once we enter into those contracts, um that's what the resolution does when we come back in May.

It would be giving the city manager approval to enter into contracts with these nonprofits.

That we're passing the money on that.

They're passing the money through.

Okay.

Now for any project or program that is city, yes, that's not a contract.

So that is something that if we decide to pivot and do something different, again, we have to then notify HUD that we're gonna do something different.

But that is something that we can do mid-year.

And that's those tangible versus those intangibles that we talked about.

And to keep and try and do this right, yes, to make sure that this city doesn't get dinged, because we don't want to hold funds back for too long.

We discussed it being wise that while we want to use some of those funds for some city, those those um non-public service funds for some projects.

It is it is kind of best to have some of them kind of moving through as those public service project funds, so that we're not just holding everything back for like one non-pro public service project that takes a long time, and then HUD says, hey, you're not using your money, so we're gonna start dinging you on that.

Is that right?

Did I do that?

Yeah, so mayor and council member Taylor, good job.

Um that was that was a lot of information that we gave you the other day.

Um yeah, so when it comes to the C D B G non-public funds, that is the one that we do have to watch as Michelle talked about that timing.

It is okay to have slow moving projects if you have enough fast-moving projects that we're able to hit our spend down numbers.

And so it's really a a balance right now.

Okay.

We have two projects.

We opened up Reed Park.

We have two parks projects that are currently going through that process today.

Um they are going out to bid, is my understanding, and will be on your next council agenda will be will be those projects.

So we do have two projects that are slowly moving some of the money across, which is why our rehabilitation program has really benefited us.

Yeah, because we can get that money out the door faster, and that's giving us our balance.

Got it.

Now, once we get the parks projects through, I don't believe we have any other slow moving projects.

Got it.

So now we can start to interrupt the window.

Another slow moving project and still use the rehabilitation to kind of fill the gap.

Yes, and that would be the non-public services.

Non-public services, the two point about 2.3 million.

Very helpful.

Thank you.

Okay, thanks.

Mr.

Adams.

Yes, thank you.

Um there's a scoring process.

And I'm sure it's changed since the time I've participated in that, but I remember the general gist of how it works.

Um give me a high-level overview once more, please, of how does that work?

What things are considered?

Where is weight given, where is uh greater than other factors?

Um just uh a 50,000 foot view, and then I may have a follow-up question.

Okay, well, mayor and council member Adams, I'm going to let Michelle and Justin handle this.

There are rubrics for both teams.

Okay.

Mayor Kendall, uh, Councilmember Adams.

There are very specifics.

Apologize.

Can you hear me okay?

Um, so the agencies have to submit their application first after reviewing the application staff reviews for HDAB questions that they would have during their presentation process.

So regulatory concerns, concerns related to their scope of work, related to their beneficiaries, related to their budget.

If the agencies do not respond to that timely, there is a five-point reduction in their overall scoring.

Additionally, agencies then have a presentation.

It's two full days of presentations for the local and HUD funding sources.

If the agency did not respond to the questions and not present, they are disqualified from the process.

Um to touch on the scoring of what it specifically covers, 70% is associated with the staff scoring.

Did it just really demonstrate a capacity?

Did the agency in the preceding fiscal year expend all of their allocation and their scope of work?

Did they fully meet the unduplicated persons or households to be assisted?

And then transitioning more to the HDAP scoring component.

Um they're scoring the presentation, they are scoring the partnership.

Um there is also an element of review of their budget and scope of work as well.

So did that answer all your questions, sir?

Yes, thank you.

It leads it leads me to the follow-up question.

So as you look at the organization, you're evaluating uh their history, their performance, um, the scope of their work and their effectiveness.

What about their what about the financial capacity of the organization?

If you have one that's asset rich, a lot of money in the bank versus one that may be a little more financially challenged, yet both are capable and have proven that they've done good work.

Uh is that is that considered as part of the uh the the scoring?

Does the does the organization that has huge assets perhaps is it considered uh to have less need than one that does good work and is maybe a little more challenged?

How does that work?

Uh mayor, council member Adams, and the agency's scope of work, and I want to differentiate two different things for home.

Um that is a substantial factor uh for the financial feasibility.

We do a full underwriting and analysis of their their liabilities, of their anticipated rent role, and all of that is factored and taken into consideration, and that is regulatory.

For CDBG, I would transition to a little bit of a different perspective.

So we have a column that identifies what they're requesting for federal or local funding, and then we have a column that identifies their support funds that they're bringing to the table.

So in short, yes, that is factored in taken into consideration when there's questions, when there's concerns related to this.

This is addressed in the questions that the agencies have to respond to.

I would also say that we have a finance team that is involved in the evaluation and scoring of this rubric as well.

And so other factors taken into consideration is prior audits.

There could be a money factor concern related to those audits and the managed responses.

So yes is the overall question to that, albeit a little bit different to the magnitude for various funding sources, but it is very thoroughly evaluated.

Okay, thank you.

Glad to hear it.

I the the concern that I would have is I wouldn't want um the the process to be a bar to uh an otherwise well qualified organization that uh maybe just didn't have the financial resources that another would.

So and it sounds to me like you take that into consideration.

Thank you very much.

So we and just real quick, Mayor and Councilmember Adams, just they are a lot more rigid on their review of the ones who are asking for HUD funds.

Um because we want to make we we want everybody to be successful, and we don't want an organization to actually take on HUD funds and not really understand um the ramifications of that and what they're gonna need to do for admin and reporting and so forth.

So they're actually more highly vetted for those HUD funds to make sure that they'll be successful.

Okay, glad to hear it.

Where I'm really coming from is I just want to make sure that we're really evaluating need versus nice to have.

And I think that's a good question.

And that's what um and mayor and council member Adams, that's why the human services funds was created way back when with that council allocation was that was the that was the intent then as well, is that we have nonprofits like House of Refuge who um HUD funding may be difficult for them to administer, um, but they're a very great program, and we want to we want to support them.

And so that was the really the start of the allocation to the human services funds.

So Ms.

Taylor, did I sorry go, Mr.

Butler?

You want to Yeah, Mayor, I and I just want to say to speak to an issue that we've heard from several council members both this morning and and over the last few months.

Um, as as was noted in the start of this presentation, this funding cycle started back in August um of last year, where the notice was put out, um, kind of our traditional process that we go through each year on the distribution of these these funds.

Subsequent to that, I know councils expressed um interest in seeing utilizing these CDVG funds or or the HUD funds in general.

What are those ways to maximize those funds along with some of the city council priorities and what opportunities are there?

And that was alluded to about the the risk analysis that you know would need to be performed based on uh HUD criteria for those activities.

But um we hear you and and I think that there's an opportunity uh before we enter into the next cycle that we can explore some of those opportunities uh come back to you with options and risk assessments that um are attached to those different options.

So then council could go into the next funding cycle um eyes wide open, and we can also set expectations about the amount of funds then that might be available um to external entities through through that process too if there were some um consensus amongst the council about utilizing uh funds in a different way on some of those council priorities.

So that that's something that we hear you.

I just want you to um to know that, and so we can bring options back, but it's um it would definitely be challenging to maybe uh change uh at this stage of the game since we're really at the finish line of this year's process, but that is something that we can certainly look at moving forward.

Well, you just prime me up, yeah, city manager.

Yeah, you know, I as I I've been doing this for a few years, and there is a huge learning curve with everything and with all the regulations and risks involved.

I get it.

But at the end of the day, uh one of my focuses now as mayor is to elevate Mesa to the best potential.

And when we went through your C D B G on slide six, you talked about the non-public service activities.

But I think that we have city departments that could use these funds, and we've kind of discussed that briefly.

And how do you departments, our city departments to be able to be eligible to receive these funds and do the risk analysis and put everything into play?

That's what I want to do.

I want to work real extremely hard on getting these funds to help build our small businesses, our our uh low to mod census tracks, uh redevelopment, economic development, and and so I saw that, then I saw on slide seven the low risk, some of this what I just said are low risks, and I'm I wish we'd been doing this sooner, or at least allocating a portion of these monies towards these programs to see how we're successful, these pilot programs, so that we can put some more monies into it.

Then the higher risk ones, I I see them as well.

But right now I think that we need to really focus on our lower risk uh modems for uh our non-public services.

With that said, I worked really hard.

I'm gonna read some notes that I I prepared.

But I just like to step back and look at how these current federal funding recommended recommendations align with city council stated priorities, which uh city managers talked about, particularly around revitalization, code compliance, blight reduction, neighborhood safety.

I want to see visible change in our neighborhoods, cleaner, safer, more stable communities.

We need to ensure our funding strategy reflects that right now.

I think there's an opportunity to align that by this.

I'd like to offer in the future policy changes for council as we look at funding additional code officers, redevelopment personnel for downtown transformation team, economic development, and how we can leverage monies to work for the city of Mesa programs versus social programs.

That that seems to be the easiest uh reach out each year to allocate funds for.

We're heavily investing in people-based services, but underinvested investing in uh place-based improvements, which improvements uh people see every day in our community.

Uh our community wants safer, more stable neighborhoods, and our funding strategy should reflect both people and places.

Um, over the years, we've we've given monies towards facade removal based on low medium census tracts.

Uh, we've we can perform get monies out to underperforming shopping centers in these tracks.

I'm not going to get a lot in the wheeze because I read into it.

But I think we need a stable areas in our city, and I would like to challenge council members to look into their respective districts and see where these monies can be used.

We learn we learned about parks, you know, the parks rehab.

That's awesome because a lot of people can go there.

These dollars are available, uh, these federal dollars, and they can be used, and I'd like to see staff come back with options uh recommending uh using every dollar we can to strengthen our neighborhoods and our businesses.

And you know, city management might have to look at you know core services that we have and the job of our city managers, how it can you can make it all work with all your department heads.

So you know, I understand this is uh complex, and uh, but I think that it's time to, in my opinion, to move forward in some other different areas, and so that's what you're get the opportunity to do here.

All right, so with that, um I just let out with that uh but I I like clarity in because SYS questions, you know, what buckets fund what?

I know we've talked about this thing, but when we talk about Office of Homeless Solutions, there's different buckets that fund different programs.

We need to know where those dollars come from, and sometimes um I I feel like there's a lack of transparency, and it I have to dig for those numbers, and I don't like that.

So with that said, um I I hope I fired somebody up.

But we did oh, I'm inside let's I love this idea of using some of those funds for our districts for sure.

I think I expressed that in our meeting.

Um, but one thing came up that I thought we could get some public clarification on because um a couple people actually asked me about this when I was sharing what we were learning, and that is you mentioned that our ABC funds that are donated by the general public through our utility bills, they help some of those crisis.

Um I think we have them on here.

Valley of the Sun, House of Refuge, Arizona Brain Food.

I know that some individuals were under the impression that those funds offset the cost to our residents who can't necessarily afford their utilities.

Do you mind just again stating for the record?

Oh, we have this program to help with utilities and ABC goes to the three that are here on this, just so the people can hear it.

So thank you.

Uh Mayor and Councilmember Taylor, the ABC funds are a broader category.

They are not a while.

We did a lot of marketing through the utility bills, it's not a utility offset for those for that program.

We do have a separate utility assistance program that we do fund.

We fund it through the actual revenues of our utilities.

Um, and Mesa Can administers that program for us.

So we do have a separate utility assistance program.

We also have uh a senior low-income program, so a discount program for utilities as well.

So we have other utility programs.

ABC funds are um are our larger, more um, like you said, that crisis response intervention, support services, all the things that um our human services funds oversee at the same time.

They're really all the same.

Uh we separated them here for you because ABC funds really we can't divert to something else because they were collected with those in mind with that transparency.

The other human services funds are a council direction, and so that's why we separated them for you here.

Perfect.

Okay.

So because we have to do that.

These happen to be the three that scored the highest.

Got it.

Yeah.

Okay.

So we have two programs that are for seniors who need some help, and we have the Mesa Can to help offset the cost of utilities.

And then the ABC funds because they're publicly generated, and we already said these are the crisis response groups that that that money's going to.

We can't just divert them over to helping cover other people's utilities, at least not right now.

Right, and and Mayor and Councilmember Taylor, because we do we put these through, and we can change it in the future, but we have put these through the competitive process since we have had the ABC funds, and so that's our normal competitive through the advisory board.

So our advisory board is telling us what the most important programs are that they would like to fund.

So they're the ones who are really allocating those uh donation dollars.

Okay, that's super helpful.

Thank you.

I appreciate it.

Thanks.

Yeah, you fired me up a little bit.

You knew that was gonna happen.

I did.

So here we go.

When it comes to C C D G dollars, um and I think that's what we're targeting with your remarks and looking at economic development.

Of course, Candace mentioned the difficulties in utilizing those funds for economic development purposes.

It's it's very difficult, and it's one of the reasons we pulled away from that some time ago.

Um so I really think in using shifting from human services to from um human form to the built form isn't really achieving anything.

I think like the reha emergency rehab program that we have under CDGB, that is stabilizing our neighborhoods.

These are neighbors who don't have a means to keep things going to stay in their home.

And so there are we are stabilizing our neighborhoods by stabilizing the people in them.

We've got to recognize that our human service needs are beyond the capacity of nonprofits, churches, and even what we have.

And in 52 percent of our residents have their housing costs are 50 percent or are greater.

Transportation is about 30 percent of their income.

Child care is about 30 percent, and we haven't even got to health care and food and these other things.

So the human condition is very, very dire in these current economic conditions.

If we pull away from that, uh destabilizes our neighborhoods, destabilize people not being unsheltered and then not being able to have the assistance to keep things going.

But pulling it away from human services from the human condition, I don't think gets our city with the what we want to be who we are as Mesa.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Um Mr.

Adams, did you have something?

I saw a finger raise.

Well, you fired me up.

I just don't look like it.

Uh just to just a couple quick comments.

I think that uh in in the overall uh mayor, I concur with your your comments and in the direction you're suggesting.

There are uh you know, I think I think we can all identify problems and issues, but how we get to the solution is sometimes where where we differ.

Um when I ran for this office, I did so on the basis of among other things of fiscal responsibility and promising to protect the public purse.

And I think again, we can all agree that we have social issues uh as we just mentioned.

It's it's how we pay for them and how we address them.

And I think it's it's clear to me that a good portion of our residents don't feel that the public purse is appropriate for that, at least not in the entirety.

Um the problem exists and it needs to be addressed, and I think that uh if we if we move forward by continuing to identify non-publically funded solutions, and there are many, and and explore how can we work with these organizations to take some of the burden away from the taxpayer while still addressing the problem.

Um it's not it's not easy to do, but I think that is uh at least for myself, I like to keep my word, and that's what I told people I would do if I was elected, and here I am.

So um I I I support the uh generally where the mayor wants to go with this.

Um there are um a number of things that I think we can do to support our neighborhoods.

I am uh um I I'll I'll just I'll just say this.

I have some reservation and hesitation about further empowering code enforcement until I've had the opportunity to explore certain um issues of fairness and equal enforcement, and we're working on that.

Uh we have great uh great dialogue going on that, but uh uh yes, I think uh I think in the overall um this is a good this is a good direction for us to per to pursue.

Um I am uh um uh interested in continuing to look at uh options and and solutions that don't first ask the taxpayer to get out their their bill fold.

Um so that's that's kind of where I'm coming from.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Um Vice Mayor.

You fired me up or you're used to putting out fires it was fun too.

Uh I think it's a great discussion, and these these discussions have to happen every year because uh if we get static um in how we just address problems and we're gonna find an effective solution, something that might have worked last year, may not work a few years from now.

So uh with that in mind, I I know that some of what was discussed today is gonna take a runway and to uh really get our head around.

I'm gonna suggest that we um because the the timeline is short on this that we take the alternative uh funding from human services fund to the next step for March 30th for the 30-day public comment, is that correct?

So it depends on uh council's uh direction.

If we didn't, what is the other option?

uh really get our head around i'm gonna suggest that we um because the the timeline is short on this that we take the alternative uh funding from human services fund to the next step for march 30th for the 30 day public comment is that correct so it depending on uh council's uh direction if we didn't what is the other option uh mayor and council member taylor the HUD funding is the funding that we really need the direction on because we have to hit the HUD timelines right so to actually get it up even if uh in the middle of the year next year we decide to change our minds we still had to have followed this process regardless so that's what we what we need to do um the ABC and the human services funding are not HUD required so that's city of Mesa so we don't have a timeline on those got it I'm fine with the alternate uh funding source myself yeah we're gonna hang up our timeline otherwise yeah all right so thank you so mayor and uh council so based on that direction thank you for that um we will go out to the 30 day comment period our public notice period and we'll come back on May 4th May 4th at your council meeting and then mayor and council will come back to you um before the next funding cycle opens with um further discussion and options about how we would like to treat next year's funding cycle based on the discussion this morning about potential options that council would like to pursue very good thank you been an eventful morning gosh mr city manager you put together a great agendas on Thursday mornings after late night last night for most of us council member heretia always reminds me of how action packed these these meetings are I'm sure he's therald okay uh we're gonna excuse Ms.

Duff um we're just gonna roll into um next uh actually we have a board committee uh receipt yeah I just need to acknowledge the receipt of board minutes is that okay if all right thank you thank you miss Taylor all in favor say aye aye okay motion passes next is current events that conferences attend is council members do you wish to share anything you'll just stay humble and nothing here all right uh mr butler you want to share our future meetings well you've had so much fun today you can't wait to come back next Thursday uh for study session at 7 30 a.m just to note this weekend a couple of community events first is this Saturday here at at City Plaza out the park is the Cyclo Mesa event from 9 a.m to 2 p.m so it's a free uh family friendly bike festival presented by uh the Mesa Moves uh organization so and then um we have our community baby shower from Saturday also on Saturday uh the 28th from 10 to noon at Eagles Park this is a community resource fair supporting expecting moms and families in Mesa presented by the Mesa Family Resource Center so thanks for all the organizers and donors for putting that event together there's a celebrate Mesa coming up when is that it is and that is April 11th April 11th April 11th yes we we just crowdsourced that yeah April 11th is that okay yes at uh at Pioneer Park and and uh we'll talk about that uh we'll keep giving those reminders but that is a a free event that we'd love Mesa residents come out and get to get to have the fun and learn more about city services while they're at it great it's a nice event okay with that I'll entertain a motion to adjourn thank you Mr.

Adams thank you miss Taylor all in favor say aye all right okay we have quorum we can do that thank you Mr.

Radio all right we're done