I have a very amazing mother.

My father has struggled with substance use my entire life.

And I almost ran away.

I almost ran away into a park, just like a lot of my patients do.

But luckily, I had a good parent figure.

I had a good great siblings.

And I just thank them for that.

And now I'm trying to provide that same service to the same patients that I see every day.

When I was practicing medicine in Oregon, my nephew had an accident.

I had to go to the hospital immediately, and I forgot my insulin syringe.

So I went to a pharmacy, and one of the pharmacists tell me.

No, you don't have your diabetes box with you.

I'm not giving you a syringe.

My patients struggle with this every single day.

Safe syringe programs allow them to get the access that they need to not go into the hospital.

And a nurse against policy gave me a syringe when I was at the hospital with my nephew to get my blood sugar down.

So we're gonna have more patients with more medical problems if things like this allow to go forward.

So thank you so much.

Clayton is next, followed by Dr.

Fower.

Hello, council members.

Uh I my name is Clay Nizel.

I'm an EMT.

I work in Phoenix in the greater Phoenix area.

Um I just want to talk about why I oppose this measure.

Um, first of all, just sort of uh uh small note is that EMTs and paramedics really don't do any of this harm reduction stuff.

We're not handing out needles, we're not handing out harm reduction kits.

So when you take this stuff away and you tell us that there's an exception for us, it just doesn't do anything.

You're just saying, you're just putting a stopgap that's not there, right?

Um, emergency workers provide emergency medical care in emergency situations, and we are seeing more and more people that are just treating emergency care as their their like one solution for medical care.

And we're seeing costs go up, and we're seeing worse health outcomes because people are not seeking care as soon.

And the people who work in like needle uh needle replacement and and uh the and our uh sorry uh and harm reduction events are are the ones who are providing that care, which bridges that gap.

Um we know that there are tons of of positive uh there are tons of positive uh there are a lot of positive outcomes that come from these programs, uh a reduction in the spread of bloodborne illnesses, decreased overdose deaths, and even in some cases, finding rehab and detox uh resources for the people that need them.

So when we take these away, we're expecting to have more addicts out on the street.

And finally, I know that kind of one of the big the big questions about this is talking about medical waste and talking about the debris that gets left behind, but it's important to realize that the debris that gets left behind is just a natural outcome of people needing medical care, and by making it illegal for people to go in and help these people and find ways to dispose of these things, you're not reducing that debris or that waste.

You're just making it harder for the people who actually want to make a difference for that.

Thank you.

Dr.

Fower is next, followed by Scott.

Good afternoon, Mayor and Council.

My name is Robert Fower.

I'm a physician and assistant professor of family and community medicine at the University of Arizona and Clayton Medical Schools.

I've practiced medicine in Phoenix for over 40 years.

I'm here to oppose the currently written proposal to ban medical care in city parks.

I urge you to reconsider this proposal and coordinate with other city, county, and state public health partners to protect the most vulnerable residents.

Please consider designated areas and parks where medical care may be administered.

For many people experiencing homelessness, parks are the only places where medical assessment, hydration, and heat-related care can occur.

Prohibiting medical care in these cities, settings increases preventable risk of harm and death, especially during extreme heat.

Existing services are not yet able to address the immense needs of the unsheltered individuals, as demonstrated by Phoenix's heat data.

Phoenix has the highest rate of heat-related deaths in the country.

The homeless account for 50% of the heat-related deaths.

They make up 30% of the burden unit patients and 20% of burden unit deaths.

These outcomes are predictable, preventable when care is available.

Conditions such as dehydration, heat exhaustion, burns and wounds are treatable on site.

This prevents overloading and already burdened emergency response and health care system.

The Maricopa County Office of Preparedness and Response and the Arizona Heat Officer expect communities to provide heat relief and medical care during extreme heat.

Providers such as Circle the City.

And um I understand there are many people with medical degrees.

If they if you file, if you signed up with a medical degree, I am calling doctor, and I apologize for those who have a degree which we have not honored.

Councilman Pestor had a question.

I have a question about heat relief.

Throughout pretty much maybe March, maybe April, April through September.

And I believe, and I don't know if you we have several partners that help us in the heat relief.

Are you one of our partners?

So the partners in heat relief are in the heat centers.

We used to be a partner when the city of Phoenix would give heat relief supplies to be distributed on the streets, but they aren't anymore.

The current strategy is to get people off the streets and into heat relief centers, but that doesn't happen for everybody.

Right?

And heat relief is a form of harm reduction.

It's just about heat relief is because I've got other people talking about other parts of harm reduction.

All right, but that's something that we all agree that Phoenix needs, and you have strategies to prevent these deaths, but providing the deaths in uh the medical care in the park should be part of that strategy.

Okay.

Thank you.

Scott will be followed by Julie.

Thank you.

Uh thank you, Mayor Gallego, and members of the city council.

My name is Scott Greenwood.

I'm in here in opposition to this item.

I also serve as the CEO of Sonora and Prevention Works, Arizona's largest and most impactful organization that works in this space, providing life-saving information and resources with people who use drugs.

Our work is directly responsible for tens of thousands of opioid overdose reversals.

Every year that work saves somewhere between 2700 and 3,000 Arizonans.

That would not be possible without a harm reduction approach.

I'm also a constitutional lawyer with particular expertise on both the First Amendment and police oversight and accountability.

This draft's ordinance lives right at the intersection of these areas.

First, the legal issues and then the real world implications of a yes vote.

First, the draft regulates speech and expressive activities in public parks, a public forum.

It does so by unconstitutionally banning certain activity on the basis of the identity or the viewpoint of the speaker and the content of the speech.

Both are unconstitutional.

This is not even a close question.

The draft would ban only certain activity that it's otherwise legal under the federal and state constitutions, as well as the relevant enabling uh state statute.

It's exactly like an ordinance that would ban speech if it's done by Republicans, but permit it if it's by Democrats.

This ordinance would say I can distribute naloxone with my outreach and navigation team.

I can talk to people about wound care.

Um, I can talk to them about a bandage, but I can't give them a bandage.

Um, that's not even rational.

Um, these distinctions don't pass the traditional tests.

Um, I will let uh colleagues from other harm reduction orgs and others in the community speak to the uh health impacts, but this ordinance is unfounded, it is unnecessary.

Uh, we were not consulted, um, and we urge the council to either table it or uh vote it down.

Thank you.

My name is Julie Gunnegal.

I'm an attorney and I work at the intersection of drug policy reform, reproductive justice, and housing.

I'm here in opposition to this agenda item.

I would invite those who are elected, and as importantly, those in the gallery for whom you work to look to the left and look to the right.

So go ahead and do it because in so doing, the odds are that you are looking into the face of someone whose own life or whose family's lives have been impacted by addiction or overdose, because in the United States, that's one in three of us.

I want to know if this council has grappled with the fact that in passing this ordinance, loved Phoenicians will die.

And that is true because harm reduction works.

Harm reduction saves money.

It prevents lifelong infections like HEP B and HIV.

It removes the costs from public health.

It is a gateway to treatment by meeting people where they're at in a way that is non-judgmental and supportive.

It prevents overdose, it saves lives.

And most importantly, I guess in this discussion, it actually reduces public consumption of drugs and reduces the biohazard waste in public.

Every major study that has examined harm reduction has shown that it works.

And my question to this council is why is it that you know better?

Uh, what studies have you consulted to show that this is going to save lives?

What medical professionals have you examined how much it's going to cost to lock up these folks?

I see I'm running low on time, but I was raised on a steady diet of Mr.

Rogers growing up, and one of the things that he says is that when you confront these tough issues, you need to look for the helpers.

So my question to you is what evidence exists to look for the helpers to investigate them and to lock them up and criminalize the public health professionals that are on the front lines in Phoenix right now.

Megan Kepler is next, followed by Laura Lightfoot.

And then Rebecca Lutz and then Arlene Mahoney.

Thank you, Mayor and Council members for allowing me to speak today.

This ordinance is in direct opposition to the work that we do with the city and state public health departments to reduce heat deaths, prevent public health issues, and encourage the use of services without the ability to educate, treat, and serve people in city parks.

We have limited ability to reach people in many parts of the city.

This proposed ordinance will have many legal, financial, and public health costs for the city and its residents.

Criminalizing service providers, professionals, and volunteers who are reaching people around Phoenix is counterproductive.

There has been no evidence presented by the city of how frontline public health efforts are making parks more dangerous.

There are already laws established to prevent criminal activity in parks.

Our heat relief and harm reduction work in partnership with the city has prevented countless emergency calls, reduced emergency room visits, and connected people to medical care, rehab, and shelter services.

We designed pamphlets this year with the city to distribute along with heat relief supplies to reduce and repair prevent the effects of heat and substance use.

In these engagements, we successfully treated heat emergencies, educated and informed people on the city's heat relief program, and got them to safer locations out of the parks.

They had no other way of knowing what those services were without our interactions.

Finally, the language of this ordinance is exceptionally broad and will have consequences.

Any supplies that save the life or protect the health of the person or the community from the consequences of drug use?

Is this ordinance saying you in fact want us to not protect the community from the consequences of drug use by providing safe syringe disposal?

Heat relief supplies and wound care.

Is this really about public safety?

Is the distribution of electrolytes and bandages making the public safe?

Please vote no.

Hello, everybody, and now good evening since we've all been here since 1 p.m.

Um my name is Laura Lightfoot, and I'm here to uh reject this or ask that you reject this bill.

Um I'm a criminology and public health researcher and university instructor.

I focus on overdose prevention, harm reduction, and community safety.

I work closely with community-based harm reduction organizations such as Sonorin, which you've already heard from, and I engage in outreach work that this ordinance would restrict.

Most importantly, though, I'm here as someone who loves people who use drugs.

I want to acknowledge the revisions made to this ordinance, including the change from medical care to medical treatment and the clarification that information sharing and referrals are excluded.

While these changes may sound reassuring, the revised ordinance is still deeply concerning, and I'm here to oppose it.

As written, this ordinance still makes it a crime in city parks to organize or conduct the distribution of syringe or harm reduction kits.

Even though these activities are explicitly authorized under Arizona's syringe service statute, the fact that naloxone distribution is exempt does not solve this problem.

Harm reduction is not just one item, it's a system of care.

Even with these listed expectations, this ordinance still gives police a basis to stop, question, and investigate people engaged in harm reduction work, such as myself.

Umforcement will hinge on whether someone is deemed exempt rather than whether they are preventing harm.

That uncertainty invites discretionary enforcement, harassment, and ultimately disencourages life-saving work.

The ordinance also continues to exclude community members who are not formally recognized or acting in an emergency.

Harm reduction has always depended on mutual aid and community response, not just credentials or titles.

The ordinance runs counter to what decades of research tells us.

I ask you to please reject this ordinance.

Every research we know would reject this.

As a researcher, I ask you to reject this bill.

Please for the safety of Phoenix.

Rebecca, followed by Arlene, followed by Jennifer Longdoncelle.

Good afternoon, Mayor and Council members.

My name is Becky Lutz, and I am a member of the Fast Track Cities.

I am the subcommittee chair for your know your status eliminate stigma subcommittee.

Um and we weren't even told about this.

Nobody was.

I also work at Spectrum Medical Care.

I run the outreach program.

Um this proposed ordinance would have serious unintended consequences for some of the most vulnerable residents in our city.

For many people who are uninsured or underinsured, community health fairs mobile and mobile units are not supplemental care.

They're the only access to care that these people have.

In Maricopa County, over one in 10 working age adults lacks health insurance.

That's a lot.

Making community health fares and mobile medicine a critical access point, not just to convenience.

These events provide basic screenings, education, referral, and early identification of health issues that would otherwise go unnoticed until they become emergencies.

Preventing or restricting this access does not improve public health.

It delays care and increases long-term costs for everybody.

From public from a public health standpoint, this ordinance would directly undermine our shared goal of ending the HIV epidemic.

Phoenix is part of a fast track cities initiative, which commits us to meeting people where they are at, in parks, neighborhoods, and community spaces, not only clinical settings.

Outreach testing and education are proven evidence-based strategies that connect people to care, reduce transmission, and save lives.

This is not medical care being provided inappropriately.

This is medical access being restricted inequitably.

Sorry.

Thank you.

I urge the council to reconsider and table this ordinance until they can engage with public health professionals and community providers.

Arlene is next, followed by Jennifer.

Hello, Mayor and members of the city council.

My name is Arlene Mahoney, and I'm a constituent of District 8, and I am here in opposition of the proposed safe medical treatment and parks ordinance.

I am a social worker and the executive director of Southwest Recovery Alliance, Sware.

Suare operates a syringe service program in compliance with ARS 36798.51 in Phoenix.

I am deeply concerned about the public health implications of restricting access to a well-established evidence-based public health intervention, particularly during the ongoing synthetic of HIV, hepsi, and overdose.

Not only is this alarming, but it undermines Arizona's integrated HIV, Hep C and STI elimination plan, which explicitly calls for expanding access to syringe service programs and harm reduction services, not restricting them and criminalizing people providing those services.

If this ordinance's aim is to improve public safety, then we should be expanding harm reduction efforts and not rolling them back.

Limiting the location to where supplies are distributed to save a life or protect the health of a person or communities will have dire health outcomes.

It seems to me that a loud part is said out loud here that these are life-saving activities.

Why would the council members vote to restrict access to life-saving activities?

Additionally, there is evidence that syringe service programs reduce the number of discarded syringes in parks and public spaces.

A 2019 peer-reviewed study in Miami found a 49% reduction in syringe litter after implementation of a syringe service program.

Syringe waste would likely increase, not decrease through this ordinance.

Lastly, in this past year, we have had 4,000 encounters with people at risk of HIV, hepatitis C, and fatal overdose, providing life-saving supplies to all, distributing 8,000 doses of noloxone, documenting 1,048 overdose reversals, concurrently in providing over 70 HIV and hep C tests via community partners, and providing safe syringal disposals and referrals.

My question is why would the city council vote to restrict a program with this kind of impact and criminalize its workers?

I beg the city council to vote no and at bare least table this until you have more information about the consequences this will have Jennifer is next, followed by Stephanie.

This is new.

Good evening, Madam Mayor, members of the City Council.

Thank you for this opportunity to speak to you today.

For the record, I am Jennifer Longdon.

I am the Chief External Affairs Officer with the Arizona Alliance for Community Health Centers.

I live and work in Council District 4.

I hear I am here today in respectful opposition to this matter.

This ordinance will not create order, it will dismantle it.

Ordinance G assumes that prohibiting the rendering of medical attention makes parks safer.

But the care is not the cause of disorder.

Unmet need is.

When you remove support without providing an alternative, you do not solve a problem.

You displace it often into a deeper crisis.

We're being asked to accept that a nurse checking a wound and offering basic health care is a threat to public order.

That's not credible, and it's not supported by public health data.

Federally qualified health centers are designed to absorb need before it becomes an emergency.

When you restrict orderly appropriate care in public spaces, that need doesn't disappear.

It escalates.

And when it escalates, people do what they're told to do.

They call 911.

The AMS system is not designed for early intervention.

It's designed to address crisis.

This will push people out of managed care pathways and into emergency response.

And that means more ambulance calls, more police response, more people transported to already overwhelmed emergency rooms.

This ordinance treats public health intervention as a nuisance rather than as a stabilizer that saves lives, reduces strain on emergency systems that the city itself already funds.

Emergency rooms do not have excess capacity.

They are crowded.

Everyone waits longer.

Stroke victims wait, heart attack victims wait, families wait, and clinicians burn out faster.

This ordinance assumes that restricting care produces safety.

In reality, it produces volume.

More calls, more transport, more EM, more ER boarding.

Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Mayor.

Mayor Holland.

Councilwoman of Washington.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor.

I do have a question.

I was gonna ask this of the Arizona Alliance of Community Health Centers.

The request has been made for us to table this with the hopes I presume of providing some guy some additional guidelines.

Do we have some ideas of what it is that you think the ordinance should entail?

Madam Mayor, um, councilwoman Hodge Washington.

I think it where I want to start is that we just learned about this within the past several days.

Uh our folks were not consulted or offered the opportunity to help craft something that works at one point.

And I'm grateful, by the way, that uh the mayor and city manager uh were very patient and took our calls uh once we learned about it, and we tried to work through some solutions, including adding federally qualified health centers as an exemption so that these fully trained, um, well resourced organizations could go into the parks and do the work they've already been doing for decades when you talk to Circle of the City and Taros, for example.

Um, I am not the person to offer you those solutions, but folks like our community health centers, Valle del Sol is here, Circle the City is here, Teros is here, and if I've missed any of our other members, I apologize.

And they do have credible solutions that would be helpful.

So we do ask that you slow this down long enough to speak to the public health experts so that we get to a win-win.

I don't want needles in the park.

I don't want bandages in the park, but I do want to ensure that we're taking care of every Phoenician.

Thank you for that.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you, ma'am.

I believe Stephanie was next, followed by Hannah.

Followed by Joseph, hello, my name is Stephanie Martinez, and I serve Circle the City as the Senior Director of Community Outreach and Strategy.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak this evening.

Uh, you guys have heard our CEO Kim, RCMO Dr.

Allert, uh, Dr.

Evans, and I just want to reiterate that we have always collaborative collaborated with both um City of Phoenix, Maricopa County, and other municipalities to ensure that our services are delivered safely, responsibly, and in alignment with public health goals.

This collaboration is especially critical during heat relief efforts when coordinated outreach and medical care literally saves lives.

Our teams are often the first point of medical contact for individuals who otherwise would not have access to care until their condition becomes an emergency.

We know that if this passes, and is it if it passes, it's currently written.

This will limit our ability to provide timely, life-saving medical services.

This will have a direct and negative impact on our patients, the people who rely on us for their medical attention.

We are not asking to operate outside of partnership or accountability.

We invite you to tour our facility to join us to see what we do every day, what our teams do out there every day to save lives.

Our goal has always been to support public health, reduce the strain on emergency systems, and provide compassionate medical care.

With a few seconds to spare, I also want to briefly address something that was shared earlier.

I heard concerns about children being exposed to things in public spaces, and I understand how emotional that is.

As a mom of boys who also play sports, my kids are exposed to far worse every single day with things at their fingertips, such as video games and phones, but I teach them to see humans for who they are.

And I too am surprised that we're here debating something as simple as human kindness.

Thank you for your time.

Good evening, Mayor Gallego Gallego and members of the City Council.

My name is Hannah Matsumoto, and I'm a first year medical student with the University of Arizona College of Medicine Phoenix, as well as an overdose prevention lead with Street Med Phoenix.

I'm also a proud Phoenix natives.

Our city parks are where I once was one of those children who was playing in the Little League soccer team.

I also ran through these parks as a cross-country athlete, and now I walk each day with my dog.

The shared sense of belonging and connection these space provide for all members of our community, including those experiencing homelessness, are invaluable to me in our city.

With the number of unhoused individuals increasing annually, the parks offer refuge from our extreme heat, often 12 degrees cooler than the surrounding asphalt, which can be the difference between life and death.

For every three fatal overdoses of government, public safety and criminal justice costs increase by an average of 150,000.

Street medicine programs like ours alleviate the load on our emergency departments by managing chronic conditions and providing preventative medicine.

As a future for the decision, I will inherit the consequences consequences of the decision made today.

Thank you.

So Angel, let us know if you would speak.

Joseph.

What up, council?

My name is Joseph McKay.

I'm an attorney and a small business owner in Arizona.

Um I don't think it's the intent for this council to criminalize anyone trying to save the life of someone else, nor do I think it's the intent of this council to cause the death of any person, much less most vulnerable people in our community.

But if this ordinance passes, that is what is going to happen.

Or sponsor harm reduction toolkits.

Based on the language of the statute.

Simply tells someone where they can get a harm reduction toolkit.

And that toolkit includes only Narcan and an alcohol swab or a testing kit.

They are now committing a class one felony, which is punishable by six months in jail.

And various other fines and probations.

It's a crime for any person.

Two.

Angel, uh, could you wave?

Registered available to uh to speak if necessary.

Do you wish to speak or okay?

And then after that, we Catherine Miller followed by Kelly.

Uh good evening, uh, Mayor and Council.

I appreciate the opportunity to speak.

Uh my name is Angel Mendoza, uh speaking on behalf of myself and the organization uh at QHC that we are here with Taros Health.

Um a major concern we have uh, of course, with this measure, it's the broad definitions of medical treatment, uh, the restriction and criminalization of health care and the restriction of services to those that need it where they need it.

Um I would wanted to share, you know, for uh some facts of personal sentiment.

Um I know we'll hear a lot of folks coming from uh backgrounds of um public health.

I come from more of an administrative background, but what brought me to Tero's Health was a personal health crisis.

Um when I was 17 years old, I did attempt uh suicide on February 14th, 2017.

Um a member of Terror's Health staff and crisis team actually intervened in a public park setting at Steel Indian School Park where my family you know resides and and spends time and the members were there to de-escalate the situation and help me through a very difficult time in my life.

I've committed myself to the health care of not only my local community um but of the broader greater Phoenix area, and I believe this restricted measure would uh negatively impact the health outcomes of individuals like myself and uh my local community.

Um so I ask that you again take excuse me, table this conversation for a later date uh when you can consult with the professionals um that have offered that support here today, as well as the many uh professionals that are within the state of Arizona um that would like to provide that support.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you for your testimony.

We have Catherine Miller followed by Kelly and then Lisa.

Mayor Gaegan Council members, thank you for the opportunity to speak.

My name is Catherine Miller.

Uh for three years I coordinated and helped lead Street Medicine Phoenix.

I'm now in medical school, continuing a career focused on addressing gaps in a healthcare system that does not adequately serve people experiencing homelessness.

I'm here speaking today along uh sitting with about 20 other busy medical students.

Um based on item number 45 and your comments and the public's comments.

I understand that um this issue is based on safety concerns, and I take those very seriously.

I want to address that goal directly because this ordinance will not accomplish it.

Street medicine teams do not draw people experiencing homelessness to parks.

These teams go to parks precisely because that's where patients already are.

Policies that resist medical outreach focus on removing visible responses to homelessness rather than addressing its drivers.

That approach has repeatedly resulted in displacement without resolution, moving people from place to place without uh while eliminating stabilizing services that reduce harm and keep people safe.

From a systems perspective, this ordinance misunderstands cause and effect.

When medical outreach is restricted, people do not simply leave, they get sicker.

Care is pushed downstream to the busy Phoenix fire department, emergency departments, and hospitalizations that are more expensive and less efficient.

Delayed care becomes crisis care.

This burdens to taxpayers, increases preventable deaths, and does not improve commit uh conditions for families using those spaces.

An analogy I have is building maintenance.

If a building has a persistent leak, we don't make it safer by removing the maintenance crew simply because people or residents don't like seeing repair equipment.

We fix the leak.

The maintenance crew doesn't cause the problem, they respond to it and prevent further damage.

Removing them allows the underlying issue to worsen and creates more visible harm, not less.

In the same way, homelessness is the underlying issue here, and banning medical care does not address the root cause of why people are in the parks in the first place.

If the council's goal is safer parks, I respectfully urge you not to prohibit care without providing a clear, realistic, and accessible alternative.

Thank you very much for your time.

Thanks.

Hello.

I first want to say I definitely oppose this.

My name is Kelly Neither, and I'm a medical coordinator at Circle the City.

Um I'm gonna try not to get emotional I'm here tonight because the conversation isn't abstract for me.

This is my daily work, my daily reality, my assignment on earth.

Um I work in street medicine in Phoenix, and I'm here to speak for the humans I care for every day who don't have a seat in this room.

I'm here because policies about parks, food, and outreach directly affect whether they eat, receive medical care, or even survive the night.

I ask that humanity stays at the center of these decisions.

There are a lot of humans up here, a lot of humans in the world, but for me, I don't see enough humanity.

A rapper, an entrepreneur, an advocacy.

His name is Nipsey Hussle, and that quote is the highest human act is to inspire.

And I say that because for me, inspiration is what changes systems.

It's not to punish or displace.

When we lead with dignity, housing and care, humans stabilize, and then we'll see our communities stabilize.

If we want a real change, we have to inspire policies that see humans as worthy of safety, shelter and care, even if that is in parks.

And it's not a problem to be pushed out of view.

And I just want to say thank you for listening and allowing me to speak.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Thank you for your testimony.

Next we have Lisa and then Emily and then Dominic.

Good evening.

I'm Lisa Nieti, and like everyone in this room.

I am here because I support safe, clean parks for families, kids, seniors, and everyone who uses public spaces.

I'm also a staff member at the Arizona Alliance for Community Health Centers and a constituent in District 2.

I'm here to oppose the measure because it criminalizes public health and the life-saving activity and expands enforcement power in a way that will likely make parks less safe, not more.

Item 46 effectively prohibits most medical and harm reduction activities in parks, and that includes health outreach, basic melt uh medical care, and the distribution of harm reduction kits.

The practical outcome of this is that nonprofits, volunteers, and outreach teams will avoid parks to reduce legal risk, even when they're trying to prevent overdoses.

It will reduce unsafe needle disposal, connect people to treatment, and save lives in our communities.

I'm asking you to vote no, or at a minimum, amend this measure so we can keep parks safe without criminalizing and impeding this life-saving work.

We all want safer parks, but this approach risks criminalizing the very interventions that prevent emergencies.

Please reject this measure, or at the very least, amend it so it improves safety without undermining public health and saving lives.

I know because we're going in alphabetical order, you're going to be hearing from some of our health centers about the work that they do in these public spaces and the impact of this ordinance.

Thank you.

Thank you for your testimony.

Could you come back to the podium, please?

Councilwoman Hernandez has a question.

Thank you, Vice Mayor.

And thank you, Lisa.

Just have a quick question on the health centers piece, and it's a term I've heard a few times.

Um, and I'm not an expert, so I just want to know more background on it.

What exactly are the federally qualified health centers?

Thank you for asking.

We use that term a lot and don't often get to explain it.

Um, so a federally qualified health center or an FQHC is a community-based nonprofit organization that provides high-quality, comprehensive primary care services that are focused on the needs of the communities that they serve.

They serve everybody that walks in the door.

They provide services on a sliding fee schedule based on income.

They're governed by patient majority boards and receive federal grants to provide services in high need underserved areas.

Some health centers do provide services outside of their four walls.

And when necessary, in will provide services where they're where the need is in places like our public parks.

They offer accessible, affordable, high-quality health care and the vital services that keep people healthy, thriving, alive, and out of emergency rooms.

Thank you so much.

Yeah.

Thank you, ma'am.

Emily Oak.

Uh hi, my name is Emily.

I am a colleague of Lisa's at the Arizona Alliance for Community Health Centers, as you may be able to tell from our matching shirts.

I am also here to oppose this measure.

I am a member of District 4, is where I live and work.

I would be very curious to see the slides provided by the city staff members of the examples that they provided of where there have been issues because we would like to work with the city to address those issues rather than punish everyone unilaterally for specific things that may have occurred.

We do want to keep parks safe.

We want to be able to provide medical treatment and care at parks because we know that's where people are at.

We know that's what people keeps people out of emergency rooms.

All these wonderful organizations are providing care and to fill gaps that the city has, that society has.

So all that we ask is that you table this and that you bring the stakeholders together in order to make this amendment measure appropriate to say for everyone, you know, give people the ability to provide care when and where people need it and not make it harder for them to do their jobs.

Thank you.

Dominic is next, followed by Sister O'Sullivan.

Yes.

Um, Mayor and members of City Council.

Uh, my name is Dominic Orso, and I'm here today to talk about my opposition uh to passing it, or at least uh think about tabling it for now.

Um I'm speaking not from theory but from experience.

I have had the opportunity to work here in the city of Phoenix and manage the naloxone program that over 15 departments participate in.

Um, with this naloxone program, um it was helped build the relationships with these organizations that have come here to talk today.

Um, I want to be clear and accurate.

Naloxone itself may not still be allowed, may still be allowed under this ordinance, but naloxone alone does not equal overdose prevention.

Overdose prevention works as a system.

It relies on outreach, education, trust, and coordinated engagement, especially in public spaces where people are most vulnerable.

The policy does not exist in a vacuum.

It directly impacts the city's own work and efforts that different departments have put into this.

The Office of Public Health, the Office of Homeless Solutions, as well as the Office of Heat Response and Mitigation.

You cannot respond effectively to homelessness, extreme heat, or public health emergencies while simultaneously restricting overdose prevention services in the very spaces people are forced to be.

These policies are in direct conflict.

Um this ordinance does not prevent drug use, it prevents intervention.

It does not improve safety, it creates gaps where people fall through and sometimes die.

I want to remind the council of something fundamental.

The people most affected by those uh by this ordinance are also your constituents.

You do not get to pick and choose which constituents deserve care, protection, or public health services.

People who are unhoused, people who use drugs, people in crisis, every single one of them is a Phoenician.

Our parks do not divide people into worthy and unworthy.

City policy should not either.

Became the medical director of the Maricopa County Health Care for the Homeless Program, and then founded Circle the City.

I have personally provided direct medical care for homeless persons in our local parks, off and on since 1996.

Circle the city, our model begins by engaging persons where we meet them.

We engage them for episodic, problem-oriented care, or routine primary care.

And then hopefully that engagement leads us through a more direct relationship where we can provide other services in more traditional settings.

That includes addressing problems deeper, such as addiction and mental health issues.

I think like most of my colleagues today, I came with something prepared, but what I want to say.

Oh my goodness, how that happened.

Sister Sullivan, what would you like to say?

Okay, so what I'd like to say is don't let us stop providing life-saving care by uh not allowing us to go into the parks and meet the people and engage them where they are.

Thank you.

Brennan is next, followed by Jack Palmer.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, Mayor and Council members, and thank you for this opportunity to speak.

My name is Brennan Palfrey, and I serve as the senior manager for Venn Centers.

We are a viral outreach program that specializes in the screening, prevention, and treatment of hepatitis C and sexually transmitted diseases.

Public health street medicine and harm reductions, harm reduction program are essential to treating the entire population here in Phoenix.

Our team's own data collected between August 2023 and August 2024 has shown that unsheltered individuals located on the streets, parks, and other public settings had a hepatitis C positivity rate of close to 17%.

Whereas unsheltered individuals located at harm reduction sites or uh getting harm reduction supplies had a hepatitis C positivity rate closer to seven to eight percent.

This clearly indicates the success of these sites to help limit the spread of bloodborne pathogens.

When we make care harder to access, we increase the risk for everyone in this city.

If this ordinance passes, it will not only harm people who are unsheltered, it will also restrict outreach teams, churches, and volunteers who are trying to provide basic care and needs to the public.

This doesn't just hurt one group of people, it will affect all of us.

This is a huge step backwards in bloodborne virus prevention as well as disease control.

Viruses don't discriminate based off of housing status, income, or location.

And because of this, we cannot discriminate in who we allow to be treated or not and where.

In regard to some of the comments made by Councilmember Waring today, we are not ashamed to be here.

My team's not ashamed in the outreach we do every day and the advocacy that we show every day to our patients and the people of Phoenix.

I urge you all to consider this public health.

I urge you all to consider the public health consequences of this ordinance and to vote in a way that protects the health and safety of all Phoenix residents.

I strongly oppose.

Thank you so much for your time.

Good afternoon.

Um, Mayor and Council members, thank you for the time for my comments.

Uh, my name is Dr.

Jack Palmer.

I'm an emergency medicine physician and the medical director of the outreach and street medicine department at Circle the City.

I'm here to voice my opposition to ordinance number 46, and also am not ashamed to do so.

As a constituent of District 2, however, I'm disappointed in Councilman Warren's response during the last um ordinance discussion, and I'd love to invite you out to work with us to come out with my teams to see the incredible work that we do and the people that we work with, um, who you and I don't see as much in our neck of the woods.

Um Mayor, just under one month ago on November 21st, you said the following in reference to the life-saving work to mitigate heat-related deaths in our city.

Quote, even one death is too many, but the hard work and dedication of our city staff and community partners are making a difference and saving lives.

No city, no community does more to mitigate extreme heat as a public health threat than Phoenix.

Mayor, you were right, and a majority of the people that did that work are here in this room opposing this ordinance.

As I continue to read on the City of Phoenix website, where the article continued to say that you were joined by Councilman Kevin Robinson speaking about the shared commitment of the members of the council to save more lives, calling for more services and funding to serve this mission.

Today, many hardworking and caring residents of Phoenix stand before you in support of that mission, saving more lives.

Yet this same council, who just one month ago asked the community for more support, is considering limiting our ability to do so by preventing us from doing the very work required to save more lives.

We provide medical care, mental health care, and harm reduction by meeting patients where they're at, sometimes in parks, not only to save lives, but I have firsthand experience that our work gets people housed and off of the streets.

I urge you to consider at least discussing with us and collaborating with collaborating with our organizations to try to make this ordinance successful to help our patients on the streets.

Thank you very much.

Councilman.

So it might have occurred to the previous speaker that the last vote was eight to one.

Now, I know I'm terrible.

I'm a conservative Republican, I know how bad I am.

Blah blah blah.

I'll skip the Pacino, everybody look at the bad guy's speech.

It's got stale.

But I'll tell you what, there's one other Republican here, and then there's one independent.

But there were five Democrats who voted for that.

It might have occurred to you that maybe these Democrats are also voting for it.

Not because I mean President Trump, I don't see him here.

So I think uh realistically, it might occur to you that maybe they're getting calls, like we want to use the parks.

We're taxpayers, taxpayers over decades in the city of Phoenix have spent billions.

I don't know if Cynthia, I've asked you this before, like how much do you think is a real estate investment?

Our parks are.

But it is a high dollar investment, as are our libraries.

They are not cheap things.

We got citizens sitting up here, and I know there was only a few, you outnumber them.

Congratulations.

But we get calls, we can't go to the parks.

You can't.

The woman who's just a young mom wants to take her dog to the park and can't do it.

What am I supposed to tell her when she calls?

You're right.

I don't get as many calls as probably they do.

But I don't like to get even one, because that's not acceptable.

The things that are going on in the parks are prohibiting people from using the stuff that they paid for and their parents paid for and their grandparents paid for.

That millions, probably billions over time, were spent planning and executing so that people could get out and not just watch video games.

They could get out and get exercise and enjoy the outside and stuff.

And that's what we're trying to do here today.

We're trying to take it back a little bit.

I know it's easy to, but you might want to reflect, it was eight to one.

It's a bipartisan vote.

I'm always buried the minority.

I'm not sure.

I lost track myself in all this excitement.

So I promise I think so.

Oh, okay.

Congratulations.

You really showed me up, but facts are funny things.

It just happened.

You saw it happen, didn't process it at all.

That's really my point.

Thank you.

Okay.

So folks are getting tired.

We, if we have about 20 more people in person, which would be 40 minutes if everyone takes two minutes.

We have a significant number of folks still online.

So I think we're gonna finish the R's and then we're gonna we're gonna take a brief break and then keep going.

All right.

I think we're at uh Mary, followed by Taryn.

It's in the peasant Hello.

My name is Mary Pelzek, and I practice as a registered nurse in the Phoenix area.

Agenda item 46 is one example of a wider problem in the country's approach to public health.

The text of the proposed ordinance limits the use and distribution of medical supplies only to a set list of emergencies.

Prevention of such emergencies through the gift of supplies is criminalized.

Why should this be?

Hospitalization is well known to be to the individual, to the state, and to wider society.

Many more many times more costly than any other public intervention.

Why allow a crisis to develop into a modest investment?

It may never happen.

By passing this ordinance, the city would make clear that it's more interested that the right kind of people provide care than that care take place at all.

As with all decisions that erode public health in this country, it pushes the nature of treatment from the small and well in advance to the last, largest, most dire and most grotesque moment.

Thank you.

Teryn is next, followed by Edward.

Mayor and council members, my name is Taryn Perez.

I am a medical student at U of A Phoenix, but I'm here in a personal capacity, and my views do not represent those of the university nor those of my employer, the VA.

I'm also a constituent of Council District Six.

I, alongside 494 of your future physicians and health care providers, are asking you to vote no on this ordinance as written and work with your stakeholders in harm reduction, street medicine, and public health to revise the ordinance before an additional vote.

Street outreach based harm reduction has been part of my life for over 12 years.

I have also studied the provision and quality of care for veterans living with opioid use disorder for the last decade.

In that span of time, the relationship between harm reduction and the medical community has changed immensely.

While harm reduction was once stigmatized and excluded from medicine, it is now embraced and welcomed into hospitals and clinics.

As a matter of fact, the VA itself now offers harm reduction to veterans at many sites across the country.

However, this body seems determined to stop this forward progress toward a kinder, more humane future for people who use drugs.

Despite the large body of evidence indicating harm reduction is efficacious in reducing harm and illness associated with substance use without increasing it, we are choosing to ignore the evidence and cater to unsubstantiated public fears towards people who use drugs.

These unsubstantiated fears do not outweigh the actual human cost of withholding services from people who use drugs.

Council members, whether you like it or not, you are elected to also represent your constituents who use drugs or who happen to live an unsheltered life.

Do you see this map?

It is from the CDC's National Center for Health Statistics.

Do you know why Arizona is colored differently than 47 other states?

We are one of only three states that experienced an increase in overdose deaths in the last year.

Almost all overdose deaths are preventable.

Clearly, what we have already been doing was not enough.

Do you think that at a time like this for Arizona that withholding services from people who use drugs is the right thing to do?

Harm reduction is a moral imperative.

Please do not fall on the wrong side of history in the making by voting for this ordinance.

Instead, reconsider your options with your stakeholders at the table.

Thank you for your time.

Edward is next, followed by Harris.

Oh no, I'm sorry, Edward is next, followed by Tiffany.

Edward Pinnow.

Edward, could you wave if you're present?

Edward is not here.

All right.

Uh Tiffany Randall, followed by Harrison.

Mayor and Council members, I appreciate the opportunity to speak today.

My name's Tiffany Randall, and I currently live in District 4.

I'm here to oppose item 46.

I came, I come before you wearing multiple hats.

I have over a decade of experience working within behavioral health and social services with uh within Arizona.

I'm currently a coordinator for a newly developed harm reduction project here in Phoenix.

I'm a graduate student in psychology, specializing in substance use-related disorders.

But most importantly, I am someone who has been on the receiving end of our local behavioral health services, substance use treatment, and mental health crisis response services.

Without a robust community of care, which we see here with us today, I do not believe that I would be alive today.

This ordinance is titled Safe Medical Treatment in City Parks, and I think it's important for us to ask safe for who.

There are so many people with rich experience, rich um knowledge, education, doctors, medical professionals, social workers, people with lived and living experience that were not consulted in making this.

That does not make any practical sense whatsoever.

And it's one of the main reasons I think we have such a turnout.

So I really, really beg you to consider revisiting this and having the discussions with the public health professionals and also with people with lived experience.

Thank you.

Harrison is next, followed by Mike.

Good evening, Mayor Gallego, Vice Mayor O'Brien, and members of the Phoenix City Council.

My name is Harrison Redmond, and I'm a community organizer and registered lobbyist here on behalf of the ACLU of Arizona in strong opposition to ordinance G7467.

This ordinance is incredibly broad, prohibiting expressive activity related to medical treatment and criminalizing people who provide life-saving interventions to community members.

The prohibition on advertising and promoting medical treatments in sections B1 through three are content-based restrictions that criminalize speech and threaten community members trying to provide aid with arrest.

This means groups promoting or advertising information related to HIV treatment, pregnancy services, abortion care, drug treatment, or the spread of illness, could be charged with the crime simply for promoting or advertising treatment options to vulnerable members of the community.

Such a policy contravenes public health and violates the First Amendment.

To put it plainly, under this ordinance, someone could promote or advertise their ice cream business or organize a political rally in a Phoenix park, but they could not promote a syringe exchange program, share testing kits, or advertise a neighborhood drive to share overdose prevention information.

Promoting advertising and organizing are simply different ways of sharing information, and the Constitution does not allow the city to criminalize speech based on which message it prefers.

The ordinance seemingly singles out medical treatment under the umbrella of harm reduction for special disfavor, despite the proven success of these techniques in addressing addiction, reducing overdose deaths, and improving the well-being of communities.

These examples of selective targeting are exactly what makes this ordinance a content-based restriction on speech, which is presumptively unconstitutional.

Though the ordinance has been amended to focus on treatment, there are some aspects of treatment that constitute expressive activity, such as talk therapy.

The city cannot ban talk therapy in a park any more than it can ban forms of expressive activity, like an AA meeting or a peer counseling group, simply because those conversations relate to health or addiction.

Courts have already rejected similar attempts by cities to prohibit expressive health related activities in parks, holding that the content-based bans in traditional public forums are presumptively invalid.

Phoenicians deserve policies that save lives, support recovery, and make our parks and neighborhoods safer.

For the perma for the promise of progress over punitive action, the ECLU of Arizona urges you to vote no, all power to the people.

Thank you.

Mayor Councilwoman Hernandez.

Thank you, Mayor.

I would like to ask Karen a few questions.

Um the ordinance prohibits organized or the warning in the ordinance says that it this or uh prohibits organizations from promoting advertising or organizing any event that distributes tools used to save the life or protect the health of someone who uses drugs.

Can you explain a little bit more why that language may violate the First Amendment?

Sure.

Mayor Gallego, Councilmember Hernandez, yes.

Uh, this ordinance prohibits speech based entirely on its message, uh, specifically health-related information outreach.

Uh so that's textbook content-based restrictions, uh, which courts have historically presumed uh unconstitutional.

So it bans not just the activities but the communication around them, uh, which the First Amendment does not allow.

Uh the ordinance here, as currently written, uh, would require city authorization for medical care, uh, which would give the city unchecked discretion over who can speak, uh, which courts again consistently strike down as unconstitutional.

Okay, thank you.

Uh, my next question is we've heard concerns about syringe litter um and public safety in parks.

Based on evidence, do overdose prevention services reduce or increase these public order issues.

Sure, Mayor Gallego, Councilmember, uh, as many other people have said tonight, all available data shows that overdose prevention centers reduce syringe litter, uh, infections, 911 calls that you know, burden already overburden uh first responders.

So when you take away sterile or safe supplies, people will inevitably reuse equipment, discard that equipment unsafely, uh, and move deeper into parks and oralys.

Uh so all of that is to say that prevention outreach actually uh makes parks safer uh and cleaner.

And when outreach workers are threatened with a class one misdemeanor as they would be under this current language, uh, fewer people show up.

They don't even come onto the parks, uh, and the public health problems become more visible, uh, not less.

Okay, thank you.

Um, this ordinance also allow, or this ordinance allows the loxone administration after someone is already overdosing, uh, but bans the tools that prevent overdoses from happening.

What does that mean for our fires, EMS, and police from your perspective?

As I said before, Mayor, Councilmember, this just means more preventable emergencies and overly burdens first responders.

Prevention, not only in Phoenix, but in cities across the United States, in countries across the world, is cheaper.

It is safer, and it keeps first responders from having to repeatedly reverse overdoses on the same individuals.

This ordinance increases emergency call volume and would increase risk for first responders.

And while it allows nalaxone, both as a preventative use, but also in uh you know, in active drug overdose, uh, it bans the upstream prevention uh that actually reduces people who are overdosing on drugs.

Uh, what this ordinance would do is outright ban that prevention while only allowing a emergency response.

Um, and like I said, would overly burden uh first responders.

Okay, thank you.

Um can you explain what happens to rates of HIV and hepatitis C when access to sterile supplies is banned?

Sure.

Mayor, council member, uh the simple answer is that if access to these safe supplies are banned, uh the rates of infections increase every single time.

We have seen in data uh that hepatitis C, HIV, things like that.

Uh, when sterile supplies disappear from people who uh have those infections, uh, people can share or reuse equipment, further spreading the infections, further making our parks and our city uh an unsafe place.

Uh, this also will burden uh already overly burdened healthcare workers and hospitals, uh, which will increase hospitalizations and taxpayer costs.

Okay, thank you.

Um, just have a few more questions.

Instead of an outright ban, what evidence-based alternatives could Phoenix adopt that would improve safety while still addressing a lot of the community concerns we've heard?

Sure.

Mayor, uh council member, I would not be the best person to ask on this, and there are lots of other groups who would have uh, you know, some of these uh prepared, but I would say things like regulated uh syringe service programs with clear oversight, uh, disposal protocols, mobile outreach uh with data tracking, some wraparound services that can connect people to resources that they need.

Uh, these models work in cities across the country.

These are not just hypotheticals and would cost far less than what this ordinance would do to this city and to the taxpayers of Phoenix.

Okay, thank you.

And from AOS ACLU's perspective, under the current warning, could a health a health care worker distributing alcohol wipes, testing kits, or sterile supplies uh be cited for that under this ordinance?

Uh Mayor, council member, yes, healthcare workers uh in parks.

The definition here covers, quote, any collection of paraphernalia used to save life or protect health of a person who uses drugs.

So that would include uh alcohol wipes, testing strips, sterile devices.

Um, it's excessively broad and vague uh and just captures basic public health tools.

Okay, thank you.

Um there's talk that this ordinance may be a response to the federal executive order banning harm reduction funding.

Um, does that change the science or the public health reality?

Mayor, council member, uh no.

The science has not changed, regardless of the federal government's uh anti-scientific posturing towards these issues.

Overdose prevention and uh sterile supply programs remain as the evidence-based best practices uh endorsed by the World Health Organization, by public uh health agencies in Arizona and across the country.

Uh, local policy should be driven by what works, uh, not federal or state politics.

Okay, thank you.

Um could people who provide information related to HIV treatment and care be charged with the crime for offering services in Phoenix Parks under this ordinance?

Mayor, council member, uh yes, the ordinance bans organizing or conducting events that provide medical treatment uh and care to the public unless authorized by the city, which not only is a speech licensing issue, um, but also is a criminalization issue.

Uh HIV treatment information, referrals, testing guidance uh or linkage to care can be reasonably considered medical care.

Uh you do not have to be in school or have a medical degree to understand that.

And because the ordinance provides no clear definition uh or standards for authorization, uh, people providing HIV-related outreach uh or or any kind of infection-related outreach in parks could be exposed to arrest uh or prosecution.

Okay, thank you.

I just have two more questions for you.

Um, does the ordinance make it illegal to offer information related to treatment facilities and syringe exchanges to people who appear to use drugs when in public parks?

Mayor and council member, the ordinance prohibits inviting, promoting, or organizing syringe exchange programs and harm reduction kit uh distribution in parks.

So even though it's been said that information sharing is allowed under this ordinance because promotion is not defined or limited, uh, offering information or referrals about syringe exchange programs uh could you know expose outreach workers to criminal enforcement, uh, you know, an unnecessary confusion among law enforcement about how to enforce those issues, uh, so on and so forth.

Okay, thank you.

And my last question um was the ACLU consulted or part of any stakeholder discussion to make sure that constitutional constitutionality issues were addressed in writing this ordinance.

Uh Mayor, council member know the ACLU of Arizona was not consulted uh during stakeholder meetings about the language of this ordinance.

And I want to be very clear on this.

The problem here is not just about what the ordinance explicitly bans, it's that the language is broad, undefined, and criminally enforced, uh, which means people providing health information will self-censor or avoid parks entirely to avoid arrest.

Uh and there's something that I want everyone to you know leave with here tonight, which is a quote from the author Johan Hari, who writes about actual solutions uh to opioid overdose prevention and addressing addiction.

And he says that the opposite of addiction isn't sobriety, it's connection.

It is a natural human instinct to turn our fears into symbols and destroy the symbols in the hope that it will destroy the fear.

So I think we can all agree, uh, regardless of our backgrounds or policy positions that Phoenicians across our city deserve connection and care, not policies based in fear, or for our leaders to continue taking the same exclusionary approach that we all know doesn't work, let alone solve the problems at hand.

We need productive evidence-based pathways forward, not punitive ones.

Thank you, Council.

Thank you, Harrison.

And then Mike Roberts will be our final speaker before we take a break.

Thank you.

Very pain.

Mayor, members of the council.

Uh, is it possible to show uh the ordinance on the screen?

Oh section D in particular.

Uh let's bring up no okay.

Okay.

Okay.

I don't want to.

Oh, my time's sorted over.

Okay.

I think most of us have it right here in front of us.

Yeah, sure, for the for the audience.

Um if it's not possible, I understand.

Not possible.

Got it.

Okay.

Umor, members of the council, Mike Reno, President, CEO of I the Seoul.

As of yesterday, uh brand new resident to District 8, moved from Scottsdale, a terrible city, to Phoenix, an incredible city.

And then have this happen.

Um, this is the fourth day of Hanukkah and about a week away from Christmas.

And our city is proposing to criminalize the care of the most vulnerable people in our town.

This ordinance is an affront to the health care workers, mental health professionals, advocates, family members, and of course, our fellow citizens who are struggling, finding themselves unhoused with mental illness andor addiction.

Let me be clear.

We all want a solution to this crisis.

We don't want our unhoused citizens in our parks.

We want them housed.

We don't want our folks struggling with addiction in our parks.

We want them in treatment.

We don't want our fellow citizens struggling with mental illness in our parks.

We want them in treatment.

But those treatment options do not exist in this state to the extent we need them to.

We are stuck.

We, the beautiful people of these organizations who give their lives, literally, to go on the streets and get people out of the park so they can take their own families to play there, are now being told they would be criminals.

The same healthcare workers who put their lives at risk during the COVID pandemic.

Yes, it was real, are now being told that they would be criminals.

This ordinance will not work.

It will not do what you think it needs to do.

It will not clean up our parks.

It will kill people.

It will make our police officers have to do more and more calls to the parks and expend so much more city revenue.

We have better ways.

Please talk to us, engage with us, table this ordinance and work with us to find a better way.

Mayor Mike, I have a question for you.

If you can come back.

Thank you so much, Mike.

Thank you.

Vice Mayor.

I would move that we table or not table, we continue this item until February 18th council meeting, February 18th, 2026, and have staff work with council or our stakeholders to revise and come back with a new ordinance.

We have a motion to continue.

Um I have a motion.

I have a motion.

I I guess I need I need just a little bit of clarification.

We're not recognized Councilwoman Stark.

May I recognize Councilman Stark?

Okay.

We're not preventing them from going into the parks and helping people, correct?

It's just the use of the needles.

And are we can we allow the individuals who don't request I don't think any of us want to prevent you guys doing your job.

I think it was just the concern with needles and people that perhaps are not qualified to do it.

And so I I guess I'm trying to seek a little clarification.

Because if I misunderstanding that, then I may agree with your motion to that's why I'm trying to get clarification.

Thank you.

The intent of the ordinance is certainly to uh provide some parameters around the activities related to medical treatment that we have seen cause some safety concerns on park property.

The intention of writing the ordinance in the manner that it was, while we recognize your different opinions and interpretations on it, was to still allow for other types of medical care to take place on park property with approval by the parks department.

And that is the best way I think I can answer that question.

And councilwoman uh Stark, you are correct.

The the focus, the intent of the focus was around syringes uh because of the challenges we've experienced, and specifically the medical treatment uh where we were seeing and are seeing uh cleaning of open wounds and leaving of biosafety hazard concerns on park property.

Councilman Stark, may I call in some of her colleagues?

Councilman Hodge Washington.

Thank you, Mayor.

I too wanted to clarify, just make sure I understand it.

My understanding is we're not necessarily prohibiting the medical medical treatment.

We are just articulating a process for acquire for permission to use lize city park.

I am asking the question for the director.

Can we please let her speak and then we can go from there?

Thank you.

Mayor, members of the council, councilwoman Hodge Washington.

Uh as it's written today, there is certain care that would be able to continue with the exception of this specific type of treatment of open wounds and treatment on park property that could leave dangerous scenarios behind and uh would not allow for distribution of harm reduction kits with syringes or needle exchange programs.

Okay, so let me I have two follow-up questions.

So if a medical provider or an organization has filed the authorization, it's called a special activity request form.

If they file that, if they complete that and it's approved by the city by the parks department, if they have a vehicle, can they treat the person in that vehicle or transport to another facility?

Councilwoman Hodge Washington, mayor members of the city council.

Yes, so as it's written, the intent is to utilize an existing application process to help us uh to help individuals or organizations communicate what they would like to go out and do in park property, when and where, and if that in fact is in a contained mobile environment, uh mobile unit, that is something that we would be able to approve through that existing process.

Okay, and we also heard some questions regarding what um type of activity might be prohibited, and I want to just clarify a couple of things that I heard, and I want to make sure that I'm not incorrect.

Um heat relief as a part of harm reduction, that's not prohibited in the ordinance, correct?

Correct, councilman Hodge Washington.

That is not the intent, uh distribution of water and other items that are tied to heat relief.

Uh, and again, the focus is on the syringe piece and medical treatment on park property.

Same similarly, the distributed distribution of electrolytes are also permitted.

Umarcan is still permitted to be if up our fast track cities want to do an outreach, it would be have to be approved by our department and then uh move forward, correct?

Councilwoman Hodge Washington, that is correct.

And I I want to I want to ask this question.

I we've talked about this in a briefing.

Um you keep focusing on syringes, and it's my understanding we're focusing on syringes because we've had multiple incidents where our employees have been exposed or um pricked by needles, and then those employees have had to undergo uh medical testing to ensure that they have not been infected with something and not just employ.

I see you nodding, I'll let you go ahead.

Councilman Hodge Washington, that that is correct.

Unfortunately, we do uh every year experience circumstances where parks employees um undergo the situation or experience the situation you described.

Okay, and I I want to make sure I'm clear to those um those organizations that provide medical treatment to the on-house population.

I thank you for the work that you do because it serves a core issue, a core service in our community.

However, I think we also have to acknowledge that we have to also be responsive to not only our employees but our residents that are also being exposed to these needles, and we I believe that as a council member, we have an obligation to provide some type of parameters to ensure that we do not unduly risk the health and safety of other individuals.

So I also am willing to, I would like to see us figure out if we can get more information from our our health providers to come up with a solution, but we have but let me finish.

But we have to ensure that we are not creating additional risks for our residents.

I mean, we are here because we hear from our residents about, I can't tell you how many photos we receive in our in our inbox about syringes.

We saw the video, we saw the photo up on the screen.

That should not be what our residents should have to deal with.

I understand that many of the organizations that are represented here today are what I would say the ones that are that don't do those types of things, right?

But we have to ensure that we have rules that prescribe what type of conduct is allowed in our parks.

And that's what we're for me.

That's what we're trying to do here.

It is not about saying that we don't want to see the unhoused individuals in our community not have access to care.

We are just trying to say where does that where should that occur?

And we don't they think we need to figure out whether or not our public park is the right format and the right place for that.

So I would like to see us have a little bit more time to figure out what that looks like.

I don't know if necessarily continuing it is the best pass forward or how we move that forward, but I do think we need to listen to the community on this, but we also have to make sure that we are we are allowing our residents to continue to have access to their parks.

The parks are supposed to be a benefit to both all residents of Phoenix, housed and unhoused, and the rules that apply or the code of conduct that applies, or the expectation that applies in the park, we need to make sure they're consistent.

So I do have a question for um also I have a question, Mayor, if I may, um for for law for legal, and again, I'll preface my question in a very broad way so that we don't necessarily violate um where you're giving me um legal advice in public, but we've heard a lot of comment about speech being um this type of regulation being unconstitutional.

I don't profess to pre um to practice constitutional law, I but I am a lawyer by trade, I have been practicing for numerous years, and as a part of taking the bar exam, I had to take constitutional law and pass that portion.

And it's my understanding that a coordinates is constitutional, even if it limits or um if it's sorry, if it's if it if narrowly tailored to a time, place and manner type of provision.

I presume law has looked at this draft ordinance and has squared it up with the Arizona what we've called the syringe statutes, as well as the First Amendment concerns, and we feel comfortable that as drafted, we are not infringing on the constitutional rights of our residents.

Um thank you for the question, mayor, members of council, um, councilwoman Hodge Washington.

So um certainly law was involved in the drafting of the ordinance and um did take a look at the different statutes that are involved.

Um we we're always happy to re-review and and to look and and make sure that we've covered every angle, but um, we were involved in this drafting.

Okay, and then I just want to ask one more question from uh to our parks director.

As we drafted this, one of the benefits of the city is that we have recent not recent, but one of our newer offices is the Office of Public Health, that we have an internal public health office.

And was the public health office um privy to this draft ordinance as we sorry Councilman Hodge Washington, mayor members of the city council, the law department did engage the Office of Public Health in the drafting of the ordinance.

Okay, thank you, Mayor, for allowing me to ask my questions.

Councilman Robinson and then Councilman Waring and then Councilwoman Pestor.

Okay.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um I think Councilwoman Hodge Washington hit on several issues that I wanted to hit on.

Excuse me.

Excuse me.

But um a couple questions.

Um I'll go to um Cynthia first.

What is the purpose of our city parks?

Give us that.

What's the purpose of our city parks?

Sure, Councilman Robinson, mayor, members of the city council.

Uh in my opinion as the parks recreation director, the parks are intended to be a welcoming and safe accessible space for the entire community to come to recreate to uh participate in leisure activities.

Uh there's a lot of different purposes that a park can play based on the amenities, but essentially it is to come out and enjoy open space in a safe accessible manner.

Okay.

Thank you for that.

And you know, for the crowd, and a lot of folks have already said it for the audience, I should say we appreciate your passion on this issue.

Clearly, it's something that um, you know, it rises to the level is very important to a lot of folks.

But um, you know, one of the concerns that I have, or as an elected official, and that has come up this evening several times, you know, we have to pair what I think is compassion.

You know, these are all valuable, they're important issues with foresight and responsibility.

Because one of the things I'm responsible for, all of us are responsible for, is a fiduciary responsibility.

We're responsible for your taxpayer dollars.

Now, that having been said, Julie Cree, I need to ask our city attorney a question.

If we were to allow, if we were to engage or enter into a partnership with groups where these types of activities can occur in our parks, what liability, what liability do we have as a city?

And I asked that question because with a little bit of regularity, we have to meet an executive session and settle lawsuits.

There's a lot of them.

There's a lot of money that goes out from this city from liability on our part, and our job is to try to foresee, have that foresight, and try to mitigate that, if not eliminated the best we possibly can.

So, Julie, if you could please.

Um, mayor, members of council, um I think that the city, if it is participating and in sponsoring um, certainly the city can be sued and could have some liability exposure.

Okay.

All right, thank you for that.

I know I've heard from several of you, a couple of you were texting me about this issue, wanting us to go in one direction or another.

And I'm still I I want to hear from the rest of my colleagues, but you know, we want to support our vulnerable population.

I think anybody who thinks there's any of us up here don't want that, but we do hear from our constituents.

I think Councilman Waring mentioned it, Councilwoman Stark mentioned it.

We get calls when there are issues when there are people in the park who don't allow the kids or the sports activities to participate.

That's an issue.

And I think in Ginny Ann is here, it was I think the year before last or last year, we're at um one of the parks in her area, and an entire group and party had to move away because of some issues like this.

So this is a concern to us.

We have to figure out what's the best way to deal with it.

And having said that, I want to hear from the rest of my colleagues.

But Mayor, thank you very much for the time.

Thank you.

I believe it's Councilman Waring and then Councilwoman Pestor.

Thank you, Mayor.

Cynthia, is this the first time you and I have ever talked about the parks or problems in the parks?

It is not, Councilman Waring.

No, it's not.

Is it the first public meeting we've ever had where we discussed the parks?

No, Councilman Wearing and maybe dozens, hundreds is too many, dozens, fair.

Fair.

Okay.

So for those of you who are at your first meeting, this isn't some new thing.

It may be to you, it's not to us.

This has been a long-running issue.

I've been saying exactly the same things I've been saying in this meeting for years.

Now that wasn't always the eight to one opinion.

Sorry, I mentioned that old vote, my bad.

Lock me up in free speech jail or whatever.

I just think um, please, councilman Waring has the floor.

I I know this very personal, as many people's life's work, but gotcha.

We're really trying to listen, council councilman Waring.

Um Cynthia, we've discussed this many times before.

And three years ago, you wanted to put private security or more security in parks.

That was a five to four, very controversial vote.

People who are still in this council voted against it.

Three years later, the behavior is deteriorated so much.

Here we are.

This didn't just come out of nowhere.

So, yeah, I'm aware, whoever's yelling about the past, but you also should be respectful of like the coach who got up there said I can't even take my kids to the park.

And you're not.

You're pretending to be a little bit some of you, but you're not.

It's very frustrating.

For the per hey, for the person who got up, you're here when we have to say for the person for the person who got up and said unsubstantiated problems in our parks.

I caught that word, I think twice.

Are you saying that the coach is lying?

The woman who got up at the beginning of the meeting and was saying it's wrecking her neighborhood, she's lying, she's making it up.

The woman in the back, all those people there's making it up.

Excuse me, Mayor.

Um, if I can step in as a reminder, speakers should behave respectfully towards everyone, including council members.

Every person has the right to speak without fear of retaliation or being interrupted.

If you are disruptive in the audience or at the podium, you may be asked to leave the meeting.

And Julie, I'm I'm perfectly fine with it.

I've grown to accept it.

I listened to you guys, sat here and listened, but it's okay.

Um, so we uh we have discussed this many times before, right?

It's been long-ranging problems.

We're trying to address an issue.

Kevin touched on it.

The parks are not for distributing needles.

Voters wouldn't say let's spend more money on a distributing needle thing in the parks.

That that's not a thing.

Uh the analogy here for the public health professionals in the room.

Now, some of you wouldn't have been here when this happened.

I think it was in 2006, the anti-smoking ordinance passed.

Why did that pass?

Well, because people were smoking, hurting themselves.

What were they also doing?

Wrecking it for everybody else.

Couldn't get an elevator, couldn't walk down a hall, couldn't go to a restaurant, you smelled like smoke.

I remember back to my little league days, our coaches smoking in the dugout.

My mom would have to wash the uniform twice to get the smoke out.

It was just a thing.

And people got sick of it because the behavior of some people was wrecking it for everybody else.

And voters rebelled.

I don't know if any of you are capable of saying the analogy here, but there we are.

So now voters have spent billions, as I said, on our parks and our libraries, and they feel like they can't use them.

And they're mad.

That doctor from my district, he, you know, I don't know.

We should we should go, no, no.

There's gonna be pushback.

It's here now.

It didn't really exist as much as it should have three years ago, but it's absolutely here now.

People are tired of it.

I will say I'm not a constitutional scholar like either Keisher or that one fellow who got up there, but I know this much.

We've now said our parks are, you know, it's a little dodgy, you could step on a needle and so forth.

So if we don't do something today, I'm curious what legal's gonna say about our liability if something happens between now and February.

We pass something, because I am reflecting on the zone.

Just a couple short years ago, we were forced to clean up after 40 years or whatever it was.

The homeless encampments where they found I think it was a burned body and a fetus and lots of needles.

It was kind of a problem.

And I think the judge rightfully said, you as a government have abdicated your responsibility.

You abandon your responsibility.

The whole reason we have government is to not have it look like that.

That's basically what the judge said, and we finally had to go clean it up.

Julie, you tell me I'm wrong.

The parks aren't there for this activity.

That's not what they're there for.

And I'm just afraid a judge is gonna say, you know, you knew this was an issue, and you let it keep going on.

What the hell's wrong with you guys?

Which is pretty much which the advanced middle-aged nice lady sitting in the back basically said, like you're distributing needles in the park.

What?

In exactly that kind of tone.

Is she wrong?

Really?

Okay.

Yes, well, I've been in the state legislature.

You can't make me go back.

Um the gentleman back that you gotta you've got to give councilman wearing the floor.

He he can't help himself, but he thinks he's a good guy, Mayor.

Please let's not forget that.

Um, but but this would get you kicked out of any second grade I've ever heard of, right?

But keep doing what you're doing.

You're making my point to any of the five people who are still watching this at home.

If you think they think you're great after doing that, they don't.

You don't meet as many people as we do.

We meet people all day long in this job.

We hear from people all day long.

So we have a different perspective.

It's not just all about this one thing.

I'm done, Mayor.

They can go back to making fun of me.

But I appreciate it, I appreciate your answers.

Councilwoman Pastor, followed by Councilman Guardado.

Yes, um, I would like you to listen.

I have a motion.

I my motion is the motion, and I will explain my motion once we're ready to vote.

Motion to approve the ordinance with a delayed effect date of March 30th, 2026.

During this period, we direct the city manager to have staff from parks and recreation, public health, and the office of homeless solution meet with health care providers who provide services in the parks to review the ordinance and identify any potential clarification that could support provisions of service by medical professionals while keeping parks safe for all community members and park users.

I have a point of order because I need clarity.

Okay, a point point of order and then well, yeah, point of order for councilman Hernandez.

Thank you.

Um my understanding is Vice Mayor made up the first substitute motion.

Well, there was there was no motion on the table, so no one seconded it.

So if someone seconded it, we would vote on that.

Okay.

But no one did.

Okay.

Julie help us.

Yeah, sorry, Mayor, members of council.

Sorry, I'm a little confused.

Yeah, I don't think we have a motion on the table right now.

Did we not do a motion before public comment?

We did not.

Okay.

We did not.

So there is no motion.

The first motion was Vice Mayor's.

Vice Mayor and it was not a good one.

Substitute motion would be councilwoman.

No substitute.

No, the first motion was not seconded.

So by vice mayor.

Okay.

So there is no motion.

Now there's a motion pending with no second.

So that's the first, the second motion, and we're waiting for a second.

Okay.

Um and I'm sorry, Councilman Stark, but I think I'd recognize Councilman Gordado next, unless you have like a point of order type thing.

And do you okay?

So you have a motion.

Um, do you cede the floor to Councilman Gordato or do you wish to keep talking?

No, I need a second.

I mean, can you just clarify a little bit more what that means?

Do we have a motion?

Here because we didn't get that in writing.

I don't know where I I wrote it as I was sitting up here.

Laura get a second.

I do need my eight hours.

Just kidding.

Recognize the city attorney.

Um, mayor, members of council, we have copies of the motion if if council would like us to pass it out.

And of course we can have discussion, but we still need a second.

Okay, I think and could someone still second the vice mayor's motion or no.

No, Mayor, um, because we now have another motion on the table.

I'll second Laura's motion.

Okay.

May I recognize Councilman Guardado?

Councilman Gardado.

Okay, thank you, Mayor.

I guess for me, you know, I I respect um everything that everyone had had to has said today to all of our providers, to all of our neighbors, um, to everyone that took that day off from work.

You know, thank you for being engaged um in this discussion.

Um, we heard you loud and clear and heard what everyone has had to say today.

Um, but I also believe that we also have to strike that balance.

Um, I get the phone calls every day um from neighbors about the activities um that they see in the parks, just like councilman wearing.

I spent a lot of time on the phone with Cynthia about what is it that we do, but I'm also very proud to say, you know, that I was part of starting the Office of Homeless Solutions, enhancing our CAP program.

I've always been the biggest advocate to say we have to lead with services.

Um, all the changes that we have done as a council.

Um, you know, I'm very proud to have been part of a lot of those changes.

Um, being able to have a health and safety um department within the city of Phoenix.

Um, I I think um has also been something very proud that I have been a part of.

You know, the pandemic brought us a lot of awful things, but I think we also learned a lot um through that pandemic, which helped us um start a lot of these departments and using a lot of the COVID dollars that we got um to do a lot of this work.

I think um, you know, very happy and proud that I have voted um for all the different um homeless um facilities that we have throughout throughout the city of Phoenix.

I think you know, as a city, we have done a lot, you know, when it comes to partnering with a lot of you, when it comes to adding um the services that we need um to be able to help our um shelter population and also being in and seeing them, and for me, you know, they are people in our community as well.

But I also have to respond um to my constituents, um, to my constituents that have children that have sent me pictures of herrynches.

Um, you know, I myself have experienced that with my son, where he picked up a needle and told me, mommy, what is this?

And he was only three years old at Maryville Park.

So I think that there is a problem here.

Um, you know, I I hear everyone, you know, I think we do have to have a solution when it comes to how is it that we give people services?

How is it um that we make sure that we are able to attend to everyone and making sure that you don't feel disrespected with the work that you guys do out there every day because there's a lot of people that do the work that you guys do.

But at the same time, we have to make sure that our neighbors can also enjoy the parks, that they can take their children to the parks, that they can use the Ramadas when they want to have a birthday party with their children.

I represent the Maryville area as well, and there's a lot of people in Maryville that are upset when they see all the issues and the challenges in the parks, and a lot of these people that I represent are working class people, and they cannot afford the $1,000 a month to take their children um to private basketball lessons.

Um parts, our parks are their only asset.

And it and it's also my responsibility to making sure that we make those assets available to them.

We have a parks plan that we're putting together.

We're investing a lot in our parks, and yes, the parks need to be welcoming to everyone, and we need to make sure that they are an asset to everyone and everyone is able to access access our parks, and that's part of the reason.

And for me, I I am seeing this from that, from that point of view, and how is it that we make our parks safe for our children for our community?

Um, but I also think that as a city, we have done a lot um for our for our most vulnerable population, and we've been very creative on what we do.

And I just wish that the state would step up a little bit more, that the federal government would step up a little bit more, because this is not a city of Phoenix issue.

I think this is an issue throughout the whole country, and unfortunately, here in Phoenix, um, our state leg legislators just continue to attack the city of Phoenix and continue um to put um more issues on us instead of helping us.

Um and I know that around when it comes to homelessness, they do very little.

And as a city, we have done a lot, and we will continue to do so.

And you know, we will continue to work with all of you.

But for me, I see it from the lens on how do I continue to provide resources um for my constituents that cannot afford to take their children to very expensive camps for their children, and they need these sparks um in order for them to be able to enjoy.

Thank you, Mayor.

And thank you.

And just uh for the folks who are waiting, uh, we do have about 40 more folks who want to speak.

So um, if if it had been a continuance had been moved on, the council's tradition is not to take testimony on the continuance, but this is the motion on the floor is substantive, and so we would take testimony on the and and the substantive.

So just we haven't forgotten you.

Uh but I have forgotten who is next in the queue.

It was Jim.

Thank you.

Is it I haven't even spoken?

Okay, um sorry.

Um I think Councilman Warren took up a lot of time already.

So um I respect the intention of the motion on on the table.

Um, but I have a lot of problems with the motion to approve the ordinance with the delayed effective date because I have serious concerns, 1487 concerns of how the ordinance is currently written.

And my specific concerns are based on the conflicts in our ordinance in relation to ARS 36-798.51 and ARS 13-3415.

Um, our ordinance prohibits needle exchanges and harm reduction kits, uh, harm reduction kit distribution in parks and those kids in our ordinance as not limited to uh syringes, testing strips, alcohol wipes.

Um sorry, and even if it's conducted under ARS 36-798.51, that ARS explicitly permits such programs, including the distribution of syringes and the lock zone by authorized entities.

So my worry is that the ordinance may contradict state law by restricting activities that ARS 36-798.51 allows, particularly if those programs are operated by entities authorized under the state statute.

And that's pretty broad, um, as paraphernalia banning their distribution in the parks.

So if harm reduction kits are used in accordance to with ARS 3678.51, um, for example, for public health purposes, they may not be considered illegal under ARS 13 3415.

But however, the ordinance blanket prohibition could be seen as overreaching, especially if it impedes lawful public health initiatives.

So I still have a lot of legal concerns, and if we proceed with this ordinance, even with the motion on the table, logistically, if changes are made to the ordinance with a delayed effective date, what is that?

Do we come back to vote on a new ordinance?

Like what is the process?

Because I don't think we are in a position as a city to entertain or risk any state shared revenue funding if we are found um not in compliance or if we are found to violate a 1487.

And for those of you that don't know, it's SB 1487, which means that if a city is not complying with state law, it gets referred to the attorney general's office.

And if we fail that means we lose shared revenue from the state.

So what is the process on the motion on the table to approve the ordinance with a delayed effective date?

So, mayor, members of council, councilwoman Hernandez.

So the way the motion is currently, um, it would not require us to come back for another approval.

Um, we could come back if we identified changes and council was you know directing us to come back with certain changes, but it wouldn't require us.

So it's a delayed effective date to give us time to evaluate and work with um partners.

Um I have promised a break 45 minutes ago.

Um at that point, I thought maybe we're about to continue this.

So um could we just well do can we do I mean can I finish my comments first?

Okay, thank you.

So I don't feel comfortable, as I said, because and I'm not asking for legal advice, I am sharing what my legal concerns in concerns are specifically to a 1487 in relation to this statute.

So I would not feel comfortable moving with, I do not feel comfortable moving forward with the motion on the table.

Can you add Clarity?

Okay, or is it a clarifying question?

Okay, great.

Councilwoman Hodgewashing.

Thank you, Mayor.

It's a clarifying question because I feel like we've heard a lot about um ARS 36798.51, which I've pulled up here.

And the statute, if I can uh just kind of summarize the different components.

Section A talks about it says a city, uh city, town, county, or a non-governmental organization, may establish and operate an overdose and disease prevention program, and it goes forward to articulate what it is the objectives, and then B, it says a program established under this section should offer all of the following.

C then talks about kind of establishing best practices.

So I say all that to say is I understand this statute to say if you're going to do this, here are the things that you're your program should have.

Are you looking at it, Julie?

Oh, sorry.

Yes, um, thank you, Mayor, members of council.

So yes, I just pulled it up.

Um I I don't necessarily disagree with what you're saying, but I we would take a closer look at it.

Okay.

So I I say that to say is I don't think the statute itself is saying that we must, because the word there's a difference between shall and a difference between may.

And in this situation, it says we may have this type of prevention program.

It doesn't say we are required to have it.

And I think the difference is in normally in a statute like this, if we're talking about a section 1487 claim, it is where we're violating state law, meaning that we are doing something contrary to what the state legislature has um authorized.

And I just want to take a moment to echo my colleague, Councilman Betty Garreto's comment about the state legislator not being the right partner for us on this.

They've continued to cut our funding um or available funds for exactly these types of programs, but yet we're expected to do more with even less.

But going back to my question here on its face, I don't see anything that requires us to have to operate.

Um, I don't see anything that this statute, I should say, that we would be violating with the draft motion.

Am I missing something is more of my question?

Mayor members of council.

Um, I I don't think there's anything specifically on its face.

I would also comment that the process for a fourteen eighty seven complaint is if we do receive a complaint, we would of course look at this more closely and it would go to the attorney general to we give a chance to respond.

Um, the attorney general then makes a determination, and then the city has thirty days to correct, you know, any ordinance deficiencies or any, you know, violations that were found by the attorney general.

And then the same concern regarding thank you for that clarification, and then the same similar comments regarding ARS section thirteen thirty four fifteen, which is part of the criminal code, right?

Um, is there any indicate any concern?

Am I missing anything as to whether or not the proposed mo proposed ordinary uh the proposed motion is a violation of that language?

So, Mayor members of council, um, we are pulling up that ordinance um and to see if if we think there's a we'll we'll have to review that issue.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Sorry, go ahead, Mayor.

Are we good to take a break?

All right.

It is seven forty-four.

We will break till eight.

We will reconvene the formal meeting of the Phoenix City Council.

Thank you to everyone for your patience.

Special thank you.

We have a huge amount of important things later on in the agenda.

And we are very grateful to folks for your patience.

Sorry, uh, we'll begin with Michael Roberts, followed by Hunter Scott and Noah Shulkin.

Michael Roberts.

Mayor, City Council, thank you so much.

I've missed uh a child's concert tonight.

I'm gonna go home to a uh wife with expecting our sixth baby any day now.

Very busy night, but it's worth it to come and be able to present to you.

There's been uh I feel like a little bit of an advantage and disadvantage having heard your thoughts on this.

Uh redirecting what I had prepared.

I would encourage the council to reconsider the proposal that's up currently and go back to the vice mayor's proposal for tabling.

So not just that it's a delayed approval and that we have a month to not do anything about it, but rather that we can bring the most important people uh to this conversation so that we can do this right.

Um, if I you know, councilman wearing uh mentioned what would happen if someone were stuck with the needle between here and there.

The reality is if we don't have programs and protections in place, that needle's likely to carry more diseases, have been used by multiple users, and be in a worse position.

Versus when these these practices are in place, we're able to provide more protection for your citizens, eventually reducing the strain and and the burden of having those needles in the community to start with.

The goal of these organizations and of these programs is ultimately to provide healing and safety by plugging these people into the right place.

So please reconsider that.

I also want you to just really consider again removing them the motion in place, reconsidering tabling it for now and bringing the right people because there's such a plethora of experience that's been shared here tonight.

Expertise.

I'm a nurse of 10 years, and and I'm just learning barely this year what community health really is.

And these experts here in the room can lead you and guide you and help you make a much better decision.

Thank you, council.

Hunter Scott, followed by No Noah Shulkin.

Good evening, Mayor, good evening, council.

Uh, my name is Hunter Scott.

I have the honor of serving as the director of marketing and communications for Circle the City.

Um, unfortunately, I had to follow Michael, my colleague, who is an amazing speaker.

Um, I know it's been a long and emotional day for all of us.

I did have something also prepared as well, uh, but I'm deciding to throw that out, and I would like to echo um my colleagues' sentiment as well that we go back to the vice mayor's motion.

I think it's been again a long day.

I think we all have the same shared interest in meeting people where we're where we're our mission is to meet people where we are.

We want to meet you where you're at as well in this.

I think we all just want to come together.

We all want to work together.

We too want safer parks, and I think that's been kind of the sentiment that's been echoed throughout the day.

Um, so again, like my colleagues said, all we would like to do is just have a seat at the table.

We ask that this um be tabled so we can again bring all these incredible health experts to the table together and we can work together on finding a solution, doing it right way the first time.

Um, I know there's a lot of confusion from a lot of different parties on this.

Um, so we just um gracefully ask for just that time and that seat at the table so we can all come together and work on a solution together.

Thank you.

Noah is next followed by Michael Smithson.

Mayor Gallego and City Council members, good evening.

My name is Noah Shulkin, and I'm a medical student at the University of Arizona College of Medicine Phoenix.

As a volunteer, I work with Street Medicine Phoenix to distribute naloxone and overdose prevention education to people experiencing homelessness every week.

While I may have affiliations with the University of Arizona, the beliefs expressed today are entirely my own and do not reflect those held by the university.

I'm here to state my opposition to the ordinance prohibiting prohibiting harm reduction in Phoenix Parks.

The measures you're attempting to ban have been used for decades because they work, are backed by evidence, and most importantly, they keep people safe.

This is not only have implications for people who use drugs, but the greater Phoenix community.

For example, hepatitis C virus is transmitted in blood, potentially by sharing used needles, eventually causing liver failure and even cancer.

A European study aggregated results of multiple publications to find that there's a 76% reduction in hepatitis C incidence with Syrin service program utilization.

Essentially, this exhibits how distribution of clean needles can effectively reduce the spread of certain diseases.

Furthermore, given that many homeless patients receive health care through access, both state and federal funds could be financially impacted by a rise in diseases such as hepatitis C.

The school pharmacy at Virginia Commonwealth University found that for every one case of hepatitis C averted per 100 people who use drugs, there'd be savings of over 360,000 in avoided treatment costs based on the 2019 value of the US dollar.

In other words, harm reduction initiatives can decrease deadly disease transmission, resulting in a reduced financial burden at the state and federal level.

Given these figures, I hope I make the case for the financial benefit of investment into harm reduction.

While this may make a compelling argument for the opposition of the new city ordinance, I hope the safety and protection of your constituents is far more important.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Michael is next, followed by Sharon Taylor.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you, Council.

My name is the Reverend Michael Smithson.

I serve at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral here in downtown Phoenix, but I'm speaking to you today as a resident of Phoenix, a resident of District 8.

As someone who lives and serves a congregation in downtown.

I'm very sympathetic to the position you're in.

One of my first tasks is picking needles up out of our courtyard.

I'm very sympathetic to the position you're in, and I'm very sympathetic to the complaints that you receive from constituents worried about these kind of issues in our parks.

What I'm more concerned with, though, is that this ordinance would not solve that problem.

As many of the experts in the room have testified tonight, this ordinance would exacerbate that quote problem.

We would still find needles, but they would be more diseased and more dangerous.

We would still find drugs and we would still find used medical supplies in our parks.

Protecting our children in our community from drugs and from disease is important, but it's best done in collaboration with the doctors and the researchers who study this.

Thank you.

Sharon is next, followed by Karen Tepper.

Good evening, Mayor Gallego and Council members.

My name is Sharon Taylor.

I am a registered nurse and I serve as chief operating officer at Circle the City.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you and really to share vehemently our advocacy for why we do not want this ordinance to proceed.

Having worked in various healthcare settings, health care for the homeless itself is truly a specialty.

If I were to have a reunion with all the nurses that I've gone to school with, they would not have a clue, not anywhere close to understanding what it's like to take care of the most vulnerable of our community members, our neighbors.

Whether we like it or not, they are our community members.

And I actually have a much longer speech than I prepared.

However, many have already spoken to what I was going to speak to.

So instead, Councilmember Pastor, I respectfully request to please withdraw your motion and allow for uh Vice Mayor O'Brien's motion to please be presented again and allow us the opportunities to sit together, collaborate, and come up with solutions that will ensure safety, not just for the vulnerable people that we serve, but for all of the community members.

Thank you so much.

Karen Tepper is next, followed by Nicole Turan.

Good evening, Mayor and Council.

I'm Dr.

Karen Tepper, and I'm the president and CEO of TERS Health.

TERS is a federally qualified health center and one of the largest behavioral health providers here in the state of Arizona.

We serve roughly 60,000 Arizonans every year.

And this includes individuals who are unhoused or have a mental illness, but also children and families and elderly members of our community.

We have been a longtime partner with the city of Phoenix, and we value and appreciate your collaboration over many, many years.

We have been providing care in the community, including in parks since 1969.

These services include mobile crisis services, HIV testing, flu vaccines, heat relief, blood pressure checks, blood sugar checks, and yes, wound care.

Should this ordinance take effect, organizations like Taros Health would need to make decisions regarding how much additional administrative burden and provider risk we are able to sustain?

The language in this ordinance currently is so vague that I would not be comfortable allowing our teams to go into parks to provide any activities, including a blood pressure check.

Our unhoused pop uh the my job is to protect our medical staff from engaging in behaviors that could result in criminal prosecution.

Our legal team is concerned about the risk that this ordinance prevents to our teams.

A financial decision would need to be made.

Do we cease participating in these lines of business altogether?

Do we have sufficient need in other municipalities that Taros Health only serves municipalities outside of Phoenix?

This will include many of the activities that the parks department has said are allowable.

Our legal team disagrees.

The additional admin during the break, I had the opportunity to speak with Jenny and also Kim from Circle of the City.

The three of us would love to sit down with other members of the community and be able to work through this together.

Please go back to the Vice Mayor's amendment and please let's give us some time to work through these things together.

Councilwoman Hernandez.

Thank you.

I have a question for Dr.

for Dr.

Tepper.

Um, just a well, maybe a two-part question.

Um how if this ordinance passes, and I say that because we have to move on the assumption that the ordinance is gonna, well, the ordinance is gonna pass as written because we don't know what the final language of the ordinance will be.

Um how can or how will Teros and Circle of the City how are they gonna be able to continue their work?

Um more specifically, how would you be able to operationalize mobile units and getting permits each time that you have to go provide health care access to our residents?

So the margins on any kind of mobile service is extremely narrow.

So these are not money-making ventures.

These are there's lines of business that then taros in particular loses money on every time we deliver a service in the community.

Um adding any sort of increased administrative burden means that I have to take it back to the drawing board and determine can we continue to do those lines of business?

So I don't know the answer to your question.

I I am pleading with you to give us some time to work through how we can make this uh doable from a from a from that sort of perspective.

Standing up a mobile unit that you can actually deliver medical care in is a six-figure endeavor.

So to retrofit an RV to be or van to be able to go out and actually deliver medical care in the communities is not something that you can do quickly.

Um, to retrofit it could take six to nine months, and as I said, could take six figures in terms of being able to do that.

There is not that margin in this line of business to do that work.

And thank you for that, Doctor.

And just kind of a follow-up question.

In because of those unknowns, is it possible that you will also face staffing uh impacts because of the added administrative burden piece to do the work?

In order to make in order to make any line of business viable, you need to know that you have sufficient work for your staff to do for a 40-hour work week, for example.

If we have to get permission every time we're going to go into a park, and I have staff that are assigned to do that work 40 hours a week today, I don't have a guarantee that I'm going to have 40 hours of worth of work for them to do.

And so, yes, there would be likely be staffing impacts.

Either we would have to reassign them to other lines of business or potentially discontinue the services altogether.

So, this ordinance, as is, not only is it going to impact the access from our vulnerable residents to receive health care access.

We're talking about potentially impacting staff that can face lots of jobs.

Correct.

In this moment.

Yes.

Thank you, Dr.

Kepper, and I am so sorry that you have to deal with this.

Thank you.

Nicole Turan is available is registered to speak if necessary.

Councilwoman Hodge Washington.

I was going to ask a question regarding the if we can articulate a little bit more on the uh administrative burden that you anticipate with the with the proposed ordinance.

Absolutely.

So my understanding from the parks department is that organizations like Taros or Circle the City would be able to still do some health activities in a park.

We would have to submit a form and let folks know when we were going to be there and do some of those kinds of pieces.

That takes a lot of operational time.

It sounds super simple.

It's just one form, except if you're doing one form for every time you're going to go to a location, that means somebody has to be planning out very intentionally where we're going to be, when we're going to be there, documenting it.

I don't have admin staff that are assigned to my mobile units.

So I don't know.

That's okay.

So how are we making the determination right now as to where resources are allocated?

So in general, we are going to places where we see need in the in the morning.

So we go there the same time every day, and we see how many folks are there that need care.

Based upon how many people are there, we make the decision on where we're going to go next.

And so there are certain places where they expect to see us stay in or same time, same day in a given week.

And there are certain places that we're going to when we have the time because there wasn't enough folks at the place where we started.

This is an incredibly inefficient line of business.

Nobody is doing this because it is it is good or logical from a business perspective.

We're doing it because it saves lives.

Thank you for that.

Thank you for that.

Um my question or my understanding from Parks Director, Cynthia, you can correct me that the re we'll ask you this question, then I'll come back to this question.

Can you tell me what the how long the process is anticipated to take?

Yes, Mayor, members of the city council, Councilman Hodge Washington.

The special activity request form takes us three to five days to respond.

Um in that process, we are also able to approve multiple dates for an event or activity.

So if there are standing locations and dates, that's something that could be reviewed and potentially approved all in one permit.

Okay.

Thank you so much for that.

So if a provider, for example, wanted to say I wanted to have a I hate to call it a stand-in, an application for a stand-in um time and place, they could submit that all at one time, correct?

Yes, Councilman Hodge Washington.

Thank you so much for that.

Thank you for the question.

Thank you for providing the answer.

Thank you.

Okay.

Uh is Nicole here, Tiron.

All right.

Uh Elizabeth Turlinden and Brian Thoi.

So sorry.

Good evening, Council.

Thank you to everyone staying here.

Um quote Councilmember Robinson.

We appreciate your passion on this issue.

It is wonderful that all of you are looking to the health and safety of your constituents.

And I laud that.

Especially Councilmember Gardado, the work you've done with the Office of Homeless Services.

Thank you.

But good intentions aren't enough to guarantee good outcomes.

And Councilmember Hodge Washington, you mentioned that it's not the intention of this legislation to adversely impact programs like heat relief.

Uh but you have just heard from a multitude of people explaining how there could be unintended consequences from this legislation as currently written.

And so I would ask you to go back to considering the vice mayor's motion to postpone this until February 18th, so that there can be more conclusive dialogue and you can come up with something which is not only well intentioned but effective in accomplishing your stated goals of bringing health and safety to all your constituents.

Thank you.

Brian Toy.

Followed by Rachel Valenzuela.

Good evening, Mayor, uh, council members.

Um, and I appreciate you getting the name right.

I do care that we put respect on that name because my grandmother came uh as a refugee in the aftermath of the Vietnam War with their four kids, so that name is very important to me.

Um what I just want to say tonight is that you know, I want to think back in American history and want to think to a really dark time in American history when we at the American people were given the phrase there is nothing to fear but fear itself.

And what I've heard throughout this conversation is a lot of desiring to make motion and make changes into the city code based on fears, based on concerns, and not based on evidence.

So I'm here to talk about facts, not feelings.

All right.

What I want to talk to talk to y'all about tonight is facts.

Because I understand the fears that my neighbors and other residents in Phoenix have about the work that we do at Shot in the Dark, of which I've been a volunteer for over 10 years.

Shot in the Dark has been providing needle exchange services here in Phoenix for over 15 years and to the wider Phoenix metropolitan area.

And that may not make me an expert in terms of having nice little letters next to my name, but it thinks I think it means I've been around the block, and this is not my first rodeo.

So what I want to share with y'all is the fact of the matter that when somebody attends a needle exchange service as a participant, they're five times more likely to enter treatment after that experience.

When a needle exchange uh service is implemented in a neighborhood, uh, it's consistently seen that crime reduces up to rates of 30% when that is implemented within the community.

Uh, we've seen every time that a needle exchange is implemented in the community, it decreases needle sticks both to law enforcement and to the wider population at large.

So I know some of you have probably already decided how you feel about me and my work, just based on the fact that it's a needle exchange.

But what I'm asking here for you all tonight is not to let me tell you how to do your jobs or who to listen to from the community, but to ask that you have an opportunity to sit down and hear the facts and hear and see some of the evidence that's been across the country and across the world.

Because the only two things that fight fear are ending uncertainty and ending misinformation.

And I've heard a lot of those two things tonight.

Rachel is next, followed by Rodrigo.

I'm a lot smaller than him, so I had to pull that down a little bit.

Hello, Mayor Gayo.

Nice to see you, and thank you, council members, for having us today.

My name is Rachel Valenzuela.

I am the chief community engagement officer for Valle del Sol, which, like many of my friends here, we are community health centers who focus and pride ourselves on taking care of the people in the city of Phoenix.

Um, obviously, you guys have heard a lot of statistics and data.

I won't regurgitate that information.

Instead, what I'm asking is that you guys table this for discussion with those of us that are involved in the care of these individuals within our communities.

I think you guys have heard more than enough people tell you that there was not enough people at the table to discuss these items.

There was not enough input from the stakeholders that could have had influence on better solutions, better resolutions to this situation.

We and we are in agreement with you on the safety of the parks.

We are in agreement with you that these people do need help and do need redirection.

And so we're asking you to table this to please reconsider Vice Mayor's um recommendation and allow us to be a part of the conversation, allow us to collaborate with you and come up with solutions that make sense not only for um you know the people we serve, but for the entire community of Phoenix.

Uh, we appreciate your time.

I know it's been a long day, and we really hope that you guys consider our request.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Rodrigo is next, followed by Elizabeth Venable.

Hello, Mayor and Council members.

Thank you for allowing me the time to speak to you today.

Uh, my name is Rodrigo Valenzuela Cordo.

I'm a resident of the city of Phoenix and also a public health professional who has been working in public health for the past five years.

I um have also worked directly with people experiencing homelessness in our community.

I'm here to urge you all to please table this uh current item as um vice mayor had uh made the motion to do so.

Um while the intent may be to ensure safety, this ordinance would instead criminalize medical care and harm reduction services in our city parks, prohibiting these services and making them class one misdemeanor.

The policy places unhoused residents at our greater risk and undermines public health.

For many for many people experiencing homelessness, parks are where care happens.

It's where their life also happens.

They are where wound care is provided over doses are reversed and infectious are prevented.

Eliminating these services does not make the parts safer.

It increases medical emergencies and shifts the burden onto the first responders in emergency departments.

As a public health professional, I want to be clear.

Harm reduction in street-based medical care saves lives.

Criminalizing these services contradicts the city's goals of creating a healthier and safer Phoenix.

There is a better approach, and that is why I urge you to please table this um item.

Uh public health and public safety are not in conflict.

When we suppose when we support evidence-based care and collaboration, we improve outcomes for everyone.

Phoenix is a city that values dignity, compassion, and community, and our policies should reflect those values by protecting life, not criminalizing care.

Thank you for your time.

Elizabeth is next, followed by Amanda Williams.

Elizabeth, could you please wave so we know you're on your way?

All right, Amanda Williams is next, followed by Gilbert Arvisu virtual comment.

Hi.

Good evening, Mayor and Council members.

My name is Amanda Williams.

I'm a licensed clinical social worker, and I am the chief of behavioral health at Valle del Seul.

I know you've heard a lot from our partners here in the community about our concerns with this new ordinance and how that can actually prevent and delay us from providing necessary life-saving treatment.

We all have the same goal, which is having parks that are safe for all community members to enjoy.

We also want our parks free of drug use and needles and unhoused.

We actually want them to be in treatment and receiving care.

And that's where our focus and energy should be.

And I encourage you to partner with us so that we can come up with a mutual solution that serves everyone in our community.

Thank you.

One is individuals or informal groups who may be handing out syringes or medical supplies without clear standards.

The other is provisioning of health care by licensed providers, such as Circle the City and Street Medicine Phoenix.

I cannot speak to whether informal groups are contributing to debris, but from my own direct observations, these licensed programs follow protocols, operate under medical supervision, and are not leaving medical waste behind.

The second issue is par staff needing to know who is in their parks and when, and that is totally understandable.

I would simply encourage us to consider whether class one misdemeanor penalties and routing every outreach event through the special activity form, a process designed for large family parties and Ramada reservations, are necessary to encourage coordination with parks from licensed providers, especially when our main concern is unregulated activity.

This seems like a great opportunity for collaboration, a simple standing process where organizations like circle the city and street medicine Phoenix share a regular schedule.

Parks has clear points of contact, and everyone understands the expectations without relying on class one misdemeanor penalties or burdensome costly forms to achieve that coordination.

In closing, I respectfully ask that as you consider this ordinance, you look for a path that keeps parks safe and clean while preserving access to evidence-based medical and outreach services for the people who need them most.

Thank you.

Graham Fox is next, followed by Michelle.

Hello.

Thank you to the council and mayor for allowing me to speak.

My name is Graham Fox.

I'm from District 4, and I oppose this ordinance.

I'm an outreach supervisor, overseeing staff who are syringe service program specialists and testers with Sonoran Prevention Works, a statewide org that does street-based outreach, organizational capacity building and advocacy work with a focus on people who use drugs.

I've been doing this work for over a decade.

We do direct outreach to individuals while providing overdose education, the lock zone and supply distribution, HIV and hepatitis C testing.

We prioritize meeting people where they're at.

We go to areas where people are already congregating, where people are not receiving regular services for their health and well-being.

This is why medical outreach in public parks is so important.

Some people will never never go to a facility, have no way to get there, or have pets, disabilities that make it extremely difficult to visit other places.

I want to tell you about one of our uh participants, James, who has received our services for several years.

James is disabled and in a wheelchair and mostly stays in parks.

He's one of our secondary distributors who gives out our naloxone provides overdose education to others in his community.

He has helped administer naloxone to at least three people and save their lives.

However, we've seen what happens when the parks are swept of unhouse people.

When they're displaced, it makes it extremely difficult to reconnect to services.

There are increased overdoses, deaths, communical disease transmission.

If harm reduction uh services are not allowed in the park, we will undoubtedly see an increase in overdose, deaths, 911 calls, emergency room visits, and uh severe wounds.

Until there are better services, affordable housing, other places for people to go, they will remain in the park and need life-saving care and harm reduction.

This ordinance is not the solution.

It will not keep the parks cleaner or safer.

It will do the complete opposite.

In fact, we need community members like James to be able to educate.

Michelle uh G is next, and then uh we'll go back to in-person comment with uh Eloise.

My name is Michelle Greves, and I'm the CFO for Circle of the City, and I stand with the rest of our team and asking you to re-um evaluate this ordinance.

I think that we've brought uh to the plate a lot of evidence that what you're proposing is not going to solve the problem that you are uh looking to solve.

And so I think if we all get together and discuss this, it may create a better solution for long-term results.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Eloisa is next, followed by Janelle Jones.

She had to go okay, she had to go home.

Uh Janelle is next, followed by Evan.

Hi, um, thank you, Mayor, for the opportunity to speak.

My name is Janelle Jones, and I um live in district six.

I work in district eight, and I conduct outreach um in all of the districts.

And I have done various work in the field of substance use disorder that includes as a subject matter expert for the state judiciary.

It includes public health.

Um, and currently in my role, I serve in leadership at a nonprofit that serves families and infants that are impacted by the opioid epidemic.

Um, I had a whole thing planned, but I'm gonna go ahead and just address a couple things quickly that have not been brought up.

Um, one major concern that I have is that the ordinance, as written, says that it does not include um naloxone, that that will still be allowed.

An issue I have with that is that it does not clarify that naloxone that generic version that costs only three dollars that most of our orgs are handing out, has to be distributed or not distributed, it has to be um administered to a person through an intramuscular needle.

And so this ordinance is contradicting because it's saying that it's not going to influence naloxone distribution in parks, but naloxone distribution is only possible um in that form with needles.

The form that is done um nasally costs like 45 dollars in compared to three.

So that's a major issue that I wanted to bring up and urge that um this ordinance is reconsidered for a later date because the ordinance has written is not specific enough to clarify that.

Um I also wanted to bring up that this ordinance contradicts um Arizona what Arizona's public health goals are, and essentially that syringe service programs are already legal in our state.

And so I myself have um volunteered in the community, and I've experienced being told that I'm not allowed to hand out thank you for that testimony.

Avan is next, followed by Carrie.

Mayor, Council members, my name is Avan Kelly, and I would like to join the chorus of voices in opposition to proposed ordinance G7467.

There's been a lot of talk about safety tonight, and I want to speak to what that means.

Because safety does not look like criminalizing life-saving health care.

It looks like increasing access to health care, affordable education, affordable housing, wrap around services, and other programs that are focused on lifting people up rather than pushing them to the side.

Let us be clear.

Harm reduction programs save lives.

They are evidence-based programs that reduce the spread of infections, reduce overdose deaths, and improve overall public health outcomes.

They protect vulnerable members of our communities, people who have been repeatedly failed by our public health and social safety net systems.

People who use drugs are our friends, family members, and neighbors.

And this council has an obligation to address their needs.

This ordinance does nothing to actually keep people safe.

This council has presented no evidence.

This ordinance will actually address any of the problems that reports to address.

And this council has been seemingly willing to ignore all the evidence presented by dozens and dozens of speakers that shows that this ordinance will actually increase the many harms that our community is facing.

All this ordinance does is cut people off from life-saving health care and make it easier for people to look away from systemic problems that make them uncomfortable.

That isn't what safety looks like.

I encourage this council to support harm reduction initiatives that actually improve public safety and health and to oppose proposed ordinance G7467.

Thank you.

Carrie is next, followed by Claire.

Good evening, Mayor and City Council members.

My name is Carrie Lundstrom, and I am a medical student at Creighton University School of Medicine, a volunteer with Street Medicine Phoenix, and a constituent of District 4.

My views are my own and do not represent these affiliated institutions.

I stand alongside many other healthcare workers, community members, and medical students, including many of my fellow peers online, and urge the council to vote no on this ordinance.

I'd like to mention that the disagreement surrounding this ordinance is not contained to this chamber.

A petition in opposition to this ordinance has already gathered around 500 signatures, reflecting distinct community disagreement.

My original speech echoed and agreed with many of the opinions offered today about the importance and effectiveness of preventative medical care and harm reduction programs that meet people where they're at, that they improve the health of our unhoused community members and reduce health care burdens.

So I'd like to offer an educational perspective not yet considered.

Administering medical care in public places as a medical student has empowered me in my future practice as a physician to appropriately understand and compassionately treat people experiencing homelessness.

Medical outreach and harm reduction programs like Street Medicine Phoenix plays a vital role not only in providing care to people experiencing homelessness, but also in training future physicians and social determinants of health harm reduction and system-based care.

Operating under licensed clinician supervision, students like myself learn to practice ethical, compassionate, and cost conscious medicine, strengthening both public health and the future health care workforce serving Phoenix.

I respectfully urge you to vote no or table this ordinance for further collaboration with key stakeholders.

Thank you for your time.

Claire Richards is next, followed by Nicole Rodriguez.

Good evening, Mayor and members of the city council.

My name is Claire Richards.

I'm a first-year medical student at the University of Arizona College of Medicine Phoenix and a resident of District 7.

I am also an overdose prevention lead for Street Medicine Phoenix.

I want to begin by acknowledging the length of today's meeting and the fatigue we are all feeling.

It's clear from both the public testimony and comments from council members and the vice mayor that there are shared concerns about the language of this ordinance and its potential unintended consequences.

It was stated earlier in this meeting that this ordinance was not drafted using data on the effectiveness of harm reduction programs or their impacts on overdose deaths or use of emergency services.

It was also not drafted with the input of the community organizations who are experts in this field and are so ready to partner with you.

Given the seriousness of those outcomes and the concerns raised today about the ordinance's clarity, I respectfully urge the council to not move forward with this hasty vote.

Instead, I would ask that we revisit the vice mayor's motion and initiate a collaborative review process.

This could include a small working group or subcommittee with parks and recreation, concerned neighbors, public health officials, federally qualified health centers, street medicine teams, and community partners who you heard from today.

Slowing down in this moment is not in action.

It is responsible leadership, and I think you know that.

We all want safer parks and healthier communities.

The last thing we want is to exacerbate the existing issues the Phoenix community faces.

Thank you for your time.

Nicole is next, followed by Tammy Weaver.

Hi, thank you, Mayor and Council Nicole Rodriguez.

I am against uh the proposed ordinance here.

Um it comes across as the Maccavellian ordinance proposal.

Um I'm not a doctor, I'm not a lawyer for what it's worth.

I did say earlier, I was a park ranger with the city of Phoenix for eight years.

The only medical degree experience left behind were done by first responders, not intentional, but in response to an emergency situation to get someone to a hospital ASAP.

I never witnessed medical waste being left behind by the people you here uh are hearing from today.

And 20 years ago, I was picking up needles in parks when uh current park director, Cynthia, was in the Norton House.

Um needles in parks isn't new.

Arguably there were more needles in parks 15 to 20 years ago.

Um, parts death, we were always trained and educated how not to get poked by glass, needles while conducting routine maintenance in eight years I never got poked.

Um, so in not there's language in this ordinance that keeps bothering me, the not limited um to part of the ordinance for a harm, what goes into harm reduction kit does, it can leave room for including water, electrolytes.

I'm not an attorney, and I know the ambiguous ambiguity, what um not limited to can cause.

Um, mobile units cannot be expected to carry someone to um, you know, we cannot expect these folks to carry someone to a mobile unit.

Um, there's a reason why our heat mitigation folks walk around with wagons meeting people where they're at.

If you've ever been into, for instance, the park I mostly now recreate and is still in school park.

Um, it can be very challenging to expect someone sometimes to get up and move if they are not in good health condition, um, and they just need immediate medical attention to get up and move and come towards you in a mobile unit.

Because I did hear something about mobile units.

I just wanted to share the many nuances I'm hearing tonight, and I really am excited for council to start meeting with these folks too.

So thank you for your time.

Tammy is our next speaker.

Hi, I'm Tammy.

Um I work in healthcare half for a long portion of my my career.

I have lost family members to drugs, including a sibling.

I've spent a lot of time in hospitals and often encountered people on what is the worst day of their life.

It teaches you compassion.

I believe no one wants a lifestyle of homelessness or drug addiction.

There's usually a root cause and desire to do something more meaningful.

Can you imagine dealing with something so dark or painful that drugs seem like a better option?

For those living in parks, that's their community.

They've been shunned by the rest of society, and this is the location and the place where they feel they still have a home.

Healthcare is like sales.

You have to keep trying, build trust and a relationship over time, talking to the person and helping them understand uh what got them there and what they think could help.

Um, there was a gentleman that mentioned something earlier about those that they give a needle to are five times more likely to enter treatment.

That needle is a symbol that they care uh more than a meal.

You care about them living.

So I I would hope that you kind of consider that um the ultimate impacts of of this decision.

I care very much about parks, you know that.

Um, but then you you need to understand that you're gonna make things worse worse with like STD rates and such around the city, Maricopa County, it already has one of the highest.

Uh, to my friends in healthcare, I hope you stick around because the next uh agenda item is also health care related TSMC's expansion.

Thank you.

Thank you to our team.

Did we get everyone?

All right.

So Tammy was our final speaker.

The motion on the table is Councilwoman Pastor's motion.

Uh Councilwoman Hernandez.

Yeah, I have a question for staff.

Um thank you, Mayor.

As we are moving forward, the other thing that's happening in the city is that we've started moving into our budget process where we have asked part of the budget process is to ask each department to identify um where reductions in their budget can happen.

Uh one of those departments is our fire department, which we ask them to identify three percent of reductions in their budget.

If we pass this ordinance, um I would agree with the public that it is going to increase the impact of services of the service needs that our fire department faces.

Um are we going to how are we going to explain to our residents that they can expect to see increased response times in other emergencies that they face because this ordinance will drastically increase the burden on emergency rooms and calls to our 911 system that our firefighters have to answer?

Have we thought about that?

Mayor, members of the council, councilman Hernandez.

Um of the things that we have discussed related to this ordinance is that there would need to be metrics that we would need to establish and follow to determine the impacts of the ordinance.

One of those could be on 911 calls.

Um so that would be something that we would intend to monitor and then identify whether or not we are seeing impacts on those calls specifically related to this ordinance.

If we could identify the location of we can identify I'm sorry, I'm tired.

We can identify the location of the calls, and so we would need to specify um the number of calls in parks specifically so that we can compare current data to what happens after the ordinance.

Okay.

My apologies for not being able to articulate that.

No, no, no.

You're you are fine, and you articulated it exactly how you need to.

Um, my concern still remains that you know the city earlier in the year passed a TBT a sales tax increase because we needed our fire department is in dire need of resources, right?

They are stretched thin, they are our first line of defense out to provide care to the community, and now we're gonna be voting on an ordinance that we have no idea what that impact is to our fire department, or I'm expected to make a vote on an ordinance that I have absolutely zero idea what the impact to our fire department is that is gonna add um increased calls that could very likely result in increased or delayed longer call uh call response call times to the all of our residents, right?

And so I don't expect you to answer that.

I just want to make sure that that everyone understands how we are moving forward in this.

So thank you, Lori.

Councilwoman Pastor.

Yes, I want to add clarity to the motion.

Uh the motion is to be delayed to March 30th, 2026.

In between the 90 days, staff is to work with uh health professionals, uh community organizations on the ordinance that is currently here, and to work with uh our professionals and the community professionals on the language of the ordinance, and if there are changes that need to be had in the ordinance and agreement to it, those changes will be done and the ordinance then will come back before March 30th.

Am I I I want to know this from the legal standpoint and get it validated because that's the intent of the ordinance.

Can I ask a clarifying question?

Councilwoman Pastor, I think has asked a question.

Thank you, Mayor, members of council.

Um, yes, council councilwoman, that is my understanding of the intent and the language as well.

So when there are changes to the ordinance and there's an agreement, then it will come back to council before March 30th, as to uh as to that being the effective date.

Mayor, members of council, that is correct.

So if we are able to bring back changes to the ordinance, we would do that prior to the effective date.

And then that when you bring those changes back to the council with the changes, then that's the that's the ordinance that we will pass once comes up back up.

Mayor, members of council.

So if we brought back a new ordinance and that was passed by council, that ordinance would supersede, we would make sure we wrote it that it superseded the prior ordinance.

Um if you pass that that one today.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Councilwoman Hernandez.

It's actually a clarifying question for councilwoman Pastor on the motion.

So is it to still approve the this current ordinance with the delayed effective date?

Or are we saying we are going to delay a vote on this ordinance?

It's a delay, it's the approval of this ordinance of a delayed effective date of March 30th.

And in between those 90 days, they will be working.

Community, I mean, um, staff and community will be working together on the current ordinance and bring back a new ordinance prior to March 30th.

Or language.

Go ahead.

That's I would just yes, I would clarify that we would bring back any proposed changes of maybe a totally new ordinance or maybe revisions within it.

I think that was your intent, Councilwoman.

Correct.

Okay.

So it's clear there's a lot of misinformation right now, and Councilman Pastor's motion then direct staff to work with our valuable partners to address that.

And if there's a need to make changes, then we are open to that.

We want this to work.

All right, are we ready?

Yes, sorry.

Roll call.

I'm sorry, Vice Mayor.

Can I ask one more question?

So kid.

Um if there are no changes made, and this is approved tonight.

This ordinance goes into effect as is March 30th, 2026.

Correct, Julie.

Uh, mayor, members of council, vice mayor.

Um, that is correct.

If there, if we didn't bring back any changes, this ordinance would go into effect.

Okay.

Councilwoman Pastor, is it is your is it your intent that they bring us back changes or only if yes, it is my intent that they will bring back.

Sorry, what?

Well, changes, yes.

So it is your intent.

Sorry, so I just I'm trying, but as long as it comes back before those changes will be need to be brought back before March 30th.

Correct.

Thank you, Mayor.

Councilwoman Hutch Washington.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor.

And it's the intent that during this 90-day let's call a 90-day window that they will meet with the healthcare providers that provide services in the park and try to come up with a solution that works.

Correct.

Okay.

Roll call.

One of that one.

Yes.

And on this, Mayor.

Please, thank you.

Um, first, I just want to apologize to the professionals in the room, to the medical students in the room, to the residents that spent hours of their day to come to use your voice to advocate with evidence-based solutions and advice on how this city should be crafting policy.

I'm truly sorry that the opinion and the facts that you, as professionals in these fields, and the providers to health care access to our most vulnerable residents seem to not matter tonight.

Um, I have there's no guarantees that this ordinance will get better, and that is very egregious to me.

Um, it's also, yeah.

I also want to apologize as staff for you being put in a position that you have to present something that is not ready for us to vote on.

We are completely doing this process backwards by voting on something that we have zero guarantees on what the language will be.

When I served in the state senate, one of the first lessons I learned that the best policy crafted was to bring the stateholder the stakeholders to the table before we voted on any language that changed any laws because that brings real impact to our residents' lives.

And the fact that we are voting that I have to take a vote on some on an empty piece of paper with zero guarantees that we will save lives.

As the fifth largest city in the United States, it is shameful that our answer to an overwhelming need for access to care is to lean towards criminalization and restrictions in our public parks.

Nothing in this ordinance will make our park safer.

Nothing in this ordinance will make our communities across Phoenix safer.

Instead, what we are saying is that as the leaders of this city, we are okay with pushing our most vulnerable residents further into the shadows, further into neglect, and further into despair.

We as a city have already been clear that we do not have the financial resources to meet the needs of our most vulnerable neighbors.

And the reality is that we rely on all of you as medical providers, the harm reduction providers, and the community health providers to ensure our residents have the access to the care that they need.

Making it legal for them to work with us to provide those services will not address the issue that seems to be the motivating factor to bring this ordinance to a vote.

Furthermore, revision revisions to this item were literally thrown together by legal at the last minute because my office raised questions about the fact that we didn't even have a definition for medical care.

To be quite honest, that is sloppy AF and reckless.

This whole ordinance is shameful and dangerous.

And I want to be clear that our sloppiness and haste to punish our residents with will result in people dying, and that is unacceptable.

That goes against the oath of office that I took before I stepped into this role.

People will die if we pass this ordinance.

This ordinance will not reduce drug use, it does not make our parks any more safe, it will increase overdose and disease, it will place Phoenix in legal risk, and it will increase long-term taxpayer costs.

Most importantly, it will weaken partnerships with the community organizations that we claim to champion and that the city relies on to help our residents.

And let's be honest, it is downright cruel.

This is an immoral ordinance.

I fully reject this ordinance, and I vote vehemently noj Washington.

If I may, Mayor, I'll explain my vote.

Please do.

Thank you.

Um, this issue, as evidenced by the number of people that have spoken on it today, is a definitely not an easy issue.

It's a complex issue.

However, I think the motion that has been presented allows us the time to hear from the stakeholders that have attended today so that we can figure out a path forward.

We want to make sure, and from my perspective, I want to make sure we're balancing the needs of all of our residents, housed, unhoused, those that neighbor and abut the parks, as well as ensuring that we do not cause any additional harm to the residents of our Phoenix.

So for that reason, I will support the motion and allow us to have some more time to talk to the medical professionals that provide services on if there is a path forward.

So thank you.

My vote is yes.

My vote is yes.

Uh, this has been a very complicated piece.

I have uh worked with community providers on this.

I have spoken to them late last night, working on some of this language.

I know that people are disappointed in this motion, but this motion provides us the 90 days that is needed to come together and work on the language.

The other piece is delivery of services has not stopped.

You have right now you can continue to deliver services up until the ordinance is in effect.

When the ordinance is in effect, then after that, there's additional 30 days until it's completely goes into effect.

Uh I am working and uh have told and committed to many people that I will commit uh work with you and help develop this ordinance.

Thank you, Robinson.

Yes, Stark.

Yes, and if I can explain my vote as well.

I I agree with uh councilwoman Pastor, the work can continue in our parks, but I don't think what we're trying to do is prevent you from doing what you need to do.

So hopefully in the next 90 days, we can have something that's successful for everybody, both our residents and the health care community.

Thank you.

Waring?

Uh mayor, I'd like to explain my vote.

If you had a movie theater and you got to the theater and part of it seemed to be blocked off for some reason, you said what happened over there.

Why can't I sit over there?

Oh, well, there's some some medical waste and maybe some blood.

Um, you know, realistically, I'll say what I'd like.

Thanks very much.

Um you wouldn't go back to that theater, have no illusions.

Don't tell me that you would.

So that's what our parks are like.

We're losing customers at these extremely valuable city properties because they don't like what they're finding when they go there.

Uh second, for the comments about uh uh expert opinion.

So one fella gets up and says, Well, I distribute needles in the park, all this stuff is just in your head, and two comments later, somebody says I was a park ranger for eight years.

There were needles then, there are needles now.

I guess there will be needles in perpetuity.

And you're just supposed to exit record.

Sure.

Um, so which is it?

You can't have both of those.

So I'm gonna vote yes.

Yes.

Oh, Brian.

Are you finished?

I want to make sure you get your say.

You could run, you could run, but you're not gonna.

I was busy for last week.

Sure.

Well, sure.

Yes, easy.

Excuses, excuses, excuses.

So I'm gonna go to the case.

Shall we continue the roll calling?

Oh, please.

I'm gonna vote yes.

Thank you.

And the points I made are pretty valid and are apparently gonna carry the day, like I said about the last vote.

Thanks a lot, Mayor.

I appreciate it.

May I explain my vote there, please?

Thank you.

So I'd like um to thank you all for coming out and testifying, and um, it's been a very long meeting, I know, and we're not done yet.

But and I also want to thank acknowledge and thank the nonprofits, um, the nonprofit staffs, members, their volunteers who serve all of our vulnerable populations.

You all are motivated by genuine compassion, and I respect that.

I also have to acknowledge that I have constituents who want to use their parks for their families and their children who are also a vulnerable population.

Um, I heard what you had to say, and I know that we have work to do, which is why I made the motion I did.

And I would have preferred my motion to continue, but I did not receive a second.

This is now the motion on the table, and our parks are an important aspect of our community, but so too is partner collaboration, and because this motion allows for both.

I will vote yes.

Okay, you go.

Yes, passes 8 10 is the fire code.

Will the city clerk read the title?

Item 51 is for ordinance G7464, an ordinance repealing the existing city of Phoenix Fire Code authorizing the adoption of the 2024 International Fire Code with Phoenix Amendments and establishing an effective date.

Vice Mayor, do we have a motion?

I move to approve item 51.

Second.

We have a motion, a second.

Does anyone wish to comment?

Roll call.

Yes.

And Mandis?

Yes.

Hodge Washington?

Yes.

Pastor?

Yes.

Robinson?

Yes.

Stark?

Yes.

Waring?

O'Brien?

Yes.

Gallego.

Yes.

Passes 90.

Item 54 is related to crossing or stopping in a roadway.

Will the city clerk read a title?

Item 54 is for ordinance G7468 and ordinance amending chapter 36, Article 10, Section 36-128 relating to crossing out to crossing or stopping in a roadway to remove requirement that pedestrian receive a warning before being issued a citation for a civil violation.

All right, we have four members of the public to comment.

Councilman Hernandez, do you wish to go first or hear the public?

No, I will rather do public comment first.

All right.

And then I believe Leo Kurd.

And then Rebecca Dennis.

I don't see them.

Okay.

So the council councilman Hernandez says that the first speaker departed.

Uh is is uh Leo Kurd here.

Okay, and then uh Rebecca is Rebecca here.

Rebecca departed.

Okay.

Okay.

Hi, my name is Ayo, and I'm here because I oppose item 54.

This proposal of Jaywalk.

Oh, I'm sorry.

This proposal is rooted in racism.

The concept of jaywalking came from trying to criminalize black people.

Any way our cities and government can incarcerate black people, they will do, and this will do exactly that.

Allowing the to pass shows your outright racism and love of white supremacy.

Stop cloaking your racism under laws.

You might as well put your white hood on if you think that any of this isn't anti-black.

This especially pertains to you, Kate and you, Jim.

Why are we in 2025 voting on black codes?

Think about that.

Thank you.

Nicole Rodriguez.

Thank you, Mayor and Council.

And without a doubt, probably my point will go, Miss Spison when here today.

But I'm opposed to this agenda item 54.

And uh for that it removes the requirement for a warning before citing pedestrians, walking people, an ordinance essentially that would criminalize Jesus, just like item 46.

But anyway, um, let me be clear.

The proposal reframes street design and safety failure as a pedestrian behavior problem.

That is backwards.

People do not stand in medians for fun.

Um they do it because Phoenix streets are wide, fast, hostile to human beings on foot.

That is our problem with increased incidence of pedestrians being hit by drivers.

Many crossings are too long, signals are too short, there's not crossings from mid-block bus crossings, shade is non-existent.

Uh safe crossings are space far apart.

Medians often become survival space, not misconduct.

And who gets to determine what is a safe time to cross when you're in a media?

Um, this ordinance gets law enforcement more power to issue citations without addressing the root cause.

They have better things to be doing.

It does nothing to shorten crossing distances, it does nothing to slow vehicle speeds, it does nothing to add shade, refuge islands designed for people or safer crossings.

It simply removes discretion and displaces it with punishment.

The city itself acknowledged in 2014 that warnings were appropriate.

So what has changed?

And lastly, on the history of walking, because it's our first thing we do as we're learning as babies to do anything.

Sadly, the term J, jaywalking was actually for hillbillies.

It was a way to make us feel ashamed for being a walker.

So J then got turned by a lot of lobbyists as jaywalking.

You were just considered discussing for doing it.

So there's some history also.

Thank you.

First, we'll go to the vice mayor for a motion, then we'll turn to councilman Hernandez for comments.

Mayor, I move to approve item 54.

Second.

We have motion and a second.

Councilman, Councilwoman Hernandez.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, and I'll have some questions for Chief, which he should not be surprised by.

Um, but I want to be start with being very clear that this proposal expands criminalization under the false banner of safety, and I just cannot support that.

Turning streets, street crossing from a warning into a civil traffic offense, and then escalating it to a misdemeanor on the second ish instance is not harm prevention.

It is punishment and it will not make our streets safer.

What it will do is increase police contact when we already have police overtime issues, create fines people cannot afford, funnel low-income resident or funnel low-income residents, unhoused people, disabled people, elders, and black and brown residents deeper into the legal system.

Um criminalized survival and mobility.

This city does not need another way to punish people for existing in public space.

We all I would say that we would need, we should do a study on this ordinance impact and not just make decisions based on assumptions.

Um, before expanding penalties, I would like to see us as a city answer a few basic questions around this ordinance, like who is being cited now, what is a race income housing status and disability, and where are these incidences happening?

What is a race income housing status and disability?

And where are these incidents happening?

So those are a few questions I think we should move forward with.

And are these locations even designed safely for pedestrians?

Because I truly believe that passing punishment with that without data is a responsible policy making.

But Chief Giardano, sorry, it's late.

I'm gonna get it right earlier in the day.

Um just a few questions.

Who who came up with the with this idea at this time for this ordinance?

Mayor Gago, members of council, council and hernandez.

Um, this is actually like a full circle moment for me when I was a traffic lieutenant in 2014.

Um I was responsible for motorcycle officers on the south side of the city, as well as our vehicular crimes unit.

Too often I went out at night with my detective group to investigate car pedestrian collisions.

And a lot of them were people crossing mid-block or standing in the roadway that were struck and killed.

And it's traumatic for the person, obviously that's struck, but also for the person that is involved in the in the vehicle driving the vehicle.

So I started looking for alternative ways to to make sure people were crossing not mid block, not crossing middle of the street, crossing at intersections.

So we started looking at different options.

And City Code 36128, Section A was already in existence.

We simply added section B, prohibiting anyone from standing in a raise or pain in median, and it was our safety concern because people were getting struck in the roadway.

At that time, we wanted to, it was new, so we wanted to incorporate a educational component.

So we wrote right into the law that the first instance had to be a warning.

It had to be entered into the computer because for the second violation for that same person, it could be a civil violation.

And when you go to court, you have to be able to prove that you did give them a warning.

And then for the third or subsequent violation, it could be a criminal violation.

And that's how we we design the code.

And now we're looking just to remove the one portion about issuing a warning.

Um, to just again to our whole goal is not to cite somebody, our whole goal is to increase traffic safety.

And if we can do that through compliance and voluntary compliance, that would be wonderful.

What we found was just giving someone a warning and saying, please get out of the roadway, what's your name?

It became problematic and they wouldn't move, and you'd see the same person.

And I think Council Waring has mentioned it multiple times, seeing the same people on, and I see the same thing.

So we wanted to have some ability to to to to force someone to get them to comply.

And we talked we've talked about this several times on multiple topics.

I know that usually when we encounter someone who's resistant to complying, there's underlying issues.

We'd love to get to the bottom of that, and hopefully through this process, we can do that.

Thank you.

And Chief, I really appreciate that you know you don't shy away from having these tough conversations with me, especially, you know, we agree to disagree on many things, but I think it's really important that we show that we can have that discourse and still disagree on things, right?

And work to find ways to make things better.

Um, my next question is is there any data that supports escalating this from a warning to so removing that warning piece and moving to a simple offense and then a misdemeanor?

Like, do we have any data that supports that that will actually deter folks from being in the media or the what is it?

The uh painted painted or raised mediums, comedians.

Um, I don't have data that that would show that would be that would that would change behavior.

I am hopeful my anecdotal experience in 30 years of this profession shows that when there's a consequence, people tend to adhere to the law.

And I'm hoping that by giving them the opportunity to move or to give them a civil, because it will start with a civil traffic violation, and we'll it will just be like a speeding ticket at first.

It would be a it would be a second violation that would result in a misdemeanor charge.

So we're hopeful.

One, we were hopeful before we could get it through voluntary compliance with the warning, and now we're hopeful that with a civil traffic infraction, we can change behavior and and create a safer street.

Okay, thank you.

Uh, my next question is has an impact analysis been conducted with community partners from those impacted communities on what these changes could mean for them.

When I sat down in 2014 with all of our community stakeholders, we had that exact discussion because I didn't want this to be punitive.

I didn't want this to for anyone to think we were going after people that were were were soliciting or panhandling in the road.

That's not what our intention was back then, and it's not my intention now.

I want the roadway to be safe.

I have stood in too many intersections, uh watching uh detectives investigate fatal collisions.

I've talked to too many families members who were killed in traffic collisions.

I've also talked to too many drivers who are doing nothing more than obeying the speed limit, driving down the street, and had a pedestrian walk in front of them.

I I want to eliminate that.

We have I read two you you see it every morning when we give you the daily report.

We have too many car pedestrian collisions, and I'm hopeful this is one tool in our tool belt, and someone mentioned it earlier.

There's it's a three-prong approach.

It's education, it's traffic enforcement, as well as traffic engineering, and I think we're we're getting there.

We just we just need a little more education component on getting people not to cross mid block.

Okay, thank you, Chief.

Um, and my last question really is you know, has the department considered doing this like maybe in a pilot structure or to your point an education only approach?

Um, or even I know you mentioned you just mentioned like traffic, what was the word traffic engineering, engineering?

Um, but looking at like infrastructure first alternatives, yeah.

We always look at that.

We look at those three things together all the time when we talk about traffic safety.

So we'll always be partnered with streets uh and and the police department to look at that collectively.

Um what I would like to do is just like when other cities enact photo enforcement, you do a period of uh we push out the message.

So if this is successful, this would not go in effect right away during the the time before we go into effect.

I would do a campaign.

I would do I'd get with our public affairs bureau and push out a message through social media, reminding people not to cross in the not to cross mid block, and that standing in the media and painted or raised would be against the law.

Okay, thank you, Chief.

That's all my questions I have there.

Thank you, Mayor.

Roll call.

Guardado, yes, Hernandez, no.

Hodge Washington, yes, pastor, Robinson, yes, Stark, yes, wearing, O'Brien?

Yes, gallego, yes, passes seven to one, item 55 is the power DMS contract.

Vice Mayor, do we have a motion?

I move to approve item 55.

Second.

Councilwoman Hernandez.

Thank you, Mayor.

I was about to tell you, Chief, just hold on.

I have a question on this one.

Or I have two questions.

Um, can you just help us understand exactly how this software works?

Sorry, like let me provide a little context.

Like, um, how does it help us improve recruitment training and public transparency for our officers?

Uh Mayor Gago, members council, Councilwoman Hernandez.

If you would be so kind, I would like to allow the experts in the room who develop the program, work with the program, talk about that, if that's okay.

I have nothing but kindness left at this time.

Me too.

Mayor, members of council, uh, councilwoman Hernandez.

The I oversee the accountability and transparency division of the department, and this covers both of those things.

Number one, it allows us to share our policies and our bureau manuals with the community.

It also allows us to hold our employees accountable to those policies by sharing with the department.

So it does both those things in a platform.

Um we are moving into um uh training and keeping not only the curriculum from the academy for each class that's taught to hold officers accountable and employees accountable to those classes and what they're taught, but also for field training officers as well as our dispatchers, sorry, and forensic uh scientists.

So that's what we've been using it for, and it's allowed us to share that information across uh the department and then out to the the community.

One of the ways we get our our public policy comments is through our Power DMS, which is forward-facing.

I hope that answers your question, ma'am.

Uh yes.

Um I guess the question is just to try to understand and get the public to understand how we can get better officers using this software or using you know using this item.

Um so if there's anything else you need to add on that, or you can add on that.

Mayor, member members of council, councilwoman Hernandez, I think it speaks to our values, um, what we're about, who we are.

Uh, when uh recruits look at what our policies are that speaks to our values and it speaks to what we want to portray to the community and who we want them to understand that we are.

So I think that helps with our recruiting.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you.

Roll call.

Guardado.

Yes.

Hernandez.

Yes.

Hodge Washington?

Yes.

Pastor?

Yes.

Robinson?

Yes.

Stark?

Yes.

Wearing?

Yes.

O'Brien?

Yes.

Yes.

Passes 9-0.

We now go to the planning and zoning portion.

Thank you all for your incredible patience.

Really important agenda today.

Item 67.

Will the clerk read the title?

Item 67 is for ordinance G7465 and ordinance amending chapter 9 building and chapter 15 fire prevention to update the user fee schedules applicable to plan review inspection services and hazardous material annual assessments.

Thank you, Vice Mayor.

I move to approve item 67.

Second.

We'll recognize Councilman Guardado for the second.

Roll call.

One of the numbers.

Sorry, yes.

Hodge Washington.

Yes.

Pastor?

Robinson?

Stark?

Waring?

O'Brien?

Yes.

Okay, go.

Yes.

Item 72 and 73 are both related items.

Uh, the SheLy, including a data center and a public hearing.

Uh, but I guess, let's see.

Uh we'll start with items.

Actually, it seems like we'll just do 72.

Um, or should we do one public hearing, two votes?

I will open the public hearing.

Judith Coburn is first, followed by Karina Ramirez.

Judith, are you still with us?

And could the applicant come forward uh on this one?

Uh Karina.

Could you wave if you are here?

Is Karina here?

Blake.

Thank you.

Appreciate your patience with us.

Good evening, Mayor Gaiogo and City Council members.

Uh, thank you for the opportunity to testify this evening.

Uh, for the record, my name is Blake Lister, and I'm here representing Opportunity Arizona, a nonprofit working for affordability for hardworking Arizonians.

We are in opposition to agenda item 72 because Arizonians are paying more now than ever before for their utility bills, largely due to energy demand being at an all-time high because of data centers like this one.

Uh APS's 2023 integrated resources plan as reported by 12 news, projected by the that data centers would account for 94% of the growth in energy demand in the state between 2023 and the end of this year.

In the same time period, AMPS raised rates for residential ratepayers by 8% in both 2023 and 2024, and they're asking for another 14% hike in 2026.

This is despite the fact that data centers still pay significantly less per kilowatt hour used than the average ratepayer.

Make no mistake, these data centers are raising electric uh electricity costs and must be stopped from unfair high spikes on everyday Arizonans.

Uh, in addition to these affordability concerns or other long-term concerns to consider with these pieces of legislation.

Uh these concerns include air and noise pollution, uh pollution, um, energy girdle lines and accessibility, water usage and fire risk, uh, and more.

These data centers do not also contribute a lot of long-term jobs to the communities at their end, and the land could serve to be uh used better, such as for allowing for the building of critical critically needed affordable housing or the establishing of a commercial district that would provide more long-term, higher paying jobs.

Those concerns are felt broadly across the political spectrum regarding data centers.

Last week, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis called for stopping subsidies for data centers and curbing their water use.

While the city of Chandler had a developer agreed to repay any city property and TPT taxes that the city could lose from federal or state incentives.

With all this in mind, and for the bank accounts of all Arizona families that are working hard and still feel like they're struggling to get by, we ask that you oppose the agenda item.

Uh thank you, and if needed, I'm available for any questions.

Thank you so much.

Uh very much appreciate that testimony.

Could the applicant please come forward on this one?

Okay, so this um very complicated one.

City Phoenix, lots of data centers.

I believe we have 39 taxpayers who have applied for data center tax abatement, and then we've approved several since then that have been built.

This one is very different because it has a power plant, a power source on site.

Uh Councilman Guardado and I met with these folks on Thursday.

I left with a lot of unanswered questions.

I have not heard back from them.

I've also heard from the attorney general's office.

Um the attorney general has asked for the efforts to what are we doing to mitigate the impacts of the powers generation on site, and that the attorney general's office would like to see them.

So given all of that, and that the applicant is not here.

I move that we continue this till do we have a is it January 21st?

Is a council meeting date?

That we move this to January 21st.

Number seven, what can I do both of them together?

I move 72 and 73 be continued to January 21st, so that the applicant can answer very important questions about the energy, particularly fully acknowledge they can build a data center.

What is different on this one is the on-site power.

I would second that if there's no applicant here to answer our questions.

Second all those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed nay.

Passes unanimously.

All right.

Next we go on to three related items.

So we will have one public hearing.

Super duper important.

So grateful to everyone waiting for this.

I am so sorry that you had to very, very one of the most important things we'll do this year.

Uh 73, 74, and 75.

We'll open the public hearing and we will.

I'm sorry, it's been a long day.

74, 75, and 76.

We will open the public hearing and begin with a staff report, and we'll recognize our very patient planning and development director.

Thank you, Mayor, members of the council.

I'll turn to our deputy director, Tricia Gomes for the presentation.

Trisha.

Thank you, Mayor, members of the council.

Item 74, 75, and 76 are public hearings for companion items that are located at the southwest corner of I 17 and loop 303 and can be heard together, but will require separate motions.

The subject site is currently vacant and held in trust and managed by the Arizona State Land Department for 13 trust beneficiary beneficiaries, which are primarily K through 12 public schools.

Item 74 is GPA-NG-1-24-1.

A request to amend the general plan, land use designations, expand the infrastructure limit line, and update the city's trail system map.

Item 75 is GPA-NG-2-24-1.

A request to amend the street trust the street classification map to include minor realignments of Dixaletta 43rd Avenue, 51st Avenue, 67th Avenue, but does not change the major arterial street designations of those streets and includes the termination of Dixoletta Drive at 67th Avenue.

Item 76 is Z-1-139-24-1.

A request to rezone 6,381 acre site from S1 to planned unit development for the North Park POD.

To the north of the subject site is vacant land and a semiconductor manufacturing zoned S1 and PUD.

To the east is vacant land zoned approved S1 PCD, North Black Canyon Overlay.

To the east is Middle Mountain and a drainage track.

Subdivision zoned R118 and R3.

And to the south is Vacant Land and the Central Avenue Project, the CAP Canal zoned S1 and PAD within the city of Feet uh City of Peoria jurisdiction.

And to the west is vacant land, zoned S1 and PAD and AG within the City of Pure jurisdiction.

The PUD proposes a regulatory framework that creates six master development parcels and nine district land use districts dispersed throughout the master development parcels, each with their own set of permitted uses.

Map of the land use districts that included natural and community open space, various residential and commercial districts, and an innovation corridor intended to complement the high tech enterprises already located in the area.

The request includes approximately 2100 acres of land to be conveyed to the city for inclusion in the Sonoran Preserve, which would otherwise have been to be purchased by the city, as well as approximately 208 acres of land to be conveyed for a future part, future regional park and community park.

Reservation of the land, reservation of land for a future fire and mini police station, a future public library, and three future public school sites.

The PUD also includes robust landscaping and enhanced shading standards, elevated and protected bike lanes, amenities such as neighborhood and pocket parks, a network of urban multi-use trails and shared use paths and art installations throughout the proposed development.

The North Gateway Village Planning Committee heard all three items on November 13th, 2025, and recommended approval of each item per the staff recommendation by a vote of seven to zero.

The planning commission heard these items on December 4th, 2025, and recommended approval of GPA NG 1-24-1 and GPA-NG-2-24-1 per the North Gateway Village Planning Committee recommendation by a vote of eight to zero to one and approval of Z-139-24 per the staff memo dated December 4th, 2025 by a vote of 8 to 0 to 1.

The memo dated December 17th, 2025 from the PDD Director for Z-139-24-1.

Modify stipulation one to clarify and limit the basic compounding of raw materials use exclusively to semiconductor manufacturing and stipulation one SS to update the comparative standards table to reflect changes to the development standards due to the modified stipulations from Planning Commission.

And stipulation one TT was added to maximize the screening and landscape buffer along the western property line of the mass of master development parcel two and the adjacent regional park.

With that, staff recommends approval of GPA-NG-1-24-1 and GPA-NG-2-24-1 per the Planning Commission recommendation and adopt the related resolutions.

And staff recommends approval of Z-139-24 per the memo dated December 17th, 2025 from the PDD director and adopt the related ordinance.

Happy to answer any questions.

Thank you.

Does anyone have questions for staff?

We'll open the public hearing.

So uh each perspective will have the applicant and the opposition will each have 10 minutes.

You may use slides during this portion.

After that, anyone who has not spoken during this portion will have two minutes, no slides.

Uh the applicant can reserve some time at the end to reply to questions that have been raised.

So did I miss anything?

All right.

Uh we will begin with Carolyn on behalf of the applicant, followed by Amanda.

Thank you, Mary.

Do you have a presentation if we could get that called up and we'll will staff be advancing the slides or okay?

I get it.

Thank you.

Madam Mayor and Council members, thank you so much for being here this late.

Um, my name is Carolyn Overholder.

I'm with the law firm of Bergen Frank's Smalley and Oberholtzer, 4343 East Camelback.

And I am thrilled to be here tonight on behalf of the Arizona State Land Department, Pulti, and TSMC on the North Park project.

Literally thousands of hours of staff time has been put into this case over the course of the application process and the body of work before you tonight is something that we've worked very hard on, a lot of back and forth, incorporating feedback along the way from many departments and stakeholders.

And we just can't um overstate our appreciation for everyone that's put in all the time on this to get us here this evening.

Um, as staff uh gave you the location and the history of state trust land, just a bit more context about it.

Um, just as uh North Park is state trust land, so was Stetson Valley before it was rezoned in the late 80s and then subsequently auctioned, as well as the North Phoenix 3500, where TSMC is now in 2020, it was zoned before it was purchased by them five years ago this week, actually.

It was December 15th of 2020.

And then since then, the rest of the North Phoenix 3500 was purchased by the MAC Real Estate Investment Group.

So we modeled the innovation corridor in the project after the tech campus in the North Phoenix 3500.

This district is where TSMC is and is now home to over 3,000 TSMC employees as well as many thousand construction workers that go to the site daily.

At this time, approximately 10,000 workers are employed at this location every day.

And the chips being manufactured here are being manufactured in the most advanced facility on earth.

And these chips require advanced packaging that at this time there are no advanced packaging facilities in the United States.

So what is made here gets flown back to Taiwan for packaging.

And so we are and had been looking at the innovation corridor as a place where advanced packaging could locate when we began this case a few years ago.

This slide shows you the context of TSMC in relationship to the area as we discuss um options for expansion.

And the property is impacted, the property to the north in Halo Vista is impacted by a 500 KV line, and that impacts the ability to place buildings in that area that also are away from the Ben Avery shooting range, which is on game and fish property.

There is other state trust land north of 74, but it is severely impacted by floodplains, and then you have the city of Puria to the west.

So when looking at other options for where TSMC could locate, North Park became the obvious answer.

Turning to the application, as staff mentioned, we do have a general plan case before you and where we began and where the general plan is today is with a major employment corridor that is that purple area at the 303 and the 17.

We've shifted that to essentially flank the south side of TSMC.

You'll see there's also a concentration of commercial and high density residential on 51st Avenue in the current general plan.

And our plan changes the location of that intensity.

It shifts the density away from 51st Avenue.

And that was something that we worked with the community on.

All told, the land use increase in terms of density is 0.15 dwelling units to the acre, so a very marginal increase to the overall density in the project.

And so this shows you the first land use plan that we introduced to the public in September of 2024.

There's our originally proposed innovation corridor.

It is in purple, it is 526 acres.

And again, the idea at the time was that it would provide for support industry to TSMC.

And then you had high density residential from there, that brown area, the neighborhood village is where you could have multifamily and community commercial around the four corners of the intersection.

In this plan, a maximum of 19,247 units was proposed.

And after several meetings with the community, both formal and informal with HOA board members, we came away with several consistent concerns.

They asked us one, lower the density, two, move it away from 51st.

Three, don't build it anything north of the CAP, south of Pyramid Peak.

And these concerns were largely focused around the extension of 51st Avenue into their community.

So we went to work and we made a lot of changes to the plan.

First, we moved the density away from 51st Avenue, and not only did we move the higher density to the freeway locations, but we created a new category, a less dense district, the Foothills Residential District, specifically for the area north of the CAP, which is south of Pyramid Peak.

And while we couldn't eliminate that area from the development plan, we established a density cap for this area and a zoning district that is less dense, less dense than what is just on the other side of the CAP canal in Stetson.

We increased the open space, keeping the 2100 acres of the preserve, but then as staff mentioned, we added 208 acres of community open space for future dedication to the city.

And this entire project requires 60% open edge adjacent to the preserve areas.

So this will ensure that when the preserve is dedicated to the city, that it is not encircled with development, but that a 60% edge remains open adjacent to it.

This area prohibits residential.

All of that bright red color, both north and south of Dixoleta near 51st Avenue does not allow residential.

And we did that in addition to those park designations to create a space between the innovation corridor and any residential.

There is no location where there is a residential land use district that's within a thousand feet of an innovation corridor.

And that's vastly different than what you see in Chandler around Intel, where there are residential communities that are thriving directly across the street from several of Intel's facilities and semiconductor fabs.

So we felt that this revision did a lot of things to get at creating a separation.

But basically, this is a tail of two halves.

We have the northern half of Dixoleta, where we have the more intense uses, and then we have more traditional residential uses south of it, and everything that everyone needs in their life jobs, commercial education, recreation, and every variety of housing product is provided within this development, but with a vastly reduced density.

We increased we decreased the density by 4,000 units.

And namely in MDP 5, we brought the density down by 1,100 units.

And that again was specifically in response to that HOA feedback we received.

Then after we had more conversations with the community, I'm gonna click ahead here.

Um we heard a lot of concerns about the innovation corridor, so we have added more restrictions to the uses in it, including a prohibition of data centers and providing for enhanced screening and buffering, as staff mentioned tonight.

And this project is all managed by individual uh unit caps for each of the development units, and this was done also to manage where the density will go within the project, so that we can also control the traffic patterns.

And I'm going to go ahead a few slides to deal with that.

Um, this is the open space master plan.

51st Avenue is at the core of it.

The purple stars are where you see regional trailheads, and those require or pardon me, uh, pedestrian crossings.

Those require enhanced pedestrian crossings, which will work to calm traffic.

This is the um view to what would be where the approximate location of the regional park is.

You'll see that the BLM land all along the east side of 51st Avenue is not being impacted by this zoning case.

So, what we're talking about is on the west side of this intersection where there would be development, but there would also be the extension of 51st Avenue with brand new roadway cross sections that take the bike lanes out of the travel lanes to create safe passage for everybody as they extend north into the project, but also at a configuration that maintains four lanes.

And this again was something that was driven by community feedback.

We strived very hard to manage the density so we could keep this project at a four-lane configuration into the future, and I'm about out of time, so I appreciate the opportunity to return to the podium after public comment, and our whole team is here, and um look forward to answering the questions that you have.

Thank you.

Amanda will be our next speaker.

Thank you, Mayor, uh, council people.

Um, I appreciate you giving me 10 minutes to speak on behalf of our HOA today.

However, unfortunately, I wasn't notified that that was happening until I was already in my vehicle on the way down here today.

Um, so I didn't realize that I was able to make slides or have 10 minutes.

So my name is Amanda McGowan.

I represent more than 2,500 homes in Stetson Valley.

That uh we're the community that will be hit first and hardest by the North Park rezoning.

Uh, while I appreciate that you guys have spent thousands of hours working with them on this, our community was not looped in on many of the details until very recently.

Specifically the semiconductor manufacturing.

I'm here today, like many in my community, assuming that this vote was already decided a very long time ago.

Uh, that should alarm every resident of Phoenix.

These public hearings have so far really been theater.

Um, they've been rushed decision.

This rush decision deserves a continuance.

It is now what time is it?

Very late.

I'm my kids haven't had dinner.

We've been here since 2 p.m.

Uh, not a rubber stamp from all of you.

I'm sure many other families were not able to stay online to speak this late at night.

Uh, I need to say this plainly.

Our representative Ann O'Brien, who should be our advocate, has chosen to represent TSMC and the developers over her constituents repeatedly and now openly.

She's refused community calls to transparently share changes and details of this plan, specifically the semiconductor manufacturing.

There are many people in my neighborhood who believed that there were restaurants and shops going in to that innovation corridor.

They were told that it was mixed use, residential, commercial, a commerce park, all of these things, and they're not land use attorneys.

This rezoning allows hundreds of acres of heavy industrial use.

We were told that it was going to be limited to 20%, then it was changed to 60% via a staff memo prior to the zoning commission meeting.

And now all of those percentages seem to be removed.

So I'm assuming it's unlimited semiconductor manufacturing in the 900 acres.

But because I got that 29-page memo from the city while I was driving here at 2 p.m.

today, I haven't had an opportunity to speak with a professional who could explain to me exactly what that means.

Structures will be up to 220 feet, 25 feet tall next to the Sonoran preserve and surrounded by homes, schools, parks, libraries.

It's incompatible land use, irresponsible planning, and it's being imposed on an established community that didn't ask for it and does not want it.

Our city recognizes that data centers must address health and safety concerns, energy and water use concerns when applying for rezoning, but apparently TSMC factories are totally exempt from that.

There's been no transparent risk modeling, we've asked, no environmental review.

I tried to pull the records.

They told me there was no responsive record.

No honest public process.

Instead, residents have been dismissed and misled.

The city is not requiring TSMT to test for forever chemicals or PFAS in their discharged water.

Some of the emissions that are released into the air were marked trade secret.

We can't know.

As we understand it, federal standards for the Clean Air Act have been lowered that would have made it difficult for TSMC to get air permits.

Residents have been sold glossy images of walkability, shade, shops, restaurants.

Who doesn't love all of that?

But buried in the details the entire time was hundreds of acres of heavy industrial zoning that was not transparently shared with the community in private or public meetings.

Massive water and power demands and hazardous materials.

We've asked multiple times how long we would have to evacuate from our homes, and that's not an answer that we've been able to get.

Our HOA has done a really good job, I think, of letting people who live in our neighborhood know the changes as best that we could.

But outside of our community broader in District One, I don't think people know across the valley what's being proposed here.

They assume that the expansion of TSMC is happening on the land that they already own.

So community members tried to put out signage.

That's those signs were removed within 12 hours by the city of Phoenix.

When we asked who ordered that, they asked if they could call me on my cell phone instead of putting in writing who told neighborhood services to come remove all the signs.

Other signs for holiday lighting, junk removal services, all those kinds of things that were six inches away from our signs were left in place.

Why are you trying to prevent the public from knowing what your plans are?

At the planning commission, one of the commissioners abstained.

He was responding to public comments about not being land use attorneys, and he said that he's an industry professional.

He's a planner, but even he didn't understand what was actually being proposed, so he abstained from voting.

If professionals are confused, residents never had a chance.

Hundreds of residents have written to you to oppose this.

Many more couldn't take off work today in the middle of the day at 2 30 p.m.

to come 40 minutes downtown and stay until this late at night to tell you that they don't want this in their community, but they've sent you hundreds of letters.

Please stand with residents.

You should grant a continuance or vote no.

You need to remove the heavy industrial zoning.

It's not an appropriate place to put it.

We don't want to see the Sonoran Preserve become a super fun site.

Save the preserve, keep our neighborhood road to four lanes permanently.

The traffic impact study says that it will have to be six lanes.

Our neighborhood fears that our leaders are TSMC puppets.

Please don't prove them right.

Please table this.

Work with us on the North Park development so that it's something that we can come back and support.

Thank you.

Thank you, Amanda.

Sean McGowan is next, followed by Kent McGowell available uh speak if necessary.

And Kent, if you are here, could you wave?

Great.

Hi.

I'm Sean.

Uh I live in District 1, 11 Stetson Valley.

Um, this project depends on massive amounts of water and energy use in the desert.

Uh we're in a city that's already facing long-term water and security.

Um, we'll also tell don't worry because one day TSMC is gonna try to recycle most of it, other than uh the vice chair.

Um I haven't heard anybody uh express that they want to drink um expensive perpetually filtered industrial sewer water so that we can subsidize uh energy and water hogging foreign corporations with no guardrails, and that's exactly what's going on here.

The rhetoric that's being expoused about how this is going to be so great for everybody is not sustainable, spin is not safety, and taxpayers are sick of paying for uh subsidizing TSMC.

We have some of the worst air quality in the country, as everybody here knows.

So, what does our government do?

It lowers the standards to make it easier for companies like TSMC to get the permits they want.

Fluorinated gases can uh contradict climate goals uh for the state.

Residents are asked to trust assurances yet.

TSMC is not required to test for the forever chemicals as just mentioned, linked to cancer, birth defects, and permanent groundwater contamination.

See superfund sites everywhere.

We're expected to accept chemical facilities without seeing publicly shared evacuation plans.

That's not informed consent.

We didn't know about any of this.

Perhaps most disturbing, community parks are being discussed as buffers for chemical factories, a playground full of children, does not neutralize toxic exposure.

You can't vote for a project that ignores air quality, ignores water reality, hides chemical risks, treats residents as expendable while letting a foreign corporations police themselves on American soil.

How much is breathable air worth?

How much is drinkable water worth?

How much is uncontaminated soil worth?

This current plan is flat out dangerous.

Please vote now.

Kent is next, followed by Danny Weiss.

All right.

Hi.

I'm Kent McGowan.

I'm 15 years old, and I'm terrified.

Now, I've lived here my entire life, right here in Arizona, near to a beautiful desert, and I I love my home.

Now I felt when I first heard that a literal giant smokestack, hundreds of feet high, toxic chemical stuff Disney cartoon style chemical plant is being put within walking distance of my house.

And nobody was even told about it.

Okay.

Who thought it was a good idea to put a microchip plant right next to a school?

Now, imagine a world where every breath can be a gamble with mystery trade secret chemical emissions delivered with free shipping right to the air you breathe.

Here I am, greedy me drinking water and such when all that precious scarce H2O could go to birthing a brand spanking new iPhone chip.

And it appears that the city wants to keep the gas leak evacuation plans a sneaky surprise because they seem awfully hesitant to share them with us.

I mean, how?

How could anybody in their right mind vote this in?

Honestly, at this point, I don't even think me being up here is going to change anything.

It would be fantastic if the entire council heard this and at a moment of realization of come to God moments and just changed it like they could, but that rarely seems to uh happen in the real world.

Uh I'm up here more out of my own stubbornness than anything.

I might not be able to stop it, but I not going out quietly.

Danny is next followed by Randall.

Danny, okay, great.

Mayor Gallego, Council members, thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight.

My name is Danny Weiss.

I'm a homeowner and also the board president for inspiration at Stetson Valley.

I'm here on behalf of our neighbors to ask you to insist on responsible growth for North Park that protects existing neighborhoods in the Sonor and Preserve.

North Park has always been sold to the public as a mixed-use master plan community with homes, parks, shops, and a very loosely defined innovation corridor that complements TSMC, not as a massive heavy industrial park next to Pyramid Peak in our schools.

What is in front of you tonight would now allow roughly well apparently now a hundred percent of the innovation corridor to be heavy semiconductor industrial.

A fundamental change from the 20% residents were told, and from what your own plans describe for the North Gateway area.

This change was pushed forward after planning commission received 17 pages of new language at the last minute, with no realistic time for staff, the public, or even the planning commission itself to evaluate the full impacts on air quality traffic and water on a 6,000 plus acre case that will shape North Phoenix for generations.

That is not transparent or careful planning.

You have the opportunity tonight to correct that process and restore public trust.

Our community is not anti-TSMC and not even anti-growth.

We welcome jobs, housing, and investment, and we appreciate the city's work to secure a regional park, shaded multi-use, trails, and walkable mixed-use areas in North Park.

Responsible growth here means three simple things.

No heavy industrial in North Park near existing homes and schools.

Keep 51st Avenue to four lanes instead of turning it into a six-lane regional truck freeway.

And preserve a meaningful Sonora and Preserve buffer between Pyramid Peak and the Cap Canal.

With those guardrails in place, this can still be a national model for how to grow a tech corridor next to a desert preserve.

Please vote no on this.

Thank you.

Randall is next, followed by Raymond.

Good evening, Mayor and Council.

My name is Randall Wilde.

I am a constituent of a district one, and I live just south of the Cap Canal in the Setson Valley neighborhood.

I previously I previously sent each of your offices an email outlining suggestions for specific stipulations for the approval of this project, but I'm here in person today because the pace of the required public meetings surrounding the final approval process, which were very suddenly scheduled in a 10-week sprint after nearly a year of no information being released to the public, and during the holiday season, no less, has left my neighbors and me feeling like our opportunity to voice our concerns are merely a required formality for a decision that has already been made.

The proposal has changed several times just in the last few weeks.

Now, if this project is truly a done deal, as we suspect that it is, I am asking you to consider the legacy that you are leaving behind.

This land is crossed with a trails and filled with wildlife that can never be replaced.

This is not former farmland.

This is raw and wild desert habitat.

I am pleading with you to mandate additional land preservation south of Pyramid Peak.

This area was designated by the city for preservation in 1998 as part of the Sonoran Preserve Master Plan.

We need a meaningful buffer that respects the existing environment and the families who already call this area home.

Furthermore, we are deeply concerned about safety.

This project will change 51st Avenue from a quiet road with stop signs to a major arterial road with three proposed traffic lights between the Cap Canal and Happy Valley Road.

Today it is a road where children ride their bikes and neighbors walk their dogs.

These activities will no longer be safe adjacent to this road.

To protect our neighborhood from being swamped, I'm also asking you to designate 51st Avenue as a collector street, permanently limited to four lanes, and also establish a no-truck route on this road to prevent cut-through traffic of semi-trucks, many of which will no doubt be hauling toxic chemicals to and from the semi semiconductor manufacturing sites.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Raymond is next followed by Cynthia.

Good evening.

Thank you, Mayor Griago and Council members.

My name is Raymond Keeler.

I live in District One.

Uh I'm here to request you delay the approval of this to avoid unnecessary impacts to the existing residents and constituents of District One.

Question.

I'm here for three reasons.

Water, electricity, and 51st Avenue.

The third of those, I understood the presenter earlier this evening, that they were limiting the 51st Avenue down to four lanes.

Is that correct?

Two lanes each way.

Sir, you have to address your own.

Yes.

Is that correct?

Because we can take that off my thing.

I have a minute left.

I will address those questions after the case.

Okay, thank you.

For electricity, people are concerned that their prices are going up and they're already hard pit.

That's a problem.

For water, I figured out I'm a math major.

Water for the first three years at 19 million gallons per day comes out to one gallon, almost one gallon for every 200 gallons going down the central Arizona project.

That's from CAP's numbers and their presentation.

That's point that's 0.4% in change.

And that's not counting the other stuff for the people going in.

Please delay this to make uh adjustments that are needed.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Cynthia is next, followed by Cheryl.

Good evening.

My name is Cynthia Diaz.

I am a community organizer with Arizona Jobs with Justice, a member of the CHIPS Communities United Coalition.

I am here today to ask you to vote no because this project is moving forward without transparency, accountability, or the input of local communities and workers.

Workers and neighbors deserve clear and publicly revealed information about the hazardous substances that will be used, transported, and potentially potentially released in their communities like PFAS, the forever chemical.

As taxpayers, we have supported this industry for decades.

We have the right to demand that chipmakers operate in a clean, fair, and responsible manner.

Corporations like TSMC must be responsible to the local community by investing in the people that already live here with family sustaining jobs.

The construction must be local union labor only.

Union workers provide quality work, they are certified, and the workers are safer on the job because unions require high safety standards.

While TSMC does employ some union workers, it is not 100% union built.

TSMC is getting billions in taxpayer-funded subsidies.

If TSMC won't provide information on the toxic chemicals it uses, does not publish clear plans for managing risk, and won't sign an agreement to hire only local union workers and a neutrality agreement for the engineers and technicians.

The vote should be no.

The decision you make today will impact future generations for decades to come.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Cheryl is next, followed by Carter.

Thank you, Mayor, Vice Mayor, and Council members.

Um I've been a resident in the state of Airs and Phoenix area for 40 years.

Lived in Stetson Valley for 14.

I'm not going to repeat everything that every speaker before me has already stated.

I've written a letter to each of you stating my concerns at length.

I if I had to narrow down one thing, my my backyard faces 51st Avenue through a view fence.

That is my primary concern, is that that becomes a major thoroughfare.

Having been there for 14 years now, Happy Valley Road has become the volume on that road is increased exponentially.

And all you have to do is drive down that road and you can see memorials from all the accidents and the people who didn't survive those accidents.

My fear is that 51st Avenue is going to become just like that.

It's no longer going to be a place where people can go for a walk in the neighborhood or walk their dogs or let the kids ride their bikes.

It's going to become a thoroughfare where it's not going to be safe any longer.

And I just implore you to please consider the impacts to the residents that live there that call that place home.

And maybe table this and spend a little bit more time.

It's such a major decision that's going to impact thousands of people and children.

And I just ask you to slow the slow it down.

Look at it.

It feels like things are being rushed through.

I don't disagree that we need a semiconductor plant in this country for so security reasons to um you know be more independent.

We don't rely on China and so forth.

But the expanding development, the encroachment under our community is very concerning.

So I implore you, please table this.

Let's spend some more time, slow it down, and try to find meat somewhere in the middle.

And I thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Carter is next, followed by Josh.

Good evening, Mayor Gallego and Council.

My name's Carter Huber.

I'm an Abbott Mountain biker and local veterinarian.

I believe in the immense value of open space for health and community, and I'm strongly opposed to the North Park development.

When I got word that there was a proposed development around Pyramid Peak, I started the petition on Change.org titled Say No to North Park.

That petition has since garnered over 1,300 signatures from local residents.

I think it's really important to recognize that those opposed represent uh a very diverse uh group that really spans across the entire valley.

This isn't just Setson Valley or other neighboring HOAs.

This is thousands of year constituents that use this area for hiking, biking, photography, family picnics, um, and other uses.

This rezoning is way out of line with the original planning, the Sonor and Master Plan.

Uh the entire area south of Pyramid Peak was slated for preservation.

Uh creating isolated mountaintops surrounded by dense development is not an adequate replacement for that.

Uh the majority of the unsloped space proposed in this plan that will be donated is right along the 303.

Um, as Councilman Wearing has mentioned, uh, there's extreme value in our parks in Phoenix.

I'm not sure if you've ever hiked right along a highway, uh, but it's really tough to justify that as a great natural experience for our residents or visitors.

This development also raises a lot of water scarcity concerns.

Uh a recent article in the Arizona Republic highlighted that Arizona is already using more than its entitled allotment of Colorado River water each year.

And the original home of microchip production, Santa Clara County or Silicon Valley in California, has more superfund hazardous weight sites than any other American county.

Um I'm not sure I have the words to express how insane it is to continue to increase the urban scroll of Phoenix and build a forever chemical producing plant uh within a mile of the Central Arizona project and these residences.

Hiking and living alongside heavy industry and homes built by a company with a 1.3-star consumer affairs rating is not an opportunity I imagine most residents are excited about.

The purpose of state trust fund is not lost on me, but the current zoning represents reasonable growth in a locale already plagued by water issues and a region facing major water scarcity issues.

The only real arguments for increasing industrial residential and residential development here are recklessness and greed.

Um please do the right thing.

Josh is next, followed by Christine Mackey.

Uh good evening, Madam Mayor and members of the council.

My name is Josh Hansma, and I am here on behalf of the Friends of Deer Valley.

We are a nonprofit coalition located at uh 2501 West Happy Valley in District 1, and we are a coalition dedicated to promoting economic vitality, livability, and responsible growth for the Deer Valley region.

As one of the fastest growing areas of metropolitan Phoenix, the Deer Valley and North Gateway corridors continue to attract world class employers, residents, and innovators.

This proposal represents a thoughtful and sustainable plan that aligns with our mission to advance balanced development that supports the Deer Valley region, nearby employment centers, and surrounding neighborhoods.

We are particularly encouraged by the project's update, which demonstrate a clear commitment to responsible land use and environmental stewardship.

As advocates for the continued success of the Deer Valley and North Phoenix communities, we view North Park as a model for responsible growth that balances economic opportunities with conservation and connectivity.

We respectfully urge the city council to approve this project.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Christina is next.

And then Christine Mackey is next, and then I'll turn to Christine Dotts to see if she has testimony.

Good evening, Mayor and Council.

Thank you so much for having me here today.

As you know, I was on the team that went to Taiwan to recruit TSMC back in 2019.

We were really hyper focused on diversifying our economy, bringing high-quality knowledge-related jobs into the community.

And I would look at what's happened with TSMC to date, and I think we would all agree we've succeeded.

When we look at when we worked with them originally, they had planned to do a 12 billion dollar investment as we continue to work and as they explored Arizona.

They've now committed to 165 billion dollar capital investment in our community.

It's the largest foreign direct investment in our country's history.

But I think what's so important as we all know coming out of the Great Recession, diversifying our economy, bringing new and and invest bringing new investment into the community is going to help us get to be as recession proof as we can.

And it's not just about the jobs and the investment that TSMC is creating.

They have to date, uh, we're working with them to date.

We've brought more than 50 of their suppliers into the community that have either expanded or located in the community, uh, bringing more than 9500 additional jobs.

So we've heard this evening the number of jobs TSMC's created to date.

Their supply chains already created more than 9500 jobs in this market.

So as we move forward, uh, we would uh I would highly encourage you to vote yes on this project.

I think it's critical for the diversification and investment here in Arizona and being able to create the type of economy that we have long strived to make happen.

And with that, Mayor and Council, I'll be happy to take any questions you might have.

Thank you for that testimony.

So to as is appropriate, we have focused on the really local impacts, but in terms of citywide and other council districts, are there impacts from this?

Yes, um, Mayor, absolutely.

As I mentioned, uh, that we've created uh we brought 50 expanding or new jobs into this area.

36 of them are in the city of Phoenix.

18 are in council district one.

Uh there is uh there is one in council district two, one in council district three, one in council district four.

Uh in council district five, we are uh under construction is innovation 27, which will have a semiconductor registered apprenticeship training program with Department of Labor operating with uh Northern Arizona University in the program.

We have uh three in Council District Six, one in seven, and thirteen in Council District Eight.

In fact, one of the most recent ribbon cuttings we went to was in Council District Eight with a significant globally recognized training facility.

And Mayor, as we look at the local taxes that that these suppliers are creating, if we look at just uh over a 10-year period in for the state, we'll see about 1.4 billion dollars in new taxes coming into the state from their supply chain for our school districts, about 535 million dollars coming in from their supply chain and 441 million dollars to the city of Phoenix.

So those are real local impacts and real focus.

I think Mayor, one of the other important things to notice is the jobs that it's creating, the training programs, the workforce training programs that have been created in partnership with the city, with the community college, with Arizona State University.

In fact, we just had our first graduation of one of those workforce training programs last week.

So the companies are hiring local and really relying on the talent that's here in Arizona, besides which that we're talking about these jobs.

It is not even beginning to count the number of construction companies and the tens of thousands of jobs from local construction uh companies that are created here.

Thank you.

Uh thank you, appreciate that.

Uh uh Christine Dots.

Good evening, thank you, Maggie.

I actually only signed up only to speak if necessary.

Great.

Thank you.

Um, Tammy, we'll go for a virtual to Tammy.

Uh followed by uh Joetta.

Hi.

Council, can you hear me?

Yeah, yes, we can.

Okay.

Council and committee members take an oath to uphold the constitution.

Council and committees are sworn to represent the interests of the people, yet frequently vote in favor of special interests.

This is the erosion of democracy.

People invest their life savings in the homes.

This project is incompatible use.

This can hurt people's health and quality of life and property values.

Corporate interests are being prioritized over the good of the public.

This is the erosion of democracy.

The Alba Pence lobbying firm has previously donated to many council members deciding on this project tonight.

They're also lobbyists for the state of land trust.

How is that not a conflict?

The governor has refused to meet with us.

She points the land commissioner who's denying the land sale.

This project is so massive that we've struggled to find legal representation to assist us.

No lawyer is willing to take this case on.

We, the people, have no legal representation in this matter.

Council members have prioritized trips to Taiwan over engagement with their own community.

You actually swore an oath to represent.

We've invited you to our community, but you haven't come.

You represent TSMC.

We've lost trust in you.

And you didn't hold public meetings to ask for any input about how we would feel if you put a six-lane road, bus lines, chemical factory with hazardous materials just north of our community, creating air and water hazards.

We have no more trust.

There is no doubt that this project will worsen air quality.

Growth is not paying for growth.

We the people are.

If you decimate your opponent, they won't want to keep playing.

To us, you are the big bully pushing kids down on the playground.

It seems no secret how you got to be number one.

Shame on you.

What's in your heart?

A microchip?

Uh Joanna is not on, and I apologize.

Uh uh, we had two speakers who signed up after my list was uh printed, but but are here in person and before the item started.

Uh Katie and George.

No, I can talk loud if that's helpful.

Um, Madam Mayor, Council members, uh, late night happy holidays to you all.

My name's Katie Kiefer.

I'm a proud Arizona native, and I am here in full support of the North Park project.

This project builds on the city's continued leadership and how Phoenix grows and evolves.

When TSMC chose Arizona, it created a ripple effect of jobs, supply chain activity, and long-term investments that benefit many cities beyond Phoenix.

That statewide momentum is only possible because Phoenix leads with clear future-focused vision.

The North Park project is a critical missing link in North Phoenix's growth story.

It pairs industry and employment investments with a thoughtfully planned complete community.

Instead of leaving job centers disconnected from much-needed housing, high-quality amenities, and open space.

The quality of conserved open space and preserved land sets this project apart.

North Park is deliberately organized around high-quality open space that will serve future residents, neighboring industries, businesses, and regional stakeholders alike.

Approving the project is about balancing the needs of today's community members with those future residents and workers.

Supporting the applicants project embraces the strategic growth that keeps Phoenix and Arizona as a whole economically strong.

A truly integrated community at this scale simply cannot be replicated.

Thank you to the city council for your leadership and how North Phoenix has continued to grow.

It is keeping our state resilient and competitive, and it continues to build the economic foundation of how communities throughout Arizona thrive.

I respectfully ask for you to support this project.

Thank you.

Thank you.

George is next, followed by Eric Thompson.

Good evening, Mayor, Council members.

My name is George Eckdahl.

Uh, I live in District One.

I spent my whole life in business.

I'm an investor in businesses.

I sit on boards of businesses.

I understand the importance of growth.

It's obviously very, very important to us.

But this thing, this is out of hand.

This is ridiculous.

I want to thank Amanda for everything that you've done here.

And I'll tell you, I came here to speak, but I gotta tell you what you told what you said tonight that you were only given 29 minutes notice of what you were going to be able to present tonight.

That's outrageous.

That happens.

I'm sorry.

I do not mean to be disrespectful, but that happens in a third world country.

Now, there's a company called Amcor.

They were about to build a plant at a place called Vistancia, which is about a few miles west of where we are.

They went to the city, the constituents went to the city of Peoria and said we do not want an Amcor chip plant within two miles of our facility of our residences.

Now, this the city of Peoria and their council members got together and they rezoned and they moved it to a different area.

Because I assume that the council members over there in the city of Peoria listen to their constituents and they care about the residents.

They're not just here to take money.

And I'll say it again.

I am 100% for growth.

I have no problem with what we're doing up there, but this makes zero sense.

And when I hear what Amanda's gone through and trying to protect us, that is just outrageous to me.

So I would challenge and question this council to go back and to do what the city of Peoria did, which is to take a look at your residents and your constituents, and just don't stand in the pockets of big money.

I appreciate it.

Thank you very much.

Amanda, thank you again.

Thank you for everybody that came out here tonight.

Eric is next, followed by Jim.

Virtual.

Good evening, Mayor Galleco.

Vice Mayor O'Brien and Council Member.

My name is Eric Thompson.

I'm a Phoenix native, a toxicologist by training.

I lead a translational medicine group at a molecular pathology laboratory.

I live in Stetson Valley in District One.

I'm here tonight with my neighbors to share evidence-based concerns about this rezoning proposal.

Let me be clear.

We support economic development, like the prior to the said.

We support TSMC.

We support responsible growth.

But we believe this proposal, as currently written, creates unacceptable risk that can and should be addressed prior to approval.

My first concern is groundwater protection.

The motor, the Motorola 52nd Street Superfund site, just a few miles from where you sit, demonstrates what happens when semiconductor manufacturing proceeds without adequate safeguards.

That site has been on the EPA's national priorities list since 1989.

After three decades and of remediation and removing over 22 billion gallons of contaminated water, a seven mile plume still persists under the city.

That aquifer remains unusable for drinking water.

This isn't speculation.

This is Phoenix owned history, our history.

And yet, it's been reported that the state of Arizona is likely to lose on the order of 20% of our Colorado River water allocation.

We've also documented hazardous materials mishaps in transit.

A worker at the TSMC facility died in May of 2024 in a hazardous material transplant event.

We've had multiple acid spills related to semiconductor work on Interstate 10 in Arizona.

And now you're going to have these materials moving through these residential zones because they're simply too close to this innovation corridor.

What happens when we have an event inside a residential zone?

My second concern is infrastructure.

Jim is next, followed by Michael Robbins.

Hello, thank you for the opportunity to speak.

I'm here to ask you to oppose the current PUD as it's written, or at the very least, continue this item until there's a better win-win scenario here.

Look, we've met with you guys individually.

You guys know what's going on here.

You know that this is being railroaded through.

You have an opportunity now to do the right thing.

We've met with you guys, and we've been kept at an arm's length this entire time with the full story.

You guys have known what's going on, and it hasn't always been transparently given to us.

And we're now scrambling at the last minute to help save our neighborhood.

I know a lot of you guys are going to say this is what was always planned, but plans aren't promises carved in stone.

They're not meant to be re or they're meant to be revisited when conditions change, and conditions have changed.

Look at how much it's changed right now with the current PUD.

We're getting staff memos 20 minutes before meetings over and over again.

We're trailing behind you guys, and you guys have the full visibility, and we're not getting it.

And you guys all know it.

We need to keep TSMC north of the 303 where there's a good buffer for these neighborhoods.

There's plenty of land up there, despite what everybody's saying.

We've heard that there's vibrations, we've heard there's washes, we've heard all this other stuff.

There's a hundred and sixty-five billion dollar development plan here that we're fighting against, and we're fighting a losing battle.

We need your help.

We also need you guys to keep 51st Avenue to four lanes.