Good afternoon, all.

Welcome to the special meeting for the city of Mesquite, Wednesday, March 25th, 2025 at 2 30.

We're gonna get started.

It's not an agenda, but let's go do the Pledge of Allegiance, please.

Pledge.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America.

And to the Republic for which it stands.

One nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all.

So we are gonna start with our opening public comment period.

Um, this public comment period is for things not pertaining to the agenda item.

So if you have anything that's not pertaining to the agenda, please come forward.

If you have if you want to talk to the agenda, then you will do so at that time.

So if you have anything generally to talk about, please come forward.

All right.

Okay, we're gonna close the opening public comment period.

Um so I want to start off.

Um, I guess with an apology.

Um this was kind of a rush job.

Um mostly my fault, and I take full responsibility.

I apologize to the council that they weren't informed uh with more time than they did get, as well as the public.

We did go to, of course, through their proper noticing procedures according to NRS, but I realize people sometimes like a little more time and a little information than they got on this on this item.

Um this is potentially a time sensitive issue, and so that's why I chose to call the public meeting.

Um that that's that.

I apologize for that part of it and and messing up there, and I hope you'll listen to the presentation with an open mind and forgive me for for messing up on that.

Um I'm gonna give a little bit of history of this project.

So, probably a year or so ago, gentlemen approached me who's involved in business and was basically like, we need workforce housing and mesquite.

We've got a lot of new business, hotels, different things coming into town, and we don't have any place for this income level of people, you know, the the 35 to you know 80,000 earners in our city.

We don't have a lot for those people.

And so he had a relationship with Switchpoint.

Um, as many of you know, Switchpoint has a homeless shelter in St.

George and one in Towilla.

They also have a bunch of other projects they do.

Um, their goal is to start people, and they'll speak to this, but I'm just giving you my part of it.

Their goal is to start people from homelessness to single family homeownership, and to help people along every rung of that ladder, whether they come into that ladder in the middle, the beginning, or the end.

That that's kind of their goal is to basically make give people a house at whatever income level they are, that they have someplace to live.

And so our goal or my goal, um, and I think a lot of us share this goal, is we want something that is nice but affordable for people that have jobs that are trying to make a living, that are trying to survive, that they can have something available.

And mesquite, the country in general, that's a really huge problem across the country.

So back to the beginning.

So I talked to them.

We met on a Saturday morning and basically toured mesquite.

We looked at the property in question.

We looked at the property next to the parking garage.

We looked at all the city properties, we looked at other properties throughout the city that were for sale or that I knew potentially you know, people were interested in selling.

And they saw this property that they ended up with and said that is perfect.

It is close to the schools, it is close to Walmart, it is close to the bus stop.

It is a great location for people in this income bracket.

And there was a first sale sign on this property at the time.

And so they called the agent, the agents says no, it's under contract.

So they actually kind of gave up on that piece of property.

They looked at another piece of property and went under contract on that.

Turned out that wasn't a good fit.

So that they got out of that contract.

In the meantime, the other property fell out of contract.

They ended up with that piece of property that they originally thought would be the ideal location for this project.

So along the way, you know, every few months we would talk, they'd kind of give me updates.

Um that's how it went.

Um then they get closer, they're like, we need a letter uh or a resolution saying that the city wants this type of project, you know, because it's to be able to afford it and be able to afford the house affordable housing, they have to get what they call a LITEC, and of course, they'll explain that better to you.

Um there's different levels of that, right?

We have our Hafen Village, which is basically a 30% of AMI.

This is gonna be more the 50, 60, 70, 80 percent AMI, which AMI is around a hundred thousand dollars for Clark County, so that puts people in the you know, $50,000 to $80,000 income range, and it depends on whether they're single, married, have kids, you know, how many people are in that family, that number will, of course, change throughout that.

And so that being said, Simon, would you like to go first or or should I have the people from Switch Point come first?

Or um I I would have a switch point make a uh the presentation.

Okay, I'm not quite sure about all those information.

Okay, sounds good.

Thank you.

Jeff, you want to come forward, please.

Uh my name is Jeff Quayle.

I'm the chief real estate officer for Friends of Switchpoint Incorporated.

Oh, step up into the mic there, Jeff.

My name is Jeff Quayle.

I'm the chief uh real estate officer for Friends of Switch Point.

Um, I didn't really come with a presentation.

I I came to answer questions from the council.

Um what uh what I will say is that we are here to build affordable housing, specifically workforce housing.

We have met as Jess pointed out, we have met with him multiple times.

We've also formed good relationships with many of the businesses here in um in mesquite, and they have expressed a need to us uh for their workforce.

Uh a lot of those folks are being busted in from other areas, right?

Or a lot of them are struggling just to to stay here in Mesquite, and these are your nurses, your first responders, your teachers, people like that.

And um, while we did start out as a um homeless shelter in St.

George, about four years ago, our board um changed our scope, changed our mission statement to building affordable housing.

And what we've done in the last six years is bring on over 600 units across Washington County and the Wasatch Front.

Um, and those range from everywhere from 30% AMI up to market rate um units.

So we are well versed.

It might not look that way from our website.

Uh, and we while we don't shy away from where we began, we are very excited about where we're going.

And Carol Hollowell, our CEO and our board, and all of us on the executive staff of Switchpoint understand that in order to solve our homeless problem that we have across this country, we need to build housing, not shelters.

So I don't know where it came up that switchpoint was going to open a shelter here in town, but that is I I'm here to definitively say that that's not the case.

What we want to do is help with the housing crisis or housing issue that you're experiencing here that we've been um notified of.

So that's our mission.

This is what we're here for.

I'm happy to answer any questions that you guys have.

All right, we'll just get into the questions from the council here.

If you want to see it Jeff, councilman Wallace.

I don't even know where to start.

First of all, for one single item in the middle of the day on a Wednesday, this is a pretty large crowd.

Yeah, and and I'm sure every one of them have concerns.

I I also do because this is probably the absolute weakest information we've ever received on an item.

There's there we we have nothing to vote on.

Everything everything that's that's presented to us or before us is blank.

There's no rendering of what this would look like.

There's no floor plans, there's no preliminary site plan.

There is absolutely nothing that talks about different kinds of funding.

Doesn't seem like that's even tied down.

Usually when a project like this comes into this city, we have an opportunity to sit with two of us at a time and ask questions.

You met with three people, and I think I know who the three were, and not one of them are going to vote tonight.

So everyone that's that's going to make a decision tonight, none of us know anything.

That meeting was held on Wednesday.

The the email I got was on Thursday, but in the meantime, two by twos could have still been set up, even if it was over the weekend.

Sorry, we all have access into this building.

We could have met Saturday, maybe even Sunday, Friday for sure.

Wasn't never even an option.

I hear the timing on this is critical.

Absolutely critical.

But Samantha Hoffman of KUTV on February 3rd, switchpoint said donated land has allowed them to start on their next project, adding workforce housing in Mesquite.

That was eight weeks ago.

We didn't find out about this till very recently.

If you're going to do workforce housing in Mesquite, isn't the first people you ought to notify?

The city and the council.

So I'm gonna make you a deal.

If we table this tonight, go through all those steps that we should have gone through anyway.

And if everything you says makes sense, and we have renderings and we have floor plans, and and this makes sense.

I have been an advocate for workforce housing since my elect my campaign to run for council.

There is I trust the mayor implicitly.

After the two years before him I spent how much I trust him.

But but tonight I'm gonna make my own decision.

So if if you say we're good to come back three weeks from now, five weeks from now, after you've met with everybody, after we have a concept of what's going on, we have the people who vote have an idea of what's going on.

I'll vote yes to that.

But if you want to push this through because it's time sensitive and everything, I'm gonna vote no.

And from the look of these people, we're gonna sit here for about the next two hours hearing why this is a bad idea.

Or we can ask everyone in the audience.

Don't make any public comment.

I'll make the motion to table this until we can do it right.

Because right now there's not one of us up here that knows what the hell we're doing.

And usually when things don't make sense, it's for two reasons.

The first one is because you're not educated to a level to make it make sense.

And I'll give you an example of that.

Going from algebra to calculus.

I've I've I'm really good at math.

When you get into calculus, you you you realize it was made for a different reason.

It has nothing to do with what you've learned before.

You're learning a whole new math.

That's not understanding because you're not educated.

The other reason is because you don't have all the information, and there's not one of us sitting up here tonight that have all the information, and there's no way we can make an ecuated vote.

So you decide if you want to be here for the next three hours and hear no, or if you want to be here for 15 minutes and come back and do this the correct way.

Thank you, Mayor.

Well said, Paul.

You know, but I have a few extra things to say.

So it's concerning to me that, like he said, a year ago you came, and then I know that the other lot was purchased last year, the end of the year.

Um I am so for affordable housing, have been for years and years.

Have been for years and years.

And do we need it?

Yes, we do.

I do not, however, appreciate the rush of a special meeting with no information.

And we are going blind, and we've only started getting information on Monday.

I did do a little background of my own.

Um I understand that IHC, you know, helped purchase some of the property.

Are they maybe possibly wanting to build a clinic on that property as well?

Haven't heard that.

Um, I'm a little bit saddened that there was no presentation.

My understanding was I thought there was going to be a presentation, but now it's just consideration and approval of resolution R26010, which I read it several times.

It doesn't give me enough information to totally support this.

Do I support the housing?

I totally would support tabling this until all of the council can get the information that we need to make a very valid decision to move forward.

Is it time sensitive?

I understand that.

But I I have a real problem with a special meeting last Thursday that we were notified of, and no information except for the resolution.

It's like almost being, in my opinion, kind of let's just see if they'll pass it and then we'll just go on.

Um I do like the fact, sir, that you did say and confirm it is not a homeless shelter.

It won't be.

And one of the things when it comes down to it, when there's an agreement, is I will hold you to that, that it's not a homeless shelter.

I don't want in two years after we approve this, that comes back with an agreement or um uh variance to the agreement saying, oh, now because of the need is homeless, it's gotta be zero, zero homeless shelter in the city of Mesquite.

So um I think that I'm good.

Thank you, sir, for being here.

Councilman Innis.

I concur with everything that they have said, so I'm not gonna repeat it.

I have my own questions and my own disappointments.

Uh I am gonna repeat what Councilman Wongless said about the disappointment with the lack of communication between city leaders.

That torques me off.

Everybody uh my this thing right here has been blowing up for three days, and I have almost been absolutely afraid, with the exception of a couple of people, to respond, because I don't know what the hell I'm even responding to.

I have nothing here, I have nothing in front of me.

All I have is a resolution done up by the city with no presentation, no nothing.

So I hear that I was told that we're doing this because of of quick turnaround for something.

And so I'm gonna ask you, sir.

Uh what is that?

I understand that our purpose was to approve for uh low-income housing tax credits or the uh the pad that the the uh private activity bond.

Is that correct?

That is correct, yes.

Okay, so the deadline for the um the deadline for the LHIPC is already passed.

The first one, March 13th.

Yes, the first one.

And we have another one on June this new that's with the applications for June.

That's correct.

So if we're in such a hurry, and that next set of applications or that fourth round was what they call it, is not until June.

Why this?

Secondly, and then I'll let you talk.

Sorry.

Secondly, y'all purchased this land back in September.

And I'm in your and I and I can guarantee I know you're a smart man.

I've dealt with I've dealt with switchpoint for a lot of years when I was running the salvation army here.

You guys are fantastic with what you do there in St.

George, and I appreciate it.

The people I sent to Switch Point appreciated it.

However, if you if you acquired this property back in September, why are you just now approaching us all of a sudden to get this pushed through so you can meet those deadlines on tax credits?

And so my thing, um everybody out here knows who knows me, they get tired of me saying that we we need affordable housing here.

That is my mantra.

That's what I ran when when the mayor beat me out, and so that's what I'm running on, and I know I'm not running at all.

Ron is um, that's what I'm I still advocate affordable housing like they do.

But my my issue is, and just like councilman won listed, we can sit here for the next three hours because there's a bunch of torqued off people out there, including me to hear me say no.

Or we can table this and come back after we have set down, like we should have done in the first place and did this the right way.

The two we're the ones up here making the decisions on this, not anybody else.

It's us, it falls on us.

And so, you know, we need affordable housing.

They need affordable housing back there.

And I'm all I'm a thousand percent for that.

That will be the my last hoorah if if other than veteran center, of course, but that'll be my last hoora is affordable housing.

But just like everybody else has said, I'm at the point now to I'm I'm gonna say no to this, and because I have no idea about anything on what's going on here.

And I think I think the biggest issue here that I have, Mr.

Quail is when you walked up here and said I don't really have a presentation.

Sorry.

Did you want to go ahead and answer those questions?

Uh you're 100% right.

All three of you that have spoken, we should have done a better job on the uh outreach.

Um maybe we were misunderstood in the in our discussions with the mayor um and with your building department early in the fall last year, and that's us.

We I take full responsibility for that.

Um, I would say we do table this at this point.

I told Jess this this morning when he and I spoke on the phone that um while we would like this push through because there's a pre-application that's due tomorrow for the four percent.

We are still trying to figure out, and every developer, whether it's deeply affordable, affordable, market rate, whatever, has to figure out their capital stack, right?

So we have been in the process of doing that.

Um of those options is the PAB bond that you mentioned.

It requires, since it has to go through Clerk County, it does require a pre-application.

The next time to do a pre-application is sometime in late May.

And the reason I asked for this meeting with the very little information that we gave you guys was to be able to get in on that earlier when there's still uh cap in that.

It'll be as other um projects propose put their put their applications in, that money will dwindle down further and further throughout the state.

Your state only gets X amount of money.

Um, so the earlier in the year you can get on this, the better.

Um I talked to Jess this morning, I said, you know, like I I understand the fact that we haven't met with everybody, we'd be more than willing to to your point, Miss Fielding, to put a development agreement together that states exactly what we would be putting in on this facility, whether it, you know, what the exact market rate or or the exact AMI levels would be that it would never become a uh a homeless shelter because we would have a deed restriction on the lot with you guys, right?

So we want to be partners, and I apologize again.

I apologize for this last minute.

Um, it was always our intent to bring everybody up to speed.

And I would say, based on, you know, I want a yes, I don't need a yes today, right?

I need a yes at some point.

So let's table this.

I'm fine with that, and we'll come back and we'll do the work that we're supposed to do and make sure that everybody's comfortable and that we have all our T's crossed and I's dotted, so we can put a successful project together that'll benefit your community.

And I and I appreciate that.

Um, my and once that's done, and we sit down and do our two by twos, and we have and we can see what the vision is.

I I support your vision.

Like I said, I've worked with switchpoint for many, many years, and I support your vision.

And I know there's people in here that need affordable housing, and we do need affordable housing and workforce housing, where the case may be.

And I'm totally on board with that, I really am.

I appreciate that.

This part right here, I'm not on board with it all.

I get it.

As everybody else is.

And so, you know, once we get on with public speaking, hint hint, once we get done with public speaking, uh public comment, I mean, then I'm I'm gonna make my or somebody's gonna make their motion.

One other one other thing.

As as we try to do this, if you want to put your pre-application in, you have the property.

You probably have most of the information you'd need except for an approval from the city.

Yeah, just say pending.

Put your application in and then do this right, and let's see where it ends up.

Today is not the day to do this.

Councilwoman Gellan.

I think pretty much we're all in total agreement.

Um completely.

I don't, there's not much else I have to say, except that it did seem like there's a lot of red flags when this was uh brought out to us.

The timing, uh, things that were put out there.

Um it felt like a bait and switch because the land was purchased in j in July from another group, and within September by September, your group had purchased it.

It was a little, it's just a little suspicious, and that's why everyone in the audience is thinking what's going on.

Is this you're trying to sneak this through?

So I think to everyone's point up here, I don't have to, I don't want to use the expression beat a dead horse, but I think um everyone up here has said what they what needs to be said, and absolutely we should have been met with.

And to um Councilman Wanless, we have no pictures, we have no diagram.

We yeah, just go ahead and build it.

We I mean, we've never seen a presentation in the three years that I've been on council that have never seen any information other than uh what we're able to see.

We hear switch point, you go Google it, and that's what you see.

So um, I don't need to.

I I'm sure everybody is in the same boat.

Um, they understand that we'll wait to see what you can come up with.

So thank you.

Thank you.

Councilman Parish.

Well, it just so happened I looked up the Robert's rules of orders on this today.

Um, just to make sure that we're gonna Uncle Bill's laughing at me already.

Um apparently, according to Robert's rules of order, we can make a motion at any time, even before public comment and vote on that, and then at that time we can do public comment after the motion.

If our attorney agrees with that, I would like to see Paul make a motion.

Do you mean make the motion but don't vote on it?

Or vote on it as well?

Make a motion, second it, and vote on it, and then at that point, the mayor can call for public comment.

No, I wouldn't agree with that.

Okay.

I would I would not recommend doing that.

I think the the public needs to have an opportunity to make their comments before a vote is taken.

And you know, obviously, what we kind of know I think where things are going, but I I would not recommend doing that.

I don't follow our normal procedure.

Um, allow any public comment that may want to have happen, but then um, I'm not trying to shut the public out by any means because it because there is a public comment after at the end of this, but I didn't know exactly how the Roberts rules of order worked if we table it before the public comment.

Yeah, I mean, and my concern is more the open meeting law rules and how things are drafted that way.

So I'd recommend doing it our normal way.

Councilman Wandless.

Well, if if you're okay, I was going to make a motion, and I really hope you all realize you don't have to stand up and talk for an hour.

Let's all go home.

Thank you, Jeff.

Thank you.

So with that, obviously, you don't have to talk, but if you wish to, please come forward.

Barbara Ellis Stad.

Oh my God.

I I had these comments.

I had like 14 minutes, Paul, and you're depriving me.

So damn proud.

Thank you, Barbara.

John.

Dang.

Mr.

Mayor John Rosen.

Um, number one, I will also express my great appreciation for all of you for the decision or the conclusions you've reached.

Um, for our presenter from Switchpoint, uh, this is really sad.

This is sad because this was a self-inflicted preventable wound that you have done to your own case.

Um, not only have you completely I'll use your term torqued off, not only have you completely torqued off the decision makers who will ultimately have to vote on this issue, a very important issue, but because it is a natural tendency for people to fill their own information voids with their worst fears and imaginations.

We have created now for this project a very poor image, a horrible image, which will now have to be overcome, not only with just the plans, but getting the whole community over this concept and all of these ideas that they have built in their heads that will have to somehow be erased or changed.

So thank you all.

Thanks, John.

All right.

Seeing no one else step forward, I'm gonna close public comment and I'll turn it over to Councilman Wallace.

I would like to make a motion that we table this until we've had a chance to do it right.

And then we meet again at a later time.

Councilwoman Philly.

I will gladly second that.

Okay, call for the vote.

Galaye.

Okay, motion passes.

Now we've come to our final public comment.

This public comment can be either on what we just talked about or anything else you so choose.

So please come forward.

Except for you, Gary, you sit down.

There's gotta be one.

Gotta be one.

I just wanted Gary Elgord.

I just wanted to say uh on behalf of every anybody and everybody who shops at Smiths.

Thank you to Travis Anderson for picking up the fact that the entranceway turning lane to Smith's was way too short.

And the exit out of Mill Road was a disaster make on the left, and he has fixed both of those.

Thank you very much.

That is pretty awesome, Travis.

Hi, I'm Mary Gleason, and I just want to say that when Switchpoint comes back, beyond just the physical layout, I would love to hear from their program people, because also going around on social media like crazy is it's the homeless, it's transitional, it's affordable, it's how workforce housing, those all have different meanings.

So I would like to hear exactly who they're targeting for success in this housing and the programs that are going to support these families once they move in.

It may not be what you need to make a good decision, but I think it's information the community needs to be welcoming neighbors.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mary.

Hi, my name's Jennifer.

I live in Sunset Greens, and we're wondering what the possibility of getting the roundabouts of people shooting off the freeway, of getting a stop sign put on those, like a blinking stop sign, as opposed to the yield sign, because I would imagine many of us who live over in that area take our take our lives in our hands every day because people are coming off that freeway, literally sometimes going like on two wills as they come off and cutting people off.

And I don't know what the process for that is, but it's not if, but it is when there will be a fatal accident if they're already.

I've only been here a year, but I travel that road at least four or five times a day, and it is it's a death drop waiting to happen.

Thank you, Jennifer.

Oh, can we get your last name?

Start again.

MacDuff.

Yeah, just for Mecca.

All right, see no one else step forward.

Oh, Travis?

Um, public comment period is over, but I'm gonna let Travis speak here.

Um, just to try to help answer that question.

So the roundabouts are managed through the Nevada Department of Transportation.

Um you will never see stop signs on a roundabout.

That's not how they operate.

Um the whole the whole premise be hind a roundabout.

I mean coming off the freeway.

No, I I get it.

It it's which I would like to sit and record it for five days and show you how many close calls.

We're selling our motorcycle just simply because we know we'll die there.

So we're coming from Vegas, we'll travel through.

And you know, I mean, maybe they can't.

I I understand, I know how a roundabout works.

I am from Salt Lake, they're all over the place, right?

They implemented that.

And I'm just curious if just coming off the free year and they're not being a spotline for the many people.

Okay, we'll we'll let we'll let Travis answer.

Yeah, yeah.

So I will reach out to end dot, but to be honest with you, I would say that's probably gonna be a no.

Um, just because that's not how they operate.

But I will reach out to the end and and voice your concern and and uh see what we can do on that.

I'm sure we need to read.

Thank you, Travis.

And this meeting is adjourned.