Good morning and welcome to the September 17th, 2025 Transportation Infrastructure and Planning Subcommittee meeting.

I call the meeting to order, and with that, we'll have the city attorney explain public comment.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Members of the public may speak for up to two minutes to comment on agenda items to be discussed.

Comments must be related to the agenda item and the action being considered by the subcommittee.

The city council and staff cannot discuss or comment on matters related to pending investigations, claims or litigation.

Additionally, any member of the public who appears before the subcommittee in their capacities of lobbyists must have required by Phoenix City Code disclose this fact before addressing the subcommittee.

The City Code requires speakers to present their comments in a respectful and courteous manner, profane language threats or personal attacks on members of the public, council members or staff are not allowed.

Speakers should not act in a disrespectful manner that is openly hostile to others.

Thank you.

And I'd like to introduce our interpreter, El C Duarte.

Good morning, everyone.

My name is El C Duarte.

I will be providing Spanish interpretation for today's transportation infrastructure and planning subcommittee meeting.

I will now take a moment to address our Spanish speaking audience.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Elsie.

Next we move to item one, which is approval of minutes.

Do I have a motion or any comments?

May I have a motion then?

I think they are.

All in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

The eyes have it.

Thank you.

Motion carries.

Next we have a info item, which is uh our bus rapid transit program update.

Is there any comments on that or all right?

Then we'll move to item three, which is the show for today.

Our Shade Phoenix Plan Progress Report.

And I turn first to Amory.

I don't know if you have any opening remarks.

Thank you, Madam Chair, members of the subcommittee.

Today we have Director David Hondulo for our Office of Heat Response and Mitigation to do the presentation.

Thank you and welcome, David.

Thank you, Madam Chair, and uh good morning, members of the subcommittee.

It's an honor to be here to represent the work of so many city departments and external partners and provide you a progress report one year after the adoption of the Shade Phoenix Plan.

As we begin, I'd like to acknowledge and appreciate the work done by city staff across many departments and our community partners whose effort and commitment to making our community healthier and cooler is reflected in this progress report.

I'd like to give a special thanks to representatives from city departments who provided the data and information that helped bring this report together, and certainly to my teammates in the heat office, especially Julia, Kayla, Laura, Mary, and Nina who are here with me today who helped pull the whole report together.

Thank you all very much.

Uh one year after the adoption of the Shade Phoenix plan, provide an evaluation of where we are versus where we plan to be, and to identify priorities for next year.

After hearing your feedback and questions today, we'll post a final professionally designed version of the report online for public consumption over the next few weeks.

To refresh your memory, uh we'd like to thank you, uh Council members and subcommittee members for your support in unanimously adopting the Shade Phoenix Plan uh last November.

The Shade Phoenix Plan uh we consider to be a public health plan.

It sets a policy foundation for citywide tree and shade initiatives that we hope will improve heat resilience, improve quality of life, and help keep our residents cool and safe.

The work in the Shade Phoenix Plan represents more than 60 million dollars of committed funding that was to be spent over the five-year period ending July 2029.

And that's a combination of funding sources, including general fund capital, bond, and grants.

The Shade Phoenix Plan was built around six core values that guide the implementation of the actions contained in it.

The first core value is to focus on people first, targeting our actions where shade can be most beneficial to health and well-being.

The plan also establishes shade as a critical resource provided by both public and private assets.

It acknowledges that we do have inequities in tree and shade coverage in our city and directs staff to address them.

It suggests that we need to respect the unique landscape and cultural heritage of the Sonoran Desert.

It encourages us to collaborate within and beyond city government, especially with our residents and neighborhoods to accelerate our collective action.

And we're motivated by the plan to go beyond the status quo by being innovative and taking risks to change our past trajectory to realize the plan's overall vision.

There were 36 actions in the plan that we adopted last November, categorized into four broad strategy areas.

The first was to create more shade, expanding shade on both public and private property.

The second is to maintain what we have.

The third, to evaluate what we're doing and to and to institutionalize our new programs to make them a core part of city government and our community work.

And fourth, to educate and empower the community so that all residents appreciate and value tree and shade assets.

With that brief refresher of what was in the plan, let's move on to the evaluation story.