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.

How did we do over the first year of implementation?

The first year reflecting work from July 1st, 2024 through June 30th, 2025.

Here are the four strategy areas in that plan, along with the total number of actions in each strategy area, 36 actions again in total.

Our staff collected data from across many city departments and community partners, and we categorized each action into one of three categories.

The best outcome was milestone met.

Those are actions where we fully met or even exceeded the year one milestone.

And there were many actions that we exceeded the year one milestone.

Our second category was those actions where we were making good progress as a city, but didn't quite hit that year one milestone.

We call those actions making progress.

And the third category, facing obstacles.

That was reserved for actions that were facing significant risks to their completion over the five-year time period of the Shade Phoenix Plan.

How did we do?

We identified 31 of the 36 actions in the milestone met category, fully meeting or exceeding the year one milestone.

And five actions were considered as making progress, where we didn't quite hit that year one milestone, but we're still on a good track to their overall completion.

You'll note that no actions were identified in that third category facing obstacles.

Today we believe that all 36 actions are on track to have uh to be fully implemented over the five-year time horizon of the plan.

What did those numbers mean in terms of community impact?

Here are just a few summary metrics across all of the actions in the plan.

More than 7,200 trees planted through city programs last year.

That's the largest number that we have on record as a as a heat office.

I also want to acknowledge that there is work that needs to be done every year to remove trees that have died from natural causes, perhaps are damaged in the city.

After accounting for tree removals, our net addition of trees in the city was more than 5,500 last year.

Across all city departments and with some community partners, we built 155 new shade structures citywide last year.

Our total estimated investment in Shade Phoenix Actions was approximately 16 million.

New shade was added at 78 schools in the city through a few different programs.

More than 130 staff members participated in some type of formal training program connected to the Shade Phoenix Plan.

And at least 4,000 residents were engaged in one of the actions, perhaps contributing input to the development of a neighborhood plan from our partners at ASU, or perhaps providing uh directly participating in one of our grant programs.

We want to help bring for you subcommittee members, we want to help bring those metrics to life by sharing a few highlights from individual actions in the plan.

We're going to share six actions, one representing each of the plan's six core values.

And of course, there are many, many more highlights than we have time to share today, including work that's happening right now in the city from field staff who are out planting trees, maintaining trees, maintaining shade structures, and so much more.

We'd like to highlight for you the Canopy for Kids program, which planted more than 1,200 trees at 56 school campuses in the reporting period, exceeding the target milestone of 1,000 trees.

This action exemplifies the plan's core value of focusing on people first by targeting our actions where shade can have the greatest impact on human health and well-being, especially for vulnerable populations like children.

Canopy for Kids was funded at your direction by the American Rescue Plan Act, and also with a grant from the Inflation Reduction Act.

One of the students who is at a school that benefited the program said, it's hard to get green space in the desert, so it's great to be at a school that prioritizes this for me and my teachers.

This program helped the city earn the 2024 Ponderosa Pine Partnership Award through the Arizona Department of Forestry and Fire Management for outstanding urban urban forestry projects in Arizona.

And one of our participating grantees, Pidea Academies, also won an award from the Arizona Department of Forestry and Fire Management, the 2024 Palo Verde Award for Urban Forestry Enhancement.

The Public Transit Department exceeded its annual goal to add shade structures to 80 bus stops, installing 81 in the reporting period.

This action showcases our core value of recognizing shade as a critical resource as it's an ongoing core program that's adding built shade throughout the city as part of our transportation system.

This action is funded by the Public Transportation 2050 Fund, also known as T2050.

And public transit reports, and I find this so impressive that we continue to be on track to have shade at every bus stop in the city where it's feasible to do so by 2030.

I almost called you mayor, sorry.

Councilwoman, chairwoman.

So, David, uh the pictures that you showed there showed captain's chairs instead of benches.

I do think uh it makes a lot of sense, obviously, to have shade at the bus stop so people are sitting out in the bus uh out in the sun, but it also doesn't make sense if people are going to use those as effectively homeless encampments, which I see quite frequently when I go around the city, Republic Dead Big Article about it and so forth.

So in District 2, we've taken out a lot of the captain's chairs for that very reason so that people who are going to actually use the bus and not just live in the shade are able to use it, frankly.

Um, is that is that the model that so the 80, they're all captain's chairs, not benches.

Is that correct?

Councilman Waring, Madam Chair, members of the subcommittee.

I would ask that we have our representative who's here, assistant public transit director Juanita Carver, come to the table so she can answer that question.

I'm not trying to be mean to anybody who's, I guess, seeking shelter, but the bus stops are not shelter because then that deters people who actually need to use the bus from using the bus stop and the shelter that we are constructing for them in the first place.

So it's not an academic exercise, this question.

Councilman Waring, um, members of the committee.

Um the new chairs, our chairs.

Um we're not putting in the benches at this time.

Thank you.

I like it.

Simple, easy to understand.

Any other questions?

Okay, thank you so much.

Thank you, Councilman Waring.

Uh, moving on to a third highlight action, the community canopy program.

This program planted more than 1,900 trees at more than 1,000 homes throughout Phoenix, exceeding the year one milestone to plant 1,000.

This action focuses investment in neighborhoods with low tree canopy coverage, addressing the plan's core value to address inequities.

Canopy Community Canopy was funded at your direction by the American Rescue Plan Act, as well as with grant funding from the inflation reduction act.

And I'd like to read a testimonial from one of the beneficiaries of this program.

A resident said, We're looking forward to the shade these trees will provide.

The trees are healthy, and the whole planting process was very efficient.

We're really hoping our neighborhood gets more funding.

We have kids, so shade is very important.

And my husband happens to be the mailman for our neighborhood, and he can attest how crucial shade is.

Big thank you from your mailman.

In March 2025, this grant program, along with Canopy for Kids, was awarded the award of distinction for climate action solutions from Arizona forward.

City staff from multiple departments have made substantive progress toward our goal of updating the city's plant species guidance.

The first year milestone to analyze existing tree species guidance used operationally by city departments and from our external partners was met.

We need to ensure compatibility between our municipal tree species selection and the local environment.

And this recognizes the plan's core value to respect the landscape of the Sonoran Desert.

On this clock and on this slide, you can see just some of the factors that inform our strategy, inform our selection process for picking particular tree species.

Green stormwater infrastructure involves the use of plant and soil systems to manage water flow into the public storm drain system or across surfaces.

And you can see some illustrations of what this infrastructure looks like on the slide.

These photos are from the expansion to the parking lot at the Phoenix Zoo, and you can see cuts in the curb that allow water to flow into some of the landscaped areas.

Green stormwater infrastructure, or GSI is an important tool for creating landscapes that can more sustainably support healthy urban trees and vegetation.

This action highlights our plan's core value to collaborate within and beyond city government.

For several years, our city has been focused on building our internal capacity for GSI, and that work continued again last year with leadership from planning and development.

93 city employees participated in a GSI training activity last year, and a cross department GSI working group met quarterly.

And last and certainly not least, we'd like to highlight the Sombra project led by the Office of Arts and Culture.

This action exemplifies our plan's core value to go beyond the status quo by being innovative and taking risks.

The Sombra project met its milestone to select winners of a public art challenge and install temporary shade structures in public spaces as part of an innovative innovative design competition integrating public art and shade.

Nine unique temporary art installations have been in place in public parks throughout the summer, integrating innovative materials and processes, creative themes, and creative community engagement activities.

This action was funded by the Bloomberg Philanthropies Public Art Challenge.

And if you haven't, or if any members of the public haven't had the chance to see these yet, they'll still be up for a few more weeks.

An immediate priority for the next year is to ensure that those five actions that didn't fully meet their reporting milestone are accelerated to be back on track.

And to refresh your memory, no significant obstacles were encountered that jeopardized their completion over the in the overall framework of the Shade Phoenix Plan.

And our assessment is that factors that contributed to their slower progress than anticipated, included limitations on staff capacity and delays in hiring timelines and contracting.

And we'd like to go with each of those through each of those actions with you one by one.

One action was to develop a consistent tree and shade maintenance protocol to be used citywide.

Over the last year, we have gathered and analyzed the current maintenance protocol from city departments.

We're also looking forward to additional data coming in that will inform this conversation from the ongoing tree inventory.

We anticipated that we would have a pilot program created by this time to strengthen enforcement of the city's tree code.

And we are not there yet, but we're bringing on additional capacity with a grant-funded position that will be posted in the very near future.

We're very much looking forward to the city's new tree inventory being completed as of the end of June.

Approximately 22,000 trees in the city had been inventoried.

We're also working on a complementary shade structure inventory.

We've brought together nearly all of the relevant data sets to populate that new resource.

We are working to develop a public shade fund that can be used as part of the planning and development process.

We have some additional stakeholder discussions forthcoming that we weren't able to accomplish as anticipated in the first year.

And finally, we are we are very uh very excited about our new tree steward program.

This is grant-funded work that will hire and train 10 community leaders to advance urban forestry initiatives in low tree canopy cover neighborhoods.

Our goal was to have this program up and running at the end of June, and we are just a few weeks behind in getting the contract signed, but it is now signed, and we are back on track to have our tree stewards hired and trained this fall in partnership with the Arizona Sustainability Alliance.

That we see a really important priority for the second year as focusing on all of the actions in the plan that pertain to tree and shade management and maintenance.

This is so important because as the pace of tree planting and shade structure installation accelerates, we need to ensure that our management and maintenance is maintenance practices are optimized to ensure we get a good return on our investment.

This can be a challenge in the city of Phoenix that has a vast geographic footprint of more than 500 square miles, as well as distributed responsibilities across many city departments, some of whom work with contractors.

We have different climate and landscape types throughout the city and other factors that make this a particular challenge, but we think we can make meaningful progress this year.

And in fact, we are already making progress.

The tree inventory that's underway includes assessment of the health of each publicly owned and managed tree in the city.

This is going to provide critical data to inform how we can improve our management practices, knowing where we're falling short and what's going well.

City departments have also made big strides in recent years, increasing our maintenance schedules, uh, imposing new accountability measures with our contractors and increasing staff capacity, including through some of the actions we described earlier.

I also think it's fair to say, uh, subcommittee members that our staff and our residents continue to seek better overall outcomes.

We want to keep improving our management and maintenance.

And we have some recent confirmation that we do have more work to do as a city to improve our management and maintenance.

Uh, I suspect you might agree with me that in our recent storms at the end of August and early September, we saw more tree losses throughout the city uh than we would have well than we would have liked.

Uh, city staff do have a good understanding of what the challenges are that hurt our trees' ability to withstand storms and a wide range of other environmental stressors.

Some of those challenges exist even before we put a tree in the ground, and you can see some of those factors uh on the slide here, or they occur when we are putting a tree in the ground, like a poor planting technique or selection of an individual product with poor quality.

Other issues develop over time with our management and maintenance practices, including watering schedules and pruning techniques.

As referenced before, a detailed health assessment of our urban forest is underway right now as part of the tree inventory process.

This will enable us to know quantitatively how common each of these various issues are and how those patterns vary throughout the city.

This will empower us to have a more systematic approach to remedying those issues over time.

To wrap up, we wanted to share with uh you subcommittee members and the public some of the upcoming events related to Shade Phoenix plan actions.

Coming up on September 20th, this Saturday, the celebration of shade, the culmination of the Somber project at Steele Indian School Park.

This will be from 6 to 9 p.m.

Uh, you and the public are all encouraged and invited to attend.

Uh, we'll get to engage with the artists and other leaders involved in this project.

The sidewalk shade installations uh that you helped fund through the American Rescue Plan Act are going to start going in the ground this fall.

Uh, you can see one of the prototypes that our staff had the chance to visit uh just a couple of weeks ago there, and we are expecting construction to begin uh over the next several weeks.

And our calendar is getting busy in the heat office, getting ready for the kickoff of the planting season.

Our first community canopy neighborhood planting event uh will be on October 4th, and we'll be throughout the city essentially every weekend through the fall, uh, supporting neighborhood tree planting events.

Uh, with that, subcommittee members, we are looking forward to your questions and guidance as we continue to implement the plan.

Thank you for the time today.

Thank you.

Very good presentation, and I do appreciate you talking about the maintenance.

It's one of the sad things to see after a storm, all the trees that are torn apart.

And so I appreciate that you guys are really doing the deep analysis of how to protect those trees that we plant.

Just a quick question.

I know, and I'm sure other districts we have people that um donate trees to us.

Are you keeping tabs on that as well with the inventory?

Or is that something we should be reporting to you?

Uh Madam Chair and members of the subcommittee, thank you for the question.

Uh, we are working very closely with with parks and the other departments that will play a role in managing the inventory to think about the workflow there.

We want to be sure that volunteer-led tree plantings and other types of community efforts are reflected in in the inventory.

So let's please stay in in contact and we can figure out uh how to ensure that those trees are captured in the new inventory.

We want to be able to showcase all of their that great work.

Great, because I have a couple uh events coming up that are being donated and planted in our parks.

And then my next question is we have an adopt a street program.

Is there some way through that program we can incorporate protection of trees after storms?

I don't know if that's something that's probably a street management street transportation question for Brianna.

I'm just curious if that's part of the adopt a street program.

I I just the last storm we had, I had so many trees on 7th Street that were knocked over that had recently been planned, and it was kind of sad to see good morning, uh Madam Chair and members of the subcommittee.

So our uh adopt a street uh program really uh reflects cleanups on a particular street.

So it's focused on cleaning up trash and debris within a specific section of a roadway.

Um but I think that's a great idea.

That's something that we can take back to the team and see if there um are opportunities to evaluate.

I think one of the issues sometimes that we see is there might be some vandalism um related to some of our irrigation systems.

I think with uh our new five contractors, that's one of the things that we're gonna make sure they're heavily focused on is when they're out there providing maintenance, they're checking the irrigation systems for that, so we make sure they're getting the the necessary uh water.

But I think that's a uh a great idea that we could take back to the team to see if there's something we can incorporate.

I appreciate you looking into it.

I know we're gonna have tree stewards, but there must be some kind of overlap that we should be looking at.

So I appreciate that.

Um, and councilwoman Hodge Washington is now joined us via WebEx, and so I turn to um the members of the committee if anyone has any questions or additional comments.

I'm shocked that Councilman Waring does have something to say.

I already had a question, you know, got my answer.

Uh yes, Councilwoman Hodge Washington.

Thank you so much, um Chair.

My apologies for being a little tardy.

I had another meeting run over.

But I I wanted to first um um talk the kudos of the shade and tree plan.

It's definitely a popular um for it's a popular program as we address some of the heat uh effects that we see here in Phoenix.

Um I note that one of the the comments of support actually came from one who addressed uh whose address was in District 8.

I wanted to talk a little bit about large parts of my district are not currently eligible for the community canopy program.

I'm curious, are there any steps being taken to expand eligibility so that residents across all neighborhoods can access free or subsidized trees?

Uh Councilwoman Hodge Washington, uh, Madam Chair and members of the subcommittee, thank you for the question.

Uh to refresh the subcommittee's memory and and the listening public, the community canopy program is currently funded by the inflation reduction act uh and a grant, an urban forest urban and community forestry grant through the U.S.

Forest Service.

As part of the terms of the grant agreement, uh and it's part of the funding priorities from the grant, uh funding can be allocated into neighborhoods that are identified as disadvantaged uh through a federal government tool called CGEST, uh, environmental disparities uh tool.

Uh that currently restricts where we are able to implement the program to remain compliant with the grant.

Uh we think there is a lot of enthusiasm in the community uh to expand this program, and that's a conversation we'd love to have with you, councilwoman, uh, and and your colleagues to think about what that path forward might look like.

And thank you for the background.

I I was uh I was aware of the the funding source for the current program.

I guess you're what you're what I'm hearing is that you're open to there is no current um steps, but you're open to the possibility of expanding of discussion how we can expand this.

Absolutely, councilwoman, thank you.

And then similarly, uh I presume the answer is um that you're open to discussing how we can ensure of a uh program where each district has a pathway for increased shade regardless of the income designation, um, and for neighborhoods who are not eligible for the currently for the community canopy.

Because we do believe that all communities can benefit.

I do believe that all communities can benefit from and um from shade investment.

So thank you.

Councilwoman, yes, absolutely.

Thank you for the the question.

Thank you, councilwoman.

Any other questions?

Yes, comments from uh councilman Robinson.

Thank you, madam chair.

David, early in your presentation, you thanked everyone and your staff that had a lot to do, obviously, who carried a bulk of the work, but I want to thank you for doing that.

I I think that it's important for us to recognize the folks who are really doing the work.

So I appreciate you having done that, and thanks to you guys.

I saw you doing all.

So it's um I appreciate that, and we're gonna be looking for ways to do some things in district six, and we'll be reaching out to your guys.

So thank you very much.

Thank you.

Any other comments?

Well, thank you so much for the presentation and all the work you do.

Uh living in the desert shade is very important.

Thank you.

Thank you, madam chair.

Next we have call for the public.

Next, we have call to the public.

Um I turn to our city attorney for additional comments.

Thank you, madam chair.

Uh during citizen comment members of the public may address the subcommittee for up to three minutes on issues of interest or concern to them.

The issues being addressed, however, must be on subject matters that fall within the jurisdiction of the Phoenix City Council, and upon which the Phoenix City Council has the power to act.

The Arizona Open Meeting Law permits the subcommittee members to listen to the comments, but prohibits members from discussing or acting on the matters presented.

Thank you.

We have two speakers today.

First is Jerry Van Gaz.

Welcome, Jerry.

Thanks, Councilwoman uh Stark.

I just wanted to welcome our uh two alumni that have been here on this committee before, and uh it's nice to see them here again.

Um wouldn't be really nice to see uh I mean our coalition is gonna we're transparent, we'll be here watching out for three PI at every meeting, as we have been for 10 years now.

Uh but you know, at the same time, we'd love to see management from the parks department showing up at some of these meetings.

Uh it's it's a rarity anymore.

The sept the June 18th minutes you just read, they weren't at that meeting, they had no agenda items, they have no agenda items on any of the council meetings over the last couple months.

Uh, you know, I know it was convenient for them during the pandemic to not uh hit be faced face to face with constituents, but uh that's long gone.

There's issues out there, big issues that they don't want to address.

And uh our attorneys at the Center for Law and the Public Interest said as long as they keep refraining from showing up or having agenda items, they're gonna keep filing record requests.

And if they're not responded to uh they'll follow up with a suit.

Thank you.

Thank you for your comments.

I do believe that we have staff from the parks department here that are waving.

Next speaker is Tim Sarakowski.

Welcome.

Thank you, good morning.

It's interesting that nothing really gets done.

For example, we have brought up a number of times the dumping in South Mountain, and I'm trying to figure out did anyone here do anything about it?

Did anyone question the parks department about it?

Did they ask about it?

Did anyone in the subcommittee ask about the bridge to nowhere in Hayestoa?

Anyone ask about what's going on over there?

Did anyone go to the parks department and say, hey, look, we've had complaints about this.

What's going on over there?

Did anyone in the subcommittee ask about a house that was purchased that you probably don't even know about through the parks department?

But no one knows about it because there's no communication.

I'm just trying to figure out any longer what's going on because we need to have first of all more transparency because our record requests consequently, it takes a year, eight months before we get record requests, and it's all crap record requests.

They just keep multiplying the same thing over and over again and going, oh, here, here you go.

This is what you requested, and it's not what we requested.

So I think the subcommittee should look at what's really going on here and address some of these problems that we're having, because if we're having these problems, other people are having the same types of problems.

And I want to also address everyone talking about you know making sure the trees are planted and making sure that there's watering systems and and taking care of our trees.

How many trees died last year in Phoenix?

How many trees died in South Mountain all the way, all the trees that were planted going into South Mountain?

They all died because the water system didn't work.

How many trees died in Hans Park because they didn't water the trees?

Did anyone address those problems?

Because it's costing the people of the city of Phoenix money, and it's their money.

And we need to start addressing how you're spending money and making sure that all these different projects are taken care of.

Because you can have all these projects, but if you don't have any maintenance to make sure these projects are taken care of, you're wasting people's money.

This is a business.

You this is like a corporation.

You're supposed to be checking and making sure all this stuff is done.

It's your duty and it's your job.

I'd like to see you start doing it.

Thank you.

Thank you for your comments.

Um, that's all we have for COD Public.

So future agenda items.

Is there anything um the members of the committee wish to see in the future?

Hearing none?

We are adjourned.

Thank you.

Food waste is one of those areas people don't really realize, but as it relates to sustainability.