Joined yet as okay.

Uh I think he joins at 8 a.m.

Correct.

Okay.

To correct the record, he will join us at 8 a.m.

Again, Miss Anderson, are there any blue cards from citizens present?

Not for cadence.

Okay.

Item two is approval of prior minutes.

Is there a motion to that effect?

So moved.

Thank you, Vice Mayor.

Thank you, Mr.

Reddit.

Is there all in favor for this motion, please signal?

Aye.

Aye.

Sounds like we're unanimous.

Thank you.

Nobody's opposed.

Items 3A, 3B, and 3C are to conduct a public hearing on the district's proposed budget and tax levy and to take action on two resolutions approving the district's fiscal year final budget and tax levy.

I declare the public hearing open.

Ms.

Anderson, do you have any requests to speak on this?

No request.

Agenda item.

Thank you.

Do any board members want to address this?

Seeing none, I declare the public hearing closed.

Is there a motion to approve items 3B and 3C?

Thank you, Miss Taylor, and thank you, Miss Duff.

All in favor say aye.

Aye.

Motion passes unanimously.

Is there a motion to adjourn adjourn adjourn this board meeting?

Yes.

Thank you, Miss Duff.

Thank you, Ms.

Taylor.

All in favor say aye.

Get tongue-tied with this guy.

Uh now we'll convene the East Mark CFD number one board meeting.

Board member Adams will be participating at 8 a.m.

by Zoom.

Otherwise, board member GoForth is absent and is excused, and all other board members are present.

Ms.

Anderson, or are there any blue cards from item citizens present?

There's a blue card from David Wynn Stanley.

Okay, and we will call him up shortly.

Item two is approval of prior minutes.

Is there a motion to that effect effect?

Thank you, Ms.

Thank you, Miss Taylor.

All in favor say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Motion passes unanimously.

Items 3A, 3B, and 3C are to conduct a public hearing on the district's proposed budget tax levy and to take action on the two resolutions approving the district's final budget and tax levy.

I declare the public hearing open.

Ms.

Anderson, I do have one request to speak, and that's Mr.

David Winstanley.

David, if you David, if you'd like to come forward.

Again, you know the drill, three minutes three minutes.

And thank you so much for sitting down, though.

Oh, great.

We'll throw you then.

This is uh East Mark number one, correct?

It is.

Okay, great.

Um mayor and council members, thank you for letting me speak.

Uh I appreciate that.

Um I wrote a letter last year because I was out of town, and uh one council member who's not present told me it was too long and complicated.

So I tried to think about simplifying my thoughts about this, and I have three things I'd like to ask you to consider.

The first one is think about the chart that your staff has put together for what it costs a citizen in each of the cities.

You know that I'm pretty sure you know the chart I'm talking about.

It's a vertical bar chart that says uh taxes, um utilities and other expenses, and Mesa's down in the middle of that.

What you're voting on today does not show up in that chart.

And so this is an addition.

I just want you to think about that.

I'm I'm speaking in favor of East Mark 1's resolution, but I'm asking you to consider that thought process.

The second thing is I want you to compare, or let me ask you a question rhetorical.

You don't need to answer.

How much did each of you pay toward the East Mark Great Park?

With the exception of Vice Mayor, uh none of you paid anything.

We paid for that ourselves.

And I want you to compare that to Red Mountain Park.

We all paid for Red Mountain Park.

But we didn't all pay for East Mark Great Park.

I'm not objecting.

I knew what I signed when I bought my house, but I'm asking you to consider that when you think about the taxes.

Eastmark is pretty well built out.

We don't need anything more, and it's not being proposed for that.

But I'm uh trying to get a thought process going here that says this is different.

This is not typical, this is an addition.

So I'm asking you to consider representing the 40,000 of us who live in East Mark number one, uh, even though you were elected by constituents who are not in that area.

Uh and I ask you to just think about the effect of taxes on us.

Uh we you're approving according to your uh council report, uh, something that will affect uh some uh 570, sorry, 591 dollars additional tax for the average.

Mine last year was 900.

So it's not insignificant, and I'm just asking you to think about that.

I am speaking in favor of this.

I do thank you and the staff for thinking about reducing the OM rate.

That's very helpful and doing exactly what I'm asking.

Uh just ask you to consider that as you work on CFDs and other taxing districts, and I thank you for your time.

Thank you, David.

I think you're referring to the homeowners comparison chart that we have.

Yes.

And we're third from the bottom.

Correct.

So okay, we'll look at maybe adding a special portion of that towards the homeowner comparison.

I think Mr.

Kennitton got the word.

Okay.

That would be terrific.

All right.

Thank you.

Mayor like let's not get into HOA and uh master plan communities that impose their way.

This is a good idea.

I I know, but it it it opens up.

Thank you, Mr.

It opens it up of master plan communities and how they choose to finance what extra amenities they want.

However, that is, I we can't get into that.

It's the it's just our city is big, we have so much going on.

We can't get into each community and how they choose to finance their extra amenities and what the payment is on that.

So I oppose to have that averaged into our homeowners' cost.

This was a these kind of costs are very apparent when you purchase when you buy into the property.

They're part of buying into our master plan community.

So I have I could say a lot more about this, but I know we have a long agenda, and we'll I'll save my breath and and have another conversation offline.

Thank you.

Thank you, Ms.

Duff.

Well, that brings up the next item.

Do any board members want to address this item?

I'll just say, Mayor, that this is I believe the fourth year in a row that we've been able to reduce uh the tax rate for the CFD, and this is the first time we've been able to reduce.

There's two parts to the tax.

One is for the stuff that was referred to building the parks and the roads and the extra amenities.

The second part is an ongoing OM operation and maintenance of those added value assets, and this is the first time uh our staff has looked at it and been able to manage it to reduce the operation and maintenance on the on the CFD.

So well done.

Thank you so much.

Okay.

Any other board members wish to express anything?

Hearing none, I declare the public hearing closed.

Is there a motion to approve items 3b and 3C?

So moved.

Thank you, Vice Mayor, Miss Taylor.

All in favor say aye.

Aye.

Okay, that motion passes unanimously.

Is there a motion to adjourn this board meeting?

So moved.

Thank you, Miss Duff.

Thank you, Mr.

Redia.

All in favor say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Okay.

We are adjourned from CFD one.

Now we will convene the Eastmark CFD number two board meeting.

Again, board member Goforth is absence and excused, and board member Adams will join us shortly.

Otherwise, all other board members are present.

Ms.

Anderson, are there any blue cards from citizen present?

There's no requests.

Okay.

Item two is the approval of prior minutes.

Is there a motion to that effect?

So moved.

Thank you, Vice Mayor.

Mr.

Redia, all in favor say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

That motion passes unanimously.

Items 3A, 3B, and 3C are to conduct a public hearing on the district's proposed budget and tax levy and to take action on two resolutions approving the district's final budget and tax levy.

I declare the public hearing open.

Ms.

Anderson, are there any requests to speak from the public?

There's no request.

Okay, thank you.

Do any board members want to address this?

Okay, hearing none, I declare the public hearing closed.

Is there a motion to approve items 3B and 3C?

So moved.

Thank you, Vice Mayor.

Thank you, Miss Taylor.

All in favor say aye.

Aye.

Motion passes unanimously.

Again, is there a motion to adjourn this board meeting?

Thank you, Ms.

Taylor.

Miss Duff, all in favor say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

That motion passes unanimously.

All right.

Thank you, everyone.

Thank you, Mr.

Winstanley.

Now we will convene the Mesa City Council study session for May 21st, 2026.

Councilmember Go Forth is absence and is excused, and Councilmember Adams will be participating by Zoom.

Otherwise, all council members are present.

Item one is to review the council and special council agendas we have for the June 1st meeting.

So let's go through these agenda in order.

So there are any questions on their June 1st regular council meeting.

And we'll start there.

Mayor, we do have a presentation on item 6P.

Um our pension liability, PSPRS mentioned liability, and Sam Schultz is prepared to come up and give council that presentation.

Okay, great.

Thank you.

If you'd like to do that, all right.

Come on, Sam.

Welcome, Sam.

Morning.

All right, good morning, Mayor, Council.

We're here to do our annual funding policy.

We were just here a year ago to kind of talk about where we're seeing with PSPRS.

Um, this is something that we're doing.

Oh, sorry, I didn't introduce myself.

My name is Sam Schultz.

I'm the assistant director for the Office of Management and Budget.

Um PSPRS is our public safety pension system.

Um this was established by the state back in 1968, and then later the Arizona State Statute or the legislation established the nine-member board that then oversees the public safety pension system.

Um for our PSPRS or the public safety pension or personnel retirement system, there's three tiers within that system.

What we're gonna be talking about today is going to be centered around tier one and tier two.

Um but for tier three, that was a new tier that was established back in 2017 to kind of help with the long-term fiscal stability or financial stability of that fund.

So what we're looking at today is the pension funding policy.

So, as per state requirement, the council is required to adopt a pension funding policy as well as formally accept what the actuarial reports are and the assets and liability within our plans.

And the reason for this is is because we are not currently 100% funded.

So for the pension policy, what what we're looking at, our pension funding policy is three kinds of objectives.

The first is to maintain stability of contributions.

So what the city did back in 2018-2019 is we begin to set aside additional funding into a pension stability fund.

Um that fund is going to be up to 20 million dollars at the end of this fiscal year.

And what that does is it allows us to have some additional funding that we can utilize if investment returns or items change within the market, or if there's assumption changes that we can tap into to maintain our stability payment.

The next is going to be meeting the funding requirements for our policy, even though we do contribute more for the policy itself.

What we're stating is that we will contribute at least the annual required contribution that is stated in those actual reports, so that we will maintain and ensure that we hit our funding policy goals.

And for the last point of that funding policy is the funding ratio target.

The goal of what the city is doing is to have a funded 100% funded pension pension plan by June 30th of 2042.

Um back in 2018, the city chose, had the opportunity to switch to a 30-year administration.

Um, we as a city and the council decided to shorten that to a 25-year.

So we've been paying on that 25 year since then.

At this moment, we're 16 years until that 100% funded.

Um, that we're shooting for for that June 30th of 2042.

Sam, we're on track for that.

We are, yes.

So, you know, I got great news to show you.

We'll get into a couple slides, even though I know usually it's not the most exciting, but I think you I think we'll have some great news for you guys in the next couple of slides.

I know, right?

It's a slow burn.

Yes.

Where have you been hiding it?

Does he work for Brian?

Right.

He's like, please get me out of here.

Don't worry, I'll be back next year.

I know.

So back in 2022, the city made a determination as we were doing the annual required contribution of the actuarials that we weren't hitting our investment goals with those actuarials.

There was missed investment returns, there was issues with payroll growth that was assumed.

So what we did was we wanted to stabilize and take advantage of payments that were in the forecasts and invest those now into the pension policy so that they could grow on those investments.

So back in 2022, we made a concern, the city made a conservative effort with council's direction to invest more and stabilize our payment.

And then since then we've been adjusting that payment and those range boundaries based upon the changes, whether it's salary changes or other overtime adjustment hours and things like that, or additional FTEs that then adjust those boundaries.

For the 26-27 budget, we budget right now, the budget is about 107 to 109 million for that contribution into PSPRS.

So the 109 million will be for all tiers.

But with this, this does include the reason why the range went up from the last year is it includes the additional contributions from the public safety benchmark, which added about $3 million to that contribution, as well as we hit the maximum goal of what we wanted to for that stable the pension stabilization fund of the 20 million.

That $2 million that we are contributing each year to that stabilization fund is now going in addition to this contribution.

So here's the good news.

But for our unfunded liability, we actually decreased that about 60 million dollars.

So that was due to our continuation of additional contributions.

So for the past three years, we have been writing off losses from the prior years.

Those have fallen off, and now we have the additional gains that we've had over the past three years, which we're going to continue to receive those over the next few years.

So with that, we see a positive outlook coming up for the next few years as we continue to see those gains and the continued growth in the market today.

So this is just that kind of statement more in a graphical form.

Um that kind of shows over the past three years, our unfunded liability amount has increased.

Um, but for the current report from June 30th to 2025, we have seen that decrease in the unfunded liability.

And that equates to about 60 million dollars.

This graph will show you kind of over the past 10 years how we've increased on our funded status.

So you can see going into 2020, we were in a negative slope, and that's about the time when we started to have the conversations around what we could do to turn that around to ensure that we met our funding policy goals for the 2042.

And then even though there has been some losses in between 2020 to 2025, that additional payment has helped us grow out of that, and we're gonna continue to see that upward directory.

So to kind of give some background on the outlook, we're going to continue to monitor market conditions as well as the liability growth.

Um, just to make a note of it, PSPRS will have a board meeting today to kind of talk about their investment returns.

Um, the last update of the investment returns was June 30th or June 31st.

Um PSPRS had already made their investment goal of those of the 7.2%.

But as you guys know, um, in March, there was a drawdown in the market.

Um, but even with that drawdown, the investment returns as of March 31st put us at 7.4%.

So we're still meeting the goals of the investments for this year.

Additionally, we've seen increases for April as well as May.

So we see that our prediction is going to be that PSPRS will exceed their investment goal for this year.

And what we saw with April is a lot of the market has been driven by Taiwan and Korean semiconductor business.

That is where the growth has been seen.

Um, additionally, with our model, we do forecast conservatively.

Um, we do account for additional payroll growth, additional or additional forecasted investment losses.

Um we want to ensure that there's no strong volatility within our numbers, and then of course, if those investment returns come in better than what is expected, then it just means it's gonna put us closer to achieving that 100% funded before the 2042.

Um the additional items that we also look for is federal and state impacts.

Um a couple things that PSPRS is looking at this year is they're considering doing an experience study for 26-27.

And what that means is they're going to look at the current population and look at the variables to see if there's any additional changes that need to be made.

This can affect our liability.

So one of the things that they may look at is life expectancy.

If they increase the assumed life expectancy, then that means that that liability will get pushed out further, which would then increase for us.

And this is really due to the portfolio of tier one, tier two, and tier three are exactly the same.

But the discount rate for tier three is seven percent, discount rate for tier two and tier one is seven point two.

So they're looking at marrying that up since it's the same portfolio.

That has been included into our modeling as they look to shift that over the four-year period between 2028 to 2031.

And then as previously discussed, we'll continue to monitor salary changes over time, new FTEs, as well as the shift between tier one and tier two to tier three employees.

Um from a total system standpoint, tier three is continuing to grow.

Tier three's population will overtake tier one and tier two this year for active employees.

Um for tier three, even though they're not contributing to the tier one, tier two system.

From a city standpoint, there's a legacy contribution that's tacked on to those employees that then are contributing towards the unfunded liability of tier one, tier two.

And this graph will just kind of show from our model what we're looking at to achieve that 100% fund balance or 100 plus percent funding status.

Um we've seen a bit more improvement of our contributions of what we've done with police.

So right now they're projected to be 100% funded by 2041.

So we've seen some improvement there due to those investment gains.

Um, but we'll continue to monitor and justice based upon what we see in the actuals.

So for Monday, um, June 1st, the what we're recommending for council is to adopt this pension policy per the state requirements, and then after that we'll post this funding policy to our website and then send over to PSPRS.

Any questions?

Or just more jokes, right?

We need some level.

Mr.

Adams, are you I see that you've joined us?

Are you there?

I I am I am here in the sky, yes.

Um, I have no questions, but uh thanks for asking.

So, Mayor, I would I would just say I I appreciate Sam and Brian and Mike and the whole team that monitor this because some of this we have to be reactive to the changes of um PSPRS since they're the ones that control so many of the decisions on this.

But um we're as Sam said, the big news is we're we're finally over the hump.

We knew when we adopted the 25-year um plan to get back to 100% funded that it would get worse before it got better.

And it did as inspected, but now we're starting to see that unfunded liability go down, and we project um you know, with maybe some fluctuations that Sam mentioned that we're on course to meet our our 25 years and and and it's heading in the trajectory that we expected.

So that's very good news.

I think when we entertain this between the 30 and 25 year amortization that we chose the 25 year, knowing that we could hopefully then add monies to that and pay it off slightly earlier.

And you said there's a 20 million dollar like line item there, that investment to help pull those monies in to help offset some of that increases if they happen, Sam or didn't we?

Mayor, that's correct.

We do have it in the city reserves right now that we would be able to touch if markets change.

Um with the 20 million dollars, the PSPRS pension from a whole for us is you know over a billion dollars, so we know 20 million isn't is kind of more of a drop in the bucket if there's large swings or changes.

But what allows us to do is it allows us to slowly adjust some of our payments because with the gains and losses, because they amateurize them, we can adjust our payment or allow our payment to kind of catch up to those changes to kind of create less volatility for the city.

So is that what Mr.

Hute does?

He invests those monies for you.

That's correct.

Okay.

You know, in the presentation, just overall the savings projection and and how that's gonna be forecasted uh in when we have these presentations.

Because I like to know what savings there are out there for the taxpayer and you know why we're doing this.

You know, we incurred an unfunded liability debt due to I think poor decision making back in the day.

Well, it was poor decision making, and consequently that burden was pushed off into municipalities, and then we covered that unfunded liability debt.

And some municipalities had the uh option to pay it off all at once.

We did as well, but we knew that was not affordable because it was like a billion dollars, 900 and something million.

When when we were looking at the items like pension obligation bonds back in those days, it was sitting around 700 million.

Um cities um did go down that route, and some cities increase what their contributions was to pay that off.

Yeah, um, but we wanted to kind of flip.

And that was typically cities that were much newer than Mesa and did not have the same amount of liability that they had.

They had the luxury because that number that was much lower um proportionally than what we were we were looking at.

So that's that's just an important point because if you were a newer department, newer city, if uh a city that really didn't grow until you know 2000 or or after, it was a lot easier to pay that off at one time versus a legacy city like us in Phoenix and others that had to look at a long-term strategy for this.

Yeah.

I have a quick I have a question.

Sorry, this is still new to me.

What you said bad decision making.

Was it on the city or was this like a state thing?

How did we end up with 700 million dollars of debt?

Yeah, so some of it was investment losses.

You had the Great Recession that occurred, and some of the investments that they had in it, um, they took losses.

The other thing was the state legislation changed some of the policies and um some of the benefits when they were sitting a lot higher in their funded in their funded status.

So then the state changed and added additional benefits to the PSPRS, which then when the Great Recession hit kind of compounded that change.

And then there was some additional court cases back in 2014 that the state ended up losing, and then those costs were then pushed out to the cities as they had to repay for those losses.

So compounding problems.

Yes, yeah.

Compounding problems that we had little to no control.

I see over that's helpful.

Thank you.

Well, I'm glad that we've been able to kind of bounce back after a long, painful call.

Yeah.

Well, I think it's a testament that we have you know 20 million dollars set aside for any fluctuations in the system, and that with kudos to the team that does that, the investment team, and that we're paying down the debt that we have uh and we're we're overpaying in our payment, so to speak, so that we can timely and then we'll save money overall in the next what'd you say, 16 years?

16 years.

The hope is uh PSPRS continues to meet their investment goals, and then we could pay this off earlier.

But as as we talked about, we do could budget conservatively just so that if things do occur, um, because 16 years is a long time that you know it's a long game that we want to be prepared for um items that could occur.

It's not as long as it used to be.

It's a slow burn, it's a slow burn, exactly.

All right, council Mr.

Adams.

Uh anything from you as well.

No, sir, I'm good.

Okay.

Great.

All right, Sam, thank you.

We can't keep them up here, he's by the phone.

So item one is to review the council and special council agendas we have for June 1st around the corner.

Um can't believe it's June already, but it's coming whether we like it or not.

Any other questions on I see on June 1st we'll be swearing in our new magistrate, city magistrate Jacob Brown.

We'll have a swearing in on that.

And then other than that, there's uh quite a few things on the agenda.

A lot of it business related.

Mayor, I just have a quick question on 6A.

So 6A is for the a resolution for IGA on the flood control.

Appears from reading it, that work is already being done, and this is just about how we build or apply for reimbursement.

Is that accurate?

That's correct.

Um let's see.

Because my original question is if this was new, are we gonna be in the road?

Yeah, let me, I'm not sure if Lance is back there.

But um, yes, this is um let me just refresh my memory on this one.

Yeah, it's a little if you want to get back to me on that one, it'll be fine.

I don't think we need a presentation up here, but I was catching that.

And uh if whether we're gonna be in the road or not, it didn't look like it.

It looked more like it was uh administrative about getting our reimbursement from the county.

It is I know that's the primary objective to that.

I don't want to misspeak, and we can get you the additional information, but um McFlood has the the small grant application.

Okay, yeah, Eric can can come up and correct me and tell me we're not getting in the road.

Yeah, right in the middle of a so yeah, the this is all part of uh uh uh project the engineering's been working on for us.

Um when we do get substantial rain, we we end up closing baseline road because it it it floods um there at that section.

So this is all part of the project.

Yeah, and and so this is um this has been engineering working with the flood control district to essentially get more funding, so that we're paying less ultimately.

Yeah, it it doesn't nothing in 6A changes the scope of the project that's already ongoing.

It's just that we're able to leverage that small grant from um Maricopa County from the flood control district to to bring in 500,000 dollars towards this project.

Yeah, no, it's good to have the reimbursement back.

Um I appreciate that.

There will be traffic control up.

I don't know, I don't think we have to close the road to do the project, but uh we we can I'll I'll check and we'll get those details out to you.

Yeah, the the project is in five, and the people that use the road are mine.

That's always fun.

Thanks, Alicia.

Yeah.

Uh so yeah, if we could just keep it open.

And it's um so Light Springs Village are the ones, and there's not a there's not a lot ton of access in and out of there.

So this is really their only north access.

Sure.

And it's to go around it.

So if we can just watch up, keep at least one lane open so they can make those turns.

Okay, and if we could do over the summer, that would be from what I see this June to June suggests that we're gonna be doing a lot of work in the winter, just because that's when the reimbursement time frame is.

We'll we'll get the schedule for you from engineering and and get you some more detail on this.

There is, and the majority of the work is on state land.

It's it's to the north to the north, but um obviously we'll we'll need to do things to tie it into the drainage system that that's there along baseline road.

Okay, and there's yeah, I think there's two lanes up there and a bunch of dirt, so we might might not be too much in the road.

So, but as long as we can keep one of those open, it'd be great.

All right, thank you.

Thanks, Eric.

I see also on six and an o we are designating the general election date.

Lisa, for November 3rd, we're setting that date for.

I'm sure that's because of um yes, that's a general call of the election.

General call for election.

Okay.

So, Mr.

Adams, uh, just if do you have any questions on our council meeting on June 1st and then the special council meeting agenda as well.

No questions on the special council meeting.

I do uh with respect to 6i.

I still have concerns about uh increasing the uh ability of code compliance to uh increase fines.

However, I'm some ongoing conversations uh that that may resolve those questions and concerns by the time we get to the council meeting.

So just uh so that that doesn't come as a surprise if I pull that on June 1st.

But continuing the conversation that may resolve just fine.

So that's all I have.

Thank you.

Very good.

Anything else, counsel?

Yeah, I just wanted to double check with Scott.

The so all the fees and charges that we're gonna be approving or disapproving, whichever way it goes.

Um I was reading over these last night and I didn't want to email you.

Um these are just all this is like a addendum to the current fees and charges that we would charge someone if they were in a violation or they requested video footage from the police or whatever it is.

Is that correct?

This is going to the public, they would pay the fine.

Yeah.

And the fee, etc.

This is there a particular fee in the end of the year.

No, I was logged over.

Yeah, looking at them overall as I'm going through each one.

I'm like, I hope I understand the resolution correctly that this is just what someone else is paying, essentially the city to access said thing, or they would get fined if they were in a violation of something.

Yeah, every year we go through this exercise and um go to the audit and finance committee to just update or um adding additions to our fees and charges.

So we look at you know what it costs um our costs to um charge for um a Ramada at a park, and then what what is that fee and is it reflective of giving cost recovery or or fair cost on that?

And we we go through that same exercise in each department and bring these forward as a package, and so that's why you see these all um together on the agenda.

Is uh it's been that process that we go through with our individual departments to just look at the and then instead of parsing them all out for different meetings, we just compact them all into one package.

Correct.

Okay, uh-huh.

That that's correct.

And then um that does go, and I know audit and finance committee had a pretty robust discussion about this.

They you know looked at each each of these and and um decide to pass these along to the okay.

Thank you.

Yeah, I just wanted to make sure I understood that correctly.

Thank you.

Anything else, counsel?

Mayor, on the um on the special council meeting, uh Mark's um prepared to come up and give uh quick presentation on the secondary property tax as well.

Just please do that publicly.

We'd like to hear from Mark.

Yeah, that's about that one right there.

Thank you for that.

All right.

Well, good morning, Mayor and Council.

I'm Mark Hute, City Treasurer, and I'm here to present the upcoming property tax levy.

All right, so just some quick reminders.

The city levies a secondary property tax to pay for geo bonds that have been authorized by the voters since the 2008 bond election.

Also, uh just wanted to point out that not all these bonds have been issued yet, and therefore there are still some remaining authorizations from the 2020, 2022, and 2024 bond elections.

All right, so this chart shows Mesa's total property values over the last 10 years, and for the first time this year, the full cash value um is exceeding 100 billion dollars.

Um just to just wanted to define a few terms on this slide.

The full cash value is similar to the market value, and the limited property value is used to calculate the taxable value, which is what we levy against.

Um, also uh just as another reminder for specific parcels, um a live the limited property value may not exceed its full cash value, and annual increases to that limited property value are generally limited to five percent.

So here are the kind of the main highlights of the proposed levy.

So the city is proposing to decrease the tax rate by roughly one percent.

Um and the resulting levy would cost the city's median homeowner 166 dollars for the year.

What's the median in Mesa?

Median Mesa, the dollar amount?

Um, it's let me pull it up real quick.

I think it's in the council report.

I think it's 294 second.

Well, are you asking full cash value or median?

Well, it's the median, it's got to be the median of the limited cash value.

Lived property value, I think it's 290.

Sorry, I got it right here.

It's the 194, excuse me.

So 194 is the median uh Mesa homeowner for the limited property.

For the limited cash profit, yeah.

Sorry about that.

Really?

We're not all the cash.

Where are these taxes?

Yeah, full cash value is 375.

Yeah, yeah.

Okay.

Thank you.

Sorry, but that's going up too.

Yeah.

So thank you.

All right.

So on this slide, I'll I'll just kind of highlight the main points.

So the city's total taxable property value increased from 5.2 billion dollars to 5.5 billion dollars.

And on the right, you can see the breakout of kind of what caused those increases.

So as you can see, roughly about one third of the change is due to new property being added to the tax roll, and roughly two-thirds of the change is due to uh um existing property that's appreciated in value.

So, Mark, yeah, you would say that new growth in a city is actually a very good thing because what it helps to do is it reduces the burden on all of the residents who are here.

And when we say new growth, we could say new commercial development and new residential development.

It's actually helping to essentially even out that burden and reduce it on the resident.

Is that correct?

Mayor Councilmember Taylor, that's correct as long as they're not tax exempt, right?

So as long as they're not going to be able to do that.

We're gonna get to that because I have that in my notes.

Mayor I just like to um add one caveat to that is that the more we expand you know our footprint, we have more roads, more sewer lines, more things, more police stations, fire stations, it goes on and on.

We have more that we have to build and maintain.

So growth of infrastructure.

When we it's not sure, yeah.

We talked a little about a bit about the bonding to the process of building out the but I was just so excited to see like, oh, this is a positive for new development happening in our city.

Absolutely.

And and that's and and that's why the capacity fee was really important again for um new growth to help um pay for some of that growth.

So you're you're exactly right.

It it's it's all part of ensuring they pay their fair new growth basis fair share as it comes in, but it does help expand the overall tax base.

Continue on.

So uh just moving down one road that so as I highlighted below, though we're looking to drop the rate by roughly one percent.

So that would make the rate of flat 85 cents per $100 of taxable property value, and this would generate a levy of 46.4 million dollars.

All right, so this chart shows the five-year history of the city's levy and tax rate, and it also includes the current proposal for fiscal year 26-27.

Um, so during this time, as you can see, the tax rate has either decreased or remained the same.

Um, and then the levy has been increasing the last several years due to some recent geobond issuances and increasing taxable property values.

All right, so here's a timeline.

So on Monday, June 1st, there'll be a public hearing on the budget and property tax levy, and the council will consider the final adoption of the budget.

And then not until July 20th, uh, the council will consider adopting the secondary property tax levy.

Very good.

Mr.

Adams, any questions on this topic presentation?

No, I'm good.

Thank you.

Okay.

Anyone from Medias, Ms.

Taylor?

So I'm gonna go over some of the notes that we went over.

Thank you again.

I met with Mark and Mike and Irma, and we just reviewed this since this is my first time sitting on a tax levy conversation in council.

This is more for the general public to understand.

Um it's I think a lot of people get a little confused about the limited property value and the full cash value.

The reason that we have the limited property is because if it's full cash, it'd be like an EKG, your taxes would be enormous, and then they might drop because we don't know what the market's gonna do.

So that's why we use the limited property value.

Um I also wanted to point out that the assessment ratio that we discussed is 10% for resident, and it's 15.5 for commercial.

Is that what would right?

Mayor Customer Mateo, that's correct.

Right.

Well, that was very important, I think, to point out.

And then we discussed like what would it look like, just in theory, if the city of Mesa decided to implement a primary property tax and we pulled the utility transfer out and just said, hey, we're not gonna do that anymore.

And I said, would it be like an apples to apples?

And Ken and Mark all kind of conferred, like basically yes, because it would still have to come to council, we'd have to determine the rate for our primary property tax.

Um it would still need to be voted on, and we could hear obviously from the public, but we would still need to pay back the cost of infrastructure, we would still have to pay back our general obligation bonds.

But then Mike made such a good point, and he said, you know, something that I don't think we consider very often is we have a lot of tax exempt government buildings and we have churches and we have schools all throughout Mesa.

And if we were to have a primary property tax, and I bring this up because some people have mentioned this.

I I was totally blown because I'd never thought about this.

They said, well, those tax exempt entities would essentially not pay their primary property tax, but they all use utilities.

They all run sinks, flush toilets, use electricity, et cetera.

So when we talk about how much more genius it was that we decided to basically use the utilities as an opportunity to bring in income to offset the cost and only sit with a secondary property tax, it made perfect sense.

So I just wanted to thank you all for presenting that to me so that I can then present it to the public as well and say this is why you actually pay less, is because we use the utilities as an opportunity to offset that cost.

So thank you.

And I hope the public is that's listening understands the benefit to that as well.

It was a very brilliant move.

Correct me if I've said anything wrong.

No, you you nailed it.

And that and that's one of the things, yeah, you know, we've we've heard and and uh any time Mesa residents are asked about switch out between a primary and the transfer, they choose the status quo.

And and that's even I think without truly understanding that aspect of it, because it's very nuanced about the fact that it's equalized.

The the transfer does equalize amongst all users and doesn't just put the burden on those uh that are taxable versus tax exempt, and there are a lot of entities uh within that that utilize utilities in the city of Mesa that are otherwise tax exempt and including our own government.

Including our own government.

We're using utilities all the federal government.

Probably more than a church or something, so schools, other things that that consume our utilities and place a burden on the system, otherwise would not be paying a property tax because of their tax exempt status.

So that is, I think a real um equalizer in the notion of of why the transfer makes a lot of sense.

Yeah, and I just want to remind the public too that the bonds that we are gonna be levying to pay down these were voter approved.

These are things that went to the people, they said yes on them.

And not to forget, as we're paying off some of our general obligation bonds, those are disappearing.

We may have new ones coming on, but the whole goal is to pay off the old debt as we bring on new as we build out infrastructure.

So just want to remind everyone of that gently.

Thank you.

Thank you, Miss Steph.

Um, and then we have a bond election coming up, and and so this is factored in there.

But I also like to say then on our utilities, and I don't want to get in deep dive because this is not uh on on agenda, but um our utilities, we offer at a competitive rate.

If you look at the other utility providers and what they charge and what we charge, it's very competitive.

So it's wonderful that we have a business model in order to create a revenue so we don't have to charge um uh primary property tax.

And if we sold those entities and said someone take it over, we would still pay that rate.

That's still that that competitive rate, and then we would have the tax on top of it.

So it really is wise to keep it on utilities, I think it's uh more just as you say, um, is by being able to spread it out through everybody who uses utilities, and it certainly protects our senior citizens who in many cities are burdened with high property tax rates on their um homes that they can't afford, and then they're they're they're you know, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Thanks.

Very good discussion.

Thank you, Mark, for stirring it up.

Just go out there and make us just invest to make us some more money.

We're not invited back.

All right, hearing nothing else, council on this special council meeting as well as our normal council meeting.

Correct.

Do we need a break?

Okay, five-minute break, and we'll set up for two A presentation provided direction on off the streets program.

Five-minute break.

Thank you.

About a minute.

Okay, everyone, if we could take our come back, uh, Ms.

Taylor, please.

Okay, with that item two A is a presentation provide direction on the regarding the off-streets program.

Candace, Lindsay, and Jusan, thank you.

Mayor.

Yes, Mr.

Adams.

Mayor, if I may uh want to privilege just a quick comment.

I know that staff puts a lot of time and effort into these programs and presentations that they provide us, but I've I've gone through the May 21 presentation, I've compared it back to the March 5th presentation, and we can even go back as far as April 24th of last year.

What we have in front of us here is essentially a uh a restatement of much of the material from March 5th.

And you know, speaking for myself, I'm I'm not in need of a refresher on most of this information, and I don't think a representation is what council requested that it resulted in this program.

So I'm I'm just wondering why we just don't cut to the chase here and go to the information council to present it on alternatives.

Time being a valuable commodity.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Adams.

And I was saying, Mayor and uh council member Adams, that is exactly what we were going to do this morning.

Um so we do have some slides that we include in here to make sure that we do have a little bit of the background, but we did not intend to actually present on the slides at the beginning of the presentation.

Oh, good, thank you.

All right, Candace, then the ball's in your court.

All right, thank you, Mayor.

Um as you said, I'm Candace Canistrao, deputy city manager, and with me is Lindsay Belinke, our deputy director of community services, and as well as Josani Goodman, who is our human services administrator.

And so they are here if there are any questions that dive into the program itself.

Um, but as Mayor um, as as a council member Adams mentioned, we have talked about the program at length at other sessions, so we'll just take questions when it comes to program for information.

Um again, the beginning slides are just we included here, we were never sure which residents are watching which um meetings, and so we want to make sure that we always provide some type of a background of what the Office Streets program is, how it fits into our overall city model, and what the benefits are, as well as some of the other diversion programs that we have here in the city.

Some of the things that we do want to address, I'll highlight a couple things on slides, which are responses to questions that we have had in the past or direction that we have received from council.

Um so on this slide here, one of the things that we were asked to do was to look at um a couple things.

One, what were the numbers of the residents who were assisted by this program over the last year?

I think in previous ones we had talked about more of an inception to date numbers, and so these are some of the numbers over the last year, so 12 months, a rolling 12 months.

The other thing that we were also asked to look at is the the nonprofit of the faith-based community, and can those communities take over the operations of the off the streets program.

So since our last meeting in March, we have issued a res uh request for information for the nonprofits.

The request for information um tool is the easiest entry for a nonprofit to start conversations with us, so that's the why we use that particular tool.

Um, it's very easy to respond to, it doesn't require financials or qualifications or anything like that.

It really just opens up that dialogue on the city is looking for a partner, a nonprofit who was able to come in and actually take over the financial obligations of the Office Streets program as well as the um operations of it itself.

We received only one response to that particular um request for information, and that nonprofit, while they responded, we did allow them to say what type of support would you need from the city.

And the one response that we did receive we required 2.5 million dollars a year, um, city support in order to do the program, which was not the direction that we were going with with the RFI, because that's the budget that we have today as the city budget.

Um we did do reach out, so the staff um reached out by phone and by email to the nonprofits who did not reply, um, asking, you know, what kept you from um uh replying to this, how could we help, what kind of conversations can we have?

Um, and repeatedly what we received was we need financial help from the city.

We're not able to fund the operations of this program, but we're happy to think about the actually providing the the operations if it was funded by the city going forth.

So that is one response from our last meeting that we have for you today.

Candace, um, before we um advance to the next slide, I'd like to just bring attention to our balanced housing plan on the very bottom of the slide is their link that goes to our balanced housing plan is one that we use to guide our decisions like where we're short of housing.

Yes, there is a shortage of housing, um, but at what price points?

And we find that we have 23,000 um homes, a shortage of people making under 50 percent of the average moderate income, and that's on page 12.

Um, so while we say that some can say that homeless services are not part of the city, and what we should um I know take care of or whatever, but the city is responsible for the number of homes providing homes.

We receive money from the federal government for housing, and the fall through is when there is a shortage, you have people fall into homelessness as we've seen the dramatic cost of rent and and home prices increase.

It is increasingly difficult for people to find an affordable place to live, and that is part of the equation of why we have a growing homeless problem.

It's not independent of the price of housing.

Thank you.

Continue on candles.

Um again, just to kind of look at the number of beds.

This is an update from the last uh presentation.

Uh there was a question about where are those beds and are they screw physically within Mesa versus outside of Mesa.

So this slide is just updating those particular beds and where they are.

Um, just as of note, the 105 beds for single men are located within the Mesa planning area, but technically are in the county because that is the East Valley Men's Shelter.

Um, and again, the question was what was the last 12 months?

What did that look like?

So this slide is just representing the last 12 months of the participants in the off the streets program.

Um as we move forward, the other um from our last meeting, the request from council was to find funding that was um not through the general fund, was not MESA local taxes, um local sales tax for the funding of the program.

So we have done that.

I will present that in another slide, but we have identified federal funds and interest on federal funds as sources that could be used for the off the streets program that would not be from local Mesa sales tax.

An update, real quick update on the current status of Sun Air.

Sun Air is ready.

We have received a certificate of occupancy, and we do have possession of the of the modified or improvement approved property.

Um what we have done in the last few months is we have issued a notice of intent to award to Mercy House to offer the services themselves.

This is dependent on funding, so anything any time we go into a notice of intent to award is still depending on funding and negotiating of a contract.

So there's no obligation on the city.

Um what it did allow them to do though was to apply for grants on behalf of the Off the Streets program, which they couldn't do if we didn't do the notice of intent to award.

They have applied for a one million dollar grant in partnership with our staff for providing services at the Sun Air location.

It's through the Arizona Department of Housing.

We were hoping to have that result before we came back to council, but we will not have the result for probably another week.

So it is by the end of May we were expecting a result on that.

It was an up to one million dollar grant, um, and the grant request was for the uh property maintenance to try to help us with that gap.

That was the previously identified gap that we had talked to council about.

Candace um question.

So if Mercy Housing acquires the grant and we decide not to utilize Sun Air, what happens to that grant?

They would just have to rescind on it, or they would I I don't know what would they do, or could they can't apply it to an I don't know what position is that?

So Mayor and Councilmember Duff, we would need to talk with the Arizona Department of Housing to find if they would allow that grant to be moved so it's still for off the streets.

If off the streets program is continuing but not at Sun Air, then we would make that request to continue to fund off the streets in some manner just at a different location.

But we would have to talk with the state to to verify that they would allow that.

Um as we talked about proposed operating funding, um, we have identified, so staff has identified funding that can cover years one through three that would not involve Mesa sales tax, and that is one-time funds through our home ARP program, and those are the home art programs through HUD.

Those came through as part of the CARES and ARPA kind of funding timeline.

The original intent that the staff had was to do that kind of more brick and mortar and create those bridge housing, and that um due to the just cost of construction, we do not have developers who are are um able to partner with us on that.

And so we have moved that over to support services, so those would be eligible for the case management side of this particular program.

It would not cover any type of property maintenance or um leased rooms, regardless of the model that we go with.

Um, but it would do food case management, those kind of wraparound services.

We've also identified one-time ARPA interest income.

So this is the interest that was earned on the ARPA funds.

Um we do have uh quite a bit of interest income that we have used.

Every dollar of interest income so far has been reinvested back into the ARPA program.

Some of that has been on projects that maybe went over the original estimate, and so that has supplemented those projects.

We also have other ones because it was not required to be obligated in the same time frame as the true ARPA was, for example, like the facade programs on Main Street.

Those were some that we couldn't get under contract within time.

And so we moved money around and used the interest income on those because it did not require the contract or obligation within the timeline.

Between those two funds, we do have funds identified that could fully offset general fund for three years for this particular program.

When we get to year four and beyond, we do have other items that we're going to continue to look for.

Of note is again continuing to pursue federal and state grants similar to the Arizona Department of Housing Grant that we're currently looking for.

Any grants or fundraising opportunities that we have now will still offset the could offset the home ARP and the ARPA interest income, and that would allow that to last even longer.

So hopefully that would then go into maybe a year four for any funds that we can't offset in the first three years.

The city is looking at creating a 501c3 that is actually managed by the city.

That would open us up to additional grant opportunities.

There are certain grants that will only fund to a 501c3, will not fund to a municipality.

And so that would open up a little bit there.

And then we'll also be working with our provider.

So if that is Mercy House, we'll be working with them.

How can we help with their fundraising and also doing our own city fundraising, looking for corporate sponsorships as well as individual giving?

One more thing before the next slide.

Also in year four, looking ahead.

Currently, the federal government has slashed funding to nonprofits.

They've been laying off employees, selling properties, reducing programs because no one has any money right now.

But looking ahead, I hope that that would change.

Also, the city receives annual funding from the federal government for human services and home dollars affordable housing, things like that.

So we have this fund that we allocate to nonprofits usually, but that fund is an opportunity, and we do use it for the off the streets program to continue funding without touching the local dollars.

So when we get to year four, I'm not saying like it's a cliff.

There's all kinds of possibilities, and I appreciate that you've looked also at being creative to come up with sponsorships and maybe a 5013, as many people are interested in the subject.

I think there's a lot of possibility and a lot of opportunity year four and beyond that would change you know that we'll continue to find it.

And and the other thing is, you know, if we choose, it is not unusual, and we've done this before that the city has a property that they um lease for to nonprofits, and at some point we have released that property to the nonprofit for its use.

And I know that's happened in my district and during my term, that we have chose to release the property to a nonprofit to continue service for like services.

So it's not like we're forever bound to this.

And um it is, and we have this opportunity because we have federal funding to continue it for three years.

No one else in the nonprofit world has money.

We've asked, we've searched, they said we'd be interested, we could gear up for it, but we don't have the money you would have to um provide it.

Um, and also just to, you know, why have and why nonprofits don't have the money, the federal funding cuts.

Generally, nonprofits on average receive 70 to 80 percent of their funds from government sources, and the rest is philanthropy.

For people to think that it's the norm that somehow we are have enough money floating around in private sector for philanthropy to handle all the social services we need is a fallacy.

We don't.

It's always been supported by government sources.

We can see that we have that, and our state and federal governments, all kinds of social service programs, because it is not sufficient through the nonprofit.

They pick up and try to do additional, and we appreciate we love that they do so much, and churches are wonderful, but they are not a funding mechanism for these enormous projects.

They're more of that just that daily assistance to help people get through, and we appreciate them also.

But we have this opportunity where we are and have the funds and have the property to do great work.

Thanks.

And thank you, Mayor and Councilmember Jeff, thank you for reminding me that I neglected to mention that um through this, it's not just a matter of looking for alternate funds to fund the program in the model and that it is today, but it also gives that ramp up time to work with nonprofits um to to reach out to nonprofits right now and say, could you take this over in a few months?

They are not able, they're not able to do that.

Um but there could be opportunities over the next year or two or through these first three years as we start to identify a nonprofit that could, if they had the time to ramp up, um, have the support from a transition, if you will, from the from the city as well.

So we'll be looking at those partnerships as well over this program to see you know what that year four looks like.

It could look like a lot of different things, and the and the goal that we've heard from council is what does that look like without local Mesa sales tax?

And so that is the goal um over those three years is to find that out.

Well, let's get through the first three years.

Yes.

Well, we're always looking at this.

We're gonna it's not something we're gonna start in year three, right?

So I just want to make sure that that's that's um clear is that everything that we list here about federal and state funding, the 501c3, um, corporate sponsorships, individual giving, that all starts on day one to do that.

So that's not something that we're hoping for for year four.

We're hoping for for day one as we do that.

And we have had some faith-based communities reach out and ask how they could help.

Uh maybe it's a sponsoring a small dollar amount or a room or something like that, and so those will be things that we'd be looking into as well.

Um, as we move forward, um, location for off the streets program.

So we have talked about uh two different locations that have come up with council.

We are currently leasing rooms at the Windermere Hotel.

We could lease we could continue to lease rooms there or at an alternate hotel if that was in the best interest.

Um we currently have 65 rooms, we had 85.

Um we moved it down to 65 um in order to reduce the budget at that particular location in order to make our ARPA funds run longer.

Um that 65 rooms um gets us 11 beds, and then we've listed the costs here and the annual budget for the program as it is today with our uh reduced rooms is around 2.5 million dollars per year.

We could also utilize the city-owned rooms that are at Sunair, those are 64 rooms because of the different type of furniture that would be used that would actually equate to 158 beds compared to the 11.

Again, we've listed out the various programming costs here, and that would be an annual budget of about 2.5 million dollars as well.

Um so mayor and council today.

What we're looking for is direction from council on the proposed funding of the office streets program as well as the location in order to um administer the program.

Thank you.

Uh with that, it looks like we have three choices here windomere, sun air, or discontinue the program according to this law.

May I ask for just to cover one more slide in your presentation before we open and it's the backup slide, slide number 15, when it where it shows what each of the cities are doing because a lot of people think that the city shouldn't be in this, but the norm is cities across the United States were in homeless services and shelter beds.

Tempe has 240 city-owned, um, Chandler rents uh shelter beds.

Um I I just want to look at this map and be aware that is the norm.

Or we're just being another city and we're trying to do our part, just as many cities across the United States are.

But in fact, um, I had the figures back on another slide that we went quickly over that um out of the city-owned shelter beds.

We have five percent of the shelter beds.

Yet, when you look at Maricopa County's population and compare it to our population, we represent 10 to 11 percent of the population, and yet we only have five percent of the shelter beds.

Um we're not really standing up to our part in and and providing services.

Thanks.

I know we were talking about family emergency shelter, but we do have the East Valley Men's shelter too that we provide beds for, and 50 percent of that capacity.

I know is uh 50 or 55 beds there for men only, but conversation is about uh off the streets program.

So council, um I don't miss stuff is weighed in.

Um Mr.

Adams, I'm sure you're thinking, is there anybody here at the DIS?

Do you want to go first, Mr.

Mr.

Adams?

Um I'll I'll go in just a little bit.

I'm still uh making a few notes here for my question.

Right?

Ms.

Taylor Vice Mayor statement that I'll read.

Okay.

I think just a question on this last slide on 12 uh slide 12 on the uh comparison of Windermere and Sunair the anticipated more um with the anticipated more beds there, um that cost is actually helping more people more people, right?

Uh is that where we're getting um Mayor and Councilmember Heredia, the the way that we can um assist more individuals at Sun Air is because of the furniture and the furniture allocation.

So when we're able to put um a family in one room because we're able to put the bunk beds, that would increase the number of beds.

So even though it's an equivalent number of rooms, um that's where you get the extra the bed count from.

Okay.

So it's in my head, it's like we're actually helping more people potentially with the Sun Air to versus the Windermere, right?

Yeah, Mayor and Councilmember Heredia, it's it allows for a greater capacity for the number of people.

So um depending on who was in the rooms, um, so some rooms um at the Windermere as well, we also sometimes use roommate situations if the room if for our senior citizens if they are um you know open to that, and if that they have those situations as well, so that allows the beds.

Um but yes, the main the main difference between the two at for the bed count is that Windermere were using what would be your standard the Windermere owned furniture, um, and at Sunair it would be the furniture that was more conducive to more efficient use of the space and allowing for that kind of bug bed bugs uh um bunk beds.

Sorry, bunk bed um style of furniture um that allows for the children, so um, so that we're able to put more of the the minors in with the family in a room.

And then uh uh in either program, it's it's still family, seniors, and domestic violence.

That is correct.

That's right.

Correct.

We've done changing um correct, mayor and council member Heredia that when we moved from our 85 rooms down to the 65 rooms at Windermere, um, that was also the stipulations.

We went down to the same demographics at both because we do know that we have shelter beds for single men at East Valley Men's shelter, and what we're really lacking are the family and the single women, and so um and the seniors, so we focused just on that demographics.

Okay, and on slide seven, if we can just move to that, we went over it quickly, didn't stop.

I appreciate council member Adams' concern about re-reviewing this, but I think sometimes by skipping over a lot, we we lose a lot too.

Uh just uh uh question uh in on that end, we still have a waiting list, correct?

Uh or the waiting list on families, domestic violence victims, and seniors, there's a waiting list for people, right?

So correct, mayor and council member.

Um, currently, as of today, we have 17 families that are in the program, and we have 17 families on our wait list, and we have 109 individuals on the wait list today for our for the off the streets program.

And these are Mesa residents, Mesa residents.

Yes, okay.

I have a question.

Um if we were to split the Sunair from the off the streets program, can you just reiterate in like really be brief layman's terms?

We keep off the streets, so the police would they be going to the Windermere, just not the Sunair?

Is that correct?

The the um mayor and council member Taylor, the program we are pre um proposing would be the same regardless of the location.

Okay.

The one thing that we did um discontinue at Windermere was the dust to dawn room.

So that one we had discontinued in order to get our budget down into the 2.5.

We reduced the number of rooms, and we also eliminated the dust to dawn that was um used more for single individuals.

That's right.

Um, that were moving on.

There wasn't used for families, and so with our focus on the on the families that were trying to help and to stay within a 2.5 million dollar budget, we now have uh 65 rooms to try to prioritize families and seniors.

And then for the funding of that portion of the program, I know it's 2.5, 2.5.

But are we looking at essentially pulling out of the tax system to pay for that every year the way we would be doing?

Like I know Sun Airs, we're gonna have grants given to us.

We've got some federal ARPA dollars that we would use until the sunset, et cetera.

But when those run out, the idea is that we just basically pay for it with tax money out of the general fund.

Would we be doing the same thing with the Windermere then?

Yeah, so Mayor and Councilmember Taylor, the program is the same.

And so that's why I really have it on two different slides.

One is um the cost of the program, right?

Um and the funding for that program would be the same regardless of Windermere or whether we're at Sun Air.

Okay.

Um so the difference is really just the cost of those going in, and then um, and then we would still be pursuing at either location.

We would be pursuing federal and state grants as well as um uh sponsorships and contributed income.

And how many not-for-profits did we did we have 65 that applied for like the HUD housing, just in general, people not for profits that service Mesa for various different things like homeless shelters, um food banks, the whole nine yards.

Did we have uh Mayor and Councilmember Taylor?

I don't have account, but it does seem like it is in that range of different nonprofits of various at various um stages.

Some are food bags over the weekends, some are tax uh assistance.

Um so there's a lot of different nonprofits that we do have for this particular one.

This is emergency shelter nonprofits, and so we're looking for those people who have done that before.

And again, the staff did reach out to the local ones that we know around here to try to find out how like why did they not respond to our request for information?

What kind of conversation would they be interested in having?

And we will always continue those conversations.

We're always looking for the partners in the community to step up and do what they do best, and how can we best support them?

Okay.

I have a statement that I'd like to.

This is in my district, I'd like to close it with my statement.

But let me ask a question.

Thank you.

Um if you found some increased dollars, some more dollars out there.

Could you increase the rooms at Windermere?

You're at 65.

Could you have more rooms available at Windermere if more funding was available?

Mayor, we can always find more space if we have funding available.

It is a twofer, it would be both both the rooms and the case management.

So they would go hand in hand.

So the case management we have um listed here is the case managers we would need to provide the wraparound services for that many rooms.

Right.

And so it would be an increase in both.

Just yes or no.

You could find more rooms.

Mayor, we can find more rooms at Windermere or anywhere else.

If you allocate money to us, we will find rooms.

Thank you.

And that's where Mayor, um, some of the grants or other opportunities if if they were to be successful in addition to the federal funds, um, we could look at scaling at different levels depending on the grants.

So my question is there's flexibility at Windermere to add more rooms if money was available.

Mayor, yes, there is.

We were at 85 rooms before we brought the budget down.

Okay.

And what about the Phoenix Red?

The Phoenix Rescue Mission is built out in a way that they are they've been essentially like almost like a machine.

They can accept people in from various stages of life.

They offer incredible services for housing homeless people, families that are in need, the elderly.

I've volunteered with them on the light.

I've got a friend who's deeply volunteered with them.

Has Mesa ever considered basically taking our grant funding and passing it through?

We are we act as a password for so many not-for-profits, and I know we give some money to the Phoenix Rescue Mission, but have we considered essentially taking this program and the funds that we have received for it and saying, hey, we're gonna delegate this to this entity here because they understand this process exceedingly well, and they can build out even more.

Instead of us trying to have this, you know, this pilot program essentially that we're building on what would be COVID era emergencies.

So have we talked about that?

Have we looked at that?

So, Mayor and Councilmember Taylor, I'm gonna let Lindsay take the response the relationship we have with Phoenix Rescue Mission.

I will say that we do um have their services for the street outreach, and it works really, really well.

They do have some of their own um emergency shelter, they are not within Mesa.

Sure.

So there are not any beds in Mesa.

Um, I'll let Lindsay kind of or sorry, Joshani address that relationship.

Um mayor and council.

Um, so um our relationship with Phoenix Rescue Mission at the moment is um as Candace was saying for homeless outreach and navigation services.

So it is all mobile services and case management out in the field engaging with individuals that are experiencing homelessness in Mesa.

However, as it relates to their residential programs, those are not considered emergency shelter programs.

So that is for individuals that are experiencing trauma, substance abuse, or other life controlling issues.

And so that is very specific, and it is a structured program, but it is not considered to be an emergency shelter.

However, also the men's campus on 35th Avenue, just south of Buck High, that is also considered a treatment facility.

So both of those are not considered emergency shelters, those are treatment facilities.

And so it is a very particular niche for those that are specifically requiring those types of services.

Thank you.

Mayor Council Member Taylor, I think to your point too, I think what you're describing is somewhat similar to the relationship we have with East Valley Men's Shelter, right?

We have uh in return for that partnership.

There's a set number of rooms that um that are allocated to Mesa residents as part of that relationship.

I think um I think the issue with the emergency shelter um funding in particular is that there are no providers that have a similar like facility in Mesa that we could enter into a partnership with, uh like we do with the East Valley Men's Shelter and Yeah, House of Refuge has something similar.

I know it's a year-long program, but it is to get people into a home that are essentially on the streets.

I know they want to expand too.

They would like to acquire more homes.

I went to their gala.

I talked to their director, and she said essentially they're completely privately funded.

They don't accept any federal funding, which is amazing.

It's all through donations and auctions.

And their goal is to essentially provide what we're providing, which is transitional housing, then to get people into a position where they can rent an apartment or get a home, a town home, or a cottage home on their own, which I'm I'm thinking instead of us.

Well, I have I'll read my statement so I stay on track.

But I'm just wondering, have we talked to them about also an option?

Mayor and Councilmember Taylor, they're they are a transitional housing program.

They're a very good program.

Um they do receive some funding from us through our human services funding, so not the federal funds, but on the human services funding side.

And um they do have a great program.

It is a much longer, it is a more bridged type housing.

It's exactly what we wanted to do with our home ARB dollars was to create more of that type of bridge housing, which is going from emergency shelter, which is usually that 60 to 90 days, into kind of a bridge of one to two years, depending on the program, and then into permanent housing.

Um they are that one of those bridge programs that we wish they were more of.

Um, but they're still not an emergency shelter type program where we're really putting people through within 60 to 90 days, um, assessing their needs, putting them in um in line with the resources they need, and moving them on to that next step so that we can help more people.

As as Candace just said, Mayor and um council member, that that really is I I I think the notion that on the emergency shelter side, it is just immediate stabilization.

So someone loses an apartment because they've lost a job and they have no choice.

Um they're sleeping in their car with their family or or um in something similar, and this is just to stabilize them until they can be uh moved into a transitional.

We just helped a family do that.

She lost, yeah, she lost her house.

Council, I know I know we've not that we diverted from off the streets, but we're talking about other topics here.

Well, I was trying to kind of know it's important to connect, and and I know some council members want to read some statements, Ms.

Redia was a little bit more.

Just to go back to off the streets.

Uh we had discussions.

I know in previous presentations we've had PD or maybe fire.

Uh have we talked to PD if we eliminate off the streets?

What's what's the what's what's the issues that I remember a time where we didn't have this program.

Looking at our parks and you know, just in my district, like Kleinman, Councilmember does district uh pioneer river view having a lot of issues when I first came in into council around homelessness and issues around there, and you know, constituents always, you know, what are we doing?

What are we doing?

And I think part of the emphasis to start a program like off the streets was to really alleviate some of that work from PD and fire that were going into these calls, and we're spending probably millions of millions.

I I know we it's hard to track, right?

Based on you know, cause or service and uh you know trying to figure out like oh who has a bed out there in Phoenix, right?

Because we didn't have any here in uh in Mesa.

Um and so have we discussed internally uh if we don't have the Optic Streets program, what does that look like?

I I think that is uh a big problematic piece uh that we uh unintended consequences, I would say, uh, of a program that we uh from all the data and information that we been presented over the last several months and years on off the street on the street off the streets and reducing recidivism and uh you know having options for our PD and fire to place people uh in emergency shelters and in and service and getting their service and people graduating from that piece, right?

Um I'm just really um uh cost is uh on eliminating a program that have has had so much success based on the information, right?

On the data, speaking to us like, hey, this program before what we're doing is you know, enforcement and you know, doing a bunch of other stuff that wasn't that wasn't coordinating, connected like this program is.

Uh so I just that discussion, so sorry I kind of uh added points there, but I I have we talked to PD and FIRE on what do we then do if we don't have off the streets?

Oh Mayor, I'm a council member Heredia.

Um I have spoken with uh the police chief um um Dan Butler and asked about that, and um and they are you know they do use this program as they're go as they're when they're out on patrol and they and they find families and this we do have a lieutenant coming out right now, Thomas.

Yeah, I can run on that one.

Uh good morning, Mayor and Council.

Uh Dennis Thomas, Lieutenant with the Mesa Police Department.

So to answer your question, um Chief Butler is very much in support of Off the Streets program.

Um it gives our officers another opportunity to provide services for beyond just enforcement.

I mean, we can go out there enforce the laws and things like this, but what do we do afterwards?

We can cite people into city court or in the community court, but what we but what does that look like afterwards?

Um to answer your question.

I mean, I've been here 29 years, I remember what it was like prior to off the streets, and as a young patrol officer, it was pretty frustrating because there wasn't anything for us to do beyond the enforcement.

So PD's position is and Chief Butler's position is we would like to continue to see this program continue.

It's a very valuable service to our officers out there on the street.

It gives them another option beyond enforcement.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay.

You've covered all the topics so far.

I think I don't, Mayor, I'm not sure that there's any outstanding comments that people have made, but if you have, just remind me, I'm happy to address that.

So Ms.

Duff, did you want to restatement?

Yeah, um, I can get into my statement.

I think, well, we have two questions here today.

One, will we continue off the streets program?

And two, if we do, where is that going to be?

And so I've addressed my statement in support to Sun Air.

And I want to be very direct today because the stakes are too high.

We are being asked effectively to this is about the Sun Air if we walk away from it to walk away from a 14 million dollar investment, a building Mesa owns that is ready, that has a certificate of occupancy, that has a qualified provider under contract, and that has three years of federal funding already identified.

There's no general fund impact, there's no new taxes, the work has been done, and the alternative being proposed is to keep renting rooms in an aging hotel at $50,000 more per year.

It became equivalent on the chart because we have $50,000 under the Sun Air program offering food assistance.

So we actually get more beds and more and food a food pantry.

So at $50,000 more per year for 47 fewer beds and a space that was never designed for this purpose.

The Windermere is not a long-term solution.

There are too many problems, including mixed hoteling.

I've heard the arguments that homelessness is the responsibility of nonprofits and churches.

But our staff has conducted a formal solicitation in April and received one response.

One.

And that organization asked us for two and a half million dollars in city funding anyway.

So the pri the private sector will not solve this without us.

Every city around us knows this.

Tempe uses a city owned facility operated by Mercy House, which is the same provider we've already selected for Sunair.

This is not an unusual model.

This is what cities do.

I also want to raise a concern about the precedent.

The Sun Air commitment spans a 2022 ARPA authorization, a 2023 property purchase, and a 2024 allocation for the 2020 25-26 budget.

Those were all decisions made by our council.

We change composition of our council every two years.

If the council reverses four years of committed work, what does this message send about the durability of any decision we make?

Last year we served 235 children, 100 seniors, and 202 survivors of domestic violence.

There are only hundred there are 109 people on our wait list right now with a six-week wait.

When you're homeless, six weeks is an eternity.

Mericopa County leads the nation in evictions.

Inflation is hitting families hard.

SNAP benefits have been cut.

We have a provider.

We have the funding.

All we need is the will.

I'm asking this council to honor the work of staff and prior counsels to do right by the residents by counting on us.

And I want to leave you with one story.

Jason shared some stories with me about some of the people seeking shelter.

And one of them was a mother living out of her car with a newborn.

And there wasn't space to take her in.

But staff found a way to take her in.

And every time I think of it, it's like I can I've probably told the story five or ten times, and I still tear up.

Because no child should ever face that.

Not in Mesa, not anywhere.

Tells us that what happens to a child in the earliest years shapes who they become as an adult.

Homelessness is one of the most damaging experiences a child can have.

We have the power to change that outcome.

Sun Air was designed for families.

The rooms are connected, the beds are configured for parents and children together.

It has a playground as a food pantry and other amenities for families.

And I was reading an email this morning, and there is a comment about for children.

And she said, you know, playgrounds give children hope, and they need that in that situation.

If there is no other reason to choose Sun Air, choose it for families.

That how many phone calls I've got to families who are in the parking lots of schools.

I gotta go on with the stories, but we need to do something for our families, and the Sun Air is built specifically for families.

Thank you.

Thank you, Miss Duff.

Ms.

Taylor, did you said you had a statement?

I did.

And Mr.

Adams, I don't know if you're a challenge.

Why don't you go ahead?

Okay.

Yeah.

So thank you for your one you're ready.

Oh.

Okay, we'll we'll hear from Ms.

Taylor then, Mr.

Adams.

Thank you for your presentation.

Um thank you, Jen, for you know your statement.

I appreciate that.

Um, I'm just gonna stay on track so I don't get off track.

But I've received a lot of emails, I've received a lot of feedback from residents in district two, from people outside of district two.

Um here's the thing.

What concerns me most about this project, it is not the cost.

For me, it is also the precedent and the process and the long-term expansion of government responsibility without direct voter consent.

This project began with temporary federal COVID emergency funding.

One-time dollars were used to purchase and permanently convert a private hotel into a long-term city-owned shelter operation.

This, according to staff presentation, Mesa has now more than 14 million dollars invested through federal funds in a property, while the current appraisal values it at 6.3 million.

This is a failure financially from the start.

Even from the beginning of this project's inception, the public was never directly asked whether they wanted the city of Mesa to permanently enter the shelter ownership and operations business.

The voters, the residents of the city of Mesa, who pay our salaries who make Mesa what it is, were not included in this choice.

The voters were never given the opportunity to approve an ongoing taxpayer obligation that staff now acknowledges may ultimately rely on the general fund in future years.

This was not proposed to be put on the ballot for the people to vote on.

This is not something considered as a general necessary municipal service.

It is a fundamental issue.

This may not meet the legal definition of taxation without representation, but it absolutely raises the same underlying concern.

Taxpayers are being committed to a permanent financial obligation without ever being asked for consent.

Emergency funding is important.

I don't disagree with that, but it should never become a vehicle for creating permanent municipal programs that future taxpayers are expected to subsidize indefinitely.

And once government crosses this line, where do we stop?

I am a big firm believer in limited government.

This is a people's representation.

You want it, it goes on a ballot, you vote for it.

If you say yes to it, the people have spoken, we pay for it.

If the city can use one-time emergency dollars to purchase and operate a permanent shelter without voter approval, what prevents future councils, actually to Miss Jeff's point, from expanding government ownership and operations into other areas handled by not-for-profits, faith organizations, charities, and private sectors, all without public authorization.

That precedent should concern everyone, regardless of where you stand on homelessness and other policy issues.

We are ignoring the warning signs.

I've already been seen in other cities.

Across the western United States, cities that rapidly expanded government-run homelessness infrastructure with temporary federal funding have struggled with escalating operating costs.

Dependence on continuous subsidies and facilities that require ongoing taxpayer support long after the original emergency funding has expired.

San Francisco, Portland, and Los Angeles are continuing today to face growing budget pressures tied to homelessness programs that began as temporary crisis responses, but they have evolved into permanent financial obligations with no sustainable long-term funding models.

None whatsoever.

Look at what is going on in Oregon.

They keep throwing money at a problem that is not being resolved.

And they say it's for f families, and they say it's for children, and they love to use those really, really sad situations as pawns to sell it to the public to get more money.

It's actually quite disgusting.

Reasonable people can support helping vulnerable residents while still believing the public deserves a direct voice before Mesa assumes ownership of a permanent shelter facility and commits to future taxpayer costs in an ongoing operational span.

This discussion is ultimately about the democratic accountability, fiscal stewardship, and whether the people of Mesa, not federal dollars, not staff recommendations, and not past or present councils, should decide the long-term role and size of their local government.

The proper role of government is to provide essential public services, protect public safety, and steward taxpayer resources responsibly, not to continuously expand into permanent enterprises that were never directly authorized by voters.

I am going to say that with all that being said, it is the role of this council to seek the best interest of our taxpayers in the city.

I've heard from many of them.

I've received 54 emails in three days.

Majority of mine, no.

In fact, last night I got flooded because everyone read the agenda.

I have to vote no moving forward on this.

It is my responsibility to my residents, my district residents, and the taxpayers of Mesa.

I do appreciate the time that you've given me to speak.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Adams.

Well, thank you, Mayor.

You know, when I when I decided to run for the office I now occupy, one of the primary things that I committed to people when I was out campaigning was that I would be a good steward and a responsible manager of public money.

And you know, I know we can define public money uh sometimes as it suits the the purpose of the discussion, but nonetheless, we're talking about public money.

The only difference is where it came from.

Public money is public money.

Um I'm gonna refer to the uh I I appreciate staff providing a copy of the what was the date of that uh uh appraisal, April 3rd of this year, I think.

There's some very interesting information in there.

Among the things that I learned in reading it was that in May 2021, the property, according to the appraisal, sold for 2,800,000.

Somehow or another, then when we came to the point of purchasing it, we we felt it was appropriate to spend $7,514,000 in change to buy it.

Um the appraisal tells us now it's worth $6,310,000.

And we've spent somewhere, including the purchase price and the renovations, somewhere around, I think the number I saw in there was $13,146,600.

So we've put $6,836,000 above what it's worth today, and considerably more above what it was worth in May of 2021.

I I don't know in whose financial scenario that makes sense.

It makes absolutely no sense to me.

And in the private sector, anyone who thought that that was a uh uh a responsible and an informed investment uh would probably not go very far.

So the thing that the thing that bothers me about that is I guess it's easy to spend other people's money because we're not talking about that.

And I understand the thing's been built, it's ready, certificate of occupancy and all that, but getting back to the precedent, from my standpoint, having made commitments to people about being a responsible steward of public money, uh uh just because other uh a previous council decided this was a good investment of public money, it certainly isn't in my estimation.

And and for those reasons alone, I can't support it.

Not to mention the ongoing potential for additional public money being devoted to uh to to operate this this sun air.

Um couple of other points uh in the in the referring back to the appraisal.

I think on page 91, the appraiser determines the best and highest use.

And this is something that we always look at in the planning and zoning sector when we're looking at uh uh land use proposals, we look to the best and highest use, and this appraiser apparently thinks the best and highest use is for a hotel.

And for reading the definitions in the appraisal, I assume that means a hotel like we commonly think of as a hotel, not a city operated shelter.

So that's a little bit of a conflict as well.

But uh I think in the overall, what this discussion, since we've been discussing this from well, at least earlier this year, it it really signals and delineates a line of division in philosophy.

This is where we disagree philosophically.

Some people feel that it's the city's responsibility to be in this business and to operate this facility.

I happen to disagree with that.

I don't think the city is in the business of providing a shelter of this nature, particularly at an investment of $13 million, and change into a property that was worth $2,080 in May of 2021, just a few five years ago.

I can't get that to line up.

The other thing is if we look at the surrounding cities, yes, other cities have shelter beds.

However, I don't see that in Gilbert and Scottsdale.

And I wonder if we've ever looked at the number of homeless people who are in Gilbert and Scottsdale versus the number who in Mesa, because I firmly believe if you build it, they will come.

So I think that's a consideration that I've not heard discussed either.

But I can't support going forward with this, regardless of what's been invested.

To say that we should go ahead and do it because we made a bad decision to spend 13 million dollars is not reason enough for me to support what is essentially a very ill-advised use of public money.

So I appreciate the opportunity to make some comments, Mayor, and thank you very much.

Okay.

With that said, counsel, I want to ask two questions.

Number one is do we want to continue off the streets program?

I think that's the presentation here.

So I just need to know from Mr.

Adams, just off the streets program.

It doesn't matter which whether it's Windermere or Sunair or discontinue the program.

So Mr.

Adams, where would you lean?

I'm in favor of discontinuing the program and coming up with something from scratch that makes more sense to the taxpayer.

Okay.

Miss Duff, I think that's a yes to continue the program.

Yes.

Okay.

Mr.

Reddio.

Yes.

Vice Mayor.

Yeah.

I'm going to say yes on the front end of that, but I'm going to add some comments to it.

I think what we heard from PD, and we would probably hear the same thing from FIRE is that we we have to have some time of program in place in order to address the real crisis that does exist on our streets.

Having been a firefighter in Phoenix for over 30 years, mayor, I know you were here for uh in over 30 years in Mesa.

This problem does lead out into the streets, and when we don't have those services, then it leans on police and fire to provide either enforcement or we become primary medical for folks.

And we are not equipped to do that.

So having some what that model looks like, that's really the discussion before us who runs it, how it's operated, how it's funded.

Personally, I don't I would rather not see our general fund monies that are locally generated used for that.

I've made that clear in the past as well.

But to have no program is going to have negative consequences on our local budget anyway, because again, public safety has to address it.

So I would think it we own the property.

I voted against it before, or I don't think it's going anywhere for a while until we can figure out what the route is for that.

The window mirror is still available, and it does provide a necessary service with the wraparounds.

So continuing the uh off the streets program with the federal dollars that we are getting through as a pass-through, I I think that is a prudent model for now.

And take, as we said, about three years to figure out what is this model that the seven of us can come to an agreement on uh moving forward.

So I think we do have some time with that.

But for now, I think at least let's keep the program in working.

Thank you, Ms.

Taylor.

Yes or no.

Off the streets program.

And then I'll my next question will be which facility if it goes forward.

I got elected to represent my people, and I have to say no.

Thank you.

All right.

I want to be very clear on this issue myself.

I think everyone here on council, as I listen to the presentations, I know Ms.

Goforth isn't here.

We're all compassionate.

We want to help everyone that we can within our city, and homelessness is a complex issue.

And I have not been against off the streets program from the very beginning.

I feel it's a responsibility.

However, I will not use any general fund taxpayer dollars to do that.

But even we can say that federal dollars are taxpayer dollars as well.

So I I understand that.

What I know that is it's uh we're accountable to so many different complexity complexing situations here, but I don't believe, and as the vice mayor stated, I did not vote for Sun Air.

It was a four to three vote.

It was very um, it was a tough decision, but I don't like locking our city into a permanent location.

I like flexibility.

That's what I learned.

The fire service is having flexibility, but helping people in the end result is is the important thing that we do.

You know, and I've been working very hard with our county supervisor and other mayors because homelessness is not a Mesa issue, it's a regional issue.

And I've worked extremely hard to help find solutions to that and offset some of the monies that we're receiving so that regionally other communities uh step up to those.

But my intention is is I would like to support Sun Air.

And with that, I'll end on that.

That's a four-two.

Um support sun air or off the streets.

I'm I'm sorry, support sun off the streets, not sun air.

Sun air.

Be very clear.

Tongue tied.

So it's a four-two of off the streets.

So my next question, council, is location.

I think Miss Stuff, you're saying Sunair.

Okay.

Mr.

Horetia.

You know, I it is I I think my my I I voted for Sunair because uh I think it makes sense.

Uh you look at the cost, we're able to help more people.

Uh, and that's where we're what we should be doing, right?

If we're being good stewards, if we can help more people at a lower cost.

I know the you know, questions around uh um the cost of uh what the the hotel uh came up with, but if we if we don't have this, you know, the cost is we we endured this uh in my four years prior to this, not having it off the streets and uh access to shelter beds.

You know, I would say in the millions, tens of millions maybe.

Uh and it's just um I think it's it's a responsible, you know.

Well, there's a lot of talk about responsibility and the tax.

We end up paying for this.

Um should we look at you know, a question we should pose is should we look at PD and fire budget?

Um how much they're spending on these calls, like is that you know, is this you that's it is part of what we have to do to solve this uh complex issue and not even solve it because it's it's uh you know it's it's about helping people.

Um and this is uh um it just for me uh long answer, but you know, Sun Air makes sense.

Um and I know it maybe it's not with uh the the votes that to support it, but uh I I asked the council to let's figure out a compromise.

Um you know it in in we have this facility uh to figure out in the next three years, we identify some funding to figure figure this out.

Um and and um those programmings on that end, but um but I know maybe we're we're stepping into uh uh outside of the scope of the off the streets program.

Um but it's just I I think it makes sense uh when you look at the complexity of this issue to support uh uh a facility that I think we can maybe come to a compromise on how we uh support a nonprofit in the future to to man this uh though it it will require some sort of city support, right?

Either or um, and so it just uh that that's my my comment.

Thank you, Mayor.

Would it make a difference to the other members of council on the Sun Air if we constrained it to only families with minor children?

Well, I think we'd have to change the um council use permit.

We can we can you well we'd have to change the council use permit.

Council use permit, which allows for that.

We could just make decide to do a subset of it.

Okay, my the decision is whether we continue with Sun Air or Windomir.

And I have two for Sunair and understand your position.

Uh Vice Mayor, I'll go to you.

So let me say this because I've I've said it before.

I'll continue to support the ongoing program as is, but I'm starting to count votes, and it's looking like two two two.

So what what happens?

Is there well the question is the window?

So we we well let's let's let it fall.

Off the streets is moving forward four to two so far.

So the question to Mr.

Adams and Miss Taylor is if they would like to continue it at Windermere or Sunair or no vote at all.

Mr.

Adams.

I vote no on Sun Air.

Is he good with a are you good with Windomere continuing the program at Windamere?

Is my question well, assuming that we continue with off the streets, which it appears we're going to, then my choice, not my preference, but my default choice would be Windomir, but no Sunair.

Copy that.

Okay.

Miss Taylor.

Um I'm in the same vote as you in that if it's gonna continue.

I prefer that in the time that we have three years, maybe four.

We work on a program to get this out of the windowmere.

We offset the Sun Air property entirely, sell it, whatever that is.

I know we're waiting from the Treasury.

And then we work on getting a better program in effect for this.

So for now, Winter Mayor for me, in short.

Okay.

So the direction is yes on off the streets, continue at the window mirror.

Okay, Mr.

Butler.

Yeah, mayor, council, thank you.

That's the direction we need to.

And I just want to add one last thing.

As you know, council, I've submitted a letter to the U.S.

Treasury Department to find out our options on Sunair because they're America Rescue Plan Act dollars, and we are not very clear on all the things that perhaps the U.S.

Treasury may or may not require based on the comments that council has whether to discontinue, sell the hotel.

Well, it's not hotel, but still the building, or continue.

There's so many options out there.

So I'm waiting for a response as Mr.

Butler knows, Mr.

Smith knows, and council does know that I have reached out to the Treasury, and whether just to see what our options are.

So I think every year you come back or every, you know, give us some updates so that we know it doesn't three years.

I think to your, you know, every year we should have a solid update about what's going on.

What do we do about the operational dollars to maintain the property during this lull of it sitting there?

That's a Mr.

Butler problem.

Yeah, Mayor, Mayor and uh Councilmember Duff, yes.

We're uh right now staff's looking at um just the protocol we'll need just to make sure that the building's well maintained and avoids any you know vac vacant buildings um bringing activity that you didn't you don't want so we're we're looking at ways to activate it um and and secure it and do the things we need until we can make an informed decision uh with some of the information that the mayor had, know what options are at the council's disposal, um, and then we'll we'll come back to you uh at a later date and present some options on the um uh on the reuse of the facility or disposal of the facility.

Mr.

Redia.

Just the I want just want to clarify I support uh Sun Air, but of course I support Wendy Mere, right?

That's the option that we needed.

So I just want to clarify the point that uh you know, of course, supporting having beds still here in this uh in the city.

So just want to clarify that.

You know, these are this is probably one of the most, you know, I would say challenging decisions we make on council and homelessness is like I said, we city and regional issue, and I appreciate everyone's input, and regardless of our opinions that we have to do the best for our city and moving forward with this, and and I feel again it's it's a good program, and council has every right to discontinue the program at any time.

Okay, so that's an option.

But we have the funding available, we'll move forward with that.

With that said, uh, I'm gonna move over to item three is to acknowledge the receipt of minutes of various boards and committees.

Is there a motion to that effect?

Uh so moved.

Thank you.

Vice Mayor, thank you, Mr.

Reddy.

All in favor say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Thank you.

Next is current events and council members.

Uh anything from council, or would you like to wait for next study session?

Okay, hearing none.

I'll uh Mr.

Butler, is there a schedule of meetings at all?

Yeah, Mayor, uh Council, thank you.

Uh just a few um items to note.

Um pool season starts on Saturday for for our public pools over Memorial Day weekend.

So I'm sure those a lot of families will be enjoying that.

But on Friday night, there's a special farewell to Fremont Pool.

Uh it's uh from 6 to 8 p.m.

on Friday, and uh it will it will be the last send-off of Fremont after 51 years of service to the community.

So um everyone's welcome to come by and and send off Fremont as as we prepare for a new pool in the area uh in the future.

And then um Memorial Day weekend, of course, uh Monday city offices will be closed.

Just a reminder of that.

And next Thursday, we're having uh strategic planning session follow-up.

We're gonna be down in District 6 at um the New Gateway Library um community room for that meeting next Thursday morning at 7 30 a.m.

And and just a reminder, because at that um meeting next Thursday, we will not be reviewing the June 1st agenda uh that we did go over um at our last meeting.

So just a reminder if you have any additional questions, anything for staff, um we're available at any point between now and June 1st to answer any questions you may have.

Great, thank you.

Council, I'll entertain a motion to adjourn.

Thank you, Ms.

Mr.

Reddy.

All in favor say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Thank you, Mr.

Adams participating.

Have a good rest of the day.