Good afternoon, everyone.

Welcome to the Tempe City Council work study session.

Item number one is call to order.

Council meetings can be watched in real time via Cox Cable Channel 11 and at Tempe.gov slash Tempe11.

Members of the public may also attend the meeting virtually through Microsoft Teams.

Next up, item number two, announcements from the mayor and or city manager.

Madam City Manager, any announcements this afternoon.

Not this evening or not this afternoon, Mr.

Mayor.

Thank you.

Sounds good.

Well, thank you so much.

That will bring me to item uh two A for myself, which is the Experience Corps 20 Year Celebration Proclamation.

So if there's members of our community health and human services staff, along with our experience core volunteers, if you'd like to join me up front.

How are you?

How are you?

Wonderful.

I'm just the guy that gets the microphone.

How are you?

I know none of us look old enough to be honest.

I was gonna I was actually gonna say that, so you know.

Oh, come here.

Hello.

How are you?

Hi, Darry.

All right.

Did you call me an Opalumpa?

I've been called worse.

Um, my goodness.

Look, I've been enduring short jokes my entire life.

So why should why should today be any different?

I'm just kidding.

All right, this proclamation reads, whereas the city of Tempe is proud to recognize our AARP Foundation Experience Corps program for 20 years of supporting students to strengthen their reading skills.

And whereas strong partnerships with AARP, the Tempe Elementary and Kyrie School Districts and Tempe families have enabled us to serve more than 5,700 students.

And whereas more than 450 dedicated volunteers have helped students across Tempe reach grade level reading benchmarks, which is a critical milestone for future academic success.

And whereas volunteers not only help students build early literacy skills, but also grow critical social and emotional skills that they need for successful learning now and later in life.

And whereas Tempe Experience Corps is ending the school year on another high note with a hundred and thirty amazing volunteers serving about 400 students at 16 schools.

And whereas the City of Tempe would like to thank all of our partners and volunteers who have helped build a strong legacy of school success and giving back to the community.

Now therefore I, Corey Woods, Mayor of the City of Tempe, Arizona, do hereby declare May 4th, 2026 as Tempe Experience Corps 20th anniversary in Tempe, Arizona.

And now the most important question is, of course, who gets the proclamation?

Oh, I see.

There it is, there we go.

I'll come join Barry.

All right.

Now, item two B, 2026 community survey.

I'd like to take a moment to acknowledge and encourage our residents to participate in the City of Tempe's 2026 community survey.

At the City of Tempe, we value the partnership and input of our community, and hearing directly from residents helps us better understand our needs and the priorities and concerns of the people that we serve.

So beginning this June 1st, which is right around the corner, surveys will be mailed to residences throughout Tempe.

The survey will remain open through August 1st, and residents can return their completed survey using the enclosed purchase uh postage paid envelope.

Residents also have the option to complete the survey online by visiting Tempe.gov/slash surveys or by scanning the QR code included on the printed survey.

Participation in the survey is important because the results help guide City Council decisions on key services and programs that impact our community every day.

This includes public safety, parks and recreation, economic development, code enforcement, and other essential community services.

We encourage all residents to take a few moments to complete the survey and share your feedback, your voice matters, and your input helps shape the future of the city of Tempe.

So that brings me next up here.

Before we move into the call to the audience portion of the meeting, I want to take a moment to address campaign related activity, especially as we are now in the 2026 election season for one more day.

City council meetings are open to the public and are a vital form for civic engagement.

We welcome all individuals, including candidates, to speak on matters of public concern during the public comment portion of the meeting.

However, because this is an official city council meeting that is both televised and live streamed using city resources.

We ask all candidates, including any current council members, to refrain from electioneering or campaign related activity while participating in this meeting.

That means no discussing your candidacy, asking for votes or signatures, or displaying campaign materials such as signs, t-shirts, or literature while speaking.

Thank you for helping us maintain the integrity and neutrality of our public meetings.

And I was going to say that is interesting because that will officially be the last time that I read that paragraph this year.

So for all of you who are here in the audience, guidelines for conduct at city council meetings are on the table near the entrance for those in attendance at tonight's meeting.

We're now going to play a video with the proper protocol for ensuring the appropriate conduct at City Council meetings.

The public appearances portion of the Tempe City Council agenda welcomes people to address the Tempe City Council on city related issues.

Speakers will generally be taken in the order in which they have signed up to speak.

No visual aids or pre-recorded materials are allowed.

People may speak once during public appearances for up to three minutes.

If there is a large number of speakers, the mayor may limit the amount of time allotted for each person.

The city council as a whole is prohibited by state law from discussing, responding to, or taking action on matters that are not on the current agenda.

However, an individual council member may respond to criticism made by those who have addressed the public body, may ask the staff to review a matter, or may ask that a matter be put on a future agenda.

The city council rules of procedure provides everyone with an opportunity to speak.

However, rules of decorum are in effect and behavior that disrupts, disturbs, or otherwise impedes the orderly conduct of any city council meeting is not permitted.

This includes behavior at the podium inside or adjacent to the council chambers.

Speakers shall refrain from name-calling, making personal or insulting comments or slanderous remarks while addressing the city council or while attending the meeting.

Should a speaker become disorderly, action will be taken.

First, the mayor may issue a verbal warning, and if the speaker continues disruptive behavior, the speaker will forfeit any remaining time for public comment and will be asked to leave the podium.

Further disruption beyond that may result in removal from the council chambers, and the mayor may ask security officers to remove the speaker.

If the speaker refuses to leave, security will warn the speaker that they are now trespassing, and the next step is an arrest for disorderly conduct, trespassing, or both.

If necessary to maintain order, the mayor may recess the meeting.

Your right to address the Tempe City Council is important to us.

These rules are intended to create an atmosphere that is conducive to thoughtful public speech.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Next up, item number three is called to the audience.

The city council welcomes public comment at this time for the issue review session and committee of the whole items on this work study session agenda.

There is a three-minute time limit per speaker.

Madam Clerk, do we have any cards this afternoon?

None received, Mr.

Mayor.

Thank you very much.

Appreciate it.

Which then brings me to item number four, which is our issue review session.

Item 4A, Mayor's Youth Advisory Commission update and recommendations presentation.

So let's see, I'm going to look for uh Delata LaForce, our senior coordinator for education and career empowerment, who's going to introduce the presenters on item 4A.

Hi, Mayor and Council.

My name is Delena LaForce.

I'm education and career empowerment coordinator in our community health and human services department.

Today I'm joined by some of our leadership from the Mayor's Youth Advisory Commission.

So I'm going to give it on over to them.

They are going to present today on annual updates and recommendations.

Hi, my name is Tal Al Shatri.

I am the chairperson of MIAC.

I've been serving on MIAC for two years, and I'm a senior at McClintock High School.

Hi, I'm Glossal Matt Lim, and I'm the Vice Chair on MIAC.

This is my third and final year, and I'm a senior at Corona Del Sol.

And I'm Braden Casneda.

I am a junior at McClintock High School, and this is my second year on MIAC.

All right.

To begin, let's talk about MIAC's history.

So the Mayor's Advisory Commission has been in existence since 1980 when it was created to address youth challenges.

The commission currently has up to 30 students who live or attend school in Tempe that are in 9th to 12th grade.

We have opportunities to advocate for the youth in the community by collecting feedback and engaging in projects and activities.

Collectively, MIAC's anticipated impact is to empower and inform youth through education and promoting civic engagement, enhancing youth well-being through mental health initiatives, having stronger and safer communities, and more sustainable futures.

We do this with our various events, activities, and engagement with our peers and communities.

This year, MIAC had a busy year with a lot of different activities, events, and fundraising efforts.

This year, MIAC got to be involved in ASU Project Cities, where we got to provide feedback on what we'd like to see the city of Tempe look like by year 2050.

MyC also had some signature events such as our Tempe Youth Talks and the Youth Resource Fair at Unity Walk.

A new event we got to be a part of was in collaboration with Councilmember Hodge, where we collaborated on a youth mental health resource fair and had different organizations come out and provide resources or info to attendees.

We thank all city departments and programs who have either worked with MIAC and or supported our goals.

These departments have worked with MIAC in a variety of ways, including providing presentations, asking for youth feedback, and providing expertise for our different initiatives and activities.

Alright, every year MIAC chooses what areas they want to focus on.

And this year, the subcommittees were mental health, community safety, civil engaged civic engagement, and social justice, and sustainability and environmental justice.

And each subcommittee creates a survey to give out to students to collect feedback on their experiences within these areas.

This year, MIAC also hosted our third annual TEMPE Youth Talks, modeled after TEDx style talks, where we get to give information and engaging tops on different topics around our subcommittees.

We also put together various activities that allow youth attendees to be engaged.

The event concludes with field matter experts serving as panelists to enter to answer any youth questions.

So the first area, mental health focuses on accessing mental health resources and having sphere support.

They work most closely with Care 7 and Tempe Coalition.

Okay.

This group found that 46% of respondents feel there is stigma around mental health, which is down 41% from last year, where 87% of respondents reported there was a stigma.

Most of them agree that they have support and resources.

So we're glad to see this area has been improving.

MIAC has a few recommendations, one of them being to provide more youth mental health training and resources to adults who work with youth and parents in the form of digital tools and workshops.

Alright, our next subcommittee is our civic engagement and subcommittee, which had a strong focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion this year in addressing issues that affect young people while encouraging equity in our community.

The group worked alongside Aston Quander of the off in the Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, and got to learn about what the city is doing and to see how they could help further in the area.

Our survey showed that 93% of respondents said that they experienced some form of discrimination based on things such as race, gender, and disability, with our schools being the place where students witness and experience this the most.

One of the recommendations we want to highlight is providing youth with dedicated DEI education sessions that deepen their understanding of diversity, equity, and inclusion, paired with sensitivity training on respectful language and terminology to help prevent future DEI related conflicts or violations.

Our next subcommittee is the community a safety and social justice subcommittee, which focused on addressing social challenges and safety concerns in our community.

They specifically looked at safety initiatives for safe driving, but also looked at how youth can take measures to be safe in their community.

They've been supported by the Tempe Police Department in Traffic Engineering.

A significant finding from their survey showed that 46% of respondents said that the issue of unsafe driving had affected their life in some way.

Youth revealed that they are interested in learning more about safety and defense skills.

One of our recommendations is to implement accessible drivers education programs in all TEMPE high schools to equip youth with essential safety skills, promote responsible driving habits, and reduce preventable risks in the community by collaborating with our schools to provide any resources or information that can help them.

And finally, the sustainability and environmental justice group focused on eco-friendly initiatives to address climate change and other environment environmental issues related to sustainability.

The group worked closely with Evelyn Brumfield and the Transportation and Sustainability Department, and she has been a great support over the last several years.

We found that most survey respondents were concerned about climate change the most.

Youth indicated that they would like more information and education when it comes to being sustainable in their community.

So MIAC recommends while we know that the city has a lot of initiatives to promote sustainable choices, we recommend that there's more education and information to on the efforts being done and what residents can do on a community level to change the course.

Young people really want to be involved to make a change.

So having more information that is accessible can help them make an impact.

All right.

The next steps for MIAC include recruiting for next year as applications are currently open.

We will also continue to engage with our city departments that we've been working on for different with different on different strategies.

Our annual report is also finished.

So we will be working on sending that out to share more about the work that MIAC does and more info on our survey results.

Alright, thank you all so much for listening, and we are open to answering any questions.

Thank you so much.

Great presentation.

Really appreciated.

I'm going to turn to Council Baraj.

I just want to say, first off, I am so honored to have you guys here standing in front of me.

And each and every one of you guys go to one of the high schools that I govern right now.

So I'm just honored and surprised.

I want to tell you one thing that you said that you want to be at the table.

You are already at the table.

Actually, you didn't stand at our table.

You built your own, and you're inviting us to your table.

So thank you for being that way.

It's not questions, but I just want to make sure I reach out to you guys in any way that I can help you to get more information built into because you you mentioned a lot about doing collaboration with the TIMPI schools.

I'm willing and help willing to help you in any way that we can get that collaboration together, make sure you get that taken care of, get in there and get that support in there in the school districts.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Thank you, Council.

Uh Council Bertrand.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you.

Thank you to all of you for your service on MyAC as a MIAC alumnus.

Very, very proud of all of you and the work you do and how you all stay engaged and stay in it.

Good luck to the seniors and congratulations.

And most of all, stay involved.

Thank you, Councilmember Chin.

Uh, anyone else on council?

Council Brainberg.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

I just want to say how incredibly impressive the three of you are.

I mean, we have grown adults that come up to that city podium and stammer through what it is that they're saying because it I mean, I don't like doing it either, so I am incredibly impressed.

So good luck.

Yes.

Council Braunge?

You know, I I'll say one else thing.

You guys are the only people who come with, you know, you come with um questions and concerns, but you also come with solutions.

You know, a lot of the times we get a lot of questions and concerns, and we want things to be done, but no one comes to the table with the solutions along with it.

So we can definitely learn from you on that one.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Council Adams.

If I were any of your parents, I would be very proud of you right now.

So congratulations.

Keep up the good work.

And I agree about with Councilmember Hodgebot bringing solutions to the table.

It's so nice to have a group that does that.

And we appreciate it more than you'll ever know.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Adams.

Yeah, I'll just reiterate too uh what Council Brahatch said as well.

The one of the critical things that I think that I learned in student government when I was coming up, and and something that I think is unfortunately becoming a very lost art in our society as a whole, is the ability to sort of present facts and information without sort of becoming emotional about things or yelling and screaming or name calling or things of that nature.

It's just the ability to have a conversation with people, whether you agree with them or whether you don't agree, there's something to be said for sort of civil civic discourse.

And unfortunately, it is sort of rapidly becoming a lost art.

I'm not saying just here in Temp B.

It's frankly happening across the country and across the world.

So I whenever I look out at the students in my act and I hear the work that you're doing and the presentations you've prepared, it gives me a lot of hope for the future that we could actually at some point uh kind of get the pendulum to begin to swing back the other way and get to a place where even if we don't agree on everything, we don't have to lose friends, family, and neighbors, frankly, over disagreements about matters of public policy.

So just wanted to say thank you for your work.

And as we always say, the work doesn't go into a drawer somewhere.

It is work that is absolutely used by this council and our staff to make sure that we can create a better community for young people and frankly for anyone who lives here.

So thank you very much.

Thank you.

All right, so item four bempee community council agency review of fiscal year 2026-27, human services funding community recommendations.

So we have our TCC executive director, Mr.

Tim Birch and Community Impact Committee Chair, Jacob Butchery to present on item 4B.

Good afternoon.

Good afternoon, Mayor and Council, uh Tim Birch, Community Health and Human Services Director, standing here as the interim executive director for Tempe Community Council and joined by Jacob Butchery, whom I own up an apology for scheduling after Mayak.

My apologies.

It'll sound like we funded some stuff.

Um Jacob is not only a board member, he is our community impact council uh chair, and that group uh does a lot of work over a four-month period to govern this this funding process.

Some things we want to talk to you today about are the load and lift that our uh community volunteers um take on in this process, some of the changes that we've continued to implement year after year to improve the quality and obviously what the funding requests are.

Um, Tim Community Council for the last 54 years has achieved this mission of connecting those in need with those who care.

Um I know that this process of agency review is I understand the lore behind it uh back in the mid-80s.

Um, the agency review process was stood up through TCC to help remove some of the politics from the situation, who gets what shouldn't matter on who they know, but it's done so much more than that.

What it's really done is brought community members together to help understand their community.

What are the struggles and challenges of the nonprofits, the communities, and those in need, and it's really given a citizen voice to those process.

Um it is a long and laborious process that aligns up with uh our council priority of 3.10.

Our needs assessment process.

You may have become to recognize this will.

I hope the social determinants of health.

We have been reporting to you over the last two years on the community impact report at the end of the year about all of our amazing co-funded programs and what they've achieved through this process.

Um, but you'll also remember that every three years, Tempe Community Council does a community needs assessment as a part of the affiliate agreement.

Um, this year we use Arizona State University's Southwest Interdisciplinary Research Center or CERC to conduct this in-depth assessment.

The study yielded not only actual insights but strategic recommendations that TCC can use with the community Impact council to help address these social determinants.

These were then brought to the community for secondary review.

We worked to discuss these with agency partners, community members, interested stakeholders through a prioritization summit.

So we've got all these problems around this wheel of social determinants of health.

This is what the gaps analysis showed, but what's the most important to this community and our partners?

We worked with uh intersectional inquiry, a local consultancy group that was not only working with us at the time but also Maricopa County Department of Public Health.

So we got a really sophisticated overlay of the data to see how we intersect with these needs on a regional basis.

We then through that prioritization baked it down so that we could understand the priority within each area.

So access to healthy and affordable food, you'll see those uh priorities inside of that came out as food pantries, distribution sites, food vouchers, and food boxes.

We took that information and baked it into the application.

So for the first time this year, agencies applied directly to meet a need the communities that it had, not what the agency's idea of meeting a need looked like.

I mean, in that place, working toward continued refinement, we gave each of the applicant agencies a pick list of outcome measures, um uh efficiency measures and quality measures for them to report on.

So we have unified measures coming across each of the social determinants of health, so we can tell you on a larger scale what the department and our partner affiliate TCC is doing to make real lasting life impact in our community.

And with that, I'll hand it off to Jacob.

Thank you, Tim, and thank you, Mayor and Council again for your time today.

So we're gonna transition from talking about the community needs assessment to talking more about the agency review process itself, which is again that process where we were allocating these human services funds.

So this slide depicts sort of the major steps of the agency review process, beginning with the application agencies who serve residents in Tempe submitted applications at the beginning of this year.

Though even before that, we had people such as staff member Kim Van Newigen supporting agencies through meetings like communities of practice, answering their questions, addressing the changes to the process this year and helping them through that.

After the application, we moved into the review stage where Kim and volunteers from our community impact committee paired volunteer reviewers with agencies to review their applications and looking for conflicts of interests and avoiding those throughout.

As Tim alluded to, this year in the review process, we directly gave agencies additional points for addressing needs that were high priorities in the community needs assessment.

So the community needs assessment has always impacted agency review, but we really implemented that more explicitly in the scoring process this year.

The community needs assessment also identified deep collaborations as a priority within the city, and so we also gave agencies more points if they were able to apply with another agency as a deep collaboration.

Next is the interview process.

We didn't hold any interviews this year, but we leave that as an option in case we find that to be necessary.

And then we have consensus meetings.

There are two consensus meetings.

One is the preliminary meeting, which is really more of an information session so that people know what they're going to be doing at the final session where we allocate, decide how we're gonna allocate the funds based on the scores.

The Tempe Community Council board then votes on the recommendations, which they did and approved back in April.

Now we're presenting to you at City Council.

And if things go smoothly, uh funds will be distributed over the summer, and then there will be quarterly reports, whereas Tim alluded to, the agencies will continue to show how they're performing on these outcome measures, and there'll be site visits as well.

Sorry.

Um budget.

So this is the budget that we were working with: 1,136,000, 1.1 million of that is from general funds, 30,000 of it is from water bill donations to Together Tempe, so people adding some donations to their water bill.

3,500 from general Tempe Community Council Together Tempe funds, so people who maybe don't pay a water bill or want to pay directly to TCC, and then 2500 in our healthy giving campaign, and those those funds are specifically earmarked for housing and homelessness, but as you'll see, we were definitely able to cover those.

Here's a photo from our consensus meeting and a testimonial from one of our volunteers.

Pictured is one of our volunteers, Jim.

Jim has done a great job in helping us to have more data in this decision-making process.

You can see him explaining the data in real time and what that implicates based on what we we were discussing.

So we want to want to give a shout out to Jim.

In our consensus meeting this year, we decided to do breakout sessions with smaller groups, and we found that to be helpful in allowing more people to have their voices heard, to allow more experienced volunteers to answer questions of newer volunteers and things along those lines.

I want to emphasize that the consensus meeting is sort of a blind review process.

We do not know what agencies we are looking at.

We only know their scores and sort of the dollar amounts that they've requested.

And so it's more about finding a score cutoff than re-looking at the agency's applications.

Um a lot of what that decision discussion is about is we use analogies like silly putty or peanut butter.

Do we want to spread the peanut butter thin across a lot of agencies with lower amounts of resources or lay it on thicker with higher amount of resources for fewer agencies?

Here's a summary of the applications we received.

We received 71 applications from 30, 63 agencies, excuse me.

That totaled to almost 2.9 million dollars, which is the highest amount of requested money that we've ever received in this process.

This made for a highly competitive application process this year.

There were lots of very qualified, very strong agencies that applied, and the high requested amount made it a more difficult decision for us this year.

Also, I want to highlight that in the yellow there.

We funded two collaborative projects, so two of those deep collaborations, and three programs that we had never funded before.

Here's an example, or here is a breakdown of the agencies and what they requested.

So you can see on the Y-axis, we have the scores that the agencies received out of 100.

On the X-axis, we have those not eight social determinants of health.

And so you can see we have high scoring agencies in every social determinant, which was very exciting to see.

And here is our funding recommendations.

So this is what was discussed at the consensus meeting, and what the group wanted to move forward with.

The top scoring application was many several points ahead of the ones underneath it.

So the group wanted to honor that with fully funding that agency.

Next, the next cutoff that we discussed was a score of 75.

Anything below that score, the agency was unfortunately not recommended for funding.

Anything between 75 and 90 agencies were recommended to receive partial funding proportional to their score.

That means that 72 to 80% of the agencies who were partially funded received 72 to 83% of what they requested, which is actually much higher than it's been in recent years.

So that was a priority of the group to fund agencies at a higher amount so they can really execute what they've explained that they want to do.

And so that means we funded uh we were recommending funding 35 programs across 27 agencies, which is roughly half of the programs.

There's the council will see on this slide.

Uh the funded programs spread evenly across most of the social determinants of health.

Again, just kudos to uh the staff and the volunteers using data heat maps and plot maps and very rigorous scoring materials.

And when you do that kind of process, you get these kind of results.

So, do want to highlight uh touch points again.

Over 62 volunteers engaged over a four-month process, 50% of the programs were funded, again, based on quality of their application.

We implemented the community needs assessment this year.

We aligned the priorities with the social determinants of health, and we continued the implementation of our three-year funding cycle with a special call out for first-time programs.

Jake mentioned, three new programs funded.

It's a chance to continue to incubate innovation here in Champion.

And I'll let Jacob wrap up with kudos to his amazing team.

I do want to give a special uh call out to Kim Venewigan, who is the gasoline in this engine year after year, and uh she deserves a lot of credit for that.

Yes, and yeah, I want to give a shout out to all of the volunteers that helped to our named here.

Um really can't do this process without the volunteers who give their time to review these agencies.

So thank you, and thank you, Mayor and Council.

And to all of our MIAC folks who may, if they're still here, uh you can come and apply once you graduate to serve on this committee.

Well, thank you very much.

Appreciate it.

Um, Tim and Jake.

Uh anyone on council with any comments or questions?

Council Bramberg.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

I will say that's probably one of the biggest downsides of being on council is I don't get to do the agency review anymore.

That was one of the my favorite things to do.

I do have a question though.

Um, why did you guys decide to take the interviewing process out?

Because I do remember a couple times I went into some of those interviews thinking one way about the agency that I was interviewing, and it came out with a completely different mindset.

Yeah, thank you for that question.

A big reason for that is we had found that some agencies um could through the interview process, we we found that it maybe wasn't always the most equitable process because some agencies might bring in someone who's very strong and charismatic, has has someone who's dedicated, has dedicated resources toward grant applications and grant writing, and that wasn't as equitable to agencies that didn't have those resources.

And so we found that there could be bias in the interview room that that might be more equitable if we removed that.

Quick follow-up question.

Then um, so if I'm the person that was doing, you know, going through that application.

I mean, what type of process did you have?

If I had questions about the application, um, I like obviously I can't ask it in an interview, so I'm assuming they had another avenue for that.

We did great question.

So we were able, uh reviewers were able to list their questions and Kim, uh Van Wiggen compiled those questions, gave them to the agencies, and they were given the opportunity to respond in writing to those questions and then scorers were able to change their scores based on those questions, based on those answers.

Well, thank you.

And I do want to give a shout out to Kim because it is a lot like herding cats, so she did a great job.

Thank you, Councilman Bramberg.

Councilman Brahaj.

Yeah, you took the words out of my.

Um, you do a phenomenal job.

Um, for the community, can you kind of break down the process a little bit?

Because we get it, but I want to make sure that people who are listening understands the process.

Because uh, you know, can you just tell a little bit how you get to that process and how it looks like since the interview part is out of it?

Kind of give a little breakdown of it, how it works.

The like the application questions and how those are determined, those types of processes.

Great.

A little bit of a little bit of all that, yeah.

Great, thank you.

So we have the community impact committee, which is composed of members of the Tempe Community Council Board as well as some members of the community who are not on the board.

Um, if people are interested in joining and participating, we are always interested in people who are who want to get involved.

And we discussed what the process looks like.

So we decided that we did want to move forward, for example, with the three-year funding model for this year, and then we also sort of workshop and work on the application questions.

Questions this year talked about program overview, community impact.

We asked for specific outcome measures and how they might measure their success.

Um, there is that opportunity for reviewers to ask questions.

If people want to review, you don't have to be on the community impact committee.

People can sign up to volunteer for agency review and they will be paired with uh agencies to review and trained to do that.

We're not just throwing you in there without any training as well.

Um, can you think of anything you'd like to add?

Yeah, okay, and after the process, there's still steps yet to happen.

So if we move forward here, we make these recommendations are accepted by council.

We will then uh do the awards, and this community impact committee will go out and do site visits throughout the course of the year to make sure that they we are, in fact, getting the type of programming that we was proposed in those funding applications, and then we have quarterly reports that are reviewed.

The information is then compiled into the annual community impact report that we come report back to the community as well.

So the community impact report outlines that process as well.

But really, it is we have a needs assessment.

We sit down with the community and say of these all very equally important things, what's the most important right now?

Bake those into the application that nonprofits can apply for.

One of the thresholds that you've been around and providing services for more than a few years, you have insurance, your legitimate organization, those things.

It goes to our volunteers, they rank and review, it comes to the board, they do a blind vote based on trusting this crew and their recommendations based on all the data and this rigorous process.

And then we issued the funding and great things happen in lives around the city for the next year.

Excellent.

All right.

Anyone else?

Further comments or questions for Timber Jacob.

Fantastic.

Thank you very much.

Appreciate it.

Thank you.

This is the happiest, most joyous council meeting we've had in quite some time.

Mayor, I think.

You're all invited back on June 4th.

Mayor, I think that the youth and the Maya team got, you know, got in that they spread their joy around.

Yeah.

I believe the children are our future.

Next up, item four C, Tempe Water Resources.

Hello, Tara Ford and Craig Caggiano.

Come on up.

Or should I say, come on down?

No, let's go more for prices right.

Well, that's true.

You're right.

Oh, it is.

Shit.

So good evening, Mayor and Council.

I'm Tara Ford, the Public Works Director, and with me tonight is Craig Caggiano, Deputy Public Works Director Water Utilities.

So we're here tonight to talk about Tempe's water resources.

Craig is going to give a very in-depth consolidated presentation.

All of the information is packed in there.

Why we wanted to come tonight is because we know you've all heard about the shortages on the Colorado River and what impact does that have to the city of Tempe.

And so that is the main focus of our presentation tonight.

And we want to reassure you and the residents of Tempe that Tempe does have sufficient water to water supply to provide those demands that our residents are putting on the system.

So Tempe is in a great situation here because of one of our water resources that we have, which is the Salt River project coming into Tempe.

However, we do partner with our communities, Tempe, Chandler, Mesa, Gilbert, all of them in this Colorado River shortage.

We're not, we're all in it together.

So that is part of Craig's presentation as well.

And once again, he will talk about all of our water resources, what that means to the city of Tempe and our residents.

So I will hand it over to Craig.

And at any time, if you want to stop Craig during the presentation, ask questions, he'd be happy to answer those.

Okay.

Thank you.

Go ahead, Craig.

Alright.

Good afternoon, Mayor and members of council.

My name's Craig Caggiano, and I'm the deputy public works director responsible for the Water Utilities Division.

Management of Tempe's water resources align with these city council's strategic priorities, which include metrics related to monitoring water conservation, ensuring access to sufficient supplies, and measuring water efficiency.

Tempe has a long history of effective water management.

The purple line on this chart illustrates Tempe's population, and the blue bars represent the community's water use over time.

Tempe's population increased by approximately 12% since 2015, and total water demands decreased by 20% during that same period.

These reductions in water use over time are due to changes in land use and the collective actions of the community to increase efficiency.

This chart represents the water supplies that Tempe uses in a typical year.

The majority of Tempe's water comes from Salt River Project, represented by the large blue portion of the pie chart.

Renewable surface water from SRP provides about 90% of Tempe's water supplies.

At the turn of the 20th century, farmers in the valley came together and pledged their land as collateral to build a federally funded water storage and delivery system, which is known as Salt River Project.

The lands of those farmers are indicated by the yellow shape in the middle map, which are also indicated by the blue shaded areas on the map of TEMPE on the right.

SRP member supplies are only permitted to be used to meet the demands on SRP project lands, known as SRP member lands.

SRP manages the water collected from the watersheds and stored behind the dams and coordinates delivery of that water to its shareholders on SRP member lands.

As the valley transitioned from farms to more urban communities like TEMPE, SRP agreed to deliver the shareholder water to municipal providers who then treat the water and deliver it as drinking water to those shareholders.

The pink shaded areas on the map are lands within TEMPE that do not have access to SRP member supplies.

For the remainder of this presentation, I will refer to the demands not supported by SRP supplies as non-SRP member demands.

Another source of renewable surface water used by Tempe comes from the Colorado River.

This slide illustrates a map of the Colorado River basin, which is divided into the upper basin states of Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, and New Mexico, and the lower basin states of California, Nevada, and Arizona.

In 1922, the federal government worked with these states to develop the Colorado River Compact, which memorialized how much water from the Colorado River would be allocated between the upper and lower basins.

Colorado River water is delivered to TEMPE through the Central Arizona Project Canal indicated by the blue line on the map.

As TEMPE began to grow into areas that are not supported by SRP member supplies, the city primarily used water from the Central Arizona project to meet non-SRP water demands for those lands.

Another important supply available to Tempe is often called groundwater.

However, for municipal providers like Tempe, the term groundwater is not an accurate term for the water recovered from the aquifer.

In TEMPE, the purpose of operating wells, like the one pictured on this slide, is to recover water that was previously stored in the aquifer.

When water is stored in the aquifer, it can create long-term storage credits, which are another source of water available to meet non-member demands.

In addition to CAP and long-term storage credits, TEMPE has access to additional surface water from SRP that can be used to meet non-SRP demands.

In the 1990s, TEMPE participated in the effort to raise the height of Roosevelt Dam, which created a new water supply called Roosevelt New Conference Roosevelt New Conservation Space, or NCS.

As we've seen, TEMPE's available supplies to meet non-SRP demands consist of more than just CAP.

This new pie chart illustrates NCS and long-term storage credits in tan and green as well as CAP in blue.

All of these supplies can be used to meet non-SRP demands related to the pink areas of the map on the right.

This chart illustrates the non-SRP member demands, which correspond to the pink areas on the map, and the gold and blue bars of the water demands each year for those areas.

At the end of 2026, the agreement that governs how the federal government operates the Colorado River expires.

Beginning in 2027, the Colorado River system will be operated differently than it was in the past, and this will impact Tempe's CAP supplies.

As of May 2026, the federal government and the users of the Colorado River have not reached a consensus on how to operate the system in the future.

Additionally, the storage in Lake Mead and Lake PAL is very low.

These factors create great uncertainty regarding how much of Tempe's CAP supplies will be available in 2027 and going forward.

To plan for this extreme uncertainty, TEMPE has evaluated a range of possible cuts or shortages to our CAP allocations in 2027 and into the future.

The chart on the left illustrates three non-SRP member planning scenarios for 2027, ranging from the status quo on the left, which is unlikely given the system storage, to the CAP supplies to no CAP supplies at all on the right.

The purple line indicates a planning assumption for demand, and the bars indicate the supplies available to meet demands.

Importantly, note that in all three scenarios, Tempe maintains sufficient supplies to ensure we will be able to meet the demands of our community.

As we move into 2028, it is possible that the federal government will provide more certainty about Tempe's CAP supplies.

Nonetheless, it is highly likely that TEMPE's CAP allocation will be reduced from what we have received in the past.

The chart on the right illustrates the planning assumptions for TEMPE's non-SRP supplies and demands.

In each of these bar charts, you'll notice a new source of water is available to meet non-SRP demands, reclaimed water.

In late 2027, the rehabilitation of Tempe's Kyrene water reclamation facility will be finished, and in 2028, that plant will once again produce reclaimed water.

These supplies will allow Tempe to create long-term storage credits or can be exchanged to create new supplies for treatment and use anywhere in Tempe.

While significant uncertainty exists related to the Colorado River, one thing is certain.

Tempe is prepared to continue to provide the water that our community needs to thrive and grow sustainably.

In order to be prepared, Tempe plans and communicates those plans with customers.

These efforts are illustrated by our one-page water fact sheets and by maintaining a drought resiliency and planning document, which was updated in 2025.

Currently, due to the limited impact of the shortage on Colorado River to Tempe, the current drought stage is set to zero or watch.

In addition to our unique water resources portfolio, Tempe provides water to a wide spectrum of water users.

Water use in Tempe is nearly evenly split between residential users, indicated by the blue and tan portions on the left of the pie chart, and non-residential users, such as schools and businesses that are indicated by the three slices on the right side of the chart.

To ensure Tempe's water use is used as efficiently as possible, the water conservation program has resources, rebates, and grants for both residential and non-residential users.

With that, I'll take any questions.

Thank you, Craig.

Appreciate it.

All right, anyone on council?

Any comments or questions for Craig on that?

Yes, Councilburg Adams.

Just a quick question.

Um, so how many years is our water supply?

100 years.

That's what I thought.

Thank you for clarifying.

Anyone else?

Yes, Council Bramber.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

Uh, thank you, Craig.

You know, one of my favorites.

Um, I guess a question that I have.

I mean, I kind of know the answer, but I kind of want everybody else to know.

Like, why should we in Tempe care about what's going on with the CAP water?

I mean, we it's obviously we're not going to have a big issue.

Um, I think the last time I saw the last newspaper article, the federal government was talking about cutting it by 40%.

I think for the three southern states.

Um, why is it important?

Great question.

Um, Mayor Woods and Councilmember Amberg, the the simple answer to that is that this is a very large regional concern, and that we are not on an island in Tempe.

We have employment that occurs across our borders.

We have people who live in other areas that come into work or go to school, and we don't have the luxury of saying we're good, don't worry about everyone else.

We are in a regional situation where if others around us fail, it could have ripple effects and implications even into our economy.

So this is an important issue regionally to the state, to the southwest, and frankly to the federal government.

Thank you.

Absolutely.

Anyone else on council any further comments or questions for Craig on item 4C?

None.

All right.

Thank you so much.

Appreciate it.

All right.

That brings me to item number five, called the audience.

The city council welcomes public comment at this time per committee of the whole items on this work study session agenda.

There was a three-minute time limit per speaker.

Um, Madam Clerk, any cards?

Nothing received.

Thank you.

All right.

Thank you.

Uh in one of the audience, want to address the council.

I'll take one last look into the audience.

I also say I saw uh Tanya Chavez stand up, so I was like, well, maybe Tanya wants to come forward and tell me something.

Um, see?

Because of that, I'm gonna get hurt later on.

She'd be like, how dare you was anyway.

Uh, uh next up, item number six, committee of the whole six A proposed council subcommittees pro-City Council Rule 7 subsection 2B.

Any two members of the council may propose the formation of a subcommittee at a work study session of the council by identifying the purpose of the proposed subcommittee and the proposed members of the subcommittee and obtaining approval of the majority of the council.

So, are there any proposals this afternoon for a new council subcommittee at this time?

All right, seeing none, I'll go to item 6b, council subcommittee status updates as needed or recommendations for council directions.

I'm going to go down and ask the chairs.

So, item 6b1, animal welfare and cruelty and temp e uh council subcommittee.

Councilmember Hodge.

Yeah.

We are still currently reviewing the contracts in our place with uh animal welfare partners and gathering additional information.

We plan to schedule a next subcommittee meeting in the next few weeks to review the findings and discuss our next steps.

Thank you very much.

Appreciate it.

Next up, item 6b2, community engagement and connection council subcommittee.

I know Vice Mayor Garland's the chair, but anyone else?

Councilmember Amber.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

Uh yes, Vice Mayor Garlet is the chair.

Uh, this one is coming to an end.

It was fantastic.

But our next meeting is this Thursday, May the 21st at 4 p.m.

at the Tempe Public Library in the Desert Willow Room, which is downstairs.

And it is an in-person only meeting.

Uh, the agenda is posted on our subcommittee webpage.

And if you've got any questions, please reach out to Vice Mayor Garland's office.

Thank you very much.

Next up, item 6B3, drink spiking education and prevention council subcommittee.

Councilmember Keating is the chair, but anyone on council have an update on that item?

No, I think there's not.

Nothing.

Okay.

Next up, item 6b4, federal and state advocacy review council subcommittee.

Councilmember Amberg.

Yes, thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

Our next meeting is this Friday, May the 22nd at 11 o'clock at City Hall.

Thank you very much.

Next up, item 6b5, mixed use space council subcommittee.

Councilmember Chin.

Thank you, Mayor.

The next meeting of the mixed use space subcommittee will be on Monday, June 8th at 1 p.m.

Uh, on the in the third floor conference room in City Hall.

Thank you very much.

Next up, item 6b6, motorized and electric mobility device council subcommittee.

Councilmember Adams.

Yes, thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

Uh Councilmember Hodge and I serve on this uh the subcommittee and the next subcommittee meeting has not yet been scheduled, but uh we probably will be doing that next week, and meeting details will be posted on the city's website.

Thank you very much.

Next up, item 6b7, revitalization of Tempe Town Lake Council Subcommittee, Councilmember Amberg.

Yes, our uh next meeting is probably gonna be held sometime towards the end of June.

Okay, thank you very much.

And last but not least, 6B8, Tempe Term Limits Policy Review Council Subcommittee.

That's Councilmember Keatings, but anyone else here have an update on that item.

Okay, hearing none, I'll move on to item number seven, future agenda items.

Members of the city council may request that an agenda item be added to a future issue review session, but in accordance with the open meeting law, there should be no discussion on the item other than to clarify the request.

Would any council members like to add an agenda item to a future issue review session?

Okay, seeing that I'll close that discussion and move on to item number eight, which is adjournment.

The next scheduled work study session will be on Thursday, June 11th, 2026.

We are adjourned at 4 56 p.m.

Thank you, everyone.

Have a good evening.