Good afternoon.

It is October 7th, 2025, and I'll now call our policy meeting to order.

Will the clerk call the roll?

Councilwoman Guardado.

Councilwoman Hernandez.

Here.

Councilwoman Hodge Washington.

Here.

Councilwoman Pastor.

Councilman Robinson.

Councilwoman Stark.

Councilman Waring.

Here.

Mayor Gallego.

Here.

Thank you so much for joining us.

We're gonna have a really important council meeting today on the budget and our strategic work group on accessibility will present.

But we'll begin today with council information and follow-up requests.

Would anyone like to go first?

Councilwoman Pastor.

Hi.

I'm just waiting for the slides.

Thank you.

As you can see, I am looking for volunteers, volunteer with District Four.

We are having monthly cleanups, and it's starting from Maryvale to Midtown, and we are focusing on organizing community cleanups in different different parts of the district, and we need help.

The more hands on deck, the better, the faster we can clean that alley or clean that neighborhood.

If you like, you can scan the QR code to get started.

So thank you.

As I spoke about uh cleanups, we have next slide.

Uh we have the Alhambra Community Cleanup uh this Saturday from 8 to 11.

Uh we will be meeting at Granada East Elementary School 3022 West Campbell Avenue.

And once again, you can scan that card.

Just scan it.

Investing in District 4.

As you can see, next slide.

As you can see, investing in District 4.

We invested 20,000 for trees and shade, 15,000 for water for the heat out outreach, 15,000 for public activation initiative, Zumba, Yoga, self-defense defense classes, 5,000 for a mural at Swanyo Park, 10,000 to provide resources for students through the Phoenix Economic Partners.

500 uh 5,500 to sponsor VFW 720's food pantry, 2500 for academic scholarships and programming uh with Augula Summer Symposium, and 8,000 to support St.

Vincent DePa's dental program for the vulnerable population.

I just thought it was important to see where taxpayers' dollars are going and what type of programs they're going to.

Participatory budget in action, as you can see on the slide.

Uh, with our participatory budget funds, we paid for a new speed hump at 49th Drive and Crinton Lane, food and snacks for the local Lethod Elotero for the Migos uh Blockwatch water safety event, movies in the park at Salito Park, Solano Park, and Maryview, and we were also excited to see what community projects are coming our way for the next round of participatory budget.

I want to give a shout out to Rehoba Saints Center who celebrated their 30th anniversary.

Um that's the game one, but I think one more back.

Um they celebrated 30 their 30th anniversary, they are located on 27th Avenue in Camelback, and we had a great time just listening to all the praise.

And most importantly, uh that day as I was sitting and listening to the music and all the uh kind words, I just said I felt the spirit that day.

So it was a great time to be with them.

Um gang kickoff, next slide, gang kickoff.

As you can see, we're at the gang kickoff.

Uh we celebrated this past weekend along with my other colleagues and the mayor.

Um, and you can see leaders across the city uh showed up to connect and share information on how they activated their community and what resources are out there.

It's a great way to see uh our community active.

And most importantly, I like to thank uh those that supported the game event and was hosted by Phoenix Neighborhoods.

This one comes to heart.

Uh next slide.

I want to thank uh Michael Peterson and Carraya for his service.

He served with me for eight and a half years.

He has now officially retired.

Uh he is now gone to his next chapter, next journey.

And most importantly, him and I, as I call, as we called each other, uh, he was my work husband.

And when those that know uh spending uh eight and a half years, very uh close, uh he becomes part of family, and he became part of my family.

So I want to wish him the next chapter, wish him the best in the next chapter of life as he continues to serve uh by volunteering and providing uh sitting with cancer patients and providing guidance as they go through the process.

So a great shout out to him, and the most exciting piece about it is that he moved in district four, so he's closer to me now.

I can take the light rail and jump off and see him.

Next slide.

I also want to thank uh Seisha Napa for her service.

She served a year in my office, and I want to wish her the best as the Phoenix Union uh school board member and president.

Uh, she has a lot of activities on her hand, and I wish her the best.

Now, introducing District 1 team.

As you can see, Ana Maria Maldonado is the interim council assistant.

We have Brenda Munoz Mungia as communication and constituent service.

We have Diego Rodriguez Vasquez as our intern and Johanna Moreno Sobuvula as our intern.

They are the ones at this moment that are in the, I would say in the trenches, but uh making sure that everything is running smoothly and making sure all the constituent work is getting done and outreach.

Uh Ana Maria is managing the office and overseeing the operations.

Brenda handles the social media and constituent service.

Diego is our ASU intern, and Johanna is our intern from Carl Hayden High School.

So you see, I have the whole range of uh generations, and then you have me.

So if you have any questions, that's the team that you need to reach out to.

Next slide.

As always, you can contact my office uh 602-262-7447 or send an email so that we can uh help and assist any way we can.

Really appreciate it.

And before I end, I would like to give a shout out to Inger Ericsson.

She will be retiring and we will be celebrating her tomorrow.

But I want to give a shout out to Inger Ericsson for all her service.

How long has it been?

39 years.

I wanted her to go to 40, but she said no.

Uh, she 39 years, so if you can give a round of applause to Inger.

So I have two more to go.

I want to recognize Chris Mackey.

Uh, she will also be leaving this Friday.

It will be our last day.

Chris, can you please stand?

Um, I would like to recognize her for all the work that she has done and how she has uh helped shape uh Phoenix and the towntown area uh with her insight and her wisdom.

Uh you have seen many things happen within her tenure.

So I want to thank Chris.

And the last one, last one, he's not gonna get away with me because I'm not sure what date he's gonna retire, and I don't know if we have a policy, so I want to recognize John Chan.

John Chan has you're gonna stand too, John.

John Chan has uh been here for how many?

33.

33, okay.

He needed a couple more for anger.

But I want to recognize him for his service.

He has served in the many different capacities uh of departments at many different levels, and I want to thank him for that because we are losing a lot of knowledge, but you deserve it.

Go enjoy your family, retire, and more than likely you'll I'll see you again.

So I want to wish them a round of applause and best of luck.

Thank you.

We are so blessed to have so many great people at the city of Phoenix, and we have a chance to celebrate uh great great careers.

Uh, in particular today, I want to celebrate John Chan and his career.

And it is an incredible career that began in 1992.

We got a proud Sun Devil here who has helped bring so many major employers to our city, including USAA, Charles Schwab, and American Express.

celebrate uh great great careers uh in particular today i want to celebrate john chan and his career and it is an incredible career that began in 1992 we got a proud sun devil here who has helped bring so many major employers to our city including uSAA charles schwab and american express he's helped develop our downtown with the Phoenix biomedical campus destinations like Cityscape he's helped bring the world's eyes to us and and delivered incredible Super Bowls all-star games college football championships he navigated the global pandemic including doing steady leadership at the convention center that helped us become one of the become the first public venue in Arizona to get a very high level standard for health and safety he served as deputy city manager and has mentored so many people who've gone on to incredible careers and so I want to proclaim October 7th 2025 as John Chanday and ask him to come forward John wanted to hide and just walk away in the sunset but that didn't happen yeah John with a huge thank you for those of you wondering why there is no Inger proclamation stay tuned for tomorrow and and we're also gonna get a chance to celebrate Christine Mackey we are such fans of all of you and are so thankful to your service but I decided you each deserve a separate day so today is John Chan day and we hope that it is a great one on a little bit more difficult uh note wanted to express some sympathies to some of our sister cities type one was a hit with a super typhoon that claimed more than 14 lives and injured 46 others due to flooding and and so we are mourning with our sisters communities and the whole country mayor of Suwon has activated emergency team around an environmental challenges with a um environmental challenge and then our our uh the whole entire country of South Korea has been hit very far hard by multiple data center fires one that took 170 fire trucks to put out and took out more than 600 online government services from paying taxes to getting a driver's license so we are sending our best wishes for a speedy recovery to them and and both of those countries have significant delegations right now in Phoenix for Semicon West a big week for our city where we are welcoming the most important semiconductor conference in the West to Phoenix for the first time and we're seeing great investments including in our Arizona Science Center in our youth for training and more so really happy to have that conference here as well as meeting on the Mesa our regenerative medicine conference.

So lots happening in Phoenix and joining most of you in cheering on the Mercury and so happy to have them in the WNBA finals and with that I will turn to Councilman Hodge Washington you ready thank you mayor um before before I begin my PowerPoint I also wanted to congratulate some of our city managers on their retirement I'm gonna start off with our community and economic development director Chris Mackey.

It has been a truly a pleasure working with you on so many projects within District 8 since I began on council and I continue I look forward to our continued partnership to see what we can work on together as you transition to the Greater Phoenix Economic Council.

Thank you for your support in bringing Fire Station 69 to life and for allowing me to be an honorary economic developer.

I also wanted to take a moment to recognize and thank Deputy City Manager John Chan for his incredible leadership and service at the City of Phoenix.

John's professionalism, his calm demeanor, and deep commitment to public service has made such a meaningful impact, not only within City Hall, but across our entire community.

John has been behind many of our many of our major events in our city, such as Final Four, Super Bowl, and he has been for the one place that many of our visitors see, the Phoenix Convention Center.

I just want to say thank you for your years of dedication, your teamwork, and the example you've set for all of us.

It has been a true pleasure working alongside you, and I too wish you continued success and fulfillment in all that lies ahead.

So Ingram, I'm in a whole mind still tomorrow if that's okay with you.

Perfect.

Okay, so over the last few weeks, my office and I have been very busy attending many community events, and I just wanted to highlight a few.

Next slide.

I attended the Phoenix Revitalization Corp event in remembrance of 9-11.

The group highlighted Central City Precinct Community Action Officer Jan Rowland, who helped with recovery efforts after the devastated incident in New York.

I want to say again thank you to Officer Roland for his sacrifice and his continued support in keeping residents safe within our city.

As many know, um residents had raised some concerns at Matthew T.

Henson, and I was able to host a senior safety event with them where we're able to have direct conversation about their top priorities.

And I'm pleased to say that we are working with Housing and the Fire Department to address these concerns.

Also, if you missed it, Harmon Library turned 75 in a spectacular fashion.

And it was amazing to see all of our community residents out turn off for that event.

Next slide.

It is it was I enjoyed connecting with residents, and I'm happy to see 126 more units of affordable housing being built right here in District 8 through a partnership with the city, the state, and other partners made it happen.

Next slide.

Next slide.

I also would like to thank the Office of Emergency Management and Partners for kicking off the Stop the Bleed Trauma Training right there in District 8.

Through our partnership, we not only learned life-saving skills, but my office was able to fund 50 trauma kits for all attendees to take home.

I want to give a special shout out to the scouts from PAC 787 and Troop 244 for attending this session.

If you missed the first one, I encourage you, there are still opportunities to sign up at other locations.

You can find information on the city's website, or you can reach out to my office and we'll help you get connected.

Next slide.

Lastly, I would like to thank Director Spence herself and the entire neighborhood services department on hosting a successful Synergy Conference.

I would like to congratulate the District 8 residents who were selected as winners.

Janet Aviles from Sky Harbor Neighborhood Association, Isabel Gutierrez of South Mountain Blockwatch, and Eva Olivis of Phoenix Revitalization Corporation.

Thank you all for your contributions to District 8, and I look forward to our continued success together.

Next slide.

As always, if you need any assistance or have any questions, please do not hesitate to reach out to myself and my team.

Thank you, Mary.

That's all we have.

Thank you.

Who would like to go next?

Does anyone have any additional updates or shall we?

Go to the main event.

All right.

Well, and one that is a transition between council updates and our focus on accessibility.

We are so pleased to welcome the National Federation of the Blind of Arizona and Savi Services for the Blind who are here with us today.

Earlier, we marked White Cane Safety Day to celebrate the White Cane significance and the achievements of people who are blind or visually impaired.

And we um have done this for two years in a row and helps raise awareness.

We hope and make sure that we are a city that delivers on opportunities for all of our residents.

We were uh the group was led by Jordan Moon, first vice president and NFBA and director at the Savi Services for the Blind Phoenix Center.

So thank you all for being with us.

And before we go to our strategic workbook on accessibility, we will turn to our city manager for a budget update.

Thank you, Mayor, Mayor, members of the council for the time to walk you through what I think is a relatively positive budget outlook.

This is a highlight of how we ended last fiscal year, which was 2024-2025.

I think all things considered, we we ended the year very strongly considering the economic turmoil that the country and the state has been in from an economic perspective.

I think the other thing that this presentation that Amber will highlight to you will emphasize the accuracy, the insane accuracy that our budget and research department has, the variances that you see in revenue forecasting, as well as the expenses, all of which are under 1%, which when you're talking over billions of dollars of revenue and expenses, it just doesn't happen across the country.

And this is something that they continually and routinely deliver.

So I want to I want to applaud them and their hard work on that.

But I also that goes hand in hand with your leadership as we continue to be able to provide the services to our residents.

So I want to thank you for that as well.

And so I'll turn it over to uh Deputy City Manager Amber Williamson, who also currently still wears the budget and research director hat.

Thank you very much, Jeff.

Good afternoon, Mayor, members of the council, and our community.

I am pleased to be here today to present to you our fiscal year 2425 general fund budget results.

In addition to covering the results, I'm also going to be discussing some budgetary challenges that you need to consider as you move forward with budget decision making for next fiscal year.

I'll talk about the next steps in our budget development process, as well as provide an overview of the 2627 budget calendar that we are requesting approval today for.

So in terms of 2425, our general fund resources, that does include our beginning fund balance, our revenues, and interfund transfers.

We ended the year slightly over 15.7 million.

That's a variance of just 0.7%.

Actual resources represented by the green bar at 2,158.3 million, over the estimate represented by the blue bar at 2,142.6 million.

In terms of our general fund operating expenditures for last fiscal year, the cost to deliver services to the community, we had it slightly over 4 million or just a variance of 0.2% at 1,936.5 million.

This results in a general fund ending balance for last fiscal year of 221.8 million.

That's about 11.6 million higher than what we had estimated at 210.2 million.

That 11.6 million is considered one-time savings.

It will remain in our general fund balance and be factored into development of the 26-27 budget status.

If you recall, council approved transferring any additional American Rescue Plan Act interest to that trust fund based on the current balance, along with that 1.6 million.

That would put the trust balance at 5.2 million.

So in terms of budgetary challenges, there's no shortage of challenges for a city of our size.

Top of mind right now, economic uncertainty.

We are still dealing with uncertainty about trades, our trade agreements and tariffs.

We are starting to see a softening in the labor market.

We're still seeing some growth in terms of GDP, which is a common economic variable that measures the strength of the economy.

But currently, we're in day seven of a federal government shutdown.

There's a lot of uncertainty about that in terms of the impact to the broader economy, also city-specific programs and services.

It's too early to know those impacts.

We're going to be following it very closely.

Obviously, the sooner that that concludes, the better, but we will keep council apprised of any specific impacts to the city as we move forward.

Also, the impacts just in general from the federal administration and the recently enacted one big beautiful bill act that was signed into law on July 4th.

I'm going to show you momentarily some estimated impacts to state shared income tax revenue as a result of that act.

Always we're following what's going on at the state legislature as they enter their next legislative session to be following any impacts to diminishment of your local control, diminishment of our revenues or unfunded mandates.

We're also going to be entering into labor negotiations with our employee labor groups.

Their contracts expire June 30th of 26.

We know that we did the class and compensation study.

We did that to ensure that we can stay market competitive as much as possible.

We want to ensure we have resources and our general fund and all of our funds to competitively pay our most important asset, our city employees.

We are anticipating continued increases in our pension expenses, particularly for public safety, as well as as well as higher costs for our health insurance.

So we'll be building in those cost increases into the proposed status and multi-year forecast.

And then always we are very closely following our revenue.

We provide a monthly revenue report.

We do rely on actual data to construct our estimates, but I can tell you preliminarily, at least based on two month revenue numbers, it does look like we are tracking to our revenue estimations, which is good news, but two months does not a trend make.

So we need more data.

So we'll be working over the next several months to develop new estimates for the current year as well as subsequent years for the forecast.

As you know, voters approved our 2023 general obligation bond program.

It's very exciting, as I've been telling council over the last couple of years.

We want to make sure we have capacity in our general fund to bring on new fire stations and parks and community centers.

Right now, we know that we're estimating about 11.6 million would be needed for 2627.

We'll be working on updating those projections, but we'll include that in the multi-year forecast that we'll bring to you in February.

And always our community, as I like to say, they don't want less service or poor service.

They accept enhanced service and they want exceptional service.

And to do that, we have to have the resources to meet those expectations.

And then for homelessness, if you recall in the current year budget, we added 4.5 million to the general fund to continue the good work that the Office of Homeless Solutions is doing to help those in our community who are vulnerable.

Um, in order to continue the work that they're doing, because of the expiration of the American Rescue Plan Act funds, the Office of Homeless Solutions estimates they'll need an additional 22 million dollars starting in fiscal 26-27 from the general fund to continue that work.

We also have aging city facilities, a city our size.

We have significant major maintenance needs.

We're also going to be building in those cost increases to the proposed budget, and then vehicle replacements.

We have quite a fleet with the city of Phoenix.

We want to make sure we're repairing and replacing our vehicles as necessary.

The costs to do that are not going down.

They're going up.

So we'll be building those cost escalations into the forecast as well.

For the one big beautiful bill act, according to the joint legislative budget committee, recent information they provided because of the tax code changes in that act.

They are anticipating to see significant reductions in general fund revenue to the state's budget starting in the current fiscal year.

As you can see, the table on the screen, 438.3 million in the current fiscal year, up to 371.9 million through fiscal 28.

That does translate to a general fund impact to the city of Phoenix because we do receive state shared revenue two years based on collections from two years prior.

The impact to the city of Phoenix could potentially be 21.7 million in fiscal year 2728, up to 18.4 million.

I'm sorry, 18.4 million in fiscal 2930.

That's a combined impact through the multi-year forecast period of 56.7 million.

So we're going to follow this very closely.

The FAC and JLBC will meet in January.

We'll rely on that information to update any projections and include that in the multi-year forecast.

We'll present in February.

In terms of next steps for budget development, we do have a pretty methodical approach in budget research.

We work with all city departments.

We're entering into a very busy time.

Three plus nine technical expenditure and revenue reviews.

This is where we evaluate three months of actuals and we project out nine months of a forecast as well as develop the projections for all of next fiscal year.

In December, we'll move to central reviews.

That's where we look at citywide expenditure line items like fuel, electricity, as well as pension.

We'll be working through this period of time through February on program budget review.

This is the time of year where we ask departments to evaluate their current suite of programs and services, evaluate if they can change their priorities, submit proposed budget reductions and priority order with least impact to the community.

If we had to take those reductions to balance the budget, as well as to ask for supplementals if resources are available.

We'll also be working to develop our revenue estimations.

We work with the University of Arizona on our econometric model that we use to estimate city and state sales tax.

We'll be following the FAC and the JLBC as well.

And then all of this comes together to bring to you and our community a new status for 26-27 as well as the three-year multi-year forecast.

In terms of the budget calendar, this is presented, as I said, for approval by the council.

In November, we will publish our annual inventory of programs document that contains a lot of great information at a programmatic level of all city funds and departments.

That'll be available on our website at phoenix.budget slash or phoenix.gov slash budget.

And February on February 24th, our general fund status and multi-year forecast will be presented.

March 24th, we'll present the trial budget and the preliminary capital improvement program.

April, we will do our annual community budget hearings, taking that proposed budget out to our residents to get their feedback.

Come back on May 5th with the city manager's proposed budget.

May 19th is scheduled for final council action on the budget.

That's the time of the year that's very critical.

Without that, we cannot move into legally required budget steps.

June 3rd with tentative adoption, June 17th, final adoption, and wrapping up our process July 1st with property tax adoption.

And with that, council, I can answer any questions.

Thank you so much.

And maybe we'll begin first with a motion to approve the budget calendar.

I move to approve the budget calendar.

We have a motion and a second, and then we'll go to council member comments and questions.

Councilwoman Hernandez.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um just have a few questions on this presentation.

Um, just wanted to confirm that.

Sorry, one second.

Confirm that in the um beginning of it, we show that we have uh 11.6 million one-time savings.

So 10 million of that is going to be set aside, and 1.8 will be going into the housing trust fund.

Mayor, members of the council, councilwoman Hernandez.

Um, the recommendation at this point in time is that we we actually hold the entire 11.6 million.

What we're recommending, though, is that we set aside that 1.6 million in the event that when Amber and the city manager present in February, that multi-year forecast, if there is capacity, that 1.6 million gets transferred over to the housing trust fund.

Okay.

Okay, that's so right now.

It basically will sit there until we make sure that we can actually afford to do that and not have to make any cuts to do that.

Okay, and then so we will know in February if we can actually move that additional money to the housing trust fund.

Correct.

Okay.

Thank you so much for that clarification.

I think that would be a great investment.

Um, you know, I really again just want to thank um councilwoman uh Hosh Washington for just really championing this on making more investments in the housing trust fund.

That's an area where we're continuing to see um a lot of issues, and there's still uh great need of more investments to be done in that department.

So just thank you so much for for prioritizing that.

Um, and then on the homelessness side, it looks like we are looking to find an extra 22 million dollars to keep our regular uh OHS, sorry, the Office of Homeless and Solutions.

I'm trying to get away from using jargon for the public uh services in place.

Um, have we identified any other grants or funding opportunities outside of the general fund where we are going to be able to potentially bridge that gap?

Mayor members of the council, um, that's also a great question.

Um, we always analyze opportunities and look for NOFOs at this point in time.

We have not necessarily identified anything that could offload those programs from ARPA to the general fund.

Um, also, as you all know, we're currently in the midst of a government shutdown as well.

So not sure how that's going to play out, but this is something that we that we knew was coming because again, the ARPA funds were due to expire.

We knew that we had a plan, a strategic plan that this council helped develop and put put in place.

And so the anticipated um consequence of that was that we knew this program had to shift to the general fund.

And so we started that last year with the four and a half million as Amber mentioned, and then the balance is the 22 once they completely exhaust all our dollars.

Okay, thank you so much for that.

Another area, right?

That's really really critical.

We're gonna have to make sure that services continue.

Um, and I think this administration, the federal administration continue to find ways to not only uh cut current grant funding that's available and current programs that would help cities really uh address some of this issue.

Um, there was a point in the pension um situation.

Just had a couple questions around that.

Um, our long-term goal is to get, or is it correct that our what would it be correct to say that our long our long-term goal um is to get the police pension fully funded?

Mayor members of the council, um, councilwoman is also a great question.

Um, when you say fully funded, I would, as a former pension auditor, I would tell you that a hundred percent pension isn't something that no one should ever really want to do because it would honestly be a waste of money to get that far.

Our sweet spot is somewhere between I think 75% and 80% is where we ideally want to get to.

And under your leadership, your direction, as well as some of the input from our residents, as they've done if we've done pension reform over the years, our COPER's pension is is in that sweet spot right now.

And what we're striving to do is get our public safety pension into that same area.

Now, what I want to reference there is, you know, we control our COPER's pension for our civilians.

We do not necessarily control directly the PSPRS pension.

That's administered entirely by the state.

We are a participant in that plan, but they have also made substantial reforms.

Their reforms just happened after we made our reform, so it's gonna take a little bit more time to actually reform those.

Um so the goal is not to get to 100% funded, it's to get, in my opinion, to somewhere in that 75 to 80 percent range.

And currently we are about where?

Uh we're in the 40s.

I can't remember the exact number off the top of my head.

Um, and you say the goal is to get us to that sweet spot about what how many years are we talking about getting to that sweet spot?

Well, we we actually have a closed amortization period on our pension.

So I mean, we're we're somewhere in the 24 to 23 year range to get it theoretically paid off, but again, that that's that's gonna be kind of a moving target as as costs continue to escalate on salaries, as stock market losses continue to happen, as people continue to live longer, right?

That that extends the the amortization schedule for the pension.

Okay, thank you so much for that.

Um each year we're also having to contribute extra payments to the police pension because we aren't meeting those obligations.

Would that be a fair statement?

Uh we yes, Mayor uh Mayor members of the council, we do continue to add money to the pensions, both on the civilian side and the and the public safety side.

Okay.

And um I think you already touch a little bit on why that is.

Can you expand a little bit more on why we make those extra payments?

Sure.

Um, you know, pension is pension is one of those things that's kind of tricky for people to understand.

Um, you know, at the end of the day, if I look at pension, it's almost like a mortgage, I think, for the average person to understand it.

You have a 30-year mortgage and you finance that house over the over the course of 30 years, and over those 30 years, you're making payments and principal interest payments.

We're doing the same on the pension.

The difference between the mortgage and a pension, your mortgage, unless you sign a variable rate mortgage, you have a defined amount that you're paying.

With our pensions, there are lots of variables that go into making that payment amount that the city has to make.

And again, some of those things are how much payroll grows or doesn't grow.

The vacancies actually hurt us in public safety because the payroll is not growing to the extent that the actuary forecasts it to do.

So then the city's contribution rate goes up in a subsequent year to make up for that.

Um, on top of that, you have losses from the stock market, those are negative to the actual amortization.

If you have a good year, those are positive, they're accretive to the bottom line.

Um, and then again, life expectancy.

Over the years, actuaries they look at different mortality tables.

If you know certain members live longer, live shorter, that also extends or has a positive or negative effect on the on the pension itself.

So those are the variables that make it up.

And in any given year, if the actuarials' expectations don't happen, then that puts upward pressure on the city's rate that we have to contribute to to keep the pension funded.

All right, thank you.

And that might be the best example to use a mortgage to try to get folks to understand the pension piece.

I know it's helped me over the multiple times I have asked questions around this piece, so thank you so much just for uh trying to get me giving me education to try to understand it more.

Um I think my last question on this piece is you know, instead of continuing to bridge that gap in the pension in the police pension with general fund money, have we considered, like has as a council, have we considered uh finding other areas in the police budget that could sustain those investment that can say sustain those payments or those payments can be made from?

Mayor, members of the council, we we've done a lot of analysis on public safety pension and pension as a whole.

Like I said, the city is the the council as a whole, as well as our residents have been very actively and committed to pension reform.

So we we take pension seriously, and what you've you adopt annually, a pension uh policy that dictates several things.

One, we pay our pension payments early so that we can get credit for them and they actually have more impact than paying them later.

Um, as far as looking at the public safety budgets themselves, just like all of our other departments since the great recession, I think all of our departments have been they've been picked fairly clean.

Um, there's not a lot of fat in departments.

I know people think there is, but the reality is budget and research through their three plus nine process, they do a very good job at beating departments up and and finding money that's hidden under the couch cushion, if you will.

And so at this point, when you look at most of our city departments, 80% or so of our budget is is people, it's personal services.

So there really isn't a lot of extra to cut out of the public safety budgets because what's not people for police and fire, you've got vehicle cost, you've got fuel costs, you've got other things that sustain the services that they provide to residents.

So is as much as it pains me to say this, the reality is the only way out of the pensions out of the pension situation that we find ourselves in is time and more money.

Okay.

Thank you so much for that, Jeff.

Um, I had a couple of questions on the adoption on the budget adoption calendar.

Um, you know, we're moving into the beginning of the new budget process.

So I know we're gonna start.

You're gonna be very well, the budget department's gonna be very, very busy uh with that.

Um, you know, I prior to joining this council, obviously, I think a lot of staff have seen me here during the budget process and voicing concerns for how that process just goes on.

Um, and I think that's one of the things I have always struggled with is just the the calendar itself.

Um what dates on this process for our calendar for the budget process is set by state statue.

Councilwoman Hernandez, mayor, members of the council, it's really when we get into our legally required budget steps.

So that's tentative adoption, final, and then the property tax levy adoption.

But you have to back up from those legally prescribed dates in order to make presentation of the budget.

The other thing to keep in mind is for us to formulate our estimations and to come up with a budget status that takes months of time.

So we have to collect actual data and wait on information in some cases, such as pension in order to formulate projections.

So the budget calendar is set by statute and city charter, but it's also set the way that it is to allow us to do proper budgetary analysis based off the most recent actuals.

You have to adopt the budget by July 1st of every year.

So we don't have a lot of flexibility or time to change those dates.

Okay, thank you for that.

And that's one of the pieces that is I think a lot of the the residents might not um have a grasp on or have don't understand why the calendar is dictated that way.

You know, my biggest concern in this area is the opportunity for community to really put uh provide feedback into what our budget, our general fund budget looks like.

Um, you know, we're on the calendar, you know, we're gonna have community hearings in April, but that's in April, right?

Where most of the work on the budget has already been done.

Um so how do we as a city meaningfully incorporate the community feedback in building this budget?

Yes, that's a good question, Councilwoman Hernandez, mayor members of the council.

So our residents have opportunities to provide input about what they would like to see in the budget all year.

They're not only um, you know, it's not designated only as April.

So they can contact the budget research department by phone through email, submit comments through our website.

They can contact each mayor and city council office to provide all of you with the input on what they would like to see in the budget.

The way that the process is set in terms of the budget hearings that we do in that big kind of community engagement process in April is because we don't have anything to take to our residents in terms of a proposed budget that they could provide the feedback on until then, because of how I just explained about needing a lot of months of of time in order to do our budget estimations as well as actual data.

So residents can provide input all throughout the year.

Um, but that's why we do that, that community engagement process specifically in April, because now we have a proposed budget to actually take to them for their feedback.

Okay, thank you for that, Amber.

Um, do we know how many community meetings we will be having this upcoming budget cycle?

Yes.

I think last year there was like one in each district, maybe, or yes, councilman Hernandez, mayor members of the council, we did a total of 12 community budget hearings.

So we also did two um virtual hybrid hearings here in the chamber that are considered citywide.

Um we would probably be looking to do about the same amount of hearings, um, but that would be subject to the requests of the city council.

Um, and we can formulate over that next couple of months in terms of that calendar.

We do need several months of planning just logistically to make those hearings happen.

But that's a right now at least our plan is to do the same number that we did last year.

So, for example, if uh I have a specific area of the community of the district that reaches out, hey, we would like to have one we've never had one before with plenty of notice.

We could try to plan to take them a community budget hearing during the budget cycle or during the April.

Councilman Hernandez.

That's correct.

We can work with your office to identify if you wanted to have more than one specific um budget hearing just for your district.

We can absolutely work with you to accommodate that.

And Councilwoman Hernandez, that's what I was gonna add additionally.

Those are the formal prescribed meetings that we post for you know mass mass product production and and outreach.

But we also go to neighborhood meetings.

I know we go to the council vice mayor's uh breakfast sometimes and present.

I've gone to um councilwoman pastor's meetings, I've gone to District 8.

So we we will go where you want us to go.

They just may not be you know part of that big massive schedule that we do for the actual formal schedule.

Yeah, but if you have one-offs, we definitely will try to make ourselves available.

No, thank you for that.

I think that's the most important part is figuring out ways to bring in that input so that the residents feel like hey, I really do I really did have an opportunity to share uh my concerns and what I want to see in the budget in the year coming up, right?

And what is being what the city is investing in.

Um, I know there's disconnect there, and there's communities that um feel like their ideas haven't been listened to, and they've only ever been allowed the April option to to contribute or to try to provide feedback.

Um, so you spoke a little bit about why we do those in April.

So just to clarify the timing for the department to get the proposed budget is why we hold off uh until April to do the community the big community piece for the budget.

Yes, Councilwoman Hernandez, mayor members of the council, that's correct.

So what we're taking to the community in April is the proposed trial budget that's presented to the council in March.

So up until that time, we have nothing to present to the community in terms of our available resources potentially to add additional items to the budget for the the next fiscal year.

That's why traditionally we have always done those budget hearings in April.

Okay, thank you so much.

And uh this will be my second budget vote coming up next year, right?

So it'll be the first full process.

So just thank you for uh being willing to sit with the D7 office team to like help us learn and get up to speed on the entire process.

And I will say that I much prefer the city budget process to the state legislature budget process, where there's like zero opportunity for community input and even for some legislator input.

So um I just comparing both.

Uh I hats off to y'all for well, I have my own concerns with this process much better than down the street.

Um, just in the way that it's worked and the information is provided out and the opportunity for us to really get priorities in there.

So um just wanted to share that.

Thank you.

Councilwoman Hodge Washington.

Thank you, Mayor.

Uh, I also wanted to start off by expressing my gratitude to the city manager's office and our budget and research department.

Um, I think our the time after time, since I've been on council three years, each time the variance has been less than one percent.

That is impressive.

And that is no small feat.

So I wanted to say that's a job well done by our department.

I'll start off by that.

Um, I also wanted to ask real quickly if we could tell our community, because we get uh my office has gotten some questions.

If you can give us an idea, a general idea of the impact of the federal shutdown, um, how it was impacting city services.

I've tried to assure them, but maybe if they hear that from um someone who a little higher up in the food chain, they would believe me.

Mayor, members of the council, um, councilwoman Hodge Washington, that that is also a great question, and it's something that's top of mind for a lot of folks these days.

I I think we sent and shared some information with mayor and council a few weeks ago.

Basically, what we're trying to do is monitor the situation.

A lot of us are still flying blind, just like I think they are in DC.

Um, but our departments are well prepared for this.

This isn't unfortunately our first shutdown.

And so we think in the short term, and I define short term within like that four to six weeks sweet spot.

So if it lasts within that range, we think we're gonna be okay for most of our programs and services that provide grant fund that are provided by grant funding.

If it starts to extend beyond that, that's when we're gonna have to start to really look in, see whether or not we've got the resources to continue, or we have to, you know, um play around with the program a little bit to extend it and make it make it last.

Um when you look at the last few uh shutdowns, they've lasted about a you know, a month, the last the one before that I think was five days.

So they've gone, you know, between a month, month and a half, sometimes longer.

But in the short term, I think we're okay.

So I think what I would like to project to residents in this particular moment, right now, we are okay.

Right now, the city of Phoenix is still able to provide the set the same level of services that we were providing at the beginning of the fiscal year.

If we start to run into, I think later this month, early next month, that's when I think we'll be talking to you about some of those challenges and how do we continue delivering those services.

So I think we'll just keep monitoring the situation.

We'll keep you apprised of any changes that we're aware of when they happen.

Um, and and that's that's what I would say to that question.

Thank you so much for that.

Um, speaking of uh maintaining the level of service that we um that our residents have grown accustomed to.

I I think it's in it's also worth noting that although we have provided for additional funding through the comp and class and comp study, we have departments that have been able to manage the increased uh personnel costs while also maintaining um service levels.

Are there any lessons learned on how we do it so well?

I'll actually defer that question to Lori, um, put her on the spot because you know she was the former HR director and was very intimately involved in HR.

What I what I would start off with though is say that you know, class and comp didn't happen in a vacuum and it didn't happen by itself.

You guys see the value as a collective, you see the value in our in our employees.

Our employees provide an immense service to our residents, and they do that you know with a smile.

Many of our employees see our residents on their worst day, and they come back day after day and they deliver and they deliver and they deliver.

We myself included, as well as you, we get lots of accolades for the work that our employees do.

And I think that's that's something that we all have to remember.

But I'll I'll turn it over to Lori.

Thanks, Jeff.

Mayor, members of the council, councilman Hodge Washington.

What I will add to that is that um one of the things that we've learned is that we valuing our employees has resulted in lower turnover rates.

Um we have been very successful in maintaining our workforce and lowering both our vacancy and our turnover rates, actually, um, over the last couple of years, and that has been a byproduct of your leadership and um your foresight in saying we want to make sure that we are um hiring and retaining the most talented workforce available to us, and and I think that's what we are now doing, and that's allowed us to um retain folks who have not only institutional knowledge but high you know highly honed skills that we need here at the city of Phoenix.

And we of course have a variety of uh different job classifications, almost 900 job classifications represented across the city.

Um so I think one of those biggest lessons is really you know, making sure that we are communicating to our employees that they are valued and compensating them fairly for the work that they perform, um, and that is paying dividends, and we're seeing that in those um turnover and vacancy numbers.

Thank you.

I I agree, I couldn't agree more with your sentiments.

I think many times our residents say the city has done this or the city hasn't done this, and they forget that the city is actually employees, like many of them who are here today, and it's our employees that make our city function.

So I agree and I thank you for that.

Um I just want to in close, and I also want to take a moment, also that they thank you for including the housing trust fund as a priority up for the upcoming budget.

We recognize that housing and homelessness continues to be one of the top issues that we hear from our residents, and by providing hopefully we have the tools to continue to provide some additional support as we move forward.

We are seeing changes from our and impacts from our shared revenue from the state, as well as we're seeing the impacts from our federal government.

And I think having a housing trust fund will give us the opportunity to have a little bit more direct ability to control an issue that is so important to so many of our residents.

So I just want to say thank you for that.

Thank you, Mayor.

Councilwoman Pestor.

Thank you.

I like to thank uh everybody that has been part of this budget in the the beginning of this uh forecast and where we're headed.

Um of the budget challenges ahead, which I am I watch and I watch it for employees, is health insurance.

And uh one of the things that I want to be very cognizant of and um the trust committee is that uh health insurance is rising, so when that when health insurance rises, they start cutting left and right to keep the insurance down, and they start cutting or they start looking at different areas of limitation, I guess maybe I should say.

And so I out to the labor groups is to really look at the insurance to make sure we're still getting quality of insurance.

And in particular, where I really look and start to study is in the area of our public safety and making sure that uh if they have a cancer occurrence, that they're able to get uh what they need in order to um kill it and survive and and save their life along with uh police.

So I'm just doing that out for our labor groups to really look at that.

Sometimes it's their first family, and we need to be able as a city to also be able to protect them and give them uh the quality of insurance that is needed uh for them.

Um the other piece is um the homelessness piece.

I thought, and I may be wrong, or maybe we did.

I thought in um increasing a tax that we were also increasing or was going to be able to maintain our services in the homeless front.

Um, but what I am seeing and hearing is 22 million, and so I think at a certain point we are going to get to a space where we're not gonna be able to afford these homeless services, um, or we're gonna have to sacrifice something for something else, and I think that needs to be a really deep conversation with council and public to understand what we are doing.

Um I wanna say we are probably the number one city that has tried to provide as many services as possible and have a variety of different ways of doing it, but there's a certain point where we're gonna get to capacity and we are going to need help.

Um so my point is is that we I would like staff to start figuring out uh other than the general fund, how we are going to meet the 22 million, and if we're not to say we're not gonna be able to do it.

Um that's that's one point.

The other piece is that um I just happened to be right before I entered getting uh articles on uh homelessness, and the fact that we are ranking in the top 20 or top 10, and this is from the US news, that we are number 10.

And I'm curious, and I'm sure many other curious is what is attracting or what are we how are we attracting um how are we ranking it at this level and attracting the numbers that we are attracting and what can we do, or what is it?

Um, and then I read the other article uh, and I thought, okay, the numbers are wrong, but both articles seem to have the same about numbers, 14,000, and in that one, we are ranking out of the 2013.

So I think we also have to have another bigger conversation as to what is the epidemic or what is the causing our rise in this space.

Could be jobs, it could be um addiction, it could be a number of things, behavioral health, mental health.

Uh, but how do we really start working with our other partners or other municipalities to really start to identify?

Okay, you have the capability like public health, uh, the capability of putting your arms around this, and can you take this on?

We'll take this on, and can you help over here?

Um, though those are just my general conversation, I mean general thoughts.

Um as stated earlier, our employees are our backbone.

So uh we will and and have that conversation of what it looks like to maintain and keep our employees at the level that we can keep them.

Uh we are losing employees to not only different cities, but we're losing them for different states because they get paid more, and there's no way we can compete with that.

Um the question is is more of how do we compete with that?

How do we get there and how do we compete with that?

We are losing a lot of talent, and it's fast and furious right now, and I'm not sure where we'll be at what point we're gonna settle.

But those are my concerns of the budget, and to really look at that, and also um community and what their needs are is very important.

So those are just my statements.

Thank you, councilwoman.

Councilman Hernandez.

Oh no, I'm not sure.

Councilman Hernandez.

Okay.

Sorry, Mayor, I thought of another question.

Uh recently in the um, Amber, you mentioned the impacts from state legislation on our city budget.

Recently in this last session, the uh Governor Hobbes signed the bill to invest um money into upgrades and repairs to the Diamondback Stadium.

Um can you explain or share with or answer for me if that bill and the tax money over the next 30 years are we what impact are we gonna see from our tax money side um into our budget moving into next fiscal year in the context of everything else that kind of has developed now?

Mayor members of the council, uh, councilman Hernandez good question.

And you know, the mayor is actually very good at this one too, because she she worked really hard uh to bring that bill home and and get it signed ultimately.

A lot of that really is dependent upon how much revenue the diamondbacks generate in that facility.

Um and so the way the structure of the agreement is is set up, you know, they have to kill it in order to eat it.

So if they don't generate the revenue, they don't get city city money from us.

Um so what the what the state has committed to, I think is much that's a much larger number than what we've committed to.

So for us, it's really dependent on exactly what they generate.

There are estimates that are all over the place.

You know, I I did an estimate at one point in time that took the original bill and it said it could be up to 15 million dollars, depending upon you know how much money they generate, gate sales, ticket sales, merchandise, all of those things.

The mayor and her and her team and Frank McCune pushed back, and we got those numbers down drastically, almost cut in half.

I think a little less than half.

And so, you know, we estimate somewhere between I'd say five to seven million dollars a year on a good year.

Um so that's what our what we expect.

But again, they have to actually generate it.

And not only do they have to generate it, they have to be able to justify and document and show us that they've actually generated that amount of money.

And so there will be some oversight and involved in that process as well.

Okay, thank you for that.

Um it was just interesting to see that, and now with the other changes that have happened from the federal level that are going to impact our budget and their terrible season.

I was like, why are we giving them this money just to be even worse?

So, you know, I'd rather not talk about baseball right now.

Okay, fine.

Uh, but just wanted to make sure I understood if we were gonna see any immediate impact um from that bill, specifically into the Phoenix budget moving as we shift into next year.

It was bad enough, Councilwoman Hodge Washington had Dodger Blue on in her jerseys for district eight.

That was bad enough.

Well, there's two of us now.

So are you a Dodgers fan?

I am.

I am born and raised here in Phoenix.

That's my only outside team I support because my dad would play the rate the games on the radio.

Yep.

And we were Valenzuela households.

I agree.

I was raised.

Well, wait, wait, I'll tell you what I just gonna say is I was I was raised by a grandfather, uh, Dodgers, because that's what we would listen to on the radio.

So I learned to listen and look and um sit still.

Uh but then the TV came about.

The only difference is that I always went opposite of him.

So yes, I was raised in that type of household.

Yeah, I think I aged myself by saying we would listen to the games on the radio.

So I'm sorry, I got everyone off track.

It's okay.

All right, additional comments on the budgets on the budget.

All right, and we still feel the impact of residential rental and so many of the past cuts.

So tough, tough.

All right, then with that, uh, this one can be a voice vote, and again, it is on to adopt the calendar.

All those in favor of adopting the calendar, please say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed, nay?

So by uh with one opposed, the budget calendar passes.

And now we get to go to item two, which to me is the main event.

We try to be a city that is accessible for all, and and we've in many times in history led the way, but we cannot rest.

We're not done after today, but we have uh a lot of progress to report, and that would not be possible without councilwoman Deborah Stark, who has been chairing this effort.

Uh I will turn it over to her to introduce item two.

Thank you, Mayor.

I think a couple of years ago, you and I were talking a little bit about what I was doing in my house.

That was senior-proofing my house.

I am aging in place, and I want to make sure that continue to live there.

But I know as I get older, I am faced with disabilities.

Already I've lost a lot of my hearing, and thank goodness for staff.

They give me a computer so I can watch everyone speak closed caption.

So thank you, staff for that.

Um, I think uh Denish, you put it so well.

80% of the American population will experience disability, maybe not long term but short term.

And so it really is an issue that isn't just for a small percentage of American population, but it's for all of us.

And so I thank the mayor for her can uh commitment towards this.

I will let you know though, even though we have become even more committed, we've always been committed.

And councilwoman Hutch Washington and I are wearing our compassion cactus lanyards from the airport.

These signify if you're wearing one, staff will know that you may need some additional assistance, whether it's autism or hearing impaired or sight impaired.

It alerts our staff that we need to make sure we're being compassion.

So we've always tried to be forward in our thinking when it comes to accessibility, but over the last year we've really done a lot more, and I'm going to turn it over to them.

And thank you so much for listening to us about the budget, and that a lot of them are Dodger fans on this.

I'm not one of them.

Yeah, that was new news to me.

Thank you.

All right.

Mayor and council, thank you so much for this opportunity to present to you today.

I'm honored to be joined by community leaders and staff to walk through the final report and the transition plan from the strategic work group on accessibility.

Today you have uh Daryl Christensen, Michael Hammett, Denise Resnick, Judy Burroughs, Nicole Anderson, and myself, who will be going through the presentation.

And as they introduce themselves, they'll tell you a bit a little bit more about themselves and their role in this particular um group today.

Over the past year, the work group has been deeply committed to advancing Phoenix's mission on becoming the most accessible city in the world.

This goal will help members of the community, such as adorable, such as the adorable young girl shown on this slide, which happens to be Nicole's daughter as well, and others living with a disability feel more independence and inclusion in Phoenix.

Today's presentation will highlight the progress we've made, the voices we've heard, and the foundation we've laid for the future.

The strategic work group on accessibility was established in August of 2024 by City Manager Jeff Barton following Mayor Gaigo's call to action in her 2024 State of the City address.

The work group focused on three key domains physical infrastructure, digital environment, and social awareness.

The group was chaired by Councilwoman Stark, who you just heard from, and included 20 leaders throughout the community, and many of which are shown in this photograph on the slide.

Some are even here in the audience today, just right behind us.

So thank you to this group.

It was a wonderful group to really work with.

So thank you.

Our over absolutely goal was to identify opportunities to improve city services and ensure that accessibility is embedded as a core value of city operations.

And I think you're going to hear that it was throughout this presentation.

This work has been guided by the mayor's vision as a fe as of a Phoenix as a global model of accessibility.

To understand the importance of this work, we must begin with the people we serve.

As of the most recent census, it's estimated that approximately 12% of Phoenix residents, or around 200,000 are living with one or more disabilities, which are listed on the slide.

And you can see they're anywhere from hearing difficulties, vision, ambulatory, independent living, and a few others.

These numbers are not only statistics, but they represent our neighbors, our coworkers, family members, our friends, and in some cases ourselves.

When we make Phoenix more accessible for them, we make it better for everyone, including our businesses, our economy, and our entire community.

As a demonstration of our work, we have a brief video that I'll uh turn to and share the alignment with comprehensive social awareness campaign, which will be discussed later.

Phoenix is a city on the rise because of the people who call it home.

And our infrastructure ensures that every resident has the opportunity to contribute.

Accessibility isn't about doing more for some, it's about building a community that works better for all.

One way lives can change is through employment.

Work is a chance to learn and grow.

At Arizona Industries for the Blind, people are building successful careers, supporting their families, and fueling our economy.

Each person is proof that when barriers are removed, lives can change.

From a very young age.

But working here honestly taught me that there's no such thing as a ceiling.

AIB taught me self-autonomy.

I'm advanced so much.

Working is more than just putting food on the table.

We've just celebrated three team members with 30 years of work experience here.

They've been able to buy homes, put kids through school, travel, do the things that they want to do.

It all comes from having a steady income and having that security and that place to go back to.

Building spaces where people can live confidently is key to a thriving city.

Inclusive housing options create new possibilities for what it means to call Phoenix home.

First place is a supportive housing property where people choose to live here.

Our residents have autism, down syndrome, or intellectual developmental disabilities.

And so when we created first place, it was focused on health and education and training and employment.

It was designed to be a place where people would learn to live and people would live to learn.

The creation of first place took a lot longer than I thought it would.

And every step of the way, we recognized the value we were creating for this community.

At the end of the day, as Matt's mom, that's what's most important is to make sure that we have created place in the world for him and more places in the world for people like him.

Because when we get it right for people with disabilities, we'll get it right everyone.

Community is where connection happens.

Across Phoenix, people come together to learn from and support one another.

Phoenix's adaptive recreation programs offer lifelong opportunities for residents to build skills, confidence, and friendship.

Every day, people like Antoine, Eddie, and Nate take part in hands-on learning programs that combine recreation with real-world skills, from art and cooking to teamwork and communication.

For many, this space is where they discover a sense of belonging.

Nate, who has been with the program for 16 years, loves sports.

Through the city's adaptive recreation programs, he's developed his passion for sports into something more.

This year, he earned a spot on the city's Special Olympics team representing Phoenix in the upcoming Arizona Special Olympics competition.

Through these programs, Phoenix is helping build stronger communities where every resident has the chance to build a meaningful and connected life.

Across Phoenix, people are shaping their futures through employment, independence, and community connection.

When we help build a city that supports these pillars, we help build a better future for all.

Mayor members of council.

So that was uh created by um our city's communication team, and I think they did a fantastic job.

And that end slide you saw that had the uh active adjective words that really describe what we want the city to be.

You're gonna hear more about that as we go through um the presentation.

But I think they did a fantastic job on that, and I think it's going to be something that uh really resonates with the community.

Um, today uh you're gonna hear first from each of the subcommittees of physical infrastructure, digital environment, and social awareness.

They're gonna sell their sent uh talk to you about their key accomplishments and the long-term goals going forward.

Then we're gonna highlight the additional accessibility accessibility initiatives that we've already done through the city uh departments over the years.

And then finally, we'll outline the transition of this work uh to the mayor's commission on disability issues, ensuring that we keep moving and momentum keeps going beyond today.

Um, and with that I'm gonna turn over to Daryl Christensen who'll present on the Physical Infrastructure Committee.

Thank you, Inger.

Um, Mayor Gallego, members of the council.

Um, my name is Daryl Christensen, and uh I was born uh back in Minnesota.

I'm still a twins fan, so I am not a Dodgers fan.

Um with two disabilities.

So I was born without my right arm and uh totally blind in my right eye from birth.

Um certainly hasn't slowed me down at all.

Um I moved to Phoenix back in 98, so been here 27 years, proud resident.

Um recently, about a year and a half ago, I retired after a 37-year career and working with nonprofits, uh, working with people with disabilities to increase independence for everyone.

Um I am a person with a disability.

I am not defined by my birth disability, but it's a part of me.

And that's the same with uh the different variations of disabilities that was mentioned in an earlier slide.

As I say, I retired a year and a half ago, but I'm still very involved with the community and very proud member of the physical infrastructure subcommittee.

The uh first slide shows a gentleman with his uh guide dog going along the light rail uh with the truncated domes and such along the light rail line.

Um the physical infrastructure subcommittee worked on several initiatives.

Five, there's actually five key um, well, let's see, let me go to the next one here.

So the challenges that were identified by our group um looking at gaps in the building codes uh to ensure consistent citywide accessibility in both public and private developments.

Also, the need for educational uh resources and standards to uh support the implementation and enforcement uh of such codes.

The key accomplishments are fivefold.

One is the residential building code amendments.

Uh my dear friend uh councilmember Stark and I met in December of uh 23, I believe it was in a cafe and started the work, and then Mayor Gallego's uh work group started in 24.

Um this is something that I um is very important, and I'll talk about it in a bit.

Also, secondly, to address the ADA, Americans with Disabilities Act, not the American Gentle Society today, um, or the American Dairy Association.

The to address the ADA compliance gaps uh that exist in city facilities.

Third, the tactile directional indicators, or what is TDIs, save our space campaign, uh a decades old model, and then also uh fifth to promote inclusive design in public and private spaces.

So as we look at the first uh first one are the um the building codes, and this is something that I and others have worked on here in Phoenix for 25 years.

Back in the year 2000, this work started.

So I personally was absolutely thrilled when you, the council unanimously passed our updated building codes on June 18th that became effective August 1st.

This will have huge, huge impacts positively for our entire community, not only for those who have a current disability, but who may have a temporary disability, or folks who want to move to the city and can look at housing in a better way for all families.

For example, young families with strollers and walkers and so and then midlife with uh onset of a disability and then later aging in place.

This really reduces the cost of retrofitting homes for aging in place.

So no long so less and less will people have to spend thousands and thousands of dollars for home modifications, and this is mattled after successful policies in other communities.

This this types of codes that we passed have been in place in other communities for over 30 years, tried and true.

We have two jurisdictions here in Arizona that passed this 20 years ago, so I'm thrilled that we did this this summer.

Um for that again, I deeply appreciate your support in passing the residential building codes.

Secondly, the ADA building code gaps.

We the committee looked at identifying gaps between the the ADA and local building codes, and there are some.

So while the city adopts building codes for the International Building Council, um, there are some differences that still exist.

So the planning and development department is tasked with permitting and inspecting to verify compliance to the building code, which leaves some additional ADA requirements unmet.

Conversations are ongoing about adding the ADA compliance program to the review process for city-owned buildings and continue to work towards closing this gap.

We've also provided uh visual aids for private property owners as well.

The tactile directional indicators, um, these assist folks with visual impairments, and we had a great group here in the audience earlier.

Uh, some are still with us.

Um, for residents to navigate those uh integrated pedestrian areas.

It can be intersecting with uh bike paths, light rail designs, and currently currently there is a pilot project project underway at 12th Street in Moreland.

And currently, currently, there is a pilot project project underway at 12th Street in Moreland.

It's also Valley Metro is actually incorporating TDIs, tactile directional indicators in the capital extension plan.

So this is another method for folks with various types of disabilities to really move about in their community of choice in the ways that they can more independently.

The next picture shows a gentleman with a phone getting into a Waymo.

There's no water around him, so I think he's good.

Right?

Good, good.

The audience got that.

Good.

The the uh the the Save Our Space campaign, this again, as I say, is a decades-old program that's a model that educates the public about leaving accessible spaces available for those who need them.

So many times over my lifetime, I've seen someone traips into an accessible parking spot.

I point out that they don't have the proper indicators with the front tag or license plates indicating a need.

And I say, you know, excuse me, could you just move so because you're illegally parked in an accessible spot?

Well, I'm just going in for a gal and a mile, I'll be right back.

Well, you know, someone else may be coming up and needing that space.

So we're really looking to use the spaces that for folks that need it.

And so the work is led by the Phoenix Police Department's accessibility compliance enforcement program.

And that's made up of volunteers, community volunteers who are trained and equipped to educate the community and issue citations for parking accessible parking violations.

When needed, neighborhood services code enforcement division has the authorization to issue citations for these code violations, and we'll continue to work collaboratively to formalize a process for enforcing commercial accessible parking spaces.

So great work is being done for decades, and we're moving it even further.

Our fifth and final area for our physical infrastructure subcommittee is um looking at how the we looked at how private community and property accessibility involvement programs and how the city as well as other governmental agencies don't they have jurisdictional limitations to assist private property owners, such as HOAs, schools, and 55 plus communities.

So what the city is certainly committed to providing reasonable accommodations whenever possible.

Unfortunately, there are no grants available for this purpose, but educational resources for these HOA schools and 55 plus communities are provided for permitting guidance and uh direction, how they get best conserve their communities.

So another picture here in the slide is a gentleman walking uh his guide dog across uh a crosswalk, and this is looking at long-term goals and community feedback.

So our our goals, long-term goals are to improve ADA compliance in city inspections, to standardize TDIs, which have received positive community feedback and in building codes, to formalize enforcing those commercialized accessible parking spaces that should be developed, as we mentioned.

And the last point on this slide, folks, is that the community praised inclusive code changes in the rollouts.

That this uh work group has done in the last 14 months.

People are excited.

People are seeing a difference.

The word on the street is getting out there.

So I am so proud that you know, I I've talked to other members here.

We say, you know, you go to so many committees and you don't know if you're making a difference.

And say, well, there's another meeting.

But with this subcommittee and this work group that Mayor Gallego used founded, we're making a difference, and the community is seeing it.

So at that, I'd like to turn it over to my dear friend and colleague, Michael Hammett, who is the chief innovation officer with the city.

Thank you, Darrell.

And thank you, Mayor and Vice Mayor and Council members.

It's a pleasure to be here.

And for our community members who are joining us, I will introduce myself and the connection to this work.

We are celebrating four years now of the office being being launched.

So we're really excited about that.

And the whole idea of the office was to advance innovation, strategic use of data, and smart technologies across the city.

And everything we do connects with priorities of mayor council and the city manager and our community.

So this is particularly special.

It's been an honor to serve on the strategic work group on accessibility.

And I'm really excited to share the great work of the digital environment subcommittee.

And it has been impressive.

And I do want to point out the uh young lady on the screen, Brianna.

She is using digital services at the library, and we will be talking about that coming up a little later.

So at the onset of this, we uh set some challenges for ourselves, and we looked at better integration of assistive technologies into city services, the need for a cohesive, scalable digital ecosystem that serves users of all abilities, and you can see a young man uh who utilizes a wheelchair and he's being assisted onto our public transit.

The digital environment, as we all know, is fast advancing, and so the challenges we talk about, we see as opportunities, and we are really seizing those opportunities.

Some key accomplishments.

This is an image of our deputy aviation director, Matt Heil navigating Phoenix Sky Harbor.

Phoenix Sky Harbor is a leader in accessibility, and we're going to talk about one of their award-winning projects, digital projects that we are advancing at the city.

We have a language translation tool that we're excited about.

It's AI powered, and that is being advanced in our library system.

Our Smart Cities Roadmap, when I mentioned setting the course and really a foundation for all of this work, this Smart Cities Roadmap is going to be directional for what we need to do today, but where we are going and how we can get there.

And then our Innovate Phoenix Challenges, these are events that we host.

We've had five where we spend a day with community developing solutions to pressing challenges.

We're going to talk about accessibility.

And our street transportation department, you'll see digital kiosks popping up around downtown, and we have those kiosks that are really driven with ADA at the beginning and accessibility.

So excited to talk about that.

So the Innovate Phoenix Challenge event, we had our latest in May of 2025, on May 15th.

We had 150 people turn out for this.

And the basic approach was to really develop solutions around smart cities.

We focused in on public spaces and accessibility.

And this was going to inform our digital smart cities roadmap as well as potential outcomes from this that we could test and implement.

Daryl was a judge, and you'll see him in the image here with the other three judges that really spent a lot of time with five groups of people determining who had the great the greatest idea.

Daryl, we're really proud to say has served twice as a judge.

He's the only person that has.

He was on our very first in 2023.

We set the ground with accessibility, but this work group has taken it to a whole new level.

So thank you, Daryl, for being there.

And again, the winning ideas that came out of this and all of the ideas, frankly, are being explored right now.

And our next event will be in January of 2026.

And now I'd like to show you a quick video from that event.

So this is the fifth Venture Cafe City of Phoenix Hackathon.

It's an all-day hackathon where members of our community come together and they hack solutions to top city priorities.

Today we're hacking solutions to smart cities.

And we're focusing on three key areas: accessibility, public spaces, and transportation.

This is the first time we have about 60 participants coming together.

We randomly assign them teams, and they work together as teams all day to hack on the problem.

They do dry runs through their pitches, and then they pitch on stage at Venture Cafe tonight for a chance for cash prizes as well as audience choice.

Tonight, as a judge for the hackathon, I'm really looking toward seeing what the groups have outlined for accessibility for all types of disabilities in the community.

So a smart city to me really means that it's accessible for everybody.

So we looked at how can we improve the public transportation system in Phoenix?

And so what we looked at doing is essentially finding a way to collect and leverage data using AI technologies so that we can better service a wider range of people, provide better accessibility, and make buses more useful for people who live in Phoenix.

And the video you just saw shortly after that event, we had a chance to present it at a smart cities event in Finland outside of Helsinki.

And this were uh you had uh elected officials and city leadership from around the world, including uh cities in California, Texas, the Netherlands, Spain, um, and this was presented to show how what we're doing in the world of smart cities with the special focus on accessibility.

It was very well received at that event.

And I'd like to thank Devranya Dasi for putting that together and the communications team, they made that possible.

And now the uh I mentioned earlier the Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport and some of the accessibility advancements.

The uh the in 2023, the airport won a IDC North America Smart Cities Award for their accessibility.

One of the components of that was hearing loop technology.

So through this work group, we looked and thought could this be implemented here in council chambers?

Um, and so we worked with our IT department and public works to do a test recently.

It was very successful, and now we're implementing this technology into council chambers within the next month.

And what it does is it directly connects an intercom system to a hearing aid.

And you'll see on the screen there's a visual of an ear with a little bit of a T on there and what looks like a technical hash.

That's an identifier for folks that need that service.

So that will be used for marketing as well for this.

And so we're really excited to have this advance and see where it goes beyond council chambers.

And a language translation tool, it's called Isla, it's AI powered.

This was something that came to our attention through the Hive at our housing department.

The vendor was willing to meet with some of our departments and test this out and kind of see if it had implications beyond the hive.

And the response was great from departments.

And the first to jump on board was library, Aaron McFarland, and Aaron ordered 12, implemented them very quickly, and we're already hearing results from this.

What is great, they're easy to use, they can auto-detect a language, they have 220 plus languages, and they also have human translation within it to ensure what is what is input into the system has that human touch to it, aside from just technology.

And you can add specific department or specific uh industry languages well to this.

Um, according to the library, Carl Kendall, 270 sessions have taken place already.

And what the staff is saying is this gives them a tool.

Even an individual who had limited Spanish speaking ability wasn't able to get through to a community member.

Through this tool, they were able to fill out a job application and they walked out the door with it.

So what community are sharing with the staff is that they're just loving this, and it's a really human touch for a digital tool.

And our Smart Cities Roadmap and City Managers Dashboard.

The Smart Cities Roadmap again is directional and foundational.

And one thing that we recently did was um the Office of Innovation and Information Technology Services issued a survey thanks to mayor and council for sharing that.

We had more than 520 responses very quickly, and 17% of those that did respond identified accessibility as important to smart cities.

So we were really happy to see that.

And our city managers dashboard again.

Uh City Manager Barton wanted this ever evolving, and we recently did an enhancement working with the IT department to add mobility from the keyboard, increasing the size of the cards, limiting the need for scrolling, all of these best practices for accessibility, and we've added step by step instructions for navigating as well.

And digital kiosk that we mentioned.

Our street transportation department has done a terrific job in implementing these in downtown.

Six have been installed so far.

Ike is the vendor.

These again are smart digital kiosks, and this is a foundation for the future as well as today.

What is great about Ike, they led with accessibility, and they actually worked with the National Federation of the Blind at the forefront to do testing as well as implementation of the tools.

There's also accessibility for those with low hearing or hearing impairment, mobility issues.

It's all in there, and they're willing to meet with this work group and street transportation.

We did a deep dive into the system, and we're able to identify some common languages spoken in Phoenix that were not included, and they quickly implemented those to the system.

And that was with help from our EOD department as well.

So really we looked at long-term and foundational practices, but also immediate action.

So you'll see that from this uh subcommittee in terms of what has been accomplished to date.

Uh, in this picture, you'll see Nicole Anderson.

She's chair of the mayor's commission on disability, and this is her lovely daughter Alexandra, and they are working with some digital tools here.

This is really just the beginning.

This is now as as uh assistant city manager Inger Ericsson said, it's core values now in our efforts related to smart cities.

This is only enhanced that and accelerated that.

And I'm very pleased to pass this on to uh longtime colleague Denise Resnick.

Thank you.

It's a pleasure to be here.

I am a native Phoenician, and I love this city, and it's because of all of you.

Some of you before you were even in this elected office, but many of you since, who have taken my calls, who have responded to texts and emails, and who have said yes, and you are the reason, and this community is the reason that we are known as the most autism friendly city in the world.

And as the mother of a 34-year-old son with autism, who was told when he was two to love, accept, and plan to institutionalize him.

You have shown us it is possible to make a better way and a better life.

So thank you for making me love the city and making others a city that is good for children, youth, and families of all ages.

And I am proud to represent our subcommittee on social awareness, where accessibility plays in Phoenix.

And this is a subcommittee that has been focused on raising the awareness and our commitment to accessibility.

And we sought to collaborate with the public to create a plan that reflects our community's needs and aspirations through public engagement, marketing, and communication.

And on this slide, you see the photo of a father and son playing at the fully accessible playground at Encanto Park, one of my favorite spots to hold my birthday parties as a child.

Second, the city lacked a central resource hub to reinforce the Phoenix's role as a national leader in accessibility.

Many resources existed, but too often they were siloed or disjointed.

In addressing those challenges, the subcommittee had several accomplishments.

We raised visibility of accessibility initiatives.

We engaged the community through powerful storytelling through a multimedia, multi-platform campaign, and we measure public sentiment by leveraging the city's ongoing community survey through Zen City, a community engagement software.

This is the fun stuff.

The video played at the beginning of this presentation was an example of the storytelling work that is part of this campaign, and the photos incorporated throughout the presentation are all part of the campaign.

The campaign positions Phoenix as a global leader in disability inclusion, and the campaign was executed entirely by the city's remarkable, remarkably talented people who are part of the communications office with no additional budget or resources allocated.

Staff worked with the subcommittee to strategically select the photos and video shoots, source models for the talent, and picture both city services and nonprofit partners to demonstrate how Phoenix across the board has something for everyone.

At this time, I'm thrilled to acknowledge the models who volunteered their time and likeness for the campaign and who are here today.

Please stand or wave if if you are here so we can recognize you.

Thank you.

Pictured on this slide are three photos from the campaign.

First, a gentleman George using accessible public transit.

Dial the ride helps George be independent because his vision doesn't allow him to drive.

Second, we see the beautiful Nicole and her daughter Alexandra again at the fully accessible playground at Icanto Park.

And last, Brianna, who has low vision at Burton Bar Library, reading a book in large font form.

The communications office secured placements for the campaign throughout all owned platforms and mediums to reach as large of an audience as possible.

This included social media, newsletters, at digital kiosks, billboards, and more.

Here are a few examples of the campaign in action.

The campaign showcases accessibility in a variety of forms, each with a different positive action verb.

In this example, accessibility inspires in Phoenix.

The campaign was created in English and Spanish, noted on the screen side by side.

Pictured here is Brianna again at Burton Bar in the large type font section reading a book based on her expression.

She appears to be inspired by that book.

The communications office also secured placement for the campaign at the Legends Digital Billboard alongside Chase Field, pictured here.

The communications office this one says accessibility thrives in Phoenix and pictures of father pushing his son in the inclusive swing set and in Canto Park.

All of the graphics and posts direct to Phoenix.gov slash accessibility accessible Phoenix, our new digital resource hub.

This was one of our goals as a subcommittee to break down silos and create one centralized resource on Phoenix.gov to include both city and community programs and resources.

The digital hub promotes transparency and access to services for those in need, and with your support and outreach, it will continue to grow and expand.

This slide will show two clips of how the digital resource hub looks on desktop and mobile devices.

It was designed with accessibility in mind and on the new Phoenix.gov, which is better than ever.

It is also mobile-friendly.

Let's see, I think I was going to show the second video.

I'm sorry if I messed up on that.

One more time.

Does that work?

Okay.

Thanks.

The city utilizes Zen City, a community engagement software to measure resident satisfaction through an ongoing survey.

This is an opportunity to change a few questions in the survey each quarter to ask residents about timely topics.

The subcommittee leveraged that opportunity to gather public sentiment towards the city's policies and procedures for people with disabilities in the second quarter of 2025.

More than 1,100 people replied to the survey, which is representative of census data.

The survey revealed several priorities noted on the screen.

Ranked at the top was bus stop and light rail access.

Next, accessible amenities at city facilities.

Third, pedestrian pathways, sidewalks, and curb ramps.

Fourth, street and crosswalk signals, and fifth, additional concerns, including phone, website, meetings, and print access.

Moving forward, the subcommittee has a few long-term goals.

Pictured on this slide is a woman sitting with her feet in a pool as she is throwing a beach ball up in the air, and she is a first place Phoenix resident.

The subcommittee recommends that we continue to leverage Zen City to conduct a more targeted survey rather than a survey to the general public as part of our ongoing outreach and engagement.

We recommend a targeted survey to people who have experience with disabilities or those who work in or are educated in that space.

With that data and feedback, we anticipate campaign refinements.

We'd also like to continue partnerships to amplify our leadership in this space.

And finally, and oh so importantly, we love your support to identify awareness and promotional opportunities throughout the city and in each of your districts.

We're eager to hear from you and those you serve so we may amplify our work and benefit the people who also live, learn, and love their city of Phoenix.

And as part of our teamwork, it's my pleasure to pass the mic to Interim Equity Equal Opportunity Director Judy Barros.

Thank you, Denise, for the introduction.

It's a great honor to serve as the Phoenix Equal Opportunity Director.

I work with amazing staff at EOD that support the three commissions, including the Mayor's Commission on Disability Issue, and support citywide ADA public programs.

And thank you, Mayor and members of council for the opportunity to present on to present on the efforts made across various city departments to enhance services through our accessibility initiatives.

In this picture, we see a resident from first place using larger, easier pedestrian crosswalk button.

A sample of department initiatives that will be shared today include parks and recreation, Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport, public transit, equal opportunity, public works, and community and economic development.

In this picture, we see two adult residents and a child walking along the path at Encanto Park Playground.

In the Parks and Recreation Department in District One, Telephone Pioneer Park was the first barrier-free park in the nation.

In partnership with Ability 360, the park offers safe, inclusive, and accessible adult and youth sports classes and programs, aquatics programs, golf, outdoor nature programs, and many other adaptive recreation classes.

In District 4, working with Kwanis Club to assist with funding, Encanto Park was the first fully accessible playground and pathway to modern ADA standards.

In this picture, we see our MCDI chair Nicole with her daughter at the Encanto Playground.

And in District 6, Pop Go Park installed a fully accessible fishing dock with accessible parking and pathway, and has been recognized as the best wheelchair-friendly trail by all trails, a popular national trail site.

In District 2, Lone Mountain Park, a new build will include accessible restrooms, walkways, parking lots, courts, and playground.

And in District 5, Mariposa Park and El Oso Park will both have accessible splash pads.

And most recently, in District 7, as we see pictured in this slide, New Levine Heritage Park has accessible walkways, parking lot, courts, and playground.

In District 8, Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport has worked for years to provide an accessible and empowering travel experience for all passengers.

Most recently, the aviation department introduced a first in the nation workshop for travelers with dementia dementia and their companions.

This award-winning workshop, which is now offered twice a year in person and virtually highlights the many resources available from the city and our community and federal agency partners to make traveling a positive one for people living with dementia.

The Compassion Corner, pictured in this slide, is staffed and used daily for accessibility assistance.

Programs such as the Compassion Cacti Lanyard Program is a new program that Councilwoman Stark spoke about earlier that aims to provide extra-friendly and patient hand to those customers who want to self-identify as needing additional assistance when traveling through the A the airport.

A green lanyard with little Seguroos is pictured in this slide and is being warned by Councilwoman Stark and Councilwoman Keisha Hodge, Washington.

Airport employees know that when a customer wears the lanyard, they may need extra assistance or time at check-in counters, security, or other areas.

Also located at the compassion corner is a sensory room that offers a dementia friendly, quiet setting, and it also provides support to children or adults that may need a respite from the sensory overload from an airport environment.

Public transit provides several services focused on accessibility and has made significant interstate investments to enhance access to transit options as well.

Phoenix Dialride is a shared ride service that allows ADA certified residents to schedule trips around the city.

Seniors and those certified under the ADA can access dial a ride shared ride service daily from 4 a.m.

to midnight, and reservations can be made by phone or online.

In this picture, we see a dial a ride user being assisted on the wheelchair lift.

Ride choice provides seniors and those certified under the ADA access to subsidized personal transportation providers such as ride share, taxi cabs, and other wheelchair accessible vehicles.

Services are available 24 hours a day every day of the year.

A major transit infrastructure investment was the development of the 50th Street light rail station.

The station provides access to the Ability 360 facility and neighboring business community and supports transit-oriented communities.

While all Vale Metro light rail stations are ADA accessible with features such as level boarding and lowered vending machines, the 50th Street station features an enhanced pedestrian detection crosswalk signal, wider platforms, and gently sloped entries.

Since it began service in April 2019, the 50th Street Washington Light Rail Station has had over 600,000 boardings, and during fiscal year 24-25, nearly 8,500 boardings occur every month.

In the Equal Opportunity and Public Works Departments, the city has been conducting self-assessments of existing facilities, programs, and services available to the public to ensure they're accessible to all individuals in accordance with the ADA.

Our next steps include developing a comprehensive ADA transition plan to identify barriers and achieve compliance.

In this picture, we see the city's very own deputy aviation director, Matthew Heil, who is cerebral palsy and uses a wheelchair.

He's entering the Phoenix Sky Harbor Phoenix Sky Train Phoenix or 24th Street station.

Additionally, the city is working toward obtaining the certified autistic center designation through the International Board of Credentialing and Continuing Education Standards.

This training was launched in May 2025, and citywide, 2200 employees have already completed the required coursework.

The city will achieve certification when 80% of public-facing employees complete the required coursework and will maintain certification when employees complete the refresher training every two years.

The MCU is a fully accessible 38-foot RV, providing a wheelchair ramp, an adjustable desk, and computers with accessibility tools.

This groundbreaking initiative was developed by the City of Phoenix as part of Bloomberg Philanthropacy Global Mayors Challenge.

Chosen as only one of 15 cities to receive one million dollar grant, Phoenix is leading the charge in the future of workforce services.

And as of June 2025, 477 contingent employment offers have already been made through the MCU.

And in this picture, we see the MCU RV.

And next, I'd like to introduce Nicole Anderson, who is the chair of the mayor's commission on disability issues.

Thank you, Director Burroughs, for the introduction.

Good afternoon, Mayor, Vice Mayor, and Council members for the opportunity to speak today.

I have a few couple slides to talk to you about the future of this important work.

But first, before I share my update, it would be a miss if I didn't give a little background about Alexandra, who you saw a few times during this presentation.

She's a 10-year-old living with Pitt Hopkins syndrome, a rare genetic condition that stole her voice and prevents her from walking.

While she can make small steps to our mom and dad, which we're so grateful for, she is wheelchair bound.

She's only one of 10 Arizonans living with this condition.

So I'm so grateful to be able to share her story and what need she needs to have to live as an equal community member in the city that she calls home.

Phoenix.

So with that, we're going to highlight now this important work and how it will not die.

It will continue to live on through the very important mayor's commission on disability issues.

I've had the pleasure of chairing this group for the past four years and serving as a committee member for the past eight.

It's been a privilege to serve in this capacity, as well as being invited to serve in this subgroup on for the past 14 months.

So the work doesn't stop.

We'll ensure that any tasks that are left to still be completed will continue to gather momentum only this time with the commissioners of the MCDI.

This will allow the important work to continue to grow and to continue to create meaningful impact.

A key focus moving forward is strengthening interdepartmental collaboration, bringing together expertise areas and resources across the city, as well as among key residences and partners to better serve our disability community.

It truly will take a village to continue this work.

Our commitment is to maintain Phoenix's position as a national leader in accessibility innovation and setting the standard for inclusive practices and creating a city where all residents and visitors can thrive.

In short, the MCDI stands ready to continue this great work and remains dedicated to support Mayor Gallego's mission of making Phoenix the most accessible and inclusive city in the nation.

Together we can accomplish so much as evident in today's incredible presentation with my colleagues.

This truly is more than just policy work.

It's about creating a city where every person, regardless of ability, has the opportunity to thrive.

And for myself and so many of us that serve our city, that mission is deeply personal.

Speaking of those that serve our city, we're so excited to soon recognize eight incredible individuals, businesses, and organizations that are working so hard to uh recognize those living with a disability.

Upcoming in just a few short weeks on October 23rd, 2025, from four to six is the MCDI's Disability Awareness and Recognition Event, or D A R E Dare for Short.

It'll take place just up the street at Burton Bar Central Library.

Everyone's invited.

However, I have heard we've reached capacity for the first time.

So I am so grateful for that.

Next time, bigger venue.

Here we'll recognize outstanding achievements by uh outstanding architecture, nonprofit, business, community service, outstanding educator, and also will be um awarding two Detective Walter Olsen Lifetime Achievement Awards.

Now I can't say who the winners are yet, but there's a couple people in the room that will be honored on that day.

So you heard it from me first.

Congratulations and thank you for your service.

And we are so excited to recognize you.

Also, I think it's very fitting to mention that last year's architectural ward went to the City of Phoenix's Parks and Rec Department Natural Resources Division.

They renovated the Gila Valley Lookout in South Mountain Park and Preserved.

They transformed the site to now include an ADA compliance circumference pathway, two ADA parking spaces, multiple ADA viewpoints, and two ADA shade structures, welcoming all visitors, including those who are wheelchair bound or mobility challenged, all to enjoy the beauty of South Mountain while taking in the breathtaking views of the surrounding communities and mountain ranges.

It's places like this that offer place for both my daughters, Alexandra and her five-year-old sister Austin, to enjoy their community together.

That truly is everything for our family.

In closing, I would like to say that I'm deeply grateful.

And as a Phoenix native and a fifth generation Arizonan, I routinely speak out about our city and how inclusive we are and how welcoming.

And you know, it's probably due to this crazy residential housing boom, right?

Everyone wants to come here.

But I do know those with a disability see it as a place of refuge and a place that they're welcomed.

And I so look forward to working with the MCDI, other commissioners to make sure that along with our fellow council members that we ensure that Phoenix is a diverse, inclusive, and accessible community for all.

And now back to Ingrid Erickson, Assistant City Manager to close us out.

Mayor, members of council, that concludes our presentation.

And again, um, it was my great pleasure to work with this entire group.

Um, we had a fantastic group, and uh for me, um, one of my final uh things to accomplish here in the city of Phoenix, and I'm glad I got to do it then.

Well, thank you all for the incredible work, the presentation and continuing to move the city forward.

Councilwoman Stark, thank you for spearheading this.

We would not be here today without your dedication to Inger.

What a fabulous last presentation.

You've worked to make this a city for all of our residents, and this is yet another great exclamation mark on an impressive career.

Today, this at its core is about people.

Do we want to be a city where everyone gets the chance to fully participate?

We want to put accessibility at the heart of how we grow as a city.

And that work, this work group, you guys have done just that.

You've brought together departments, community, and change Phoenix's future for the better.

I want to acknowledge Denise Resnick is our sitting global citizen of the year at the City of Phoenix, which we award to a resident or group who has helped make us globally known for really positive areas.

And in Denise's case, that recognition was for the work she has done to make us globally known for being an accessible city.

So thank you for helping us spread the word about good things happening in the city of Phoenix, but more importantly for doing the good things.

I want to thank the chair of the mayor's commission on disability issues, Nicole, for serving as a bridge between this work group and that commission.

And I also want to recognize the members of the Mayor's Commission on Disability Issues who are here with us today.

Thank you for your service.

Your leadership and advocacy makes us a better city.

Accessibility is an ongoing commitment, and I'm thrilled that many of our work group members plan to continue their service as commissioners on the MCDI.

Their appointments will come before this body at the second council meeting in October.

We are incredibly fortunate to have a community that answers the call to serve time and time again.

I want to thank members of my team, particularly Sandy and Tony, for your leadership and support of this group.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, you know, I came about this because I got the privilege of aging.

I'm the big 7-0, and now I recognize that I need to be more aware of accessibility.

But I know a lot of you have loved ones that have issues, or I am not going to call them issues.

They're special.

And you guys really reflect that.

And I gotta tell you, I'm really proud to be a part of this committee.

You guys are wonderful.

And Inger, thank you so much.

You know, I've enjoyed working with you over the years.

I'm gonna cry, but this really is very important to me.

So thank all of you for what you've done.

Vice Mayor, thank you.

Uh congratulations, Councilwoman Stark, and to the committee of so thankful to have such wonderfully committed and passionate folks in in our city.

We couldn't be more fortunate to have you all.

I recently got to tour first place.

Um the homes and uh things that you're providing, the activities, the all of the creatures, uh comfort creatures we like to have in our communities are in your community.

And so it is so incredibly special.

Um so thank you for for sharing that with us and look forward to being able to partner to find other places in our city uh to have a place like first place there.

Um, but couldn't be more proud of councilwoman Stark and all of you, and and thank you, Inger.

Um, you know, it's been said before, but I'll say it one more time.

Congratulations on an incredible career with the city of Phoenix and what an incredible project to get to finish on what a what a very high note.

So thank you for your work, and I hope you enjoy retirement as much as you have given to the city.

So thank you, Mayor.

Thank you.

Councilwoman Hunch Washington.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um I feel I I also want to extend my gratitude.

Uh, someone who has not had the ability to deal with uh disability, I take so much for granted.

And this presentation was so insightful.

It shows the thoughtfulness that went into it.

It shows the deliberateness, the shows the intentionality, and I could see how it's going to make a tremendous different difference for the residents of Phoenix.

So I too want to extend my gratitude to each and every one of you for serving for you bringing your passion, your tenacity and your knowledge to the table to help make in city of the city of Phoenix one where everyone can fully navigate and participate in a main info manner.

I also want to commend Deb Councilwoman Starks for her work with this.

Thank you as well, Inger.

This is a phenomenal way to be uh ending your career here at the City of Phoenix, the last in legacy that this will lead.

Um, I want to thank also Nicole, Michael, everyone, I don't want to miss any names, but you all played such an integral part in this, and um I guess sometimes sometimes able in able body individuals take a lot of things for granted.

And I wanted to, I just wanted to point out that, and I want to also thank the mayor for bringing this um issue to our attention and ensuring that we work towards this.

We truly, to me, this is what inclusion looks like.

We include all members of our resident uh residents into the actual function and operation of our city.

So I just want to say thank you, job well done.

Thank you for everything that you have done.

Councilman Hernandez.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, yeah, echo all the thanks to all of you as Atia of a young man with Down syndrome, just seeing all the investments and the resources that we are putting into our our uh our communities is just very um enriching because you know he he won't be able to live on his own because but knowing that some a place like first what is the first place um exists.

What I'm looking forward to hopefully touring that soon.

Um, but just you know, I echo the the sentiments of my colleagues.

Like it's amazing to be a leader on the global scale or in the global stage on something like this.

Um it's shows that we are a welcoming city, that we are trying to find a place for everyone and making sure that everyone has the resources they need to thrive in the community.

Um so thank you, Mayor, for this being one of the the visions that you want to see for Phoenix.

Um, I think it's just so beneficial to all of us.

Um, and I share the thoughts of Councilwoman Hodge Washington as able body individuals.

Sometimes we don't think of all the things, so it's just really good to have all your partnerships and advocacy um to make sure that we are we are truly building the Phoenix that we want our citizens to thrive in.

So um just want to really extend the thanks um on that.

I do have a couple questions just because I'm getting familiar with this program or just with this project.

Um, I did hear, and it's very encouraged by some of the goals that we have, and it's really good to hear that we um don't plan to stop on any of those goals and actually go further.

So that's really really amazing to hear.

And I know that in a couple of the sections there was um identified how we're gonna uh identify those goals, but Inger, I don't know if you're able to provide exactly a little bit more on how we're going to um just identify future goals that maybe haven't been identified or just overall.

Sure.

Mayor, members of council, councilwoman Hernandez.

Um I I do believe that's why we are transitioning it over to the commission.

They will take what we've uh done and also some of the goals that we didn't accomplish but are there for the future, and they'll take them and work with the city um staff to make sure that we don't stop, we continue on and then take more, right?

And and as we can take off more bites, we just had a year to do the things that we did, and I think we accomplished quite a lot.

Uh, but they'll continue with the list we already have and expand it going further, um, working in partnership with Equal Opportunity and the various departments that um have those assets.

Awesome.

Uh, can you give me a list of the of all the current um the list of current projects or uh things that have been identified that we want to work on?

Yes, we'll get a uh list to everybody.

We had a working list of what we accomplished and what we wanted to have for future goals, so we'll get that to everybody.

Awesome, thank you so much.

Um, and then yeah, and if that could include like what areas of the city we're looking for, that um that would be great information as well.

All right, thank you so much.

Councilwoman Pastor.

Thank you.

Um thank you, uh Inger.

This is a good one to end on.

And uh and to and a smart one.

And and to complete it all the way.

Uh I'm sure you're fast and furious at this.

Uh looking at the timeline to to get here.

Uh so congratulations, Inger.

Um it's one, it's a great one.

Accessibility has always somehow, and the work that I've done has always been part of my work.

Starting from Phoenix Union.

I learned about hearing loop technology through Senator Leela Alston.

Alston.

Because she was at our meetings and she was struggling because of her hearing aid and it wasn't connecting.

And so we were able to do that at the Phoenix Union Boardroom, but what she was able to do was do it in the in the in both houses in the chambers.

So it's exciting to hear that we have it active and we have now implemented within the city.

And I am an advocate of really trying to push for more of that because we need more of that throughout the city.

And particularly 7th Street and Thomas, where Savvy is.

Wonderful.

Thank you.

We do have Judith Clark here with us to provide testimony on the item.

Good afternoon.

I want to thank all of you for the work you've done with the accessibility.

I personally appreciate so much of the resources that we have here in Phoenix because I know a lot of people throughout the country who don't have any of the things that we have here.

My name is Judith Clark, and I am the Secretary for the National Federation of the Blind Senior Division of Arizona and a board member for the Foundation of Blind Veterans.

I wish to address me.

I wish to address the ride choice program for Phoenix, a curb-to-curb on-demand transportation service for people with disabilities and seniors.

This program was supposedly expanded from ADA qualified people to include all seniors on July 1st, 2025.

And as a low vision senior, I have been trying to get access to it since May of 2025.

I have been told there are insufficient funds for this program.

And so everyone is put on a waiting list.

This is simply not true.

Dial a ride requires the ride to be scheduled a minimum of a day in advance, and you can only go to the address originally requested and at the times requested.

Doctor appointments are not easily planned.

Sometimes an appointment might take 20 minutes, and another time the appointment might take two hours.

Also, events might arise that would require a ride that same day, such as a doctor needing testing done at different locations following the appointment.

Another example is today.

Now I have to run out and try to catch my ride before it leaves.

And thank you for taking accessibility into consideration for these projects because they are greatly appreciated and greatly needed.

Thank you.

Thank you so much for that important testimony.

Daryl, you are also registered to speak as a member of the public.

We don't always do that if someone's a panelist, but we we're I wasn't sure if I needed to or not.

So I'm I'm I'm good.

Wonderful.

Well, um thank you for the important testimony and thank you all for this.

And I'll close on on one final positive note.

The first feature-length film filmed in the city of Phoenix with our tax credit after the state passed the tax credit was unstoppable.

The story of Anthony Robles, the wrestler at ASU who overcame so many challenges, including being born without one leg to be a national champion.

So on that note, we will adjourn the ninja and the parks are designed by our community.

So thank you again to the folks who came to meetings, talked about what we need, and um most importantly, thank you to the people who will enjoy.