Phoenix City Council Formal Meeting - May 21, 2025

Thank you. Thank you for joining us on
May 21st. For today's meeting, we will
have two community facility district
board meetings before the main formal
council meeting. The budget vote will be
nearer to the end of the meeting. I'll
now call to order the Park Central
Community Facilities District Board of
Directors meeting. Will the clerk call
the role?
Board member Conlin.
Board member
Conlin here. Thank you. Board member
Jerves
here. Board member Wardado.
Board member Nandez here. Board member
Hodgej Washington here. Board member
Pastor
here. Board member Robinson here. Board
member Stark here. Board member Wearing
Vice Chair O'Brien here. Chairwoman Gigo
here.
Items three and four are meeting
minutes. Board member Conland, do you
have a motion on items three and four?
Uh, so moved.
Second. We have a motion to approve the
district board meeting minutes for May
and June and a second. Roll call.
Conlin,
yes. Jerves,
yes.
Hernandez, yes. Haj Washington, yes.
Pastor, yes. Robinson, yes. Stark, yes.
Wearing, yes. O'Brien, yes. GGO, yes.
Passes
100. Item five is a public hearing on
the proposed district budget for fiscal
year 2526 and the proposed 5-year
financial plan for the district. I will
open the legally required public
hearing. We do not have any members to
comment. We'll close the public hearing
on the community facilities district.
The next is item six, which adopts the
fiscy year budget for 2526 and the final
five-year financial plan for the
district. Board member Comlin, do you
have a motion?
So moved, please.
Second. We have a motion and a second on
the budget resolution PC22. Does anyone
have any comments? Roll call. Conlin.
Yes. Jervis,
yes.
Hernandez, yes. Haj Washington, yes.
Pastor,
yes. Robinson, yes. Stark, yes. Wearing
O'Brien, yes. GGO, yes. Passes 100.
Mayor, mayor, point of order, please. I
I asked fire to make sure we're not
exceeding capacity on this floor. I It's
the old building official on my hat. Um
I think maybe if some of the staff could
go downstairs that might help. I'm a and
chief, I may be wrong, but it looks like
we're exceeding capacity up
here. Thank you. Thank you, mayor. I
just want to make sure everyone's Thank
you. Always safety conscious.
We next go to the Verdin Community
Facilities District Board of Directors
meeting. I'll call that to order. Will
the clerk call and oh, sorry. Thank you
to board members Jerb and Conland for
joining us for the Park Central
Community Facilities District. We'll now
go to the Verdin Community Facilities
District. Will the clerk call the role
for the Verdin Community Facilities
District Board? Board member Wardado.
Board member Hernandez here. Board
member Hajj Washington
present. Board member Pastor here. Board
member Robinson here. Board member Stark
here. Board member Wearing here. Vice
Chair O'Brien? Yes. Here. Chairwoman Ggo
here. Items 3 to eight are related to
the meeting minutes. Vice Chair O'Brien,
do you have a motion? Mayor, I move to
approve the district board meeting
minutes for October 2023rd and February,
March, June, and July 2024. Second. We
have a motion and a second. Roll call.
Ward Ernnandez. Yes. Hodge Washington.
Yes. Pastor, yes. Robinson, yes. Stark,
yes. Wearing, yes. O'Brien, yes. GGO,
yes. passes 8 Z.
Item nine is the public hearing on the
proposed district budget for fiscal year
2526 for the district. We'll open the
public hearing. We do not have anyone to
testify. We will close the public
hearing. Vice Mayor, do you have a
motion on resolution 7? I move to
approve resolution B7. Second.
Resolution seven adopts and approves the
final district budget for fiscal year
2526. Roll
call. Ernnandez,
yes. Haj Washington, yes. Pastor,
yes. Robinson, yes. Stark, yes. Wearing,
O'Brien, yes. GGO, yes. Passes 80.
Item 11 is the public hearing on the
proposed tax levy for fiscal year 2526.
We will open the public hearing. We do
not have anyone here to testify. We will
close the public hearing and go to
resolution Verdin 8. Vice Mayor, do you
have a motion? I move to approve
resolution verd 8. Second. Motion and a
second. Any comments? Roll call. Mado.
Ernandez, yes. Hodge Washington, yes.
Pastor,
yes. Robinson, yes. Stark, yes. Wearing,
yes. O'Brien, yes. GGO. Yes. Passes 80.
We will now adjourn the Community
Facilities District board meeting for
Verdin Community Facilities District.
And we will now turn to Police
Chaplain Lever, Rabbi Leverov, for the
invocation. Rabbi, thank you for joining
us.
Please join me in
prayer. Almighty God, in just over a
week, we will read about your appearance
on Mount Si with the Jewish holiday of
Shàuote, the festival of weeks. You gave
Moses two stone tablets on which you had
written the Ten Commandments and
instructed him to place them not on
display but within the ark hidden in the
inner sanctum of the temple, a place
entered only by the high priest and only
once a year. Perhaps this teaches us
that when we go out to improve a rough
and unfinished world, we must guard our
most sacred values in a quiet, protected
place within ourselves so that they
remain unshaken and uncorrupted by the
world around us. As we approach Memorial
Day, we are reminded of those who
carried such sacred values into the
world, not just privately, but with
profound courage and public sacrifice.
The men and women of our armed forces
gave their lives in defense of freedom,
justice, and the ideals this nation
strives to uphold. Their actions teach
us that values are not just meant to be
preserved. They are meant to guide our
decisions, even when it costs
everything. Almighty God, may we honor
their memory not only with words, but by
living our lives with principle and
purpose. Bless the families of the
fallen with comfort. Bless our veterans
with healing and strength. And bless
this nation with unity, humility, and
resolve. Almighty God, the members of
this city council who are each called to
public service by their sincere
convictions. Help them find and maintain
a holy, private place within their souls
where these values can be kept. A place
untouched by external pressures where
they will remain untarnished. A place
that will allow our mayor and council
members to disagree without being
disagreeable, to debate without becoming
debased, and to compromise without
becoming compromised. Lastly, grant them
peace of mind so they can connect with
this holy place, to refocus and
re-energize for service to their
constituents and our great city. And let
us say, amen.
Thank you, Rabbi. Councilman Wearing,
will you lead us in the pledge of
allegiance?
to the fathership.
[Music]
Thank
you. I'll now call to order the formal
meeting of the Phoenix City Council.
Will the clerk call the role?
Councilwoman Ward.
Councilwoman Hernandez, present.
Councilwoman Hodgej Washington,
present. Councilwoman Pastor,
present. Councilman Robinson, here.
Councilwoman Stark here. Councilman
Wearing. Vice Mayor O'Brien here. Mayor
Gigum
here. Mario Barahas and Carmen Kota are
here with us today to provide Spanish
interpretation. Uh, welcome Oscar as
well. Mario, would you introduce your
team? Yes, Naver. Thank you. Good
afternoon. Once again, my name is Mario
Vahas. I have a team today that consists
of Carmen Kota and an Oscar.
I'd like to inform you that um I'm going
to be speaking um a few words to our
Spanish speakers just so that we can
make it easy for our interpreters and
the whole process here.
Monroy.
Gracias. Thank you,
Mayor. Thank you so much. Will the city
clerk read the 24-hour paragraph? The
titles of the following ordinance and
resolution numbers on the agenda were
available to the public at least 24
hours prior to this council meeting and
therefore may be read by title or agenda
item only. Ordinances number G7388
through 7389,
S51728, 51895 through 51953, and 51955
through 51957 and resolutions
22302 through 22305.
Thank you so much. Will the city
attorney explain the role of public
comment?
Yes. Thank you, mayor. Members of the
public may speak for up to two minutes
to comment on agenda items. Comments
must be related to the agenda item and
the action being considered by the
council. General comments that go beyond
the scope of the agenda item must be
made at the citizen comment session at
the end of the agenda. The city council
and staff cannot discuss or comment on
matters related to pending
investigations, claims or litigation.
Additionally, any member of the public
who appears before council in their
capacity as a lobbyist must, as required
by Phoenix City Code, disclose this fact
before addressing council. The city code
requires speakers to present their
comments in a respectful and courteous
manner. Profane language threats or
personal attacks on members of the
public, council members, or staff are
not allowed. A person who violates these
rules will lose the opportunity to
continue to speak. Thank you. Thank you.
We'll begin with boards and commission
nominations. Vice Mayor, do you have a
motion? I move to approve mayor and city
council boards and commissions
nominations. Second. We have a motion
and a second. All those in favor, please
say I. I. Any opposed? Passes
unanimously. We will now conduct a
swearing in swearing in ceremony for our
new commissioners.
Just want to turn this way.
Please raise your right hand. I state
your name. I
do solemnly swearly swear that I will
support the Constitution of the United
States that I will support the
Constitution of the United States and
the Constitution and laws of the state
of Arizona and the Constitution and laws
of the state of Arizona. That I will
bear true faith and allegiance to the
same. that I will bear true faith and
allegiance to the state and defend them
against all enemies. and defend them
against all enemies, foreign and
domestic. foreign and domestic. And that
I will faithfully and
impartially faithfully impart discharge
the duties of the office of to discharge
the duties of the office of Now, please
state your office. Workforce
according to the best of my ability.
according to my So help me God. Thank
you for your service to the city of
Phoenix.
Thank you to our new commissioners for
their service to the city of Phoenix. We
will now go to the liquor license
portion of our agenda. The city of
Phoenix provides an advisory role to the
state of Arizona on liquor licenses.
Vice Mayor, do we have a motion? I move
to approve items 2 through 18, noting
that item two is as corrected. Second.
We have a motion and a second. Any
comments? All those in favor, please say
I. I. Any opposed? Nay. Passes
unanimously. City clerk, are we ready
for ordinances, resolution, new
business, planning, and zoning? Yes,
mayor. Vice Mayor, do we have a motion?
I move. I move to approve items 19
through 108 except the following. Items
36, 37, 43, 52, 61, 88, and 106 through
108, noting that items 63 is withdrawn.
And can the clerk confirm if there are
any other items that should be excluded
for in-person public comment? Mayor,
vice mayor, no other items to exclude.
We have a motion and a second. Roll
call.
Hernandez,
yes. Hodge Washington, yes. Pastor, yes.
Robinson, yes. Stark, yes. Wearing.
O'Brien, yes. VGO, yes. Passes 80.
Vice Mayor, do we have a motion to the
form and order of the meeting? Yes,
mayor. I move to suspend the rules to
take item 37 out of order to be heard
right before item 106. Second. Motion
and a second. Any comments? This will be
a voice vote. All those in favor say I.
I. Any oppose? Nay. Passes unanimously.
We turn to item 36, which is the ground
lease agreement for Yaka Library. I'll
turn to Councilwoman Pastor for comments
andor a motion.
Hold on there. Actually, can we have a
understanding of what's happening at
Yucka?
Mayor, members of council, Councilman
Pastor, Erin is coming to uh give you
that information at this time.
Thank you, Mayor, members of council.
Councilwoman Pastor, um we received
funding in the last GO bond to increase
the size of the library at Yaka. Um and
we do rent the land that that library is
on. So we need to extend that lease
agreement to make it so that we have
enough land in order to do the
extension. Um so
this pardon me um this part of the
agenda would be approval of that lease
agreement extension so that we can use
that funding to expand um Yucka Library.
Thank you. Uh the reason why I wanted to
have this discussion about Yucka Library
um is that I do un I do we did her
constituents did pass the bond to expand
Yucka Library and the reason why we are
extending the lease is because of the
expansion and am I correct? That's
correct. And uh one of the issues and
why I brought it to the forefront was
because uh Yucka Library is a piece of
land that we lease. We don't own that
library.
We own the building. We do not own the
land. Correct. So, at any moment that
lease, if Chemco decides, you know what,
this property, we're going to sell this
property. Um, they have the ability to
sell it and they have ability to give us
a notice of uh
removal. Mayor, members of council,
Councilwoman Pastor, yes, that's
correct. So, we either party could
determine at any time that they would
want to terminate the lease. They have
there's a procedure by which we would go
through that. And what happens to the
building? Um the building would then end
up with Kimco. So the we would that
building would end up with Kimco. So we
are we have doing an expansion of the
building that uh right now is with
taxpayers dollars and if something
happens with the lease then the building
goes to the owner of the land. Is that
correct? That is correct. Okay. Um, the
reason why I brought it to the forefront
is because we have 19th Avenue in
Montabelloo that is in the process of
going
um to FTA
uh to be able to use that land uh in the
future for an
RFP. And that land is just on the
opposite side of from 15th Avenue, it's
on 19th Avenue. And for me, I think it's
in our best interest to be able
to use that land as we will write an RFP
very similar to the Columbus uh piece of
property to uh carve out or have a space
uh for a new library.
And I think that's really in the long
term the best interest for the city. Uh
because the library the library is on u
city
land uh and it's also our building that
will will be built. Um and so that was
my interest in this property. My motion
is to accept staff's recommendation with
the stipulation of in the future if the
property on 19th Avenue Monttoello
uh does go up for an RFP for a new a a
space within that property to be uh
looked at or or carved out for a city
library. If a city library is built on
19th Avenue and Montabelloo, then the
land that the lease that is on 15th
Avenue and Montabelloo, we could
repurpose that building and use it
possibly for a heat uh respit or
anything else. Uh that is my motion.
We have a motion and a second. Any
additional comments? Roll call.
Ernnandez,
yes. Hudge Washington, yes. Pastor, yes.
Robinson, yes. Stark, yes. Wearing, yes.
O'Brien, yes. GGO, yes. Passes 80. Item
43 is related to bicycles, parts, and
accessories, including repair and
maintenance surfaces contract. Vice
Mayor, do we have a motion? I move to
approve item 43. Second. We have a
motion and a
second. We have one public speaker,
Annie Elden.
Okay.
Can uh can you hear me? We can.
Wonderful. Okay. I uh I wasn't clear if
I was supposed to speak up, say no or
yes to the speaking up, but I just
wanted to uh speak about my approval of
this to to support it and I hope it will
pass. Um yeah, my name is Annie Elden. I
am a uh member of Chispa and also a
member of Phoenix spokespeople and uh I
just support anything with bicycles in
the city that we can do. Thank you.
Thank you. Roll call.
Wardo. Hernandez.
Yes. Haj Washington. Yes. Pastor. Yes.
Robinson. Yes. Stark. Yes. Wearing.
O'Brien. Yes. GGO. Yes. Passes 80.
Item 52 is related to Hila River Indian
Community 2025 gaming grants. Vice
Mayor, do we have a motion?
Yes, ma'am. I move to approve item 52.
Second. We have a motion and a second.
This is a partnership with the Hila
River Indian Community where they
provide support to city programs as well
as to nonprofits in our community that
are funded
through gaming. There's a wide variety
of important programs in this including
uh funding for individuals who are at
risk of or speaking homelessness,
experiencing homelessness, behavioral
health engagement, food access, city of
Phoenix Veterans Court, and more. On
this one, we note that Councilman
Wearing will not be participating in the
vote. Comments. Roll call.
Hernandez, yes. Haj Washington, yes.
Pastor, yes. Robinson, yes. Stark, yes.
O'Brien, yes. GGO, yes. Passes 70. Item
61 is an intergovernmental agreement
with the state of Arizona to utilize the
pyramid model implementation data
system. Vice Mayor, do we have a motion?
I move to approve. Second. Motion and a
second, noting that Councilman Wearing
will not be participating. Roll call.
Guardn.
Yes. Hudge Washington. Yes. Pastor,
yes. Robinson, yes. Stark, yes. O'Brien,
yes. GGO, yes. Passes 70.
Item 88 is related to speed limits. Will
the city clerk read the title?
Item 88 is ordinance G7389, an ordinance
amending chapter 36, vehicles and
traffic, article 12, section
36-158, schedule 1 of the Phoenix City
Code, relating to local speed limits at
15 locations.
Vice Mayor, do we have a motion? I move
to approve item 88. Second. We have a
motion and a second. Any comments? Roll
call. Ernandez,
yes. Haj Washington, yes. Castor, yes.
Robinson, yes. Stark, yes. Wearing,
yes. O'Brien, yes. GGO, yes. Passes
80. We next go to item 37, which is our
council budget decision.
want to thank our city manager, our
budget director, and the hardworking
budget and research team, as well as the
leaders of our department and offices
across the city for your careful
stewardship of
resources. This is part of an a long
ongoing process, including meetings
throughout the city of
Phoenix. It has been a tumultuous budget
time during due to federal and state
actions, but the city of Phoenix is
charting a steady and pragmatic course.
While this budget contains adjustments
to ensure we're able to set aside
reserves for the future, it also
sustains essential services and delivers
wins across all areas of our city. It
reflects the council's promise to reduce
fire response times with the addition of
nearly $25 million in new resources for
our fire department. It increases
general fund support for our office of
homelessness, office of homeless
solutions. establishes the housing trust
fund seated with nearly two million
currently available through American
Rescue Plan Act interest and supported
with future interest earnings. Continued
critical investment in heat relief
efforts, landmark investments such as
innovation 27 and maintains the parks
and library programming that Phoenicians
know and love. Vice Mayor, do you have a
motion andor comments?
Yes, mayor. I would like to make a few
comments first again. uh reiterate uh my
thanks for our city manager, our budget
director, and all the staff in and every
department that worked diligently on
this budget. Um it has been a tumultuous
couple of years leading up to this and
so I know that uh reducing budgets has
been difficult for our departments, but
I'm thankful for their efforts to do
that. Um, this budget, as mayor said,
does protect services for our citizens,
the essential services, including um the
parks and libraries and and public
safety as well as our um office of
homeless solutions and particularly our
community assistance program, which
sends folks out um when that is more
appropriate than our police officers.
So, I'm very thankful for all the hard
work and I am proud to support this
budget. And with that, I move to approve
item 37. Second. We have a motion and a
second. Councilman Hud Washington. Thank
you, Mayor. I just wanted to also share
some preliminary comments. I want to
thank the city manager, Jeff Barton, and
the entire pub uh budget and research
department for their work in bringing
forward a balanced budget in a year that
has not been easy. uh we are having to
make hard choices to keep our
commitments um because of decisions on
the state and federal level that have
taken revenue out of our hands of
cities. Um but these this budget
reflects this reality. However, I'm very
proud that we are investing in things
our residents count on. I'm especially
proud that we are more than doubling the
balance of the housing trust fund, an
effort I've been advocating from from
the beginning. This is a major win for
housing affordability in Phoenix and it
gives us a stronger foundation from
which to respond to the housing needs of
today while preparing for the federal
changes that could impact our future
funding. We are also protecting the
future of access to council so that
families facing eviction are not left to
do that to navigate the legal system
alone. In district 8, this budget
continues our commitment to the gated
alley program, sidewalk safety
improvement and expanding our heat
relief efforts. We are also adding new
firefighters and new equipment to
improve response times. It also includes
investments in our parks and shelter
services that directly serve our
community. I want to specifically thank
every me every resident who gave
feedback at hearings or emailed the
city. you help shape this budget and and
we are keeping we'll keep and I will
keep pushing for the resources our
residents needs especially if
neighborhoods that have gone too long
without I also want to sorry apologies
um I also want to say thank you again
specifically to those that attended the
budget hearings and especially the
efforts led by our budget director Amber
Williamson thank you for the diligence
in this I know it was not it was not
easy as we had to navigate quite a
number of changes from our federal and
state partners. So, thank you, mayor.
Again, I'm excited to see the housing
trust fund be funded and we have another
tool in our toolkit in which to address
housing affordability here in Phoenix.
Thank you, Mayor.
Thank you. We'll go to Councilwoman
Stark and then Councilman Wearing.
Thank you. I too want to thank staff,
especially Jeff and Amber. I know you
are experts when it comes to the budget,
but I know um all the departments made
some sacrifices, but the good news is
our programs and projects stay in place.
And so I'm very grateful for that. I
will tell you, uh when I was on staff,
it was during the great recession and we
had to make some dire cuts and that
included employees taking furlow days
and losing some benefits. And so I am
very happy that we were able to keep
what we returned back to our staff
intact. They deserve it. They're
hardworking and I'm glad they don't need
to make that sacrifice again. I too am
very happy about the housing trust fund.
Very excited that's going to happen.
There's so much positive in this budget.
Was tough because revenues were taken
from us. You were very thoughtful and I
thank every department for stepping up
and looking at what you do and how you
could help us get through this. Again,
I'm especially uh proud of our staff for
the good work they did. Thank you,
Mayor. Thank you, Councilman Wearing. Uh
thank you, Mayor. Uh I don't always vote
for city budgets, at least not since
I've been on I don't know why you guys
got a laugh. Um since I've been on the
council, I voted against my share. So, I
understand why people look at the
document and say it's not exactly what
I'd like to see. There's things in this
budget that I don't particularly care
for. There things have been added over
the last, I would say, decade or so that
I didn't think were core city services
or were as important as our core
functions. For example, police and fire.
This budget though, um, in tough times,
I think attempts to hire more police
officers. We got outstanding news from
the Justice Department today. The
misguided and wrong Justice Department
investigation is now over. I'm hoping
that'll make it easier to hire a chief
and frankly to hire more officers. Uh
but this budget also adds badly needed
firefighters. And those are really the
two most important things I think that
citizens associate with the city.
There's parks. Absolutely. Aaron was
just talking about our libraries. Those
are absolutely of paramount importance.
Obviously fixing streets and just
frankly cleaning up the sides of the
streets and how the city presents.
Sometimes we deviate into things like
basketball stadiums and other things
that maybe I thought weren't as
necessary as police and fire, but I
think this budget is focusing on the
bases basics. We're not adding things
that uh I might argue shouldn't be there
or shouldn't be added um to the extent
that there's new spending. It's on
firefighters for the most part and I
appreciate and applaud that. So voting
against this budget would be voting
against that and that's not what I want
to do. So I appreciate Jeff whether I
vote for the budgets or not I always
appreciate yours Lor's and Amber's work
on this. Um I know it's a herculean
task. I know there were issues at the
state that caused a revenue shortfall
that is not necessarily this council's
making. Um there might have been other
ways to address it than some of the
things that we did. But regardless I do
think the focus is in the right place on
police and fire. Some people may take
issue with that, but I I would argue
that's exactly what we should be doing,
trying to protect our citizens. Thank
you.
Thank you so much, Councilman Robinson.
Thank you, Mayor. You know, during his
invocation, Rabbi Levitro, he used two
words that kind of stuck with me and I
think it's a reflection or an indication
of the work that went into this budget.
He said s there was a sincere commitment
on the part of he was talking about the
council and everyone involved with city
government obviously but you know those
two words sincere commitment is what I
think is a clear reflection on what went
into this budget. A lot has already been
said, so I don't want to repeat um I
don't want to repeat a lot of it, but it
is um it's really important that folks
understand that the city of Phoenix
makes a commitment to listen to the
residents and through our budget
meetings and all the meetings that we
all have up here with our constituents,
we do just that. And as Councilman
Wearing was just saying, we're paying
attention to the things that we can pay
attention to. We are getting out in
front on as many things as we possibly
can within within limits. But I want to
add my thanks to the staff, Amber
Williamson and her staff, city
management, and all my colleagues here
on the dis because there's a lot that
goes into the decision-making on what
goes into the budget. great deal of
work, a great deal of listening, you
name it, it takes place in order for us
to arrive at what is a workable budget.
So, with all that, clearly, it's a
budget that I want to support. It's a
budget that I think does what it needs
to do for us at this time based on the
parameters we have um or that we're
faced with. But um everyone has done a
terrific job, city staff and I don't
want to forget all of you residents who
participated in our budget process. It
sincere commitment on all of your parts
and I think that's what makes it work
and that's what makes the city as the
mayor said yesterday in her address, you
know, such a great city. So mayor, thank
you for the time and thank staff and
everyone, all residents involved in this
budget. It's it's truly appreciated.
Thank you. Thank you, Councilwoman
Hernandez.
Thank you, Mayor. Let me move this up a
little bit. Thank you, Mayor. Um, I'd
like to start by thanking the staff, um,
and city manager Jeff Barton. Um, Amber,
y'all, your team has been great the last
few weeks, um, meeting with the D7 team.
Um, you have reviewed the the budget
with us, asked our very many questions.
Um, and just have a couple follow-up
questions. first for you, Jeff, and then
I also have one question for parks,
libraries, arts and culture, um housing
and police. Um Jeff, I'd just like to
clarify a few things publicly. First,
for the record, um my first question is
if the if the potential recession and
Trump cuts to grant and city programs
hit during this fiscal year of 2526 and
we have to adjust the budget during the
year, what are some of the ways that we
as council uh may have to act to prevent
the city from going off a financial
cliff? Mayor, members of the council,
Councilwoman Hernandez, that's a great
question. Um you know, we as a council,
you are required, unlike the federal
government who you just referenced,
we're required to balance our budget.
the feds are not. They can deficit
spend. So when you're talking about our
balanced budget, you're talking about
resources and expenditures. That's
that's the simplicity of our equation.
So our revenues and our resources have
to equal what our expenditures going out
our. And so in this situation, if we
were to encounter some problems as a
result of a recession or fiscal cliff or
anything like that, we would either need
to reduce expenditures or increase
revenues. And so the ways in which we
would typically go about that is a
mid-year adjustment to the budget,
especially if it's really bad if it
can't wait until we're actually working
on the upcoming 2526 pro or 2627
process. Um we would look to um identify
reductions that could be taken in our
departments. Typically in October,
November time frame of every year, we
ask every department to identify a
portion of their budget for reduction
anyway as part of our zerobased budget
process. So, we would, you know, use
that process to the extent that we
could. We would also look at the
opportunities for exploring revenue
increases. However, I will tell you that
there really aren't that many options at
council's disposal when it comes to
increasing
revenues. Thank you, Jeff. Um, my next
question, I want to pivot to the police
budget a bit. The proposed budget
allocates just over $20 million for
sworn police overtime. Um, however, I
noticed that for the past two fiscal
years, the police department has gone
over budget by roughly 33 million in
fiscal year 2324 and roughly 21 million
in fiscal year
2425. Um, why is there a vast
discrepancy in the actuals versus what
was budgeted? Sure. Councilwoman uh
Ernendez, mayor, members of council,
another great question. So, as we've
talked about, I want to say since
October of of 2010, our police
department has struggled to fill their
positions that they're authorized to
fill from a budgetary perspective. We've
been chasing the number of
3,125 filled sworn positions since April
of 2015 or March of 2015. Um, and
unfortunately, we haven't been able to
keep pace. So, as a result of that, PD
has minimum staffing requirements. And
I'll let the chief and staff kind of go
into more detail, but with having 5 to
600 vacancies, they still have to have
those bodies out on the street. And so
they do that with overtime. And so
typically, you know, if you're a regular
uh city employee and you're working a
position and anyone for that matter,
that's a salary position or hourly
position, you when you're working
overtime, it's time and a half. So the
value of u overtime exceeds the cost of
a filled position. So it's more
expensive for us to use overtime to fill
these positions. in police and fire,
it's actually a little bit worse because
of the value of the pension. So pension
makes the overtime almost two and a half
times uh straight pay. And so that
that's really what it is. It's it comes
down to the fact that there should be an
inverse relationship between overtime
and pension. So if we had all of our
positions filled, you'd see less
overtime being used, but as a ver as a
matter of not having those positions
filled, you're seeing more overtime.
Thank you, Jeeoff. Um has the city
conducted any audits of police overtime
to identify inefficiencies? um fraud,
fraudulent overtime or routine overuse.
Yes, we actually just mayor, members of
the council, Councilwoman Hernandez, we
actually our city audit department just
recently finished an audit. We actually
routinely look at at overtime as as a
general rule. Um they did not find any
fraud in that audit. What they found is
that there are some opportunities for
enhancing our internal controls to
ensure that there's proper sign off of
overtime to make sure that overtime when
possible can be planned that schedules
could be adjusted in in the case of
certain positions. And I'd let the chief
and and and Jody add if they'd like to
add anything to what I just said.
Mayor, members of council, Councilwoman
Hernandez. Um, we have begun a process
that began in September of
2023 that brought together members
leadership in labor to examine how we
could improve our understanding and our
control of overtime to ensure overtime
is being used to execute our mission. As
city manager um Barton uh communicated,
most of our overtime is driven by two
things. One is staffing or or lack of
staffing and the second is is required
events or incidents that we have to
staff. Those events can be things like
the Super Bowl or the World Series or
our Suns games or our Diamondback games.
They can also be as a result of
incidents that occur in our community
like violent offenses. those require
staff to attend or when those cases go
to court, it also requires staff to
attend court. Often those activities are
done outside of their regularly
scheduled work time. So our efforts
began examining what what the data tells
us how is the overtime being used and
then to improve through a series of
activities. One is looking at current
policy compared to what we want policy
to be. Then once we've established the
new policy requirements focusing on
employee wellness and safety, then to
train both supervisors and employees on
how to properly request overtime, report
overtime, approve overtime, and then
practice examining does practice meet
policy and our expectations of our
members. And we do that in a couple
different ways. We do that internally
through our organizational integrity
bureau as well as our partners with the
city auditor's office as you referenced
with the city audit. One has been
completed already. Another is ongoing
and we have additional ones planned for
the future. And then looking at um our
high overtime users or employees that
are um may be completing overtime
outside of what we would expect as
normal. And so we do those as random
inspections in our organizational
integrity bureau. And so that process
has been ongoing. Additionally, what we
have done is incorporated our a use or
the development of a dynamic database
that allows us to examine it the
overtime usage in real time as opposed
to a couple of pay cycles or more after
the overtime has been completed. So we
have implemented a multitude of
strategies that we continue to work with
with internal um leaders, internal
experts as well as our external
partners. Thank you, Jody. And I think
you just answered my first question that
I was going to ask ask uh Chief Orander.
Uh so thank you for that. Um Chief, my
other question for you is um can the
department provide um our office align
item breakdown on the activities that I
think Jody covered a lot of those. Can
we just get that um as a follow-up?
Mayor, members of the council,
Councilwoman Hernandez, yes, we can
provide the line items. Awesome.
Perfect. Thank you. Um I have one
question for parks, libraries, and arts
and culture.
Good afternoon, Councilwoman Hernandez,
mayor, members of the city council. I'll
be happy to answer any questions for the
parks department. Thank you. Um my I
have the same question for all three of
you, which is um what difference does
your department makes for the lives of
our Phoenix residents?
Sure. Mayor, members of the city
council, and councilwoman Hernandez, the
mission of the parks and recreation
department is to build healthy
communities and and we do that in
numerous ways. We uh we provide one of
the largest municipally managed park
systems in the country. We have 188
parks, 33 recreation centers, over
40,000 acres of uh trails. And so our
goal is really to provide recreational
opportunities, programs such as
afterchool programs, youth sports, swim
lessons, really programs and services
that are vital to the well-being of
making our communities um safe and have
a vibrant way of living. Thank you.
Good afternoon, Mayor Ggo, Councilwoman
Hernandez, members of council, uh Mitch
Manaka, Arts and Culture Director. Uh we
know that the arts inspire and bring joy
to residents. They beautify public
spaces, uh strengthen community pride,
help student success, uh create
solutions for civic issues, and bolster
the economy. Our public art program has
artwork in every district. Um when we
dedicate those public art uh projects,
we receive positive comments from the
community. We uh dedicated a piece in
district 3 a couple years ago on Sixth
Street in Butler in the neighborhood
cleaned up their yards, painted their
houses to show community pride. Along
with that artwork, uh we work in schools
trying to put artists in residents with
schools that don't have in time uh arts
education classes. Just did a a project
with Heather Bray uh doing 12week
residencies there. We have literacy hubs
across the city trying to help get third
graders to the third grade reading
level. Um, uh, civic issues. We're
really big on shade. We have a lot of
temporary projects popping up right now
trying to include more shade into public
parks and learning from different
materials versus just putting a stick
with a shade cover over it. And then
ultimately, we bolster the economy. Uh
we give uh grants to 120 nonprofit
organizations that create jobs within
our community, have created half a
billion dollars of economic impact for
the city and we partner with about a
dozen of those nonprofits to partner
within our facilities and they bring in
over about $10 million 10 million
visitors a year. So we think it's a
complete package of what we offer our
residents. Thank you.
Thank you, mayor, members of council.
Councilwoman Hernandez. Um the mission
of the Phoenix Public Library is to
empower our community with opportunities
and resources to inspire and enrich
lives. And we do that in many different
ways. So we have resources like our
space. We have Burton Bar Central
Library which is about 240,000 ft of
space plus 16 satellite branches and a
bookmobile. Um all of our libraries are
cooling centers open to all of Phoenix.
Um anyone that wants to come in and use
our space. So that third space is
important for community connection um as
a free space for everyone. We also have
resources like books and movies and uh
music, newspapers, magazines, all that
traditional stuff in physical and
digital format. Um and then we offer
opportunities so that programming for
our community. Um and that's for all
ages. We um embrace lifelong learning.
So we have early education
opportunities. We help get kids ready to
read, ready for kindergarten, um ready
for school. uh and as they enter school,
we have programming and resources
available after school for steam
activities. We have a lot of teen
programming. We also um are sometimes
the first place a teen gets work
experience through our volunteer
program. Um and then moving into um
older uh adults that use our um
libraries. We have workforce
development. We offer higher education
opportunities through College Depot at
Burton Bar Public Library. Um, and then
we also offer um we offer workforce and
entrepreneurship opportunities as well
as a lot of the recreational um fun
opportunities like bookmobile I'm sorry
book clubs um and lectures uh for people
um of all ages in the city. So we offer
a variety of resources and
opportunities. Thank you. Thank you so
much. Um my next question is for our
housing department.
Councilman, do you need any of the folks
who just came up to stay? Sorry. I am.
Thank you. Okay, so you guys Thank you
for the testimony and thank you, mayor.
[Music]
Hi. Good afternoon. Um Titus, can you I
have a couple questions for you. Um what
difference does your department make in
the lives of Phoenix residents? And just
to be clear, you are the director of our
housing department, correct? That's
correct. Good afternoon, mayor, members
of the council. council that is the
Phoenix Housing Department plays two
roles. We're a housing department for
the city of Phoenix. In addition to
that, we serve as the public housing
authority on behalf of the federal
government and part of that mission is
to keep people housed and we serve our
residents over 35,000 residents in
Phoenix by providing public housing
assistance for public housing as well as
section 8. And we also are in the
business of creation and preservation of
multifamily housing in Phoenix. So we
have created over many multif family
units in the last 10 years and with this
council's support in 2020 we passed the
housing Phoenix plan to create and
preserve 50,000 units by 2030 which we
achieved in December of 2024. So we're
at 56,000 units currently. So that's
primarily our mission is to keep people
housed and my job is to make sure they
stay housed and that's what we'd like to
do continuously. Thank you so much. Um,
it's interesting because at the same
time that the city of Phoenix is working
on the budget, the federal government is
also working on their budget process.
And one of the areas that we have that
there's a lot of speculation and
instability, we don't know what is
really going to happen is in the housing
side, right? We get a lot of grants in
the city of Phoenix. Uh, for the public
and those watching, um, wanted to just
share that in the state of Arizona, 40%
of our in of our resource financial
resources come from the federal
government. Not sure if any everybody
knew that. So, anything that happens at
the federal government has a direct
impact here in the city of Phoenix. And
when it comes to housing, an area that
I'm super passionate about and just want
to shout out Councilwoman Kesha House
Washington for leading on the housing
trust fund. It's something that I have
advocated for at the state level. I will
continue to support it here at the city
level. Um, but your department is
interesting in this aspect because our
housing programs do get a lot of federal
support. So can you um share with us
what would be the impact on our
communities if Trump does cut the
emergency housing vouchers for example?
Me mayor, members of the council,
Counciloman Hanes, the emergency housing
voucher program currently serves 320
households and comprising 619 household
members and currently HUD has informed
us as of 2026 they're going to terminate
the program but in recently we received
information from HUD that they're going
to give us additional guidance uh in
terms of and wait for the guidance to
figure out what next steps are for that
particular program. one of the
possibilities and we haven't got the
notification from HUD yet. Informally,
we were told that there's a possibility
we may be able to absorb that into our
housing choice voucher program, but that
is subject to additional guidance that
we yet to receive, but currently our
expenditures for that particular program
is about $4.6 million a year. Thank you
for that. Um, that's my only questions
for you. Um, and just want to thank you,
Jeff, again, Amber. you have been so
instrumental in answering the questions
um and also for the department directors
for your responses to the questions. Um
coming in as a new council member has
been a learning experience for myself
and for the D7 team. Uh also that it's a
very different process from the state
budget negotiations. So huge difference,
a lot of learning. Um but I want to be
clear that we take the work that you do
that you do that all of our departments
do very seriously. Have a lot of respect
for it. I am actually glad I'm not in
your in your role. You have a way
tougher job than I have um in this in
this aspect. You know, we respect your
vision. We respect all of your
commitment um to the work to work hard
for the residents of the city. And as
I've come into office, I've also seen
Trump's threats and attacks in real
time. Um Trump Trump is attacking
programs that protect our most
vulnerable residents and attacking the
city programs and grants that keep our
city thriving and safe. We have to
defend these programs and defend our
community members from Trump's attacks.
We must be clear that we will prioritize
protecting people over criminalizing
them. Um, and speaking to the police
overtime, I still have serious concerns
about how the police department has used
overtime, how we manage that overtime,
and how we can assure that our city
budget as a whole um budget is not
absorbed to meet police overtime. I know
the city is working to fill vacancies in
the department, but in the meantime, we
must get a handle on the police
department over time. Um, and finally,
while we are setting aside $109 million
in the budget to weather a very likely
budget crisis in fiscal year 2627, we
must assure that these set aides really
protect our city residents, our city
staff, and city programs that make
Phoenix a vibrant and beautiful,
thriving community. So with this in
mind, I would like to make a substitute
motion to amend the proposed fiscal year
2526 budget as follows. I move to
restrict the use of 109 million in set
aides for spending related to general
fund programs that are not connected to
the police department and reallocate $7
million in ongoing funding from the
Phoenix Police Department sworn officer
overtime um budget commit uh line item
501215 to cover 4.6 6 million in
emergency housing voucher funding, $2
million for parks,
$249,000 for libraries, and
$170,000 175,000 for arts and culture.
[Applause]
Thank you. We'll now go to public
comment. We will begin with Anne Ender
followed by Timothy
Gamage, Mayor Ggo, Vice Mayor O'Brien,
and council members. Thank you. Um,
apologize for my attire. I just came out
here from air support out at Deer Valley
Airport. Uh we were out there thanking
them for taking us on a ride along which
was um eyeopening. When I thought I
understood everything that was happening
with the police department, I learned a
lot more. Um I want to thank city
manager Barton, Amber Wilkinson, and our
budget and research department for
putting together a really sound budget
that supports public safety. Um without
public safety, we won't have a vibrant
city.
I appreciate everything that you've done
and and I appreciate everyone that has
come to the meetings and I thank all the
firefighters and I thank the council and
the mayor for also increasing the TPT
tax. I think that's going to make a huge
difference. We're going to hopefully
help our firefighters get more
equipment, more people, and that way
they can respond when people like me
fall. I also want to um just quickly um
say that last week was National Police
Week and 144 names were added to the
memorial wall. Four from Arizona, one of
course being Phoenix PD officer Zane
Kulage. And next week being Memorial
Day, I really have been thoughtful about
that because I'm the mother of a
military son and the wife of a military
man and I got both of them back. So I'd
like everyone else to think about those
sacrifices that they make and that's
what our police department does and our
fire department does to keep us safe.
Thank you.
Timothy is next, followed by AJ.
Uh Tim Gamage, executive vice president
of Local
493. I'd like to start off by thanking
Jeff Barton and Amber Williamson for
putting together a budget that uh
priorit prioritizes
uh resources within the fire department.
Uh we've been suffering from extended
response times for a long time now and
this is a big step forward in the right
direction. Thank you to the mayor and
most of the council for approving the
TPT. Uh and hopefully all of you are
going to vote yes on approving this
budget and the resources that are going
to the fire department. This is a big
step in the right direction. I don't
think it gets us all the way where we
need to be, but this is a big step and
hopefully when uh more financial
resources come to the city, uh they they
get get flowed to the fire department so
we can impact the safety of our citizens
in a positive way. Thank you.
AJ is next, followed by Patrick.
Hi, I also want to thank city manager
Barton for another amazing budget. Um,
your ability to fund all departments,
all of our necessary services are
balanced with quality of life and
worldclass amenities. So, that's
amazing, Jeff. We appreciate that. I
also want to point out that Phoenix
continues to grow in the number of
residents, businesses, places to live,
and attractions for visitors to visit.
Protecting all these people and places
24/7 every day is a top priority for a
city, and your budget funds that safety
along with all of the other interests of
a great city.
Your budget and council's support of
public safety shows that you all care
about every issue in Phoenix. No one
wants a victim of crime. Being a victim
of crime takes to recoup from and may
even end your life. One
want money or
life a victim of crime. A fully funded
and staffed police department allows
everyone who cares to build up their
neighborhoods, businesses, and our city
to live their lives and work on their
projects of interest with as much safety
as possible. So, let's all work to
reduce crime in Phoenix. That can reduce
calls for service and reduce some shift
overtime.
And let's be thankful we have men and
women to support and fund who are
willing to protect us so we can live our
lives and work on safely. Thank you.
Patrick is next, followed by Julia.
Uh, good afternoon, Mayor Gayo, members
of council. Thank you for the
opportunity to speak today. I'm speaking
today as the advocacy director for
Phoenix Community Alliance, an
organization with a 40-year track record
for advocating for an improved downtown.
I'm here today to offer the support of
our organization for the budget that is
being presented. We fully understand
that the city has been placed in a
difficult position due to actions at the
state legislature and we under
appreciate and we appreciate the work of
city manager Barton and staff to prepare
a balanced budget as is required by law.
The budget under consideration allows
the city to maintain crucial services
while increasing funding for areas most
in need, especially the office of
homeless solutions and other programs to
combat housing insecurity. As summer
approaches, we must think about the most
vulnerable of our residents. This budget
allows for enhanced services to this
population. This budget also allows for
increased public safety by lowering fire
department response times, provides for
parks and library services, and provides
for parks and library services. A budget
must reflect the constantly evolving
needs of a city and its residents and
address the needs of the moment while
planning for the future. As presented,
this budget does just that by funding
crucial programs today and planning for
the their continued funding in
subsequent years. In closing, Phoenix
Committee Alliance reaffirms our support
for this budget. Given the totality of
the situation, this is the best
allocation of significantly reduced
resources. Again, thank you for the
opportunity to speak today. And Phoenix
Community Alliance supports the budget
as presented. Thank you.
Thank you. Julia is next, followed by
Jeff.
Hi. Uh, thank you for giving me two
minutes to speak. I am in support of
this budget. I don't think any of us
wanted to be in this position where
we're having many funds cut all across
not just our state, but our country. Um,
I was thankful enough to see Amber
present the budget and do one of the
community meetings and learn why we're
in this position and why we have to cut
funds where we have to. Um, I support it
going to the first responders. We've had
very bad response times. This is going
to help. Um I know there are many places
all over nonprofits, humanities that are
struggling too, but we have to think
about the residents and their safety
first. Um there is always going to be
other grant fundings for, you know, arts
and culture libraries that we can find,
but we have to really focus on what
we're going to prepare for for the
future. And I think this budget does it.
We're prepared for what's ahead. It may
not be what we want, but it's better to
be prepared than having to cut jobs and
everything in the future because we
didn't prepare and we were hoping to get
funds that we weren't going to get. Um,
so I'm thankful to the city manager and
his team and everybody who worked on
this budget, to the city council for,
you know, reviewing it, for everybody
who put their input in, to everybody
who's coming here to speak, even if we
don't have the same opinion. I
appreciate you taking the time to
address your concerns about the city
budget, but I think this does need to be
approved so we can be prepared for the
future. Thank you.
Thank you. Jeff is next, followed by
Brian.
I think I had Jeff. Yeah, Jeff Tisit.
Sorry, I will try to annunciate better.
Well, good afternoon. There's no way I
can say anything in two minutes, but
I'll give it a try. Uh, first off,
mayor, council, thank you for having us
here today. Okay. U, my name is Jeff
Hat. I am, uh, Sunny Slope resident in
District 3. Okay. I'm also the president
of East Sunny Slope Neighborhood
Association and Blockwatch, the largest,
probably one of the most active in the
city. We have over 700 registered
members, very active in the slope.
Um over the last few days we have spent
a lot of time a lot of communications,
meetings, conversations about today. And
what myself and our
community wants to say is we are
110% in support of approval of this
budget. where there has been cuts that
had to been made. You know, we
appreciate where you made them, the
thought and the time that went behind
it. Okay. One of the big things that
were we
appreciate is the the increase to the
police
department. Okay.
Um with without our police, we're we're
in big trouble. I'm retired military.
Okay. I've worked with the Secret
Service. was stationed at Camp David and
at Allied Forces Southern
Europe. I run security at Chris Town
Mall and I deal with the police on a
day-to-day
basis. Okay, we need them. I'm pretty
versed from standing on the
sidelines. Okay, we need them and we
need them bad. Councilwoman Hernandez,
if if I might give you a just a tad bit
of advice from an old guy that's been
around the the globe a few
times, you know, you you might want to
to rethink the the anti- police or
that's coming out of you, you know, and
I want you to be your own person, but
this is just my opinion. Did not work
out very well for uh Councilwoman
Washington's
predecessor. So, thank you guys.
Appreciate it.
Brian is next, followed by Jackie.
Mayor, Vice Mayor, members of council,
city manager, and staff. Thank you for
the opportunity to speak. My name is
Brian Willingham. I'm the president of
the United Phoenix Firefighters
Association. We represent 2900
firefighters here in the valley,
1,865 that belong to the city of
Phoenix. I want to commend you, mayor.
First of all, your leadership has been
tremendous in your tenure. I think if
you look at your body of work, with the
geo bond and everything else that you've
been able to accomplish with the help of
council and especially the support of
the city manager and his staff, I I
think people will look fondly back at
your tenure years from now. And I want
to thank you for
that. Jeff Barton, I I don't have enough
words for all the support you've given
the fire department over the years. For
the community that doesn't understand,
for over 15 plus years on the fire
department, we have been deficient in
our resources and our
staffing. What that translates to in
response times that everybody keeps
referring to is a quality of life issue
if we don't get there in time a timely
manner to save you and up to and
including death. And so I want to rise
and speak in support of the passage of
this budget. I am adamantly opposed to
any substitute motions because I think
it was well thought out. The community
had plenty of opportunity to speak on
this and I think it's imperative that we
continue and move forward with this.
There's enough threats out there and I
just I can't throw enough praise and
accolades to Jeff and his staff, Amber
specifically with budget and resource
Lori and all of them, but especially all
of you council members that have been
side by side with us in this fight. It's
been a long run. We have been screaming
from the highest mountain tops for
years. I could list every council member
up here that's been in support of us. I
won't do that. You know who you are.
I'll write an article. I'll try to do
something in the Arizona Republic. But I
need to say thank you. It's a long time
overdue. The community deserves it. But
I especially want to throw a final shout
out. Our members need this, their mental
health and wellness. Thank you.
Thank you. Jackie is next. We have two
Monas registered to speak. Monica B will
go first, but Jackie is
next. Five years ago, the death of Dion
Johnson and George Floyd occurred.
What did we
forget? The city of Phoenix and the
police, Phoenix PD, colluded to charge
me as a gang member. Compared me to the
Hell's Angels, the
1enters, me, a 19-year-old
kid. Corruption that happens in this
city is classist, racist, and that is
reflected in your proposed police
budget.
Being on your phone and not paying
attention to your constituents is not
the way to
go. I'm so angry. I've been fussing and
fuming all day at work. This police
budget is
ludicrous. Completely ludicrous. Devoid
of any humanity or the thought of a
future Phoenix with restorative
justice. It's a shame. A damn shame.
You got me shaken up here. So angry. I
remember those five years ago and every
day since being charged as a gang member
for walking down the
street for voicing my
rights. I'm so ashamed of each and one
of you. Thank you, Councilwoman
Hernandez, for at least asking some
questions. It's a damn shame. Again and
again, this city continues to disappoint
its residents. These black and brown
people y'all police, these people in the
zone y'all clean out, are not
trash. Completely
ridiculous. Devoid of humanity. Devoid
of humanity. Devoid of humanity. A
better future is possible and you're all
preventing it today. The city manager,
no thanks. You did not do your job. This
is not a budget that reflects what
people in this room want here today.
What y'all
[Music]
agree? Monica B is next, followed by
Daphne.
Hi everyone, my name is Monica. Um, the
first thing that I want to say to the
people here who are saying that the
police are here to protect us, um, I
want to let you guys know that Phoenix
PD points guns at children 400 times a
year. The youngest being 2 years old. So
telling me that's those are the people
that are protecting us. They're afraid
of a
2-year-old. Okay. Um, my name is Monica
and I'm here today because of the
proposal to raise Phoenix PD's budget.
As someone before me said, that's
absolutely ridiculous that there's no
money for the things that our
communities actually need. And yet
you're finding 46 million more dollars
to the already overfunded police budget,
which would bring it over $1 billion a
year. You think the police 46 million
more dollars than everybody else in the
city of Phoenix?
Not only is this a slap to the face to
your constituents, this is a death
sentence to our communities. Phoenix PD
does not keep us safe. They kill us and
they brutalize us. Every single city
council member here today that votes to
raise the Phoenix PD budget will have
blood on your hands and we are going to
remember your vote. Stop using our tax
dollars for racial profiling,
deportations, and mass incarcerations.
Thank you.
Daphne is next, followed by Sebastian.
Um, Monica. Monica M. Two Monica.
What? Daphne.
You said there's two Monas and Yes. I'm
sorry. Uh, Monica, you're
um like in maybe 12 speakers.
Yep. So, just a general everyone today.
There was just one person with each
name, but we had two Monica. So, just
wanted to clarify that. But Daffany is
next, followed by Sebastian.
You're Dafany. Dafany. Perfect. Okay.
Sorry about that. Um, thank you guys.
Um, good afternoon, council members. My
name is Daphne Cortez and I'm a
community organizer in Mville. I'm here
today to ask that this year's budget
include the creation of Mville specific
the creation of a Mville specific heat
plan. Wenda is truly led by the
community. Mville is consistently four
to six degrees hotter than other
neighborhoods. Our families face this
heat every day, and the most vulnerable
kids, elders, pets, and unhoused
individuals suffer the most. Life
expectancy in Mville is 14 years lower
than in North Phoenix. That should be
unacceptable. Over the past months, I've
held multiple conversation with Mville
residents and students at Trevor Brown
High School. They've shared how the heat
affects their bodies, their minds, their
ability to live comfortably. Some even
leave for a month in the summer just to
cope. That's why I'm asking today for a
communitydriven plan that centers the
voices of residents, local businesses,
and different organizations because
solutions must come from those living in
this in this heat every
day. What we're calling for is heat
resilient public spaces with shade,
splash pad, light colored pavement, and
water stations.
more built shade at bus stops, parks,
and parking lots, and expanded cooling c
corridors throughout Mville. We
recognize the important work that the
city has already done, but now we need a
stronger coordination with the Mville
community to make sure the improvements
reach the people that are the most
impacted. Together, we're asking for a
Mville specific heat plant developed in
partnership with the heat city's heat
response and mitigation office that
protects those most at risk and can
serve as a pilot model for all of
Phoenix. I also support the right to
cancel um the to the mass evictions of
our community. Thank you for your time
and thank you for listening to the
community.
Sebastian is next, followed by Glenda.
Hi, good afternoon council mayor. Um the
take back our homes campaign has been
fighting for a right to council in
evictions for over a year. Uh today a
costbenefit study was released on right
to council which a delegation of our
members delivered to you all at the 11th
floor of city hall today. The research
was done by a leading national
researcher on the topic stout and the
study was sponsored by the Phoenix IDA.
The data from this report is
resoundingly promising and it shows
almost two and a half times return on
investment for every dollar the city
spends on providing full legal
representation for tenants facing
eviction. A fully implemented right to
council program would save the city over
$64 million in downstream costs. The
research affirms that stabilizing
families not only provides a huge
benefit for our families both
emotionally and economically in the long
term, but it is also just cheaper for
the city to keep people housed. It
avoids having to pay downstream
consequences of evictions. The cost of
inactions on evictions is staggering.
Currently, we spend over $30 million a
year on emergency shelters, transitional
housing, and re-entry programs. And
these are important investments, but the
reality is that these numbers are only
going to continue to grow uh if people
continue to be evicted. So, we should be
investing in prevention and we need our
values reflected in this budget. I want
to mention that the take back our homes
campaign is in full support of Daphne
and Roombo's work on providing Mville
specific heat mitigation work and
investments as well as Poetan actions
resolution to stop using our tax dollars
for racial profiling, deportations or
mass incarceration. And I do want to
recognize that the city has placed
temporary funding for illegal aid. This
is important. Thank you HCH Washington
and the mayor's office for doing this
temporary uh funding. But we need
long-term permanent investments. You
have a choice. You need to cement your
commitment to keeping our people in this
city. Thank you.
Thank you. Glenda is next, followed by
Roland.
Thank you, Councilman, for this time.
Um, I'm here u speaking about rights to
council for tenants that are being
evicted in just in the uh Maricopa
County. 94% of landlords they have legal
representations. Why tenants that are
evicted do not have the represent
representations to when they are being
evicted. They go to court along half of
them do not even show up because they do
not have that counsel. So, I'm here
um requesting that the the budget that
you would include in council rights for
tenants as they are being evicted.
Rights to the tenants that are being
evicted uh will reduce the homelessness
and present evictions for Spontaneous
saving money for the city. Um across the
county, 19 cities, two countries, and
five states have adopted the right right
to uh council for tenants. Um that
guarantees legal representations to
illegal tenants facing evictions. We
believe Phoenix can be the next city to
adopt these forminations and cost
affixiction uh efficient policies. These
are adjudicated have demonstrated that
the right to council works. Right to
council reduce deprivates decreases the
financial burden imposes on tenants in
housing courts and save publics the
impact reports are released today
looking specifically at the cost and
budget of investments in the rights to
council. The number shows that the city
stands to realize significantly savings
if they invest in the rights to council.
Um, I myself want to give a little short
myself. I'm uh 65 years old, a single. I
never thought that I would be evicted up
out of my my resident. I was evicted
falsely, but because I did not have the
representation, I was evicted.
Roland is next, followed by Jennifer.
First, I'd like to say I am in support
of uh budgeting the funds and giving
more money to the fire department. Um
they did everything in their power on
January 11th, 2019 to save Jacob's life,
even though the Phoenix Police
Department did everything in their power
to kill Jacob.
Um, I just want to address some of the
comments a council member made about uh
cutting
programs and that the programs that were
cut we could do without. Some of those
programs that were cut with uh early
intervention to narcotics and here we
are now we have a rise in drug addiction
in the city of Phoenix especially among
youth. We had a cut in home in housing
and now the homelessness in the city of
Phoenix is on a rise. We had a cut in
youth programs funded by the city of
Phoenix and the city of Phoenix. Now
youth arrests are on a rise. Now what I
say to this is I say that the community
we're tired of this and we want to
change. And if the council members don't
want to get on board with this change,
this community will make a change. And
the perfect example is that is the
person who's sitting in the seat in
district seven.
We are tired of this stuff. We are tired
of every time that you guys want to cut
money, come up with money, you always
want to give money to the police. And
everything that you do and take money
from is harming. I think the fire
department should have way more money
than the Phoenix Police Department. They
save lives. They do not take lives. But
yet think you want to take money from
them every time. And the Phoenix Police
Department is the only department in the
city of Phoenix that if they do not use
all their money out of the budget, they
do not have to return those unused
funds. Where are those unused funds
going to? That's the question that this
council should be asking. And to
Senator, I mean, Councilwoman Hernandez,
keep up the work and continue to be the
change to the city that we need.
[Applause]
Jennifer is next, followed by
Jose. Good afternoon. My name is Jenny
Hernandez and for the first time in my
life I'm very proud to say I am being
represented by Councilwoman Anna
Hernandez and that's amazing. Um I've
never been able to say that I'm proud of
that. Um I've been coming here since my
daughter was four. I'm sure some of
y'all remember me or remember my
daughter. And I've been here I've
begged. I've demanded I have fought and
I have fought for you to stop increasing
the police budget to in and to instead
invest in our children and their
futures. She's now 10 and the only thing
that has changed is that damn police
budget that keeps increasing by billions
of dollars. Not the likelihood of our
lives being expanded. Not that more head
starts are opening for her little
sisters. We love our community. The fact
that the fact is that as people who live
in these hoods, we have not asked for
you to gentrify or police our
neighborhoods. We are asking for the
basic necessities and safety like
regular street maintenance, park
maintenance, more shade, more water, and
all we are getting is more funding for
them useless ass cops. This is the
opposite what of what we have been
asking for years. Police are separating
our families and I'll be damned if my
family is next. vote no on this budget
or remember this space has had her fair
share in successful anti- campaigns. So
the next time you decide you want to run
for a bigger position, just remember
that I will either walk for you or I
will walk against you and I will make
sure to
[Applause]
win. Jose is next followed by Andrea.
Mayor and uh council members, thank you
guys for for hosting this lovely budget
conversation. Having gone through it, I
can I can empathize at work. I've gone
through it. Um I want to talk about
accountability and there's a reason why
I want to do that because anytime we
talk about money, there should be a
conversation about accountability and
who's getting that money and why they're
getting that money. So accountability at
its core, so we're all in the know of
what I think accountability is. It means
taking responsibility for one's actions
and being answerable for them both in
terms of consequences of those actions
and fulfillment of commitments. It's al
it's it's about owning your choices. And
uh there was a gentleman that made a
comment about being anti- police. I'm
going to hold you accountable to your
words. However, I want to thank you for
your service first. Uh but I'm going to
hold you accountable. Anti- police is
something else. pro community like
Councilwoman Hernandez demonstrated by
bringing out remember by bringing out
these programs asking how they make the
residents lives better. That's pro-
community. That's not anti- police. It's
not about an individual in this room
that we hate that we don't want to see.
It's about the systemic practices that
hurt our community. Right? We want you
to vote no on this budget because it's
time to take accountability. You know, I
I can spout off all the reasons, but the
DOJ did a pretty good job over three
years outlining why we should not give
more money to this police department,
right? But I do want to bring up a few.
And the reason why is because we just
had 5.3 million paid out to the Gold
Star Top Achievers, overtime of the
year, award winners for two years. And
now we're saying that there is no
problem with overtime. Where's the
accountability for that? If you want to
talk about staffing, you said it's been
going on since 2015. Who's taking
accountability for not staffing your
business, right? And and the concerns
that I really have is we we see what's
going on in the world, right? We don't
need any more money going to racial
discrimination. We don't need any more
money going to abuses of OT, right? And
this admin is doing that right now. I
just want to say of all the people in
this room, the only ones that have been
taking accountability are the members of
the community, we have one right over
there. Right. Thank you. Thank you.
Andrea is next, followed by Miros. Good
afternoon, mayor and council members. My
name is Andrea Lunas Advantes. I'm with
Organized Power and Numbers and the Take
Back Our Homes campaign. We're here
today because Phoenix is in crisis.
Evictions are happening at an alarming
rate. Over 41,000 filings just in our
city and we're not seeing a response
that meets the urgency of this moment.
We're glad that the city used ARPA
dollars to fund eviction legal aid this
year and for the work and support from
council members Washington, Robinson,
Bastor, and O'Brien. And we are asking
you to do more. Currently, there are
zero permanent dollars proposed in the
upcoming budget for illegal eviction
services. That puts family at families
at risk of homelessness, especially
during the deadly heat. Earlier today,
we released the cost benefit report
sponsored by Phoenix IDA and led by
national researchers at Stout at a press
conference in front of city hall with
coalition members and tenant leaders. We
also delivered packets to each of your
offices, so we urge you to read it. The
numbers are clear. For every dollar
invested in a right to council, the city
saves
$2.58 in costs like emergency shelter,
healthcare, police response, and heat
related services. Doing nothing costs us
more in money and in lives. The report
also shows that a fully funded right to
council program could prevent the
incarcer
incarceration of four 428 people each
year, saving the city $1.5 million.
Reduce forcible entries and vehicle
theft, saving an additional 5.7 million.
Evictions drive unnecessary contact with
the criminal legal system. In many
cases,
jail becomes housing for our most
vulnerable neighbors. That's
unacceptable. We need a right to council
ordinance that is permanently and
adequately funded. We need a real heat
plan, especially in neighborhoods like
Mville. And we need a budget that
invests in our people, not racial
profiling or mass incarceration. We are
ready to work with the city, but let's
be clear, we're not going anywhere until
every tenant facing eviction has the
legal support they deserve. Thank you.
Miros is next, followed by Monica
M. Good afternoon, council members. My
name is Midos. I am a resident of
district 6. I'm in opposition of this uh
proposal to increase uh the police
budget um just because one, it is not
protecting the most vulnerable. Um
clearly you are are hearing community
members state what type of violences
they inflict on us. On top of that um
police works with immigration and it's
not protecting the most vulnerable. It's
separating families. And how do I know
is because today at 9 in the morning I
was literally outside watching community
members get detained for going and
complying with immigration. And we know
the police works with immigration. You
are separating families. you are
separating children. And it's taking a
lot of me right now to get emotional
because I literally had to hold a mother
between my heart. It literally her tears
shaking because she was never going to
see her partner
again. So just think about the families
that are being separated. By you not
listening to the community, you are
complying with this Trump agenda that is
going to continuously separate families.
And again, you are hearing us that the
police is not for us, that the police
does not protect us. You have someone in
your council seat right now that
literally came and told you what
happened in her own situation and that
she fought because she's here. She
listens to us. And clearly, you're not
listening to us. More money to the
police does not mean safety.
[Applause]
Monica is next, followed by Lupe.
It's probably the best one.
My name is Monica Melonsson. I'm an
American citizen and I live in district
5. I do not agree to the billion dollar
police budget. The Maricopa police is
targeting people of color like
myself. They're pulling people over for
no
reason. Police are pulling people over
construction
uniforms, going to gas stations to heat
up their food.
Rose rosemary's hanging in the
cars wearing
bandanas. That means that Catholics are
in danger as well. My point is here,
there's no crime needed for the police
to pull them over for investigation
their citizenship.
My teammates and I have been walking
district 7, District 5, District 4. We
have knocked over 12,000 doors and we're
still
going. What I find
interesting is that over 20% of our
signatures are voters that are asking
for a resolution to stop this.
We have heard so many horrible stories
of families being forced of separation
because of the police acting as
ICE. Our universe of voters are hard
provenity, low preventity, all ethnicity
and all wages of voters. I have a
message for you public
servants. D5 D4 public
servants. Many of your voters don't even
know you.
Some voters have asked for fixing
traffic lights, adding trees, nice parks
like
Scottsdale, fixing roads, getting junk
removed from sidewalks. These voters are
saying that the city keeps telling me
that there's no money. But here we are
discussing a billion dollar budget for
the police. When I hear about the budget
of police, I hear
Lupe,
Proxima, and
Eddie.
[Music]
Fore! Foreign! Foreign!
fores.
[Music]
[Applause]
Hello. Good afternoon. My name is Lupin
Mora and I'm here because I'm not in
agreement with the budget for the
police.
Unfortunately, they don't protect us.
Many times we need to be
protected. We need to get along with our
neighbors, within our community, with
our people so that we can protect
ourselves. We don't need the police
because uh many times they cause more
accidents than protect
us. I'm so sad right now seeing my
people and my
community the same budget that we're
paying for. We're getting deported in
spite of
that. We're getting
deported. We're getting detained. It's
our money because we all pay taxes. We
work very hard. We come to work. We
don't come to get kicked out of this
country when we work. We work for all of
you. Our
jobs. You guys eat like like us, but
you're not out in the fields. You're not
in the construction sites. You're not in
the most heaviest jobs. So, it's not
fair that with our own budget, with our
own money, that you're deporting us.
Thank you.
Eddie is next. E Oilia Proxima.
Good afternoon. My name is Eddie Nunees.
I'm here to ask you to vote no on item
37 that increases the police budget by
46 million, rewarding an extra 46
million to a corrupt organization that
was found to use excessive and
unjustified deadly force, violate
people's rights to free speech and
expression, discriminate against black,
Hispanic, Native American, and people
with behavioral health disabilities is
highly unethical. As a Marine Corps
veteran who deployed to Iraq, I am
appalled by the engagement tactics used
by our police force against our own
people when we didn't even treat the
so-called enemy in a war zone like this.
Overpolicing and incarcerating our
people does not, I repeat, does not make
our community and our country safer. If
it did, we would be the safest country
in the world. Our prison system does
nothing to rehabilitate people. Arizona
ranks dead last in
education. Our health care system has
people questioning whether they should
pay for grandma's medication or put food
on the table. We are the richest country
in the world. Yet half of us live
paycheck to paycheck and we have tens of
thousands of homeless veterans. Do you
know why that is? Because we're
investing our tax dollars in all the
wrong places just like this 40 $46
million proposal. We don't need any more
symbolic changes. We need real
changes. The people in this community
have higher priorities than to waste
money on the corrupt police police
force. Your vote on this matter will
tell us all who you really prioritize.
Thank you for your time.
Oilia Proxima then Nicole.
Oelia Ortiz.
Nicole is next, followed by Devonriz.
Rodriguez. Thank you. Nicole Rodriguez.
Um while we rubber stamp yet another
massive increase to the police
budget, defunding uh we are defunding
needed quality of life amenities and no
tenant support while handing hundreds of
millions to a department with a long
history of civil rights abuses. That's
not public safety. That's moral failure.
And this is coming from someone from a
family of law enforcement where I
actually qualified with a local law
enforcement agency here. For the record,
I turned it down. And I'm very
supportive of, as we heard Joseé
Hernandez said earlier, of our um law
enforcement, but as it relates to
protecting the quality of life for
citizens and communities and anyone that
is trying to protect their families, not
in the ways that we have seen this
consistently happen from this
department. Um so, but somehow there's
always money for city lobbyists to fight
zoning reform in a starter home bill.
Millions go to our city
lobbyists and the system protects this
system protects the powerful and
punishes the most vulnerable in so many
ways. Also, basic legal representation
is a human right and a legal system
designed by and for the privileged.
Denying tenants legal help is not just
negligent, it is violent.
We are sentencing families to
homelessness while con congratulating
yourselves for tough
decisions. This is not public service.
If you vote for this budget, you are not
serving the people. You are serving
power. And we will remember
um in the amount of time I have left for
fire and police, we are fighting on
policies to reduce response times in
Vision Zero. We have been begging for
you guys to show up there. We do not see
you commonly at our vision zero
meetings. We need you there for our
street safety. That is another budget
saving item. Thank
[Music]
you. Devon is next, followed by Debbie.
[Music]
[Music]
I'm also a combat veteran and a business
owner and I'm Oh, let me take my glasses
off. Yeah, look you all in the eye. And
I'm I'm absolutely in support of this $1
billion police budget. Some people might
say a billion dollars is too much.
What's a billion dollars in the name of
protecting property? I mean, public
safety.
But don't listen to these people who
are, you know, saying the police should
get less money. They don't really count.
They don't go to your fancy dinners and
they don't contribute to your campaign
funds and they certainly aren't members
of plea who you all really listen to. As
a combat veteran, one ID045 in Iraq, it
really warms my heart to see Phoenix PD
rolling out in the same gear and
brutalizing people the same way I did
when I was there as a
stormtrooper. Especially when Phoenix PD
is facing off against the dreaded AAB
gang.
Woo. Some people might say the Phoenix
PD are gutless, account unaccountable
cowards that hide behind badges,
qualified immunity, officer safety, and
their union in order to enforce a system
of white supremacy. But not
me. They are accountable. They
investigate themselves and they find
they've done nothing wrong. But even
when they beat up and tase that deaf
black man for doing nothing wrong and
changing his life forever, those
officers get no pay for a whole 24
hours, when I'm brutalized for the crime
of taking pictures, there's no
accountability. But I I I know to like
obey cuz those of you us like yourselves
who confuse and conflate legality with
morality know that authority, order, and
obeying are the most important things
like ever. So, please use all that money
uh for that instead of the things that
demonstrabably keep us safe. And uh just
I I have a gift for you
guys. I've got some kiwi parade gloss
boot polish if you guys want to mix it
in your smoothies in the morning if you
need your fix, especially you know here.
So, I'll just I'll just leave that for
you guys. And uh I won't call
[Music]
you Dubby is next followed by Briana.
Good afternoon. My name is Debbie
Thomas. I'm a mother, a grandmother, and
a great grandmother. I'm also a a widow
of a vet 27year veteran in the United
States Air Force. And I would like to
say that I have never been so
disappointed in this country in my life.
My husband gave his life for this
country. And to stand and see so many
homeless people living here in the
richest country that we have. So many
single mothers that's been evicted
because they can't afford to a a house
or apartment or something. They can't
afford the payments that they are asking
for all the homes. And I am very
disappointed. I spent tw 47 years with
my husband moving from place to place
him protecting this country to stand and
see such a disaster and such a disgrace,
such a it's such a disappointment for me
to say that I am a part of an American
citizen because my husband spent his
life protecting this country that we're
now seeing homeless mothers and children
walking the street. So many homeless
people nowhere to stay. That is a fair
disgrace. I am ashamed to say that our
country has come to this. Thank you for
your time.
[Applause]
Briana is next followed by Lily.
Sorry. Hello. Good evening. Um, my name
is Brianna Valencia and I live in city
council district 3. I'm here to oppose
an increase in the police budget. It is
unacceptable that our tax dollars are
being used to fund racial profiling,
deportations, and mass
incarcerations. Instead, what system?
Instead, it's what systemic harm looks
like, especially in black, brown, and
immigrant neighborhoods. We need a
budget that reflects our values. A
budget that funds affordable housing and
right to council. I want to live in a
Phoenix where my neighbors are cared for
and not
criminalized. Where we invest in people
and not punishment. It's time for a city
budget to reflect the needs of the
people. Stop spending money on systems
that hurt us. We need parks, not police.
Thank you.
[Applause]
Lily is next, followed by Evelyn. Um,
hello, Mayor Ggo and Council. Uh, my
name is Dr. Lily Via. I'm a professor of
anthropology and my work focuses
entirely on community health and
wellness. Um, I'm speaking to you today
in opposition to this proposed um
increase in the police budget. Um,
particularly because it's taking away
from our parks, our libraries, our arts
and culture, and the office of
accountability and transparency.
Not only have I done research on
community health, I'm also working to
address this problem. I live in the Via
Monte Vista neighborhood in District 8.
So, shout out to Council Member Hajj
Washington. Um, so this is a
neighborhood that has been historically
divested from by the city of Phoenix and
is increasingly being surveiled by
police. This is unfortunate because
research shows that increasing green
spaces, libraries, and community
services in lower inome areas has
incredible ability to increase the
health, wealth, and safety in these
neighborhoods. In fact, one study from
Illinois found that apartment buildings
with vegetation actually had a 50% less
crime rate and 50% or and 56% less
violent crime than fully concrete
constructions. So plants do a lot for
us. Moreover, in some circumstances,
green spaces can completely reverse the
harm of police surveillance and economic
divestment like in my neighborhood.
Meanwhile, increasing policing in such
areas often results in less health, less
wealth, and less safety. Studies in
increased police presence in lowincome
areas has shown that at best there is a
5% increase or decrease in crime. But
the vast majority of the studies
actually show there is no correlation
between less crime and more police. And
in some circumstances there is increased
crime and reduced um uh solving of
crimes happening when there are more
police. So police do not help us. Parks,
libraries, the arts and social services
do. Moreover, I'm currently so thank you
Evelyn is next, followed by
Stacy. Hello, my name is Evelyn and I'm
the field organizer with Organized Power
Numbers and the Takeback Our Homes
campaign. I'm here today alongside
community members and partners to
express our deep disappointment yet
again in this proposed
budget. There are still no permanent
dollars allocated for a tenant right to
council. This means more of our
families, neighbors, and seniors will
lose their homes. This is unacceptable.
While we are disappointed, we are not
giving up, and that's why we're here
today. Our members have shown up time
and time again. They've been here all
day because this is deeply personal for
them. Right to council is a matter of
public health and equity. The eviction
crisis is a public health crisis. Last
year alone, Phoenix saw 600 heat related
deaths. Half of those we lost were
experiencing homelessness at that
time. That's why I also strongly support
a Mville specific heat plan co-developed
with the city's heat mitigation office.
This plan must prioritize those most
impacted and serve as a pilot model for
all of
Phoenix. These issues are all
interconnected. housing affects public
health, safety, workers, families, and
so much more. Even issues like faulty AC
units or ne neglectful management
companies can push tenants towards
eviction. Having legal representation
helps ensure tenants can make their
case, access, repairs, and remain
housed. Finally, I hate that I even have
to say this, but stop using our tax
dollars to fund racial profiling,
deportations, and mass incarceration. It
is a profound injustice to use our
public money to harm our own
communities. We thank Anna Hernandez for
holding the line here and always
supporting our communities and a right
to
council. It's a simple and fundamental
principle. Families deserve to be housed
and to stay together. Thank you.
Stacy is next, followed by Maisha.
I'm so thankful for all the people who
showed up to have their voices be heard
today. We live in a city where racial
profiling as well as criminalization and
harassment of our unsheltered community
has been well documented over many, many
years. I have witnessed it personally
too many times to count. and the city
can try to sweep the damning DOJ report
under the rug, but you're not going to
make these atrocities disappear. We've
had an affordable affordable housing
crisis for many years. We have one of
the highest eviction rates in the
country. Lawyer Ed Hermas and I uh just
recently helped an almost 84 year old
man not get evicted. Uh and people
desperately need legal counsel. And if
Mr. age who we helped had been evicted.
I'm pretty certain that he wouldn't have
lasted even one day on the street
because of his health conditions and the
heat. Uh he would have died. Um this
city, in my opinion, has largely failed
our most vulnerable residents. It has
disrespected many of the people who are
the literal backbone of this city. And
people deserve to feel safe, no matter
where they live, no matter how much
money they make. So, please start
focusing on safety and quality of life
for everyone. Thank you. Thank you.
Misha is next followed by Amy.
Well, good evening. I think we're almost
at Good evening, mayor, council members.
My name is Misha Fish. I'm with
Organized Power and Numbers in the Tink
Back Our Homes campaign.
Um, I am here to urge you to allocate
permanent annual funding for community
services and right to
counsel. I've experienced the tragedy
and the hardship of the eviction
process. I am a woman with
disabilities, including
autism. I have survived on social
security disability.
And days before I was going to receive
my monthly check, a sheriff knocked at
my door, asked me to grab all that I
could
carry. A couple days later, I was in
awoken by a police officer because I was
sleeping behind a shed with my service
dog. Uh resulting in me being arrested,
me losing my service dog and I loved
her. I am here to save people like
myself.
who may be facing
eviction. I'm here in an attempt for f
to keep families in their
homes. Realizing over
87,000 filed evictions have occurred
last
year. We are talking about your
elderly, your
veterans, people with
disabilities. Stop using our tax dollars
for racial profiling.
for mass deportation and mass
incarceration. We need to rebuild our
communities, not rip them down.
Okay. Last, please pass the
ordinance, excuse me, please pass the
ordinance enacting right to council and
ensure it's properly funded.
And I want to thank specifically council
member Anna Hernandez for meeting us and
allowing us into city hall to deliver
our study on council. Thank you for
supporting right to council and our
communities. I appreciate
[Applause]
you. Amy is next followed by Joshua.
Good afternoon, council members. My name
is Amy
Gonzalez and I am a volunteer with
Roombo. I'm here today to ask that this
year's budget include a creation of a
Mville specific heat. I'm here
to heat plan, one that is truly led by
the community. Mville is one of the
hottest areas in Phoenix. often to four
often four to six degrees hotter than
other neighborhoods. Our families face
extreme heat every day. We need a
communitydriven plan that includes the
voices of young kids like me and the
Mville community. We need to build more
shade and public spaces, bus stops and
parking lots and cool corridors. Much
has been done already and all of our
neighbors deserve to be to see
improvements. We've been talking as
neighbors about what we need. Now, what
we need most is the city's investment to
ensure this work is effective and
lasting. Together, we asked for a
Marville specific heat plan developed
with the city's
heat mitigation office, one that
protects the people who need it most and
serves as a pilot model for all the
Phoenix for all of Phoenix. I also
support the right to council. Thank you
for your time and listening to your
community.
Joshua is next, followed by
Darren.
Oh, good evening, council members. My
name is Joshua Gonzalez, and I have the
honor to speak here with Roomo tonight.
Um, first before I start anything, I'd
like to thank the city of Phoenix and
the entire council for your ongoing
efforts in our neighborhood to support
cooling efforts and heat mitigation
plans. However, I also ask for further
support in these efforts specifically to
address specifically to address a
specific concern for us, which is
Mville, which remains one of the hottest
areas in Phoenix. Uh, as my partner said
before, Mville is oftent times 4 to 6°
hotter than any other neighborhood in
the summer. And while it's commendable
that the city has installed jade
structures at approximately 75% of bus
stops citywide, this still leaves about
1,000 stops without adequate shade.
Given that Mville is among the
neighborhoods with the least tree canopy
coverage, it's likely that many of these
unshaded stops are in our neighborhood.
Moreover, the city's own assessments
indicate that areas like Mville have
significantly less shades compared to
wealthier neighborhoods like Scottsdale.
And while we appreciate the efforts that
have been made so far, we respectfully
urge the council to prioritize more
targeted investments in Mville, this is
a community that has experienced decades
of disinvestment and now isn't a time to
stop supporting. We are calling for
dedicated funding in the city's 202526
budget for further community-led heat
planning effort in Mville. And finally,
for my final moments, I'd like to show
support for the right to council and the
amazing people who took action today.
spread information and speak more about
a subject that I definitely think I'm
more undereducated on. Thank you for all
your time and for your commitment to the
communities that serve you.
[Applause]
Darren is next. E Elsa
Roxima. Hi, my name is Darren Desik. I'm
with the Take Back Our Homes campaign
and I'm a veteran. We are fighting for
the less fortunate and you're not. Yes,
you listen to us, but that's your job.
But you treat us like redheaded
stepchildren. New York City passed right
to council in 2017, eight years ago. New
York and San Francisco seven years ago.
Philadelphia and Cleveland six years
ago. And many more cities and even
states are pursuing right to council now
because it works or they wouldn't be
doing it. Either you're behind the times
or you just don't care. Which is it. Our
state attorney is suing 10 corporations.
It started out as four for engaging in
price fixing and rental prices. And now
the department of justice along with
eight other states are pursuing
corporations for rent fixing. You have
known for years that rents were out of
control and you didn't do anything about
it and people have been thrown out into
the streets and you knew this or you're
not doing your job. Which is it? But you
gave your police department an extra 27
million last year for the hell of it. an
organization like the rest in this
country that gets nowhere near the
training or qualifications or standards
of other developed countries and Phoenix
reputation is one of the worst in the
country. Give me any reason whatsoever
why you can't fund right to counsel now.
Why do you keep drawing this out when
people are being put out in the streets?
Why can't you fund right to counsel? Do
something now. fund right to counsel
before more people suffer and th are
thrown out into the streets because of
your lack of a commit commitment to the
less fortunate. Stop using our tax
dollars for racial profiling,
deportations, and mass
incarceration. Fund right to
[Applause]
counsel. Elsa Aora Proxima Estella.
Mascio persona.
Flores.
Gracias. Estella E. Oilia.
Can you interpret? Oh, I'm sorry.
Hello. Good afternoon,
Elsa. I asked myself, where is the
democracy, justice, freedom, human
rights?
Can you actually think that uh when you
create this budget uh or when you vote
for
it, I'm concerned for my community, for
my neighbor. Is he going to come home
and be able to care for his kids? I'm
more concerned about schools closing,
parks
closing more than you
are. I'm also somebody
I'm a
person, unfortunately, I'm a person of
color. I'm
vulnerable to being detained unfairly by
the police. This budget should be for
our communities that are prospering, the
beautiful communities, and that they
have fairness. Thank you.
isorech.
Land Minister.
Gracias. Good afternoon. My name is
Estella. I'm an
organizer with Per and in Aion and the
Varios group. Every day we walk with
people in the community, right? And so
in all reality, the community is
actually telling us that they don't feel
safe. And I oppose the vote for more
money for the police because we know
that it's it's not safe. Quite the
opposite. We would rather have the money
put into, as my colleague said, uh,
affordable
homes for people who are suffering
[Music]
from, people that are having drug
problems, drug addictions.
We need other resources that really make
us feel safe, not the police
because they're not safety or they're
not they're not safe for us. We know
that right now the the Trump uh
administration, they're sell they're
sending us to hell and they're giving
money to the police so that uh the
police uh uh they can uh take away the
sports and uh other activities.
So the the police uh they're decoding,
they're working with ICE and they're
separating families. So I'm saying no to
the vote and thank you
Oilia.
Oilia. All right, we'll go online to
Linda followed by Orla.
Gated Alley
program. I was part of the Gated
Alley. Linda, we lost
you after Gated Alley.
Linda, could you start over
again? Linda, I can't I can't hear
her. Okay, we're hearing Linda is still
on, but I I don't have audio.
Okay, maybe we'll go to Ora and then
come back to
Linda. Okay, so Linda, we're going to
mute you for a moment because we
couldn't hear anything. We're going to
go to Orla and then we'll come back to
you. Okay,
Ora, at the last formal meeting, a
Phoenix firefighter from station 3 told
you that they don't have enough fire
trucks to handle high-rise fires in
District 7. I have been telling you for
years about this response time crisis
and that people are dying because of the
city continuing to underfund our fire
department. I want to go on record and
say that I do support a tax increase if
the said money actually is used for what
it's proposed for. But because Phoenix
Fire has been so severely underfunded
for an upward of 10 years, the tax
increase alone is not going to solve the
crisis. Our fire department saves people
lives. It's not a program you can
cut. Now, the city is under
investigation for allegedly using
taxpayer money for non-governmental
organizations without city council
approval or legal authority. From April
of 2020 to April of 2025, the
potential expedentures totaled over $28
million. Meanwhile, district 2 continues
to have the worst response times of all
the districts. District 7 can't handle
high-rise fires, and a man died in
District 6 because of a delayed response
time. This is a city-wide problem.
For all of you that are jumping up and
down about losing amenities and programs
for specific neighborhoods, do you
realize the reality of our response time
crisis? It's unbelievably offensive to
our first responders and families who
have lost loved ones to hear how shade
trees and splash pads are more of a
priority. While community enrichment is
of course important, what takes
precedence is public safety. I can
guarantee that most citizens would agree
that keeping their loved ones safe and
having access to immediate emergency
services supersedes any other funding. I
said it before and I'll say it again.
The city of Phoenix needs a shift in its
moral compass. Citizens and first
responders have and will continue to
die. Choosing to not take immediate
action, I believe, is criminal
negligence. Thank you.
All right, we'll try Linda one more
time. Linda Blackford.
I think we have a different number for
Linda.
Jessica. Good afternoon, mayor, council
persons, and city staff. I'm Jessica
Davenport Williams, co-founder of Black
Girls Break Bread and a staunch advocate
for maternal and infant health equity.
I'm here today to express my support for
the continued funding and expansion of
the Office of Public Health. As the
nation's fifth largest city, fiscal
support of this office marks a turning
point for Arizona and proves vital for
our residents future. When I share
concerns about black maternal health
disparities, they responded with
openness and action. This collaboration
where community expertise informs public
health strategy is precisely why this
office matters. To Councilwoman Hajj
Washington, your support of maternal and
infant health initiatives in District 8
exemplifies the power of this model. To
interim public health advisor Sodto and
your team, thank you for building an
office that centers community voices
with hopes of systemically addressing
the alarming rise of maternal and infant
mortality rates for black residents in
the city of Phoenix. As you consider the
budget, I hope you'll view this office
not as a line item, but as the
cornerstone of a healthier, more
equitable Phoenix. Thank you for your
time, commitment, and for allowing me to
speak
today. Can we try Linda one more
time? Linda, final chance.
Linda. All right, we do not hear Linda.
Thank you for trying, Linda. Linda was
marked in support. Annie is
next. Annie, give us a second to
unmute. Annie is no longer online.
Amanda. And then Amanda would be
followed by Ben.
Amanda, the floor is yours.
Thank you, Mayor and Council. My name is
Amanda and I moved to Mville in 20121.
Since then, I've supported my unhoused
neighbors by providing water and other
essentials. During the summer, I carry a
thermometer, and it is alarming how much
hotter Maryville is compared to other
neighborhoods. Using a heat gun, I've
reported temperatures so high that
seconds on the ground could cause severe
burns. Tragically, each summer I see
people who have died from this heat,
especially at bus stops. Some people are
in such heat crisis that I have found
some of them think I am an angel because
they are
hallucinating. I urge the city council
to include a Maryville specific heat
plan in this year's budget led by the
community. MVale is one of the hottest
areas, often four to six degrees hotter
with a life expectancy 14 years lower.
Unacceptable. We need a comprehensive
plan with more shaded areas in public
spaces, especially bus stops and parking
lots, heat proof public areas and
expanded cool corridors and more cooled
water stations and strong collaboration
with the community to revitalize
Maryville. Our neighborhood is
discussing these needs. Now, we need the
city's commitment to make it happen.
Neighbors along with Roombo asked
Phoenix to develop a Mville specific
heat plan with the heat mitigation
office to protect vulnerable residents
and set a model for other neighborhoods.
If we can spend a billion dollars on
TIE, which in my opinion we shouldn't,
we can spend money on the services that
truly make our communities livable and
safer. Thank you.
Thank you. Ben is next, followed by
Michael.
Hi. Um, my name is Ben Laughlin and I'm
a resident of District 5. Um, I'm here
today in opposition to the budget as it
is proposed. Last year, you told us you
couldn't use the $80 million surplus to
fund vital programs because you needed
it to stabilize the budget for fiscal
year 2026. For months, you've been
telling us we were going to have a $39
million deficit. Then you told us you
needed to tax every person in this city
on everyday items when most people are
struggling to make ends meet to make
sure the fire department had what they
needed and to protect other services.
But somehow here we are again with the
police budget getting a massive increase
$46 million driving that budget up to
1.2 billion. The housing budget,
neighborhood services, human services
are collectively being cut over $37
million. For what? So you can harass and
arrest and deport people. So you can
find favor with the Trump
administration. Rather than making sure
everyone gets home safe at the end of
the day, you're ensuring that Phoenix
residents are literally going to die. We
need y'all to invest in right to counsel
and affordable housing and heat relief
and in parks. The irony of y'all voting
on this billion dollar police budget on
the day that Trump administration is
doing y'all a favor and attempting to
erase the truth that is the DOJ report
is not lost on us. Y'all can't erase
people's experiences as much as you want
to try. So, we're going to keep coming
back, going to keep fighting until we
get this city built in a way that serves
all of us. And that future will not
include
police. Michael is next, followed by
Linda.
Michael Norton.
Oh, wait. Michael Norton.
Michael Norton is on.
Thank you, Michael. Now it is if you
started, please start again.
Mayor Gage. Yes, we can hear you. Thank
you, Mayor Ggo, City Council. I very
much appreciate the opportunity to
speak. I'm speaking specifically with
regard to the general fund portion of
the budget and I'm speaking specifically
with regard to impact on parks in the
Lavine area in South Phoenix.
I want to refer back to May of
2023 when two Scottsdale based
developers asked the city for a gift of
$20 million to facilitate development,
but that gift came from the general
fund. Time has not been kind to the city
with regard to that gift. Each of those
two developers sold the property at
massive profits. the the gift of general
funds to them was not necessary. The $20
million which was taken from the budget
then of from the general funds is now
coming back to haunt us in the form of
things such
as the reduction from general fund
spending on behalf of fire, police, and
park maintenance.
Developers are far better at talking
communities into doing things they
shouldn't do than political officials
and administrative officials are at
saying no when you should say no. I I
urge you to terminate these types of
activities unless this city somehow
manages to develop a massive surplus of
funds for other things that are far more
critical like police, fire, and parks.
Thank you for the opportunity to speak.
Thank you. Linda is next, followed by
Karen.
Hello. Yes. Hello. Oh, good, good. Okay,
you can hear me now. We can hear you
now.
Thank
you. I'm calling to represent the Gated
Alley program. I was part of the Gated
Alley pilot program. Let me put my
glasses on
here. Okay. The gates have improved our
safety and security and they prevent
illegal dumping. This new budget will
help to get more funding for this great
gated alley program. Thank you.
Thank you. Karen is next followed by
Patricia.
Hello. Uh can you hear me? We can hear
you.
Okay. Um, my name is Karen Olsen. I live
in district 4 here in Phoenix and I am
calling um in opposition um to
increasing the police budget as many of
my fellow um constituents here in
Phoenix have uh discussed as well. Um,
as somebody who has read the 126 page
report of, uh, about done by the DOJ,
um, that cost us over $10 million, um, I
just want to highlight on page 57,
Phoenix PD engages in discriminatory
enforcement of traffic offenses
offenses. In their analysis of Phoenix
PD's data, uh, it validated the
community's concern, and that's what I
want to highlight. The community is
here. The community is always here and
ready and willing and wanting to
participate and be given scraps. That is
what we were given time and time again.
I am a pie maker. When you look at a
whole pie, there is enough to go around.
But if we keep on taking all of the pie
and putting it into one place, it means
we have no resources for what is most
important for our communities. We have
heard the word safety said time and time
again. But I want to challenge us all to
think about safety for who? Safety for
what? Because if it's safety for
property and for people with power, then
we've done a disservice and none of us
should be sitting in seats of power. We
should always be willing to challenge
ourselves and sit with that, which is
what I heard at the beginning of the
meeting that everyone on this council
has sat with how hard this budget was.
And at any time, we should still be able
to sit with that challenging thought.
And to me, it is unacceptable that we're
looking at a pie, a full pie, 100%, and
we're we're giving ourselves accolades
about the small amounts we've given to
public services that could then be
challenged within them. But we keep
going back and back again to policing
ourselves over and over and over and
hurting, harming our community. do
better.
[Music]
Patricia is next, followed by Vivian.
Hello, Mayor Kate and council members.
We've heard so many comments from
community leaders, very concerned
community members about this budget
proposal.
We've been organizing at least since
2019 and obviously people for decades
before through a
rotating stream of different council
members. Usually there's only one
sitting there that has any sense or any
common decency and respect to listen to
concerned community members. And the
issue remains there are two thoughts.
One, safety means protecting property
and white people and the police
violently enforce that as again and
again Phoenix police have the accolade
of being the nation's most deadly police
force while city council completely
funds and supports their brutality. And
then there's the actual reality that
everyone does deserve safety. Everyone
does deserve a beautiful, thriving
neighborhood where they're actually
safe. Police do not create that safety.
A city council that only listens to plea
and other groups that are wanting to
make money for the city and themselves
is not creating safety. So, we're in it
for the long haul. It's very
disappointing and disheartening to see
this vibrant council who refuses to look
inward and really search at what safety
is for every one of their constituents,
not just the loudest ones that insist a
billion dollar budget for Phoenix police
is the solution to people dying on the
street from heat and being unsheltered.
I for you all to really look at
yourselves and make some changes in how
you are using your position of power.
Thank you.
Thank you. Vivian is next.
Hello.
Hello. We can hear you. Hello. Hello.
You can hear me. Thank you.
Uh I was
uh I had it all prepared to refer to the
item in question which was to the uh uh
uh I have it written over here again the
item 37 having to do with the budget and
uh and I started by writing it is
evident that we are vulnerable to the
possibility that federal funds may not
be
forthcoming and we know that
What has made me very angry is hearing
people calling about something else that
has nothing to do with the budget.
Number one. Number two, complaining
about things that it means that they are
not following the laws as the laws are
here in the city of Phoenix where I have
lived uh for 56 years now. I am Latin
too. I have never in all the years I've
lived here on the west side. I have
never had any encounter with any police
officer for which I was not so happy
because they were so kind and respectful
etc etc. So all of those that have
complained about how they were treated
what I would like to ask them is how did
they behave? That's very
important. I I have been a long time
resident of West Phoenix.
Okay. I urge physicians to support this
the items at 37 on the agenda. I also
would like to tell them that if the
police officers are after them, what are
they
doing? I would like to ask them because
where I live, for example, some Latinos
drive at 60 m hour in a 40 mph zone.
That is
illegal. Period.
So I am very unhappy about hearing young
people instead of studying improving
their uh as I have done for many years
by the way I'm an old person now
improving my property so that it would
not reflect badly on my neighbors and
try to follow the laws as they are
written and respect the law. I am
totally in favor of the city of Phoenix
getting this uh thing going because we
will not be getting phones from uh Thank
you. Thank you for that. Um is Andrea
our final speaker? All right,
Andrea, the floor is
yours and Andrea will be our final
speaker. Is that Hello. Hello.
Okay. Hi, my name is Andrea. Um, I am a
resident of district 5 and I support the
proposed budget which will continue to
fund street improvements, speed bumps,
gated alleys, and other important
programs for our community. Maraveville
roads need repairs and we need to slow
traffic which leads to keeping our
families safe. I support the budget as
it funds programs that are crucial to
the betterment of our community. I want
to ask council members to please vote
yes. Thank you.
Thank you. That concludes public
comment. Uh the motion on the floor is
the motion to approve the budget. The
first motion made per council
rules. Roll call.
Mayor.
Mayor. Mayor. Councilwoman. May I make
um a vote explanation be? Yes. So, feel
free to explain your vote and we'll
recognize everyone who wishes to explain
their vote.
Yes. And mayor, can I explain my vote?
Please do.
Um, and I'm sorry. Um, for
clarification, what motion is this? To
approve the city manager's budget as
presented by the city manager.
Got it. Okay. Well, first of all, I just
want to apologize for not being there um
right now, but my son promoted from
third grade on to fourth grade, and I
just could not miss that. Um so, with
that being said, I would like to say um
budgets are not just numbers. They are a
reflection of our values and priorities
as leaders and as a community.
I understand that decisions like these
can lead to diff differing opinions and
not everyone may be satisfied with the
outcome. However, I want to express my
excitement about this budget which in
many ways exceeds our expectations
despite facing significant challenges.
Despite facing drastic cuts from the
state in an unstable a stable national
economy, we have managed to save jobs
and preserve vital programs that are so
important to our community. This budget
makes a major investment in our
community, such as the 25 million
allocated to innovation 27, a project
that will be a gamecher for district 5
and for the entire city. Additionally,
we have secured funding to fully staff a
brand new fire station in my district.
This facility will not only reduce
emergency call responses times, but also
prepare us for future needs and
ultimately save lives. I am also proud
to share that our afterchool programs
have been fully preserved. None of these
vital services were cut, not one. and
that matters to our working families and
our kids. Furthermore, we have added
serious funding aimed at combating
homelessness and managing this ongoing
crisis, an issue that deeply affects
many in our community. And just would
like to add, if other cities were doing
more, maybe we wouldn't have to add as
much, but we will continue to be
leaders. And I could go on and on, but
for these reasons and more, I am proud
to cast my vote in favor of this budget.
I want to thank Mayor Ggo, my colleagues
on the DAS, as well as city manager Jeff
Barton, Amber Williamson, and the entire
city team for your continued support as
we all work together to build a brighter
future for our city. Thank you, Mayor.
Thank you,
Hernandez. Mayor, my exp Thank you.
First, I'd like to once again thank the
city manager and all of the city staff
that has worked diligently on this
year's budget. I want to make sure I'm
clear that I honor and respect your work
and your commitment to this city, to our
residents, and to us as residents of the
city. Um, for my fellow council members,
I'm disappointed that we could not work
together to make the changes needed to
this budget to prepare for Trump's
attacks and protect the programs and
services that protect all of our
residents. The voters of District 7 gave
me the opportunity to be here for the
next four years, and I look forward to
working with everyone um on those future
budgets. I'm sure that we can find a
path forward to make the city better.
That being said, as a council woman, a
resident of the city, and a sister who
lost my little brother to police
violence, I must stand in my values and
is very, very clearly the commitment I
made to the residents of District 7 and
cast a no vote on this proposed budget.
My no vote is in no way a reflection on
the hard work of our staff. I support
our staff, the critical programs that
they bring to the city, and I also want
to support amazing things for our
residents, like the amazing investments
into the housing trust fund, the amazing
and hard work going into reducing our
fire response times. Those are critical
investments our communities need. But
yet, I was clear on May 6 when the f the
first the final budget was proposed to
us. This budget does not go far enough
to address Trump's attacks on our
communities that are happening right
now, let alone the attacks on the
horizon. And with the threat of
recession growing by the day, this city
may face a financial cliff much sooner
than we are ready for. Unfortunately,
given the time of my inauguration and
the budget process, we were not able to
work with the city manager and the
budget team to identify and implement
additional ways to strengthen this
budget to protect all of us from the
Trump attacks. In this budget, we are
considering giving the police over $1
billion. This includes an additional for
an additional 46 million of salaries and
pensions. Our police police budget sends
the wrong message to our community. It
sends the message that we will
prioritize criminalization over dignity
and care. And it is a reflection of fear
and habit and a refusal to imagine a
different future. The police budget is
the majority of the general fund to this
day. And we face long-term issues with
overtime and pension payments. And let
let's not forget the
reality again, the reality of the DOJ
report and that being present to this
day in our neighborhoods among black and
brown folks and among our shel
unsheltered residents. No matter what
decision is made by the Trump's fascist
and authoritarian authoritarian DOJ to
try to erase what is really happening,
it will not work. The DOJ rescending the
findings into patterns of practice into
our police department will never erase
that my little brother was taken by
police violence. He was shot five times
and bled out on the ground. So I will
not stick my head in the sand and ignore
the reality of our people. We must
change as a city. We need creativity,
imagination, and accountability.
And we need to listen, not just hear,
but really listen to what our
communities have been saying for years.
We want investments into a thriving
life, not into the institutions that
often steal that away. I look forward to
working with city staff, with my fellow
council members to create a stronger
budget for fiscal year 2627 that
prioritizes our people over policing and
prepares us to weather Trump's fascist
attacks. And with that, I vote no.
Haj Washington mayor, if I could explain
my mot. Thank you so much. I also once
again want to appre extend my gratitude
to our city manager and staff for in
creating this budget and I also want to
say a special thank you again to all of
the residents who participated in this
process. I want you to know that your
voices were not unheard. I heard you. Um
there are things that we have done in
respon and the budget reflects those.
The two things I've highlighted I think
are very important to me and I think it
addresses the issues that we heard from
the community's feedback. The housing
trust fund and the access to legal
counsel, the right to counsel for those
that are eligible. I will continue to
advocate for more permanent funding
source, but like everything else, it
begins one step at a time. And I think
this budget is taking us a step in the
right direction. Um, we realize I
recognize that we are facing some
potential vulnerability from our federal
government and our federal partners and
I think that I trust the staff in front
of us to outline when we do think a
mid-year adjustment is necessary. So,
with that, I will vote yes for this
because I think it truly incorporates
the feedback that we receive from our
community. And it may not be perfect. Um
but um we are on the right steps to
addressing the housing insecurity which
I think is our number one concern that
we hear from our residents. So um again
I will be voting yes. Thank you. Pastor,
yes. Robinson, yes. Stark, yes. Wearing.
Mayor, I'd like to explain my vote.
Please do. Uh I think it's of paramount
importance that we increase uh the
number of police officers putting out on
the street every day. We're at 1990
something levels of staffing with a much
bigger city. We've got more miles of
roads. Please remember when you're
talking about, well, I I don't think we
should be criminalizing anything. What
about DUIs? How many people get killed
by DUIs every year? We've got 35
officers patrolling 5,000 miles of
streets. So, obviously, most people who
are engaging in criminal behavior on our
streets and they could kill you or your
loved ones. I don't know.
Maybe we should address that. I think it
would be extremely shortsighted to say
we should scale back our police
efforts and do some other stuff because
that's real life stuff that's happening
every day. When you see somebody going
70 in a 40 mph zone, that's because they
know there's no police officer to stop
them like there used to be. If that's
what you want, have at it. I want no
part of it, and I don't think the people
I represent District 2 do
either. At least we're able to recruit
for fire. So, I am pleased that this is
also addressing fire. I believe Jeffy
told us at a previous meeting, I'm doing
this from memory, so I'm wrong. Please
correct me. I think fire uh uh the
budget is up 87% over 10 years. So, uh
outstripping inflation, but obviously
population and so forth has gone up. But
at least we're able to recruit
firefighters still to fill the spots. We
don't get nearly as many applicants as
we used to. So that's a very worrisome
sign. But unlike police, at least we've
been able to fill it. So um that's
something. But to complain about the
police budget, we need to spend what we
need to spend to get back the 600
officers that were down and try to add
some as well, which might be a herculean
beyond our abilities to do its uh
task. And we need to get started on that
right away because it's only seems to be
trending downward. every time we get
even a blip of good news with police, it
seems to go the other
direction. So for the police officers
that are here, I appreciate the things
that you do and um I think you are
respect by the vast majority. The word
community gets thrown around a lot.
There are 1.7 million Phoenicians plus
all the people from Scottsdale and
Glendale and Tempe and stuff who come to
Phoenix to work every day and that's a
lot of people too. I think most of them
are pretty happy there's at least
officers out there working overtime. If
we had more officers, we wouldn't have
the issue about the
overtime. So, just food for thought. I'm
going to vote yes on this budget. I do
appreciate you've done what you can do
within your purview, Jeff, Lori, and
Amber, to try to address what in the
past five years has sort of become an
intractable problem. this place won't be
livable and our great economic
development team led by Chris Mackey
won't be able to attract businesses here
so everybody can have the jobs that they
want and live the lifestyle they want if
this place has no police officers and
that's the way it's trending. Just food
for thought. Thank you. I vote yes.
O'Brien,
yes. Diego, yes. Passes 81.
Thank you. We'll now go to the citizen
pet petition portion of the city council
meeting. We'll begin with item 106,
consideration of a petition related to
high visibility crosswalk markings and
stop bars. We'll begin with the
petitioner, Nicole
Rodriguez. Nicole will be followed by
Steve. Okay, one moment. I'm a little
confused. Um, this is public comment
period first. Uh, no, citizen petition.
So, if you could speak to your petition.
Okay. Okay. And then I get to do public
comment. Yes. Oh, I didn't know
petitions and then we'll come to public
comment as the final portion. That's not
what we were what was conveyed to us. If
I may. Um and it would save time. If I
could just go ahead and give my full
public comment. Three minutes. Uh Stacy
Champion will give me a minute. Um we do
not allow donations. So you have two
minutes. Uh please. You guys have set
the precedent of having donations of
time. Uh you have two minutes. Please
start the clock. Okay. So, I'm here to
speak on my citizen petition to require
stop bars at the intersections in all
crosswalks, especially at schools,
parks, high injury net, high injury risk
areas, and transit stops to be upgraded
to high visibility standards. Frankly,
it's shameful I even have to file a
petition for some basic street safety.
Let's address the elephant in the room.
Streets department claiming they don't
have money to paint high visibility
crosswalks. That's a lie. Um, you find
money for digital uh uh digital signage
for reverse lanes, Prop 479. Um, you
find money for traffic studies no one
reads. You find money to widen roads for
suburban commuters. But for our kids,
our elders, our bus riders, suddenly
you're broke. Well, this is about
priorities, no budgets. The cost of
painting high visibility crosswalks,
those zebra style stripes proven to
reduce crashes, is minimal compared to
the cost of a single lawsuit when
someone gets hit. And let's be clear,
people are getting hit. Our streets are
dangerous by design. You know it. The
data shows it and you still choose to
inaction on a solution that it can
improve pedestrian safety by up to 40%.
I want to remind you the current
practice of using two- fitted parallel
lines is not safety in infrastructure.
You will put in red light cameras that
save that have less of a success rate at
saving pedestrian lives than basic high
viz crosswalks. So proved you're not
here just to profit off of us and
implement basic federal standards for
our intersections. This city has vision
zero goals, but those goals mean nothing
if your department refused to act on the
most basic proven interventions. So I'm
putting it on the record that people do
not accept your excuses. Our communities
deserve more than ne uh neglect and
gaslighting. We deserve streets that
serve people, not just um people behind
the wheels. And for a council, do not
hide behind staff recommendations. The
streets department works for the public.
You work for the public. Pass this
petition, fund it, paint the crosswalks,
or admit you're fine with letting our
residents risk their lives every time
they cross a
[Music]
street. Thank you. Steve D is next
followed by Steven P.
Wonderful. So, so for those who could
not hear, we have a uh comment in
support of the citizen petition.
Stephen
Proasini, you're good. Okay. Good. Oh.
Oh, I I didn't blow it like the first
time today. Proachini proini. Same
thing. Steve, thank you, mayor. Thank
you, council members. I live in Laura
Pastor's District 4 and uh I'm here in
support of Nicole's petition. Um and I'm
speaking mainly because um in memory of
a friend and coworker who was killed in
a crosswalk at on 7th Avenue. Um, this
this was a while ago, several several
years ago, and there were improvements
made to that crosswalk at 7th Avenue and
Flower, but it's not enough. And
citywide, we're really lacking. And we
need these high vis high visibility
crosswalks to protect our pedestrians
and and bicyclists. And
um the the solid um the stop line and
then the ladder type crosswalks would
make a big difference. I've seen at San
Diego they have the u they're solar
powered and they're pedestrian activated
um yield kind of warning signs that'll
flash when someone wants to cross. Not
the full-on hawk type, but the a more
simpler type would be um helpful. So, I
I just mainly wanted to
um show my support for this petition and
and and in in memory of my friend who
died in a Phoenix crosswalk. So, thank
you. Thank you.
Thank
you. Uh Patrick is next followed by AJ.
Good evening, mayor and council. My name
is Patrick Kelly. First of all, I want
to say you guys have a tough job. As a
small business owner on 7th Avenue, we
have two crosswalks between Camelback
and Indian School. Just two. That's a
mile. And there's five lanes. I refer to
7th Avenue as a mini I 10 because of the
speed and the amount of traffic that go
through 7th Avenue going north and south
during the morning. So I support the
petition and we'll get on 108 after
this. Thank you. Thank you.
AJ is next followed by Haley.
Okay, thank you. Um, first of all,
predictable and high visibility road
markings is brilliant. Excuse the pun.
And while we're at it, I think we should
throw some green paint down and some
green poles up along the bike route on
15th Avenue.
[Applause]
And then I do have to leave for a
different meeting. It's actually the
streets department Phoenix connector
meeting which is all about street
safety. I do have some ideas about the
sevens but I will email it to Michael
from Mayor Ggo's office so he can send
the message out. Thank you.
Thank you. Haley is next followed by
Jeremy.
Mayor and city council members. It's
good to see you all again. You probably
remember me from being an active bicycle
advocate. I'm fully in support of this
this proposal, this recommendation to
restripe the roads. There are several
areas along 23rd Avenue in which the
street never got painted. it an overlay
project was done I don't know how many
years ago or months ago maybe um but
that had they had were never completed
with any markings whatsoever. So we need
to pay more attention to putting more
paint on our streets. I ride these
streets every day and the paint is so
worn out that it's not even visible. So,
we need to invest more in making sure
that we complete our streets as the
complete streets proposal was made 10
years ago when I was active with
that. I appreciate you guys all
considering this and please make it your
vote to pass her proposal. Thank you.
[Applause]
Thank you. Jeremy is next, followed by
Ed.
Hello, Mayor and Council. I'm here today
to strongly support uh Nicole's petition
calling for the use of high visibility
crosswalks and stop bars citywide. Let
me be clear. This is not about paint.
This is about policy, priorities, and
lives. The city of Phoenix is committed
to vision zero. You've pledged to end
traffic deaths. But while over 100
pedestrians are killed by vehicles each
year in our city, we continue to use
crosswalk markings that are outdated,
low visibility, and non-compliant with
federal standards. These markings are a
known hazard, and the city's own vision
zero advisory committee recommended
replacing them. Yet, no formal policy
has been adopted. So, what's the
point? What Nicole is asking is a simple
request. Codify what your own task force
already endorsed. Don't just install
safer markings when it's convenient or
cheap. Just require them.
Because right now, it's not just drivers
ignoring crosswalks. It's the city,
too. In March, Phoenix paid $3 million
to the family of a woman struck and
killed in the city
crosswalk. We don't need more
settlements. We need accountability.
Yeah.
So, staff recommends denying this
petition based on budget limitations.
That argument falls flat. Uh we're
spending tens of millions annually on
traffic safety. If we can't afford to
strike safer crosswalks citywide, then
we're not spending the money where it
counts. The petition is measured. It's
aligned with national best practices and
your own complete streets policy. This
is the kind of leadership residents
want. Transparent, data driven, and
grounded in equity. So, you have the
power and the obligation to act. I urge
you to approve this petition and send a
clear message. Safety is not optional.
It's a standard.
[Applause]
Ed is next, followed by Kristen. Thank
you, Madam Mayor. Appreciate the
opportunity and and first want to thank
the mayor and council for passing Vision
Zero in 2022. I'm here as a chair of the
vision zero community advisory committee
which is a group of citizens that this
body formed in 2022. Uh the committee
was formed in 2023 and appreciate my
council person council person pastor for
appointing me to that committee. It's
it's a lot of fun. Uh, as was previously
mentioned, the committee recommended in
December 11th of 2024 to upgrade our
striping uh to implement stop bars,
which is something that it really is a
lowhanging fruit item that can be done.
Uh, other cities are doing it already.
Scottsdale, Mesa are already doing stop
bars and many other cities around the
country are doing what's called high
visibility crossing. So, ladders, zebra
striping, they're more durable, they're
higher visibility, and the US Highway
Safety uh department did a study that
showed that these crosswalks when
they're upgraded to high visibility,
they can reduce pedestrian crashes up to
42%. We've got a long way to go to
achieve vision zero. Our most recent
road safety action plan report stated
that unfortunately crashes are up and
ped fatalities are up by 2.8%
nationally. They're up 5.5% in Arizona
and Phoenix is even worse. It's up
5.7%. So crashes are happening and
increasing at almost twice the national
rate. We've got to do something to
address this. The concept here is this
is a fairly lowhanging fruit way to
improve safety. It's not going to be
done overnight, but the concept from the
committee was as we're restriping
already, as we're repaving already,
let's move and upgrade that to high
visibility crosswalks to stop bars.
Let's save lives. Uh, I really
appreciate the time and I'm in support
of the
petition. Thank you.
Thank you. Kristen is next, followed by
Stacy. Kristen uh Hegley. Stacy is next.
And
yes, thank you. Um I live in District 8
and whether I'm getting around on foot
um or walking my bicycle through a
crosswalk, I find that drivers in
Phoenix are often not looking for
pedestrians or cyclists at intersections
or crosswalks. or they see us and
continue driving often over the speed
limit, even after we've already entered
the crosswalk. Paint isn't perfect, but
after I flagged a problematic crosswalk
on 40th Street near McDow with no
signage and very minimal paint where
drivers would never stop for me, the
street department installed new signs
and added high visibility crosswalks.
These changes made it much easier for me
to get across this very busy street um
at a crosswalk that's actually part of a
designated bike group. With our city's
wide streets and overall street design
that is focused on traffic volume and
vehicle throughput, using paint to help
enhance the visility of pedestrians and
to create more space between them and
cars is the least we can do to make our
streets a little bit safer for those
outside of vehicles. This is a lowercost
option that will help save lives. Let's
continue making Phoenix a safer place
for everyone to get around. Thank you to
the mayor and council for your time and
I urge you to approve the petition.
Thank you. Stacy is next, followed by
Abby.
Um, thank you. As as Jeremy mentioned,
Phoenix just recently paid $3 million to
family members of a 21 yearear-old
pedestrian who was hit and killed in a
crosswalk by a city garbage truck in
2024. 21. Um I worked with someone who
um who knew her actually. She's not the
first person to be hit in a crosswalk
and she won't be the last. As our
vehicles have gotten larger, it's
difficult to see a person, especially a
child, in front of your vehicle. Stop
bars for vehicles and high visibility
crosswalks exist in cities around the
country and world because they help
protect both pedestrians and drivers and
they save lives. Does the streets
department or this council believe that
children are only present on city
streets around schools? Have they
thought about seniors or those who use
wheelchairs or moms with kids walking to
and from grocery stores? I wonder how
much paint we could buy with $3
million. Uh, and I'm sure you have a lot
of community members who spoke out here
today who would volunteer their time to
help paint high visibility crosswalks if
you needed that. Thank you.
[Applause]
Thank you. Do we have Abby?
Great. Hi, council members and mayor. My
name is Abby Tomitch. Uh the
installation of stop bars and high
visibility crosswalks at signalized and
unsalized pedestrian intersections
citywide starting with the high injury
network and schools is altogether a
straightforward and cost-effective
measure to enhance safety and reduce
fatalities on our streets. This
recommendation does align with the
vision zero community advisory board's
recommendation and objectives
prioritizing increasing visibility for
both drivers and pedestrian which is
crucial crucial for preventing
collisions. Our cities have other cities
have successfully implemented similar
citywide initiatives significantly
reducing road collisions. The executive
task force came to the vision zero
advisory committee and came back after
we gave them that recommendation and
completely demolished it and said all c
if all crosswalks are high visible then
no crosswalks are high visible. This
type of thinking is counterintuitive and
an excuse to not implement anything. Are
all traffic lights not visible then? Are
all stop signs not stop signs?
Then implementing these critical safety
features is a clear path to safer
streets. Let's get this done. Yeah.
[Applause]
Thank you. And then I think I called
Annie Elden for a previous item and she
wasn't here. We don't have Annie. All
right. Then I think that concludes
public comment. All right. We'll turn to
Councilwoman Stark.
Thank Thank you. Could Randy come up?
Um, you know, I'm a a great supporter of
vision zero and I do think that high
visibility crosswalks work and I'm
trying to understand because I thought
we were trying to
implement the recommendations of of the
committee.
So, good morning or good afternoon. Uh
it feels like morning. We've been out
here long enough. Um yes. So
uh thank you for asking the question. Um
we have already started doing a lot of
um high visibility uh crosswalks
especially on our arterials where there
are unsalized is where we started. So
the staff has been to all of those and
included those in high visibility
already. We're starting to work on
collectors as we come through and pave
those collectors and on the unsignalized
putting them there. Um we also, as you
know, in the school zones and now in
high schools, we're starting to put in
the yellow um striping as well to make
those high visibility.
Thank you. And then as far as the stop
bars, I I thought you were going to
start working on those as well,
especially in areas where like school
zones and mayor and council. Uh thank
you. That's a good question as well. Uh
we have a few locations where we've
started putting them under very specific
um criteria if we think it's going to be
um a safety issue and where the data has
shown that those are required.
And I know a couple years ago we did
apply for a grant, vision zero grant,
and it was not funded to us. Are we
still trying
to compete for the grant money? Uh,
mayor and council, yes, we are. Um,
we're always looking for opportunities
to uh fund things through grants. Okay.
Thank you. Thank you, Mayor.
Thank you, Councilwoman Pastor.
So, Brandy, um, and it'll show in my
record, but, uh, when Vision Zero first
came about and it was presented to the
council, I was one that voted no at the
very beginning because it wasn't very
clear on what we were doing and how we
were going to go about it. Uh, vision
zero
went a little bit
of several votes and we finally got
there to vision zero because I finally
was like, "Yes, we need
um safety within our city." And vision
zero was created and a committee was
created
intentionally to provide
uh expertise but also remarks and
suggestions and recommendations.
And I feel like we're here
today at this space is because
uh some of the community or community at
large does not feel like they're being
heard and we're implementing what we
need to
implement. Now, I just heard right now
that um as Councilwoman Stark asked
several questions that I heard yes,
we're doing this, we're doing that,
boom, boom, boom. Um, I would like a
timeline and understanding as
to
when and how and the cost as we roll out
new areas to this
process. I also would like um um I may
be putting her on the spot, but I would
also like
um like to put this subject into tip
so that we can have it in tip and we can
discuss all the nuances of this
motion. Due to the fact that there are
some pieces and cost of of of putting
some of these recommendations in and we
can work that out in our
committee. Um, and those are just my
comments.
Councilwoman Hud Washington. Thank you,
Mayor. Um, many of my questions have
been or comments have kind of been
raised by my colleagues, but I just
wanted to um just ask a couple
questions. Um, can do we have an
estimate of how many intersections would
be affected by um this proposal?
Mayor and council, um, if we did all the
signalized intersections, we have over
1,200 signalized intersections to date.
Okay.
And um I heard the question, but I don't
think I heard the answer. Do we have an
idea of what the costs would be to
actually implement um both the high
visibility crosswalks as well as the
stop bars? Uh mayor and council on the
high visibility crosswalks, if we just
looked at the
1200 signalized intersections, it's over
$19 million uh to do all four ways. Um
there's no uh and then we have over a
100,000 stop signs in the city um with
about uh about $2,000 a piece on
those. Okay. Thank you for that. And
then um I I wanted to just kind of echo
my colleague sentiments. I do think that
this probably is I a matter we should um
discuss further in the tip subcommittee
and I would ask that if um the chair is
willing to receive that that we have
further discussion regarding this in
tip.
Councilwoman Stark. Yeah, I think that's
a great idea and and actually uh we
might want to have the chair um be a
part of the presentation, the chair of
vision zero committee be a part of the
presentation so we can get a better idea
of what they've been talking about over
and I know I talk to you from time to
time but um I I would appreciate a
dialogue on that. I I mean to me and the
biggest complaint I get in my district
is speeding and running red lights and
the safety of our streets. So, I think
it's important that we address those
concerns and and you're right, we have
the wrong percentage of pedestrian
deaths. I mean, it's it's it's
embarrassing. So, I and I know um that
you're trying, but we really got to make
sure we're out there and trying and and
addressing these issues. They're of the
utmost importance. And um I remember we
had a teenage girl that was killed in
crosswalk at 7th and Bell like two days
before Christmas and it just broke my
heart. So um I really think we need to
tackle this and make sure we are making
it a priority. So thank you mayor. Thank
you. So maybe either for our city
manager or city attorney, could you give
us a motion that would result in this uh
discussion going to a high high
visibility crosswalk discussion at tip
that's appropriate with the city
charter.
So mayor and council, I would say that I
think direction has been given um to to
staff and to the chair to go ahead and
put this on tip. So, I don't think that
needs to be included in a motion, but
certainly it could be if if council
would like to include that in a motion.
Okay. So, we're good then. Okay. Thank
you. That is very helpful. Councilwoman
Hernandez. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor.
So, just a clarifying question. If
direction has been given, then what
happen? What is our direction on the
vote? Yeah.
So, mayor, members of council, um that
is certainly up to council how they want
to to vote on the petition, whether they
want to postpone it and have it come
back after subcommittee or whether they
want to take action today with the
understanding that it will be going to
subcommittee. Thank you,
Councilwoman Pastor.
Um, I think I I'm going to go off the
fly, but I motion uh I motion for the
citizens petition to go into uh the tip
committee uh for the petition to be
heard and uh for street transportation
departments uh to present
on high visibility
crosswalks. I'm I'm going off the fly,
but Okay. And just could we get some I
think the staff knows sort of what the
goal is, but could you help us with
mayor, members of council? Um I would
say then it would be uh to refer the um
petition to uh the tip committee to
address high visibility crosswalks and
stop bars.
Okay. All
right. We're good with that. And I'm
sorry, did we uh councilman Hud
Washington? I guess I just had a
clarifying question. I thought the
citizens petitions had to be heard by
council, not necessarily a subcommittee.
They had to be resolved within a certain
time frame. So I my interpretation of my
thought was that we would um cuz one
time we had to reject the citizen
petition and schedule a council meeting.
So I just want help. Do we need to do
that? I mean, I'll defer to the city
attorney, but my understanding is that
the council is required to simply take
action on the citizen petition, and you
are doing that by referring it back to
the subcommittee to go through
additional work, and then they can bring
it back for final council action. That's
my perspective, but I'll I'm not an
attorney.
Yeah. And mayor, members of council, it
it would certainly be up to the
subcommittee whether they wanted to
refer it back to council. So, by council
hearing the matter today and taking
action, that would um suffice for the
charter. Okay. And Denise, help me. Did
we have a second? No, mayor. Second. All
right. Second. Thank you. Again. All
right. And this could be a voice vote.
Yes, mayor. All right. All those in
favor, please say I. I. Any oppose? Nay.
We're off to subcommittee. And we are
off to item 107, which is a citizen
petition submitted by Stacy Champion.
The floor is yours, Stacy.
And Stacy will be followed by
Christopher
Collins. For the past 18 years, I've
fought my ass off on my own time and
dime to make our city streets safer,
more equitable, and
sustainable.
Um, sorry, I had to completely cut this
because of being given two minutes. So,
uh, which is also just ridiculous. I see
council who say in one breath they care
about public health and safety, yet have
done little to really address the
jarring reality of how deadly Phoenix
streets are for drivers, pedestrians,
and cyclists. This city has sacrificed
speed and convenience over quality of
life and safety for long enough. I don't
really expect the majority of you to be
bold today because you aren't. I'm used
to you kicking cans down the road and
placating the haveors because that's
been my experience over all these years.
another study is a stalling tactic. The
same can be said for any listening
sessions and you know that I doubt
you'll have the courage to do what
should have been done years ago. So if
you don't do the courageous thing today
moving forward my hope is that every
person who is harmed from the 7th Street
and 7th Avenue rush hour reverse lanes
whether a driver, pedestrian, cyclist,
business or homeowner makes you and this
city culpable for any damages, loss of
life, injury or harm. I hope every
personal injury attorney names you in
lawsuits and holds you accountable
because you will be. I hope the families
send you photos of their loved ones who
were harmed. And I hope you think about
them when you look at yourself in the
mirror every day. I spent this past
weekend in a city with mostly two-lane
streets with 25-hour speed limits,
boulevards with buffered pedestrian
crossings, real protected bike lanes,
stop bars, and high visibility
crosswalks at every intersection, good
public transportation parklets, and a
lot of healthy, happy people. So today,
no matter what you decide and that you
will have to live with for the rest of
your lives, I will know I've done
everything within my power as a public
citizen of this god-forsaken city to
fight for positive change and will have
the courage to walk away with grace.
Thank you.
[Applause]
Thank you. Christopher is next, followed
by Lydia.
Uh, good evening. My name is Christopher
Collins and I wanted to start by
thanking Mayor GGO and the city council
for all their hard work and service. Uh,
it's because of you and uh, small
businesses like ours have the ability to
thrive. I own a collection of
restaurants here in Phoenix and operate
the Neighborly on Seventh Street in
Missouri. In addition to being a
business owner, I live between the
sevens on Third Street in Maryland. My
boys go to St. Francis and we practice
sports at several of the local fields. I
can say without hesitation that I live
my life between the sevens. I've
affectionately referred to the middle
lane as the suicide lanes when I was in
high school. But now that I am an adult
and I live my life between the sevens, I
realize that there is concern. The
Neighborly is a struggling business and
that is mired by several local
businesses that struggle on Seventh
Street. In my two years at this
location, I've had three different
restaurants come and go in the same
center, and it's a small center. I have
been offered new leases along Seventh
Street to develop new and exciting
concepts for our uptown neighborhood and
have declined very generous offers,
citing Seventh Street as the barrier to
success. It's frustrating to know uh
that guests avoid our building during
specific times of the day because of a
program that is only utilized on these
two streets. While with examples of
Central Avenue and 16th Street having
vibrant dining scenes, I see no reason
why the entire valley does not want to
rush between the sevens to enjoy our
restaurants. Instead, it's a local tip
to avoid the area altogether. It's a
constant in our life that during our
silent happy hour, we hear long sounds
of honking cars and frequent car
accidents. And it's daily that the
middle lane is held up by a driver that
just doesn't understand the program. I
want to share a daily routine of
avoiding Seventh Street. I take 12
Street to Missouri, cross 7th Street,
take Sixth Street into the neighborhood,
and enter my restaurant through the back
church parking lot. Even more concerning
is spending time on my street playing
with my sons and seeing cars race
between the sevens because they can't
take a left on one of the streets. If my
wife were here, she would share her fear
of cutting across four lanes to go to
the grocery store. Please help our
families and businesses experience the
normaly the rest of the city enjoys.
Thank you.
Lydia is next followed by Teresa.
She just wanted to speak if necessary.
Oh, I'm sorry. Um, okay. So, uh, Lydia,
uh, is available to speak if necessary,
but is again, uh, in support of the
citizen petition. And then Teresa,
uh, you are next, followed by Jeremiah.
And Jeremiah had to leave. Just saying.
Okay. Um, every day at rush hour, our
neighborhoods turn into highways. Not by
choice, but because of a decision made
in
1979. Good evening, mayor and council
members. My name is Teresa Dickinson.
I'm a pharmacist, a business owner on
7th Avenue, a past resident of Carnation
Neighborhood, and a current resident of
Royal Palm. I'm here tonight to ask you
what to do what's right. Eliminate the
reverse lanes. These lanes are outdated,
confusing, and harmful to our
neighborhoods and businesses. They were
created in 1979 to serve a very
different Phoenix. Since then, we have
built the 51 freeway, expanded the I17,
launched the light rail, and have many
people working from home. Central
Phoenix isn't a pass through, it's our
home. Because of these lanes, drivers
can't make left turns. Instead, they
speed into our neighborhoods, turning
quiet streets into dangerous
cutthroughs. Now that I live in Royal
Palm, I have to in the north have to cut
onto a speed bumped street in the
neighborhood on the northeast corner of
7th Avenue Northern in order to get to
the 51. And I can't turn onto Northern
going south. We've gathered over 5
almost 5,000 signatures from local
residents and businesses. A clear sign
that the community is behind this. A
recent poll showed 80% of the pollers
wanted the lanes eliminated. We also
have support letters from the 7th Avenue
Merchants Association, nearby
neighborhoods, and key local businesses.
Remember, Bashes is no longer here. Even
the numbers are clear. Just 3 to 4% of
drivers use these lanes, but 96% of us
live with their negative impacts every
day. We deserve safer streets. We
deserve calmer neighborhoods. We deserve
to get to our homes and businesses
without aggravation. Please end the
reverse lanes. Make this moment the city
chose safety, community, and progress
over speed. Thank
you. Jeremiah had to leave, but is in
support of the petition. Camil is next,
followed by
Dave Dave Jenkins.
What can I do? Do you want me to hold
her? No. Thank you. Just in case. She's
my backup for the baby. My name is
Camille and thank you to city council
and mayor for listening. First, I would
like to say thank you very much for
listening with new ears to this petition
that you may have heard
before. I think this is a real
opportunity to make policy that impacts
people's daily lives and that is deeply
impactful to me and my community. So,
thank you. I'm a mother and real
litterer in central Phoenix. I do my
fair share of driving for my work and
also taking my daughter, eldest
daughter, to school on the sevens. There
is not a day that goes by that I let her
sit in the front seat of the car. On our
way to school, we have seen no less than
a dozen head-on
collisions. Although she's big enough to
do so, she never sits in the front, and
we have seen enough mirrorless near
misses in addition to the collisions for
a lifetime. We regularly have to cut
through neighborhoods to head the
direction needed during the times of day
the suicide lanes are in effect. You'll
hear many comments today such as the
middle lanes being underutilized, that
people from out of town cannot adapt
quickly enough to make this safe. The
holidays are especially dangerous
because they feel like weekends, but you
have to remember it's not a weekend so
you you can't use those lanes or you can
when the lanes aren't in use there,
which are valid and true. But I think
the most effective approach to deciding
this matter is to look directly at the
problem for
yourselves. Spend a morning or two if
you're at all conflicted about this on
Camelback or Indian School on Seventh
Street on the corner at the heaviest
time of traffic and just watch. Just
watch. There's very little I can say
that is more powerful than
that. And as they say, the proof is in
the pudding. Good design should work for
the majority of people. I implore you to
see that this is flawed design. and not
just driver error or at the very least
spend a day on the corner and decide for
yourself. Thank you so much.
Dave Jenkins is next, followed by
Patrick Kelly. Hello, Mayor and the
Phoenix City Council member.
He can't take me anywhere. I'm Dave
Jenkins, a longtime resident of District
4. Thank you for the opportunity.
There you go. Thank you. You're welcome.
Thank you for the opportunity to address
you today. I urge you to restore order
to 7th Avenue and 7th Street by
eliminating the rever the reverse lane.
We all reside in a family-friendly
neighborhood with rich diversity. We do
not want a freeway cutting through our
our
community. I live just off 7th Avenue
and I have observed that many drivers do
not respect the posted speed limits or
the design designated hours. I
personally experienced near fatal
accidents due to
outsiders treating our streets like a
racetrack. Our local businesses such as
Copper Shark Coffee and Joe's Diner rely
on morning breakfast crowd while new
diner establishments depend on evening
patrons for their survival. When family
and friends visit, I often find myself
in a state of panic trying to explain
how to navigate our streets safely.
Please protect our neighborhood by
ending the the confusion caused by the
reverse lanes. Thank you for your
consideration.
[Applause]
Patrick is next, followed by Tabitha.
Good evening, Mayor and Council. I'm the
president of the 7th Avenue Merchant
Association. I had a business I have a
business on 7th Avenue since 2007.
Over the years, I've seen numerous
accidents, a lot of honking at the
intersection of Indian School in
7th. That intersection gets over 60,000
vehicles that go through, which is
great. You know, as a business owner,
all those eyeballs, but those eyeballs
are going so fast, they don't even
notice our businesses. They don't even
notice themselves.
The issues that I have as the president
of the merchant association and our
other businesses on the avenues is that
depending on what time of the day that
the businesses are open, they lose
clients and customers. You know, we're
talking about budgets, we're talking
about income, we're losing income
because of the decision of what streets
is doing or not doing.
We have this conversation with council,
new council and other council people
that have come in over the
years and we have not come to a decision
or conclusion on why we are keeping the
reverse lanes. I know some council
people prefer the first the reverse
lanes because that gets their
constituents home faster. What about our
businesses and our neighborhoods and our
people? We have the right. Thank you.
Tabitha is next, followed by Andrew.
Good evening, mayor and council members.
Uh, my name is Tabitha. I also live,
breathe, drink, eat between the sevens.
Happily stay between the sevens as much
as I can. Um, I'm in district 4 and I
live over on Fifth Avenue um in in
Willow. I'm here today to beg you to put
an end to the dangerous reverse lanes on
7th A and 7th Street. These roads are
not just havoc highways. They're
barriers that tear at the fabric of our
community. I live and work along 7th
Avenue. Every day I witness confused
drivers swerving, horns blaring, near
head-on misses that make my heart stop.
Even when I understand the rules of the
road, I face aggression from drivers who
don't. The anxiety follows me home. I
can't turn left into my neighborhood.
And I plan my day around avoiding these
chaos corridors during the five critical
hours of the re reverse lane activation.
Our vibrant small businesses in the
Melrose District, which should be the
crown jewel of Phoenix, suffer as a
result. Instead, I have to think twice
about stopping for my morning coffee at
my beloved Copper Star Coffee because
turning left feels like I'm gambling
with my life. These are businesses mere
blocks from my home and I think twice
about patronizing them because of the
unsafe
roads. A 2024 study in a at ASU
confirmed what we already know. The
reverse lanes are underutilized by
drivers, most likely because they don't
want to risk a head-on collision or game
of chicken with drivers who are
confused. The city's own 2021 study
found numerous instances where drivers
performed unsafe maneuvers. I have seen
many of them. The study's minimum
recommendation to install illuminated
signs has been ignored. I am asking you
today to choose people over pavement.
Communities over commutes and public
safety over minutes saved and the
reversing.
Andrew is next, followed by Steve
Prokasini.
Good evening, Mayor and Council. Uh, my
name is Andrew and I'm the president of
the Whitten District neighborhood. Our
western border is Seventh Street and I'm
speaking not only for myself but also
many of the 12,200 households within the
Witten bounds. At our neighborhood
meeting last week, the message was very
clear. We want the reverse lanes
removed. For 5 hours a day, Seventh
Street becomes a mini highway that cuts
us off from the businesses, parks, and
places that we should be able to walk to
safely. These lanes divide our
community, literally and socially. Even
worse, these lanes are just plain
dangerous. There's no room for error,
and the consequences are head-on
collisions. As a result, fatal crashes
have happened along the Sevens and they
will continue to happen as long as we do
not turn this lane into a turn lane
247. Obviously, we don't raise speed
limits to 70 mph in neighborhoods even
though it would move traffic faster
because we know it would kill people. We
don't remove traffic lights from busy
intersections because we know they save
lives. So, why do we accept reverse
lanes, which are confusing, dangerous,
and known to cause fatal mistakes just
to shave a few minutes off of our
commute? If the reverse lanes are
critical to keeping commute times low,
then it just means our highway systems
are seriously broken and we need to find
real long-term solutions instead of
placing the burden on communities like
mine and others. Please take this
opportunity to show us that the
transportation policy of Phoenix does
not just move people, but it also
protects them. Please take this
opportunity to show us that the this
leadership wants to encourage
communities to connect and grow together
and not solidify the things that
literally divide them. Without a reverse
lane, someone might be a few minutes
late to work. With a reverse lane,
someone might never make it to work
again. We can't always fix these complex
problems, but this one is simple and
certainly within the power and ability
of our city leadership. Please vote to
remove the reverse lanes and help knock
down just one barrier on our way to a
more unified community. Thank you.
[Applause]
Steve is next followed by Maggie. Hello
again. Thank you mayor and council
members.
Um we've been kind of some of us for a
long time working on this um to try to
end the reverse lanes. Um, and this goes
back with Teresa from Melrose Pharmacy
back to when Doug Linger, the late Doug
Linger was a council member here and we
had a meeting in his office and we're
trying to get this reversed and that was
at least 15, I don't know, 18 years ago
and here we still are fighting to get
them taken away. Um, it's it's just a
terrible system. Very dangerous. Most
people I know totally avoid using the
sevens during either of the rush hours
because it's just too scary. Not only in
the suicide lane, but in your own lane.
So, um the regular traffic lanes. But,
um but I do have questions for you,
rhetorical or otherwise. Um if I may
ask, um do you do you do any of you use
the reverse lanes during a rush hour?
Have you uh do you like them? Do you
feel safe and confident using them
either for yourself or your loved ones?
Um do you feel they are beneficial to
the multiple miles of neighborhoods and
businesses that are along this temporary
highway twice a day?
Um, if you haven't driven the suicide
lanes as they're known, and they could
also be called perhaps murder lanes, um,
at rush hour. Perhaps you should, but
please do so carefully and at your own
risk. Um, they are scary. Um, so I I you
know, I beg you to please, please
support eliminating the reverse lanes on
the sevens. They're outdated. They're
dangerous. This city has changed. We It
We don't need them anymore. Thank you
very much.
Thank Thank you. Thank Thank you. Next
speaker is Maggie
Riley, followed by David
Riley. Good evening, council members and
mayor. Um, my name is Maggie Riley. I'm
a lifelong Phoenix resident and native
currently living in district
six. I'm a daily commuter and a mother
of three. I'm here today for the past 4
and a half hours um rather than being
with my children for them. Uh I live off
of 7th Avenue in Glendale in the Madison
Meadows neighborhood. There's only one
way out of my neighborhood and that's on
7th Avenue.
They are three future drivers. The
thought of them driving on the suicide
lanes scares the be Jesus out of
me. I have not spoken to anyone here,
but my story is eerily similar to many
of theirs. Getting my children to school
every day, cutting through
neighborhoods, followed by a plethora of
people doing the same.
As I said, I'm a Phoenix resident, a
native, a daily commuter, and a mother
of
three. I'm here today to urge you to end
these suicide reverse lanes. These lanes
were introduced 50 years ago. Yes, 50
years ago. Um, but Phoenix has changed.
We've expanded freeways like the 51 and
the 17. Not to mention um that many
residents now work from
home. Re reverse lanes now function like
high-speed highways. As one of the
business owners said, a mini I 10 right
in the middle of our
city in residential neighborhoods.
Nonetheless, they're outdated and
they're dangerous. Every morning I
drive, I'm forced to cut through
neighborhoods. They're confusing to
visitors and new drivers. They create a
recipe for road rage and accidents. They
hurt local businesses. I myself avoid
many of these businesses because of the
stress of turning on 7th Avenue. Thank
you for your time, your consideration,
and please neon signs. That is not
that's a band-aid, not a
solution.
After David will be Haley
Ritter mayor and council, my name is
David Riley. I'm a traffic engineer. I
specialize in implementations like
reverse lanes.
I have invested over a hundred hours in
counting and collecting data and
analyzing that data of the seven's
reverse lanes. Here are five important
facts that past studies failed to report
to
you. Number one, crashes during reverse
lanes are two times higher than a normal
road. Number two, sevens are not high
volume roads. They are on par with 19th
Avenue and 16th Street that operate well
without reverse lanes. Number three,
very few cars utilize the reverse lanes.
My ongoing data collection shows an
average of only three cars in the
reverse light, excuse me, reverse lanes
each time the traffic signal turns
green. Number four, they force left
turning traffic to cut through
neighborhoods. And number five, they
don't meet required national standards
for reverse lanes. Some history that
that's it for the five points. Now on to
some history that is fueling some fear
of removing the re reverse lanes.
Uh the reverse lanes were warranted in
the 80s. Traffic used to be bad.
However, a big change happened in the
early 2000s. the SR-51 and I17 freeways
were fully built out. As a result of
this buildout, traffic on the sevens
dropped by a staggering 40% in the year
2000 and volumes on the seven has been
the same for the past 24 years. Traffic
has not grown on the sevens. It's
remained the same. Past studies reported
high traffic delay if the reverse lanes
were removed. This study incorrectly
used traffic volumes almost two times
higher than actual volumes. I have more,
but I'll leave it there. Thank you.
[Applause]
Haley is next, followed by Bill.
I am in full support of
this petition to
eliminate the the reverse lanes on 7th
Street and 7th
Avenue. Just like everyone else has
said, they're not necessary anymore.
They're very outdated and they don't
need to be in our communities. I ride my
bike through those sections all the time
and it's just a little scary. If
anything, maybe eventually we'll have
some bike lanes on those
streets. So, I just wanted that's all I
want to say. Thank you for supporting
this petition to end those reverse
lanes.
[Applause]
Bill is next, followed by Annette.
Good evening, council. Bill Sandberg. I
own Copper Star Coffee in District 4 and
I live in District 7. There's a CS Lewis
quote I like. Do not cite the deep magic
to me. I was there when it was written.
I'm a third generation Arizonan and
valley native. Most recently, I've lived
between the sevens for 26 years now. I
will not stand up here for two minutes
and explain to you why you need to get
rid of the reverse lanes. We do. Rather,
I'm here to give a history lesson. As
somebody who saw the north south
congestion in Phoenix during the 1980s,
the reverse lanes were an integral part
of getting people around
town. There were only eight lanes of
traffic through the mountain passes in
those days. The five points intersection
at se Dunlap 7th and Cave Creek was the
busiest intersection in the state of
Arizona. The corner of 32nd Street in
Sheay was the fourth busiest
intersection in the state of Arizona.
Tatum and Sheay was often top five.
Today, none of them are in the top 10. I
can remember 24th Street backed up from
Lincoln all the way down to Camelback. I
can remember 16th Street backed up from
Northern all the way down to Missouri. I
can remember 7th Street Gridlock from
Dunlap all the way back to Camelback and
sometimes when it rained to Osborne and
Thomas. Central was a two-lane parking
lot along the bridal path every day
during rush hour. Most of these problems
were solved by the addition of six lanes
of freeway through the Dreamy Draw.
While reverse lanes do increase
capacity, they decrease mobility at a
time when we desperately need more
mobility in the city of Phoenix. As you
know, east west congestion is a real
problem in the Phoenix these days. And I
don't want to see reverse lanes on
Indian School through Arcadia or on
Thunderbird through Moon Valley or on
Baseline through Southern Baseline or
Southern through South Phoenix. It's
time to remove the reverse lanes from
our city. As we continue to build
apartment housing between the sevens and
people try to get home to the high-rise
apartments that we are building in our
downtown core. There's nothing that
reverse lanes can do that tra cannot be
accomplished by modern traffic
management software. They're an old tech
solution to a problem that is long gone.
It's time to move into the future. Thank
you.
[Applause]
Annette is next, followed by Eric.
Annette had to leave. Okay, Annette had
to leave, but Annette is in support of
the petition. Eric is next, followed by
Jeremy.
Uh, good evening, Mayor and Council. My
name is Eric. Uh, the left lane is the
fastest lane. It's the lane we travel uh
when we're passing other cars or when
we're in a hurry. Essentially, the
sevens take the left two fastest
traveling lanes and put them into the
closest proximity of each other at the
busiest times, a morning and evening
rush hour. I worked for 15 years at 5244
North 7 Street. It's a large automotive
repair shop that had a front row seat to
the reverse lanes. I dealt with
thousands of customers over the years. I
never heard a customer say the reverse
lanes added convenience to their lives
or save them time. In fact, it was just
the opposite. They wouldn't uh they
would they would purposely avoid them
scheduling their appointments at times
where they were not being used if they
could. Several of my customers were
involved in collisions. Um, and I would
always get the question, "So, can I make
a left turn into your business from the
reverse lane?" We all know the answer,
yes, I would say, unless it's otherwise
posted. Uh, so I would see them from the
service drive window, a car with its
turn signal on, waiting for traffic to
clear in Seventh Street. than a car
slamming on its brakes behind them using
their horn as if it's a ruler honking at
honking at my customer for 10 to 15
seconds at a time. My customer would
make the left when the traffic cleared
into the business, although some of them
would speed off and and go around the
block. Um, they'd pull up front, get out
of their car, and you know what the
first thing they would say? I thought
you said I could make a left turn into
here. Why was that guy honking at me?
You can, I'd say, because they're
impatient. So now I have a customer who
is not having a great day because of
their malfunctioning car, but is also
physiologically worked up from being
honked at for 15 seconds. Uh, I oppose
the uh reverse lanes. Thank you.
Jeremy's next, followed by Jamie.
Again, this is not a traffic engineering
debate. You don't need to be a traffic
engineer to understand this. Um although
we have one that does. Uh this is a
moral
decision and every one of you knows the
truth now and you should know the truth
all along. The reverse lanes uh have
double the crash rate of comparable 16th
and 19th when you level out for traffic.
So when you put it down to the same
amount of
traffic, the crash rate is
double. That alone should be the answer,
right? Like that's clear as day. But
here we are 50 years later.
Uh we've also in the study the 2021
study hundreds of illegal left turns
happen from this bias study that was uh
biased for the reverse lane still admit
to this.
So the pedestrians that are hit 82%
chance that they die if you get into an
accident if you're a pedestrian. It's
higher than anywhere else in the city.
uh to continue these lanes is now
negligence for the city. Um this isn't
there is no data that supports keeping
them. Uh the study is so flawed in so
many
ways. It's also a financial
failure. So if you're looking for
reasons I mean the only reason that you
wouldn't change it at this point would
be the the cost to do it but the cost is
higher to keep them. Uh the accidents
according to ADOT's stats
uh are ridiculous. They cost about $13
million a year for the additional
accidents that happen compared to 16th
and 19th when leveled out for traffic.
And the accidents happen, they're all
when you map them out, which I have, I'm
probably over 200 hours at this point
into this. Uh they're all happening in
the Melrose, the retail districts of
Coronado, Restaurant Row. Uh these are
where the accidents happen, where the
people are, where we're trying to build
up, we're losing tax revenue, uh hand
over foot on this, and it makes no
sense. So you have the data, choose
wisely. Thanks.
Jamie is next, followed by John.
Hi, uh Jamie Truen. Uh I live downtown
and I support a lot of the businesses
that are up in uh Midtown and it's
really hard to get there just as a
pedestrian uh cyclist or even as a
transit user. It can be very difficult
to get there because of the sevens.
Usually there's an accident, you have to
get off the bus, you can't even use it
because there's a crash there. Which
goes to my point about earlier when you
guys were discussing budget hearings and
response times. If you're having more
crashes here because of the reverse
lanes, you're reducing response time for
other uses that could have been much
better prioritized instead of focusing
on these reverse lanes. Also, the
reverse lanes are kind of like a futon.
No one really likes a futon. So, it's
trying to act like a highway. It's kind
of act like a street where people live
in. It's kind of doing a bad job at
both. So, we really need to focus on
making our streets safer. And we could
do that by a simple changing the lanes
back to a we could even do like seven
street have three north two south or 7th
a do the opposite if we really want that
counterflow but there's just so many
better options that are very cheap and
we even have money with prop 7 uh 479 to
fix these roads and we don't want to see
that with digital signs. We have $25
million close to each of the sevens in
Prop 479 and we would like that to be
used to improve the streets not to put
stupid little digital signs on them. We
need something that's going to benefit
economically. We got to look at the
economic impacts. If we need more tax
revenue, we need to improve these local
businesses so people aren't rushing to
Chick-fil-A, but they're rushing to the
small businesses that are in Midtown in
downtown. That's it. Thank you.
[Applause]
John is next, followed by AJ.
Madame Mayor, members of the council,
thank you for this
opportunity.
Uh, my hometown has been taken away from
me. When I was a teenager, there was
hardly any traffic jams to speak of.
Since then, traffic has gotten
horrendous. I can hardly drive anywhere
without re having to endure stop and go
traffic. These reverse lanes are one of
the few things I know of that the city
has done to increase traffic flow. We,
the citizens, put a petition on a ballot
measure to build the Squap Peak Freeway
along 20th Street and the Paradise
Freeway just south of Missouri Avenue.
The city did push did get started on the
squap freeway which was taken over by
the state and is now I excuse
me not I7 the other one.
Um recently it took me a half an hour to
drive from 15th Avenue to 51st Avenue.
That's ridiculous. The city needs to do
much more to improve traffic. I am
saddened by the number of accidents that
have been on these suicide lanes. That
just shows you that we have a number of
incompetent andor inattentive drivers.
If we could get rid of those, there
would be less traffic accidents and
there'd be less congestion
uh and the traffic would smooth would be
run more smoothly. I have no problem
with keeping with the within the lanes.
It say needs to do more including build
the Paradise Freeway.
Is AJ still with us? She's not. She's
not. Okay, AJ was neutral. Um, Steve,
did you want to um testify on this one?
Uh, mayor, thank you. You all receive my
comments by email. Perfect. Fellow
advocates far more eloquent than I. So,
I support the petition. Okay. So, for
those walking uh watching online, we
will mark you in support of the
petition. We have next Jason followed by
Ralph.
So these reverse lanes, they
seem they seem engineered to increase
capacity, but they're really bad at
doing
that. But what but when I cut when I
visited here, um when I first moved here
two years ago, when I first saw those, I
was like, these are engineered to kill
people. Like that was my first thought
when I saw them. Uh, and when I showed
my friends from, you know, from I'm from
the west coast. I'm from I'm from the
Bay Area. We have things like public
transit. We have BART. We have high
capacity systems. We have dedicated uh
we have dedicated bus lanes. We have
tools in our toolbox that actually
explain the capacity of our roadways.
Um, which seemed to be alien concept
here.
Um, when when I so I told my friends
about these like this is the stupidest
thing I've seen in my life. They like I
like like people from like other states
laugh at us over this stuff. People from
other countries laugh at us over this
stuff.
And the the the this the the existence
of reverse lanes is like the symbol of
everything wrong with the mindset of not
only a street department but like the
small limited mindset of the whole
entire city council when it comes to
what we can actually do as a city and
not just city council but even many of
the people who live here. It's just it's
just as someone who um come comes from a
place
where other thing where there if there's
a need for more capacity there's
immediately like okay we're going to
build a bus here but dedicate bus lanes
we're going to build a metro here um
there's no like thoughts about hair
brain solutions and even a long time ago
1989
um there was a plan to build valr
instead of trying to build out trying to
lean in more into the reverse lanes. So,
I definitely support getting rid of
these. It's They're silly. And be
serious. Like, this is ridiculous. Just
get rid of them. Ralph is next, followed
by
[Applause]
John. Ralph is next, followed by
John. Ralph Borkman.
dedicated.
Good evening. Uh my name's Ralph and I
live uh one block south of Osborne and
three houses west of Seventh Street. So
I have a pretty good idea of what goes
on firsthand on Seventh Street.
When reversible lanes were first came
into existence, it turned our relatively
quiet Midtown residents into a
raceway. With no left turns allowed at
the
signals, uh it left our residential
streets as one of the only means of
accessing the businesses that were on
Osborne.
Uh it would seem to me this impact, this
negative impact on residential
neighborhoods would be enough to
eliminate the reversible lanes. But
there's lots more. Now, I'm familiar
with a report that has just come out
from city
engineering and they claim that the
reversible lanes reduce travel time by
40%. From personal experience, I would
argue with that story, that study,
because it's flawed because it assumes
that people use the reversible lanes.
And from personal
experience, people resist using the the
uh reversible lane or the as
affectionately known as the suicide
lane. And from personal experience, I
can tell you that I personally won't use
that particular lane.
Um, so,
uh, the lane may be available for use,
but it's like the old saying, you can
lead a horse to water, but you can't
make him drink. Now, the city, uh,
reports suggest that more studies need
to be made. And I would suggest that we
do not need more studies. It's time to
take action like other cities have, like
Tucson, and eliminate reversible lanes
on 7th Street and 7th Avenue. Thank you.
[Applause]
Thank you. John is next followed by
Rockny. You can go around the back.
Thanks.
Okay, floor is yours.
Hello, I am John Demco and although I I
do not live in the city of Phoenix,
instead in Tempe, however, I am I am
involved with the Urban Phoenix project
and of course have been aware of the of
the petition
to end the to end the reversible lanes
on the sevens And I am in so and I'm in
support of the petition because they can
especially with just only the physical
signage, it can be confusing for drivers
leading to leading to collisions that
can turn deadly.
Yes, there was traffic on the nearby
freeways and like I said that was only
it just only physical signs instead of
digital. However, the design can allow
for many new misses that could go bad
like some other people have have talked
about. And plus it can negatively impact
the businesses along 7th Street and 7th
Avenue to from the
inability to drivers inability
to access access them
safely. And plus I can see that it could
be bad for detours because they can't
make left turns at the signals forcing
them to go straight.
Thus, let's let I do support removing
the reverse the reverse lens to make it
safer for all users. Thank you very
much.
[Applause]
Thank you. Rockny's next followed by
Nicole.
Uh thank you, Mayor Mayor Ggo and
council members. My name is Rocky
Hannish. I'm a architectural designer,
instructor of architecture at ASU,
urbanist, and downtown
resident. Um, it's important to note
that cities
change. Please show us that we can keep
up with the pace of how cities are
evolving.
the city of Phoenix. If we are going to
be a sustainable and livable city on the
world stage and as Mayor Kaygo has
affirmed, the most accessible city in
America, we must collectively abandon
old ways of thinking about the
prioritization of automobiles as central
to economic
development. There was a time 46 years
ago when the reverse lanes had a logic
behind them. This time has come and
gone. Today, the reverse lanes on the
sevens represent an outmoded, dangerous,
and oified approach to moving cars to
and from the downtown core. The sevens
are the lowest hanging infrastructural
fruit outside of perhaps crosswalk
visibility to improve public safety.
This is not a monetary issue. There are
extremely they are extremely dangerous,
deadly, and have no place in a modern
desert metropolis. A 2024 study, ADOT
data, has confirmed what one could
intuitit in driving the sevens or having
experienced them, that the reverse lanes
cause chaos, are not conducive to an
inclusive and accessible desert city.
Twice as many accidents happen in the
reverse lanes than in other areas.
According to that AOT
data, please take this opportunity to
remove the reverse lanes
uh and reutilize that area those areas
for planted areas, turn lanes and future
expansion of multimmodal transit.
Additionally and more broadly, please
consider that cities are for people not
cars. If we do not take this opportunity
to change the sevens to be a safer uh
modality, a failure to adapt our streets
more widely represents a deep apathy in
regard to public safety. Thank you.
[Applause]
Thank you. Nicole is next, followed by
Derek.
Okay. Um, Nicole Rodriguez, I just want
to let y'all know that my son's probably
going to miss his high school graduation
because that's how important this is
today for him. So, I'm here to demand
that the end of the end of the reverse
lanes um not for another performative
listening session. We've done that. And
um that's not listening. Today's
listening, but another one of those type
of listening sessions is not. It's just
stalling. So, let's be honest. The
reverse lanes were born from a city
council that didn't look like or live
near the communities. they bulldozed
over. It was at the time an atlarge city
council uh dominated by suburban north
Phoenix interest who sacrificed
workingclass neighborhoods in central
Phoenix for their commuting convenience.
We've been treated like a freeway
on-ramp for decades, a red carpet for
the privileged and
entitled. The 2024 ASU study shows the
lanes are underutilized. A former city
traffic engineer warned council in the
early 80s reverse lanes on the seventh
street were dangerous after collisions
increased on 7th Avenue where they were
first implemented. And what did the
council do? Ignored it. Their solution
more police if as if patrol cars can
solve poor infrastructure design. We
have violated federal traffic safety
standards over a decade. Reverse lanes
are not are reverse lanes are for
highways. Uh they are not for
neighborhoods. Um you want to balance
needs. This isn't
parenting. You're we're not your
children. This is failed leadership if
we decide to ignore this petition. Um
hiding behind delayed uh tactics.
Visionless politicians don't deserve a
seat at the table. Please show courage.
Um and please please end the reverse
lanes today. We need the opportunity to
finally thrive. We have been suppressed
for way too long. And you have plenty of
businesses here that were able to give
their testimony today. There's many
more.
Derek is next, followed by Lucas. Hello.
Um to the city council, I stand before
you today having prioritized this
discussion over my own graduation
ceremony at bio from bioscience high
school to urge the removal of the
seven's reverse lanes. These lanes are
incredibly disorienting for drivers on
the sevens, particularly for visitors or
new residents, posing a significant
hazard for
everyone. The idea that more signs will
fix this is simply unrealistic.
There is a sign near Osborne and yet
honking and crashes persist right
underneath it. Even if we pour money
into extensive signage at every
intersection along the Sevens, it won't
eliminate the danger of a high-speed
arterial. These lanes also create
substantial barriers for those trying to
access the businesses that line 7th
Street and 7th Avenue. Living near
Seventh Street, I'm a daily witness to
the escalating road rage and frequent
collisions. I also observe drivers who
have to speed through our neighborhood
because they can't turn left at the
signal. These reverse lanes are an
obsolete and dangerous design for a
growing city. The dangers to everyone
far outweigh the benefits to a few.
[Applause]
Lucas is next, followed by Robert. Uh,
hello. Uh, thank you to the mayor, to
the city council. My name is Lucas
Vargas. I'm 17 years old. I'm a rising
senior and I live um in the area that
we're talking about today. Um, I'm sure
previous speakers have already told you
how damaging and harmful these reverse
lanes are to my community. Um, but I
just wanted to give you a new
perspective that maybe some of you
haven't heard. Now, I'm a new driver. I
just got my license about four months
ago. And I also try and bike and carpool
to school whenever possible. And in
order to get to school, I need to cross
the absolute traffic nightmare that is
the reversible lanes on 7th
Avenue. Um every for these um reverse
lanes, first off, they're very
distracting. But specifically, for every
brain cell that a driver has to spend on
focusing on these signs telling them
when and they like when they can and
cannot drive in these lanes, that's one
less piece of attention they're paying
to me, a person on a bike trying to get
across this road and simply trying to
get to school. It's also dangerous to
pedestrians who aren't expecting drivers
to not be following the rules and aren't
looking in the right directions when
they come barreling down the street
across the crosswalk at 50 mph. So, even
though the traffic department study
might say that uh removing these lanes
will supposedly increase congestion, I
say that, god forbid, you can't drive 50
m an hour across the crosswalk that I'm
trying to get to school on.
Reverse lanes is a problem that we all
that we created ourselves. There's no
time for continued studies, moving this
to subcommittees. It's time that we
finally act and remove the reverse lanes
today. New signage is not the solution.
That's $25 million that we could be
using to actually build walkable streets
to protect people like me trying to get
to school. Instead, it's stopped that we
it's time we stop thinking that the only
thing we should prioritize is maximizing
car output while neglecting anyone else
who's trying to get on with their lives.
But what do I know? I'm just a kid
trying to get to school. Please pass
today's um proposal.
[Applause]
And I'm sorry, we had two Roberts
registered. Robert Waricki is next,
followed by Dan Diane Barker.
Thanks. I'm going to have to read
otherwise I'll talk forever. Hello, my
name is Robert Waricki. My law office is
the infamous 1920s duplex at 2929 North
Second Street, Phoenix. If you know, you
know. Um, I'm the vice president of the
Phoenix Historic Neighborhoods
Coalition. I'm here on their behalf. I
reside in the Lahas Historic District
where I'm the neighborhood leader and I
serve on the Encanto Village with Nicole
Rodriguez and Steven Propertini. Um, I
was born here and other than when I was
away for school, I've lived and worked
between the sevens my entire life. Uh,
we won't talk about how long that is.
Um, the reverse lanes are better known
as the suicide lanes. Stop and think
about that. That's an acknowledgment of
how dangerous they are. Uh the suicide
lanes create a limited exit expressway
for commuters through the Midtown on the
Sevens to downtown. That made sense in
the late 1970s. Phoenix was different
then. Midtown was an area wasn't
defined. Now Midtown has the light rail.
Numerous highrises. Many multif family
projects of up to seven stories have
been improved throughout, including on
the sevens. uh
significantly. It's the mid it's the
encounto core. It's a core part of the
city. Uh we strive to create a workable
committee with appropriate height,
density, and intensity. And we have had
great success in Midtown. Midtown is now
populous with lots of employment
opportunities and significant commercial
and retail businesses. Midtown today
likely rivals what downtown was in the
1970s. And even in the 1970s, they
stopped the suicide lanes well north of
downtown's intensity. The intensity we
now have in Midtown. Midtown should not
have the interruption in traffic flow,
causing dangerous driving and
workarounds and posing a hazard to the
walkable city that we have been trying
to create. Today we have the
interconnected freeway system for moving
commuter traffic. The 17, the 10 goes
through central Phoenix. the 15. None of
those existed uh in the seven in the
1970s as they do today. We had one
freeway. It didn't come close to
downtown. Phoenix is much different than
it was in the 19 late 1970s. Today,
suicide lanes are misguided and wrong,
to use your words. I talked too long.
Thank you very much.
[Applause]
Diane is next, followed by Mark.
Okay. Uh Diane, we will mark in support
of the citizen petition. Mark is next.
Evening, mayor and councel. Uh my name
is Mark Howard. I'm an Arizona native
and longtime Phoenix resident who lives
off Seventh Street and owns businesses
off 7th Avenue. I'm here on behalf of
myself, my husband, Roco Managali, the
seven businesses at the Royale, and all
those business patrons I wish I had at
my businesses, but who won't come there
because of the
sevenths. Here's what I know. This
should be the easiest and lowest cost
decision you make today. This isn't
about moving a small number of people in
and out of downtown 3 minutes faster,
twice a day. This isn't about creating
more congestion on other streets. All
streets are congested in the city core.
And these lanes often create more
congestion due to vehicles stopped in
the wrong lanes, accidents, cars darting
across traffic, whatever. This isn't
about out oftowners and residents who
can't read signs. If you've ever owned a
business and put a sign up that said
don't use the bathroom. People want to
use the bathroom. So more signs are not
the answer. Plus, many intersections
don't even have signs. They just have
that illuminated green or red X. This
isn't about creating confusion. If you
were to remove the suicide lines,
suicide lanes, confusion, you can't turn
at main intersections. Oh, except
Camelback. No one can turn left in those
lanes. Oh, except buses at any time.
There's way too much confusion and chaos
already. This isn't just about the
residents and businesses that live and
work along the sevens. It's about every
resident and employee and out of state
visitors who would use or more
specifically would use those streets
every day to use and utilize those
businesses. This isn't about just
weekday morning and evening hours. It's
about every day. If they're confused
during the weekday morning and evening
hours, they're confused all day. They're
confused on the weekends. The use of
suicide lanes or outdated technology,
you know it. We need to remove them.
God, very few people who can actually
use these lanes use the lanes. The
latest figure I saw was 4 to 8%.
These lanes prevent access to businesses
who've invested a lot of money,
including myself and Rocco, over $5
million to create the Royale. We need
people and businesses to come to us
every single
[Music]
[Applause]
day. Thank you.
If you signed up for virtual public
comment and you are here in person,
please make sure that the clerk knows
that you are here in person. Uh Ed is
next, followed by Kristen.
Thank you, Madame Mayor, members of the
council. Ed Hermas here. I'm speaking on
behalf of myself as well as a Carnation
neighborhood. I'm the president of the
Carnation neighborhood which voted
unanimously to ask the mayor and council
to eliminate the reverse lanes. Um,
first got to say thank you so much to
our wonderful uh business owner Mark who
just spoke. He's wonderful. Came into
our neighborhood, built a beautiful
business and I see how the reverse lane
is hurting his business and it's hurting
our whole community in the Carnation
neighborhood. Everybody has a story
about how we avoid the reverse lanes and
how we have to travel extra miles to
avoid it. There's a gentleman who spoke
earlier about congestion on Indian
School Road on 15th Avenue trying to get
to where he's trying to go. I guarantee
you some of those are my neighbors
avoiding the reverse lanes. We have to
take three rights in order to do
something. We could go quickly just to
take a left. We add additional 2, three,
four miles onto our commute to avoid 7th
Avenue. And it's really unfortunate. Um
the city has done a really great job in
terms of building out new employment
centers in ter diversifying where our
housing is. This is not 1979 or 1981
because the city has been very effective
at getting more employment centers.
Another thing that has occurred since
1979 to 1981 is things like the
Builtmore, other areas where not
everyone's just coming downtown and
those folks have to get turn onto
Camelback Road or Indian School to get
to those employment centers as well. Uh
it was mentioned the ASU
study. It's really well done study. I'm
going to pass out if I can some of the
charts from the study. I'm holding one
up right now which talks about lane
utilization rates which was mentioned
earlier as you can see on this chart and
this is just talking about 7th Avenue.
7th Street has very similar numbers as
well. 4% lane utilization rate in the
afternoon for example. It's very similar
in the morning. What that means is
they're not being used and they're not
worth it anymore. So please vote in
favor of the petition. Thank you so
much.
Kristen is next, followed by Vicki.
Kristen would be online. Kristen Hegley,
thank you. The reverse lanes confuse
drivers and they make the street more
hostile to those outside of cars. They
treat city streets like freeways rather
than part of the fabric of
neighborhoods. We have freeways in this
area to move high volumes of traffic,
the 51 and the I17. These lanes hurt
connectivity among our neighborhoods and
businesses and have led to dangerous cut
through traffic in Phoenix
neighborhoods. It's not surprising that
no other city in Arizona has decided to
adopt the reverse lane concept. It's not
just regular citizens who would like to
see the reverse lanes removed. Melrose
Pharmacy, the main ingredient, Modern
Manor, and Monsu Market are just a few
of the dozens of businesses that support
ending the reverse lanes. Because the
reverse lanes make it difficult for
pedestrians and cyclists to cross the
street and prohibit drivers from turning
left, they impair the ability of these
businesses to welcome in patrons and
earn revenue. And as noted, the main
purpose for these lanes vehicle
throughput is really null and void,
knowing that most drivers do not use
that lane.
If the reverse lanes were so great,
Phoenix would have replicated this
design throughout the city. Yet, that
hasn't been done. Let's help the
businesses along the Sevens flourish and
make this area safer for drivers,
cyclists, and pedestrians. I appreciate
the council considering this petition,
and I know you all want to make Phoenix
a safer place to live. We cannot
continue to focus solely on vehicle
throughput while ignoring the safety of
those outside vehicles. Thank you for
your time.
also virtual. We'll go to Vicki,
followed by Amy.
I'm Vicki Guffy and I'm with the St.
Francis District Neighborhood
Association. And in addition to
everything that you've heard already, um
I the only other thing I would add
personally is that I have neighbors that
have been in accidents because of the
the sevens, the reverse lanes. Um, and I
have never seen the reverse lanes
enforced by police. Um, I think I I
support um this petition, this outdated
position uh petition and um and that's
it. Thank you.
Thank you. Amy is next online followed
by Dave.
Hi. Um this is Amy Espazito. I'm the
resident in now district 4 and uh I just
wanted to you know anything that I would
say I think has been spoken for in uh
support of uh this initiative. Um I
think I actually was planning to bring
someone and come into person but it just
didn't work out. However, this person
has moved here a few years ago, and when
I mentioned the the lanes and the
sevens, they were like, "Oh, I really
want to come. I can't I those are so
confusing, and I feel like most people,
if you would asked them on the street,
if they had the capability to to change
this, they they would if you surveyed
them, they would want that." Um so I
think just from like anecdotal um
experience um most people find the lanes
very confusing. I think it brings out
the worst of car culture of people just
getting really frustrated during the
most um difficult time to drive and um
being able to create take that space and
maybe make it more um pedestrian
friendly, which is something we've heard
in other items around um the importance
of safety and uh around pedestrians and
and other forms of uh transit. it it
just seems like more of an opportunity
than a drawback to uh change this um
this way of how we've had the sevens and
I think it would make a lot of
neighborhoods and as you've heard uh
businesses that are the heartbeat of our
city um thrive even more so with that um
I would like to give back whatever time
I have. Thank you.
Thank you. We got about four more. Um
Dave Tapley followed by Leo.
Hello council members. Thanks for giving
me the opportunity for these couple of
minutes. Um so I've lived off 7th Street
next to the reverse lanes for about 10
years now. I'm actually just going to
focus more on the data and on this 20 21
study by Burgess Eiffel that's been
brought up a few times. I'm just going
to read you the last paragraph of that
PDF. It says eliminating the reversible
lanes will partially or completely
create operational delays and increase
travel times by more than 40%. That's
the conclusion of that study. Nowhere in
that report is that 40% number actually
clarified or substantiated. I've reached
out to engineers several times over the
past few years. No one can give me an
answer for that number. It's literally
still on phoenix.gov of right now if you
look up you guys' streets department's
page on the reverse lanes. So I'm just
going to in the last minute give my
interpretation of the 2021
report on the seven street reverse lanes
5700 crashes in 5 years. That's 1140
crashes a year or just over three
crashes per day. So, what I'd like you
to think about at this time is what if a
light rail was crashing three times a
day, every day. And I don't bring that
up just, you know, whimsically. I bring
that up because per the numbers in that
report, our current light rail on
Central with a train every 15 minutes
way surpasses the capacity of McDow and
Seventh Street. There's far more seats
on the light rail than there are on
Seventh Street. So, Councilman Wearing,
to your point earlier, I'm sympathetic
to the needs of the police department
and that DUIs and traffic violence is a
huge problem, but let's be real, no
amount of cops is ever going to be more
efficient than just designing streets
that don't create crashes. That's the
solution here. So, I support this. Thank
you.
Thank you. Registered as a uh available
to speak if necessary. Uh but you stuck
it out for hours. Uh Leil followed by
Gina Thomas.
Yeah. Name is Leel Rabot, nonprofit
programs director. When I purchased my
home 13 years ago, I chose it not
because of the tiny old ranch shotty
flip house itself. I chose it because I
wanted to be part of this beautiful
diverse neighborhood. 7th Avenue Mil
Melrose District is beloved for walkable
antique shops and ever emerging unique
businesses. I wanted to raise a child
here and be able to walk everywhere like
a real city. I don't feel safe walking
with my child along 7th at all. The
sevens get treated like a freeway and
during rush hour, it's impossible to
feel safe on a sidewalk, let alone cross
as people haunt speed and misinterpret
what time it is and what the suicide
lanes signify. I only learned that
you're allowed to turn left from the
lane going the opposite way a few months
ago. I've witnessed people driving in
every direction at all hours of the day
and night. I've seen numerous head-on
collisions. I'd love to create a song
from the unique sound of the honking
patterns that people play on their horns
when somebody's going the wrong way and
they're trying to warn them of impending
head-on collision. It'll probably
feature my vocals yelling, "It's a
crosswalk. Stop."
When I drive my car heading into the
cacophony, I go out of my way to avoid
being anywhere near the lanes during the
witching hours. No matter which
direction I need to go, I draw squares
to avoid left turns. They should hand
out awards to anybody that's able to
escape the post office, salad,
McDonald's, Taco Bell, drive-through
chaos during rush hour. Our population
has grown. Traffic goes every which way
now. The lanes don't even make sense for
emptying the city anymore. Yet, yes,
during rush hour, it takes a little bit
longer to go across major roads like
Camelback and Indian School, but it's
only ever been about five extra minutes
unless there is a reversible lane
accident. Is giving drivers back that
many minutes worth the losses for the
businesses that are inaccessible during
those times and the injuries and loss of
life that people have experienced? No,
it's not. Please vote to end these
lanes.
Thank you. We have Gina for virtual and
then I have signed up for virtual but I
believe here in person Abby Tomitch. So
Gina you are next and then we'll go to
Abby.
Hi my name is Gina Thomas. Um I live at
Kimmelback and central. I'm in district
4 and my kids actually go to Rose Lane
which is on uh 12th Street. So, I am
crossing the sevens every day when I
take them to school and I pick them up
from school and I take them to school in
my car and pick them up from school in
the car because it would be completely
unsafe for me to send them to school on
a bike or uh by walking um because they
have to cross the sevens. It's a huge
barrier to our community. Um, and what I
really hate too, and I I'm not gonna
try, this is a unique thing um that I
haven't heard yet from the hours of
other people talking, and I agree with
everything that's been said, but my kids
witnessing the road rage and just like
the inhumanity that this uh creating in
people when they're angry, when people
are, you know, putting their lives at
risk, they're having to see that
horrific accidents have happened as I'm
driving them to and from school. I hate
that they see the the rage and the
carnage. Um I see like everyone does the
near misses when people are turning
left. I've seen actual accidents. And I
know some people say that if the if the
lane rules were just clear, the traffic
would flow as intended. But in this
postcoavid era where more and more
citizens seem to flout basic rules of
law with impunity, I don't believe these
lanes are ever going to work the way
they were intended. They don't now. They
never will. Um and simply they just
create dangerous situations and they
divide our community. So, please remove
these dangerous, archaic, horrific,
community destroying traffic hazards.
They they don't do what they're supposed
to do, and our community has put up with
this negative fallout of it for long
enough. Thank you.
Thank you. while Abby speaks. Um, if you
think you signed up and I haven't called
you, if you could tell the clerk in back
that you're expecting to speak. As best
I know, Abby is our last speaker. All
right. Good evening again, council
members. I'm here tonight to urge you to
finally abolish the reverse lanes on the
sevens. Let's not send this one to a
subcommittee. We need to get this done
today. These suicide lanes are a
dangerous relic. They were designed for
a different era, prioritizing commuters
going through our community over the
vitality and health of local communities
and business businesses. The data is
clear. These lanes have twice the crash
rate of comparable roads, are
significantly underutilized, and
contribute to immense daily delays due
to frequent
collisions. Five of Phoenix's top 100
most dangerous intersections are on
these corridors. The city's own 2021
study, despite its flaws, acknowledges
these lanes don't meet modern federal
safety standards. Still, it suggests a
minimum of $100 million for an upgrade.
Money that could be spent on desperately
needed bus shelters, bike lanes,
accessible sidewalks, stop bars, high
visibility crosswalks, and more. Phoenix
has evolved. We have light rail, a
growing bike network, and more. These
lands stand in direct opposition to our
complete streets policy and road safety
action plan. It's time to stop studying
and start acting.
[Applause]
All right, I believe that is all of our
registered speakers for item
107. Uh, Councilwoman Stark. Thank you,
Mayor. I I I I will tell you I have
driven the reverse lanes for 40 years. I
actually drive in the reverse lane and I
you know I I don't like driving anymore
anyway because the entire city is full
of problem drivers, problem streets.
It's not just the sevens. And we had
talked initially at tip about um the
whole issue of the reverse lanes, but I
think it's bigger because people will
find another way to get to work. And my
fear is it'll push to 15th Avenue and
12th Street, which are more residential
and central and the threes where we now
have bike lanes.
So to the credit of Councilwoman Pastor,
she said, "We need to do a more
comprehensive study. We need to look at
this." Excuse me. Excuse
me. Most of my constituents support the
reverse
lanes. If I had asked them to come down
to speak, we'd be here at 10:00 tonight.
So I appreciate your passion, but I
think we need data. We did this in 2002.
woman Stark has the floor. We did this
in 2007. We actually put together a
citizen group and what they found is
there's not a lot of head on collisions
and because the intersections are not
being utilized for left turns, they
actually become safer and it does move
traffic. Most of the accidents during
the rush hour were sidewipes. That's
people passing
lanes. I agree. People are more alert
when they drive in the reverse lanes and
I think that's a good thing. I think we
need to continue the comprehensive study
we were doing. We need to have the data.
I do agree some things have changed, but
I have always lived off of Seventh
Street. first Seventh Street in Maryland
and now farther north off of Seventh
Street. And I gotta tell you, they're
not just speeding in the reverse lanes.
They're speeding farther north on
Seventh Street. They're speeding on
Thunderbird. They're speeding everywhere
in the city. If anything, I wish we had
more motors to help us tame our drivers
and tame the road rage. And no one no
one dislikes driving on these streets
anymore than I do anymore. And it's not
just the reverse lanes, but I do think
we need to look at this comprehensively.
I agree. Now we have light rail, but we
also have more bike lanes. So I just am
never going to support taking away the
reverse lanes until we have accurate
data. Thank you, Mayor.
Thank you,
Councilman Robinson.
Thank you, Mayor. Um, a couple different
things. You know, I I started off when
we were talking about the budget earlier
talking about the sincere commitment
that Rabbi Labberttov talked about and I
see that with this group and as they
were talking, I'm taking notes and I'm
looking at the study. I truly appreciate
the passion that has been exhibited this
evening simply because it's important to
you. It's where you live. I get that. I
understand it. I think Chris Collins, he
must have left, but this is a
conversation he and I had um several
months ago and he explained to me that
the impact it was having on his
businesses. There's another gentleman
that asks somewhat rhetorically, but he
asked the question, "Which one of us or
do any of us drive the sevens to get
home or come to work?" I do every day. I
I just take it all the way from downtown
up to Missouri. Then I go east from
there. And as a former police officer,
I'm always gritting my teeth. I want to
write the tickets. I want to pull the
folks over. I see the terrible driving.
I I get it.
It's I would like to think it's
preventable and you know and I know
folks don't like to hear this but I
think with more police officers we can
get to that point. That's another issue
that that it just is. But what we're
dealing with right now is the concerns
of everybody with the sevens. my
constituents, and we double checked, my
chief of staff and I talked about it on
the way over
here, are my constituents in district
six, the ones that I have heard from are
all in they're they are not in favor of
changing out the sevens. And their
reason being, their biggest reason is
that what it will do to their
neighborhoods. They feel that it will
throw more traffic into their
neighborhoods. So, I'm I'm somewhat I
get it. I understand somewhat perplexed.
Like I said, I really appreciate what
each and every one of you have said. Mr.
Hamish from ASU made the point about
cities change. We need to change. I
think we get there with a little bit
more of a study. And I again, I know
that's not what you want to hear, but I
am not based on what my constituents are
telling me. I I cannot support just
doing away with it at this point. I
understand what you're saying. I do
appreciate it. I respect it. And I think
you need to allow us the opportunity, at
least from my p uh perspective, the
opportunity to look at it a little bit
further and see what we can do. Mayor,
thank you for the time. I will um Thank
you. Do you want to put that in a motion
or
Councilwoman Hud Washington?
Councilwoman Hutch Washington. We'll go
to Councilwoman Hunt Washington and then
Councilwoman Pastor. Yes. Thank you,
Mayor. I just wanted I I I acknowledge
that my district is not um encumbered
with the reverse lanes, but I do think
it I do have some general questions just
to help understand um kind of u because
it is clearly an emotional issue for
those that reside in that area as well
as those that do not. And whenever
you're talking about a significant
change and it's it's clear that this has
been brought up time after time. One of
the questions that I really would like
to get a little more clarification is um
what is this? We had a 2021 status I'm
sorry study completed and there were
some continuous improvements that were
recommended by that study and I don't
seem to have a lot of clarity as to
where the status of those improvements
are and kind of what the next steps are
which should be because I think that
would help the community as well
understand
um the next steps. So can you talk a
little bit about that please? Yes mayor
and council. Um that's a great question.
So, the 2021 study, which was based on
the 2018 data, did make some
recommendations for increased signage,
uh, fiber, and some other improvements
along the sevens. Um, we've done some of
the improvements as development has come
in. So, we have three of the overhead
signs now. Um, and then we have funding
in Prop 479 for that as well as other
improvements such as ADA ramps and um
general infrastructure improvements
along the sevens as part of Prop 479.
So, thank you for that update. Uh, but I
think the one of the key things I think
is missing is a a kind of a firm
timeline for the community to expect um
when these imple uh these um revisions
or changes would be implemented. it kind
of feels like it's been placed on the
back burner and I think what this is
intended to do was to elevate this issue
for us to say we've done this. I think
there is a little um skepticism on the
on
the on any decision to move it to a
study or to do anything further because
it feels like those studies are not
being um they're not being implemented.
They're just kind of sitting on the
shelf.
Mayor and council. Um given that the
Prop 479 money, we haven't started
receiving any of that money. Uh the
first uh set of money that the city will
um uh be provided is really dedicated to
the Indian school revisioning first
since the majority of that corridor is
actually on our um high injury network.
Um and then the sevens come after that.
So, if you had to, I I know you kind of
just said it will follow in sequential.
Do we have an idea of what that sequence
would look like? Is that saying that
would happen 2526 fiscal year or 2627
fiscal year? Can you give some kind of
um time frame that gives some level of
um expectations to our members, mayor
and council, as it's uh programmed right
now in 479, it would put it outside the
5-year time frame. However, as we um
work through grants and other things, uh
we'll continue to move those items. So,
as we get grants and they might pay for
more of Indian school, then we can pull
things forward.
Okay.
Can I finish please? Thank you. I'm
trying to ask. Okay. Thank you. Is there
any indic one of the questions too that
popped up for me based on what I've read
in the I won't say read what I skimmed
in the 2021 report as well as the
comments raised by uh members of the
public do we have any updated data that
indicates whether or not the accident
injury sorry the accident history is
greater in the in areas with or without
the reverse lane.
one of the uh mayor and council, thank
you for that question. So, there's a a
couple things that I can point to. Uh
one, uh the 2021 study noted the five
intersections that are part of the top
100. Uh the current data shows only
three intersections. So, we are seeing
some improvements from that perspective.
Um and one of the things that uh we're
looking at the comprehensive study to
look at is some of the things that um
Councilwoman Stark mentioned what type
of crashes how do they impact relative
to other arterials um because that's not
some of the detail that the 2021 study
looked at.
So, if we were to move forward with the
uh more comprehensive
study, if I'm
just if I had to throw out a time frame,
you're when I'm Can you walk me through
the time frame instead of me guessing
the time frame for this comprehensive
study, like what that would take? Uh,
mayor and council, that's a great
question. We already have a scope of
work. It's just being fine-tuned. And um
the plan is to have the consultant on
board by September 1st. Um and uh
options back to tip by uh fall of 2026.
So option about a year. So options back
to tip by fall of 2026. And then what
would be the implementation time frame?
Guess what I I'm trying to get to the
what I hear is the frustration from the
community is that this seems to just be
a series of studies and implementation
and not I'm sorry studies and approvals
and plans but no true implementation
prioritization.
Mayor and council. Uh yes. So our our
plan is that those recommendations would
help us form the budget and the timeline
for that. Um obviously if it's something
like eliminating the sevens that would
have a different budget and timeline as
opposed to something that had uh
different types of improvements.
And then the preparation of this more
because recommendation here is denying
the petition to allow the department to
complete a a more sorry to conduct a
more comprehensive study. with that
comprehensive study allow for more
stakeholder input such as the community
members that are here in drafting the
scope of the plan and all things
associated with that plan. Mayor and
council, that's a good question. Um yes,
I think uh Councilwoman Pastor is going
to talk to that a little bit because
we've uh chatted about that a bit. Um,
in addition, it does have outreach um to
the businesses and the community as part
of that plan. Okay. And can you give me
an answer as to
why do you believe that we just simply
can't remove this lanes as it stands
right now?
As we've seen, uh, mayor and council, as
we've seen in the the studies, um,
there's been, um, concerns with
increased,
um, time through the corridor as well as
cut through um, into the more into the
neighborhoods relative to the uh, taking
away the sevens. And so there's a lot of
various factors. In addition, when um I
think Councilwoman Stark mentioned that
there was a committee before it was very
split and so we know that we need more
relevant current data to look at to make
a a solid decision.
Okay. Okay. Well, I think my question
you said it seems like Councilwoman
Pastor may have our may be planning to
touch on it and since again as I've
noted it really um the impact to
District 8 is limited so I will yield
and I I will turn it over to Councilman
Pastor. Councilwoman
Pastor Councilwoman Hernandez.
Thank you mayor and thank you
Councilwoman Pastor. I just have two
quick questions. Um, Councilwoman Haj
Washington uh touched on that on the
study on the time frame. Um, I was a
little unsure of like where to land on
this, but I've heard from numerous
residents of District 7, even though we
don't have the reverse lanes, um, along
Grand Avenue, there's a big impact to
traffic and, you know, I have residents
that are business owners and and live on
Grand Avenue or other areas of the city
that are impacted by this. Um so really
curious
on just to confirm the comprehensive
study has started or the scope of work
has started um to identify an updated
report
mayor and council. Yes. Um we have
drafted the scope of work to hire the
consultant to do the the study. Okay.
Thank you for that Brandy. Um I want to
be very clear that um the report that we
have that was issued in 2021 looks like
was done off data in 2018 which was
prior to significant growth that we have
seen in the city. Um especially in that
area right I think park central has seen
a double a 200% increase in um residents
and population. Um, so I would hope that
we can find a quicker or find a way to
streamline this to happen. Um, because I
am supportive of eliminating the the
reverse lanes, but I also want to be
mindful that we do it where we're not
creating unnecessary impact to the
residents across the border
businesses. Thank you.
Now, Councilwoman Pestor, thank you. No
problem. Um I'm have no issues of my
colleagues asking all these questions
and it affects uh three districts uh in
the space of the reverse lanes. I do
want to say congratulations to Derek. Um
that's a milestone and now you're going
to your next next one to accomplish. Um
I do before I really say what I have to
say I want to give a little history. In
1980 I moved into my neighborhood.
reverse lanes were in existence then. I
learned to drive. I learned to drive on
reverse lanes. Um my kids
today are learning how to drive in
reverse lanes. Um the question was
asked, do I drive reverse lanes during
rush hour? Yes, I do. I live in the
neighborhood and I live in between uh
those areas. And uh I have learned over
the years how to manage the reverse
lanes in the sense of not using them and
and moving myself in different parts of
that during that time.
Um the other piece is and someone
touched on it. I ran for office in uh
2007 and lost. Uh but I was uh mentored
or who helped me during that time was
Doug Linger and I was trying to go back
in my memory on the reverse lanes and he
was one an advocate of removing the ver
reverse lanes. Uh the situation that he
was in is that he didn't have the votes
to remove the verse
lanes. Then I ran for office again. Then
I decided to run for office again. And
once again, uh, uh, the reverse lanes
were part of the district. And at that
time, uh, my opponent, I was getting hit
hard, uh, in the central and the sevens
because I would not commit uh, to
getting rid of the reverse lanes. Uh, my
opponent says, I'll get rid of the
reverse lanes. Boom, boom, boom. And I
got there was a debate back and forth
between us and somebody finally said why
what what's your issue with the reverse
lanes? And my issue says I don't have an
issue with the reverse lanes. I'd be
willing to get rid of them but I don't
have five votes to get rid of them. So
I'm not going to make a promise that I
cannot
keep. So to today we are having this
debate and uh I don't have the votes to
get rid of reverse lanes.
What I do want to tell you is I have
worked with a collective, a small
collective regarding the reverse lanes
and we have talked about a comprehensive
study and we have been uh moving that
piece. Uh I also want in this
comprehensive study is to look at all
the growth that has happened within
Central and the outside of Central and
7th Avenue and be able to uh incorporate
what we anticipate to be built. There
are 3,000 units that will be built in
the next 5 years. That's more people.
How will the traffic patterns affect
everybody in the
neighborhood? Um,
so here is
my here is my
um
motion. But before I go there, we're
there is a conversation about a 2020 ASU
study. There was a 2020 ASU study that
was done. It was done by a graduate and
it was never signed off by an engineer.
Um, but it does have
good data and I agree with the data
because I also worked with Dave Riley
who uh was able to show me those that
data and then from there I asked staff
to work with the group to build a scope
for this comprehensive study.
Um, and I'm just giving you history of
what has been happening and what we've
been doing regarding the reverse lanes.
What I do want to happen in the study is
really the impact of rever removing the
reverse lanes from Missouri to
Mcdow because that's district
4. That's also the impact that is
happening on Melrose. That's what we
heard from the businesses
and that is really where I um some of
the to really look in that core area of
what would that look like? My colleagues
could still have the reverse lanes
within their district, but as soon as
they hit Missouri, then we will move
into a regular traffic pattern. That's
what I would like to see.
Um, so my motion
is to direct STE Street Transportation
Department to conduct a comprehensive
study that will
evaluate all traffic impacts from 19th
Avenue to 16th Street and McDow Road and
Denlat Avenue, in particular from
Missouri to Mcdow.
Staff will meet with the petitioner
within the next 30 days to obtain
specific input on the scope of work for
the study. The department will present
the findings of the study to city
council subcommittee by December 2026
for direction on how to proceed with the
recommendations. That is the motion.
Second. We have a motion. We have a
second from Councilwoman Hernandez.
Discussion. Roll call.
Yes.
Hernandez, yes. Haj Washington, yes.
Pastor,
yes. Robinson, yes. Stark, yes. Wearing,
yes. GGO, yes. Passes 8 Z.
Thank you. We have one agendaized item
next uh left and then public comment. Uh
for public comment uh we have some
individuals who would uh speak first if
you are here but we need to know if you
are here. We do not see you. Cahosi
uh Tony Harris Kashindi Kabukula Gregori
Mcpani Mark Shazer and Simon Waro I'm
sorry about my pronunciation. If any of
you are here if you would let the clerk
know in the back. And now we will go to
item 108, which is a citizen petition.
And we will begin with Jeremy, the
citizen, the the person who put the
petition forward. Uh Jeremy will be
followed by Nicole and then Stacy.
Thank you. Um I appreciate everybody
staying and hanging in there. It's been
a long
night. I also appreciate being included
in the uh today's agenda, but I must
express some serious concerns with the
staff report. uh rather than address the
core issues raised, land use, equity,
resource allocation,
transparency, it repeats the same
talking points that got us here in the
first place. Let's be clear that golf
consumes nearly 1,000
acres, up to 20% of parks developed
lands
turf while serving the city's by the
city's own data. When you look at it by
national statistics, less than 2% of
residents, 20% of land, 2% of residents.
What other department would we allow to
have one out of every five acres serve
one out of every 50
residents? The report claims golf is
self- sustaining, but that only works if
you pretend the land is free, ignore the
water subsidies of millions of dollars,
and forget the $15 million bailout from
other parks by selling land. In the real
world, no private business could operate
a golf course with a billion gallons of
water and a thousand acres of land and
only break even. And while the report
celebrates 427,000 rounds played, it
never tells you how many people that
actually is. But national statistics do,
the National Golf Foundation says that
the average golfer plays 20 rounds a
year. That means 20,000 to 30,000
citizens are getting exclusive use of
20% of developed parks
lands. This isn't about attacking golf.
It's about whether this is still the
best use of public land and public
dollars in
2025. I urge you not to accept the
framing in the staff report at face
value. Ask questions. You're allowed to
right now.
demand data and consider whether we're
upholding our values of equity,
transparency, and public stewardship.
Thank you.
Thank you. Nicole is next, followed by
Stacy.
So, my memory runs long on this topic.
And before tip was called TIP, I
remember when Councilman Wearing was on
a similar committee asking similar
questions about our municipal golf
courses. Um, and so in support of uh
what Jeremy has today, I'm not the
subject matter e expert as he is, and
it's okay. You don't have to look at me
right now. Uh, but I have some
questions. Um, does parks consider
municipal golf self
sustaining? Would golf still be self-
sustaining if it paid even a modest rent
or true water cost? No. Um, but you
could answer that. Um, could a private
operator run a course sustainably under
those same
conditions? How many acre feet of water
does the entire park system use
annually? And what is the total cost um
to parks annually? Um, I mean, to be
honest, we're fiscally conservative in a
lot of ways. A lot of this advocacy that
we're fighting for would actually reduce
a lot of the um budget constraints that
we have. It's really disappointing when
they're not actually being listened to.
Um, so here's another question. Um, is
it that pro approximately 15 to 20% of
Phoenix's develop turfed u parkland? And
lastly, the the past uh the next three
is can parks identify any other parks
program or amenity that consumes as much
land while serving so few residents.
Would parks agree that golf nationally
remains
disproportionately white and male? Um,
has the city analyzed the demographics
of golf courses used by race, gender,
and income? Because we know this amount
of land can also be developed for homes
to serve as urban heat space, uh, urban
heat mitigation space where all of us
could go and access it, not just the few
privileged.
Thank you. Stacy will be our final
speaker.
I'm just really hung up on the amount of
acreage and the inequity piece and and
especially the water piece um in in the
city that has seen uh an increase in
heat deaths year after year, including
last year, but that's another story.
Um, I don't understand why you guys
haven't dug into it. Like I I don't
know. I mean, from all of the especially
from the water
piece, the best use of space piece, is
it serving the public um broadly in a
way that is I don't know that the most
people benefit from it? So, I I think
you should ask a lot of questions.
Thank you. And I I'm sorry, uh, Kim, you
we have you on the next one. I don't
have you for golf courses. Okay,
perfect. So, I I had poor word choice.
We have three speakers on item 108, but
we still have full, uh, call to the
public. All right, so that concludes
testimony on item 108. Uh, Councilwoman
Stark. Thank you, uh, mayor. I move to
approve the staff recommendation and
deny the petition.
Second. Thank you. We have a motion and
a second. Any discussion? Councilwoman
Hernandez. Thank you, Mayor. Um, I just
have a question for staff. Um, do we
have do we have demographic data that's
collected at the city owned and or
operated golf
courses? Good evening, mayor, members of
the city council, Councilwoman
Hernandez. We do not track demographic
information for any of our programs
including golf courses. Okay. Um
follow-up question on the environmental
impact side. Do we have data around
those pieces? So water usage, land
usage, like any environmental impact
side. Do we have data around that?
Council Hernandez, we do have data in
terms of how uh much water we use and
what we pay for water. Uh all of the
golf courses use SRP water or well
water. Okay. Can I get that sent as a
followup? Absolutely. Council,
thank you. Roll call.
Yes. Hernandez,
no. Haj Washington, yes. Pastor, yes.
Robinson, yes. Stark, yes. Wearing,
yes. Passes 71. Now we go to the final
portion of our meeting, citizen comment,
and I'll turn to the city attorney to
introduce this item. Thank you, mayor.
During citizen comment, members of the
public may address the city council for
up to three minutes on issues of
interest or concern to them. The citizen
comment session is limited to 30
minutes. The Arizona open meeting law
permits the city council to listen to
the comments, but prohibits council
members from discussing or acting on the
matters presented.
Thank you. And I believe we have seven
comments for this portion. We'll begin
with Hill Ernnandez, followed by Nicole
Rodriguez. I do not see Hill. We'll
begin with Nicole Rodriguez, followed by
Diane Barker.
All right. Thank you, Mayor. Um, just
want to mention something here. Um, a
question is how many of y'all have
actually stood on this side? Um, I know
Councilwoman Anna Hernandez has and I'm
almost certain that Councilwoman Annne
O'Brien has. I know at the state level
she has. Um, and uh, tonight I feel that
we're very disconnected from one
another. Um, so one of the things I I
came up here to speak about is we need
y'all to show up, your staff at least,
to show up to the Vision Zero meetings.
And they're very infrequent,
unfortunately. They're only once every
two months. And I've gone to every
single one and I've yet to see staff.
Well, I believe actually Councilwoman uh
former Councilwoman uh Yasiman, sorry,
had staff. Um but this is something
that's so critical. We need y'all there
because it's this information's not
coming from them obviously to you guys
for one thing. Um also, we need council
offices in our communities. I don't care
if it's a popup tent or whatever it is.
Um there is this perception that council
members sit in an ivory tower and have
this direct constant access where we
have to go through a lot of red tape
through security or ask questions about
the intent and purpose of us in our
public building. Um but maybe that's for
good reasons that I don't know about.
But what I'm asking for y'all is to
start coming to our communities, have a
station placed there so we have better
access to you guys. Um, and you know,
lastly, what I want to say is we need
y'all's help in participating in the
National Week without driving that's
coming up the end of September, early
October. The future um is not driving.
Yeah, we're getting more development.
we're getting more density and the
future is deciding not to drive. Um so
please um you know consider before that
time getting on a bus, meeting the
people who don't have time for your town
halls and coffee talks. Get on a bus and
see what it's really like once you get
on and off as a pedestrian. what it
feels like to sit in the heat, if you
could bear it, for these long inf these
infrequent um you know um commutes that
in the middle of the daytime you wait at
minimum 30 minutes to get on a bus. Do
it. I ask I beg you to do it. These are
the people who just don't have time to
come to meet you. They're never going to
probably be here. Um, so please in
support of when National Week Without
Driving comes, think about what it's
like to be on the other side of things
and maybe we could get rid of that
windshield bias that I consistently hear
about. A lot of people aren't making
these choices. This is about, you know,
the quality of life things that maybe
they're subjected to, but those who do
make a choice, it's a huge cost-saving.
It really is um when you can give up
driving. So, I'll leave it at that, but
I am begging you guys. Thank you.
Thank you. Diane is next, followed by
Kim Baker.
Good evening, Mayor. And I'll be pretty
brief. I have two points. One, I want to
thank you, Mayor and Council, and Anna
Hernandez. I'm in your district and I
really look forward. You seem like
you're a very informed
woman
to the fact that Mayor Kate, you've put
on a very transparent and public active
meeting. I wish we could bring Thomas
Galvin who I was at his earlier meeting
and he is suffering from having a big
disconnect for not attending to ADA. The
woman had to have the fire department
come and get her because he wanted her
to come to the mic and she was in a
disability. He does not allow anybody to
come on like you do Mary Kate where you
can use the WebEx although they will
allow their officials to come by WebEx.
So I I want to say that and I'm very
impressed with the knowledge of uh the
public that came in regards to the
traffic issues. And now I'm asking you
mayor and also our uh city manager
Barton and anybody that goes to MAG is
that they need to be more transparent in
the public because there
are comments that come in and I don't go
to MAG anymore because I don't agree
with this that we can't hear. The mayors
can hear but we can't hear because they
weren't there in person. And if they
think that when they just go out on an
issue, they usually have a consultant.
That's another thing I say. When
government wants to keep on doing
studies and they get a consultant many
times they end up not for what the
public has said
renowned about the issue but it's what
this that was the uh political idea and
the paid consultant it comes up to be
that and that's the modes you have just
been suggested and And I always think
they're
incentives to do something other than
the single occupancy car. And this whole
thing even councilwoman Stark said when
she drives drives drives. Then I heard
also when I drive I'm hearing what I'm
hearing you guys just always go single
occupancy vehicle except you tell us to
be multimodal.
I'm asking you to do to walk the talk,
be model, use your modes, and also we've
got the worst air quality out in Mville.
I've been out there in the last two
months several times. It's all cars.
Although I went on the bus and yes, it
was suggested you need to have more bus
shelters there. Thank you.
Kim is next, followed by Stacy.
[Music]
Excuse
me. I have a I have a a
petition. Thank you.
It's It's good to be
back.
Um, April 16th of this
year,
the office of the
uh, attorney general sent me this email.
They was looking at
the citizen petition I had before I had
the
stroke. They it never it never got
finished. So
now it it it needs to be looked at.
I sent
it this today
because they never went through with it.
I think
Pastor Laura, she she voted to to go
forward, but they never
did. Open meeting law violation.
Now I I
attach
and that
Edward to this
petition. And uh I
want the the chief who just
resigned to to be looked
at
because this this letter was
dated April
16th. He
left a pro
appropriately. Why? because he didn't
want to answer what had happened to
me, dealing with a biased crime against
me. So now he's
leaving.
Okay, leave. Get on out of here. But I
want
answers
because it's
wrong. So, thank you. I I submitted it.
I look forward to finding out what has
happened. Thank you.
[Applause]
Thank you. Stacy is next, followed by
Devon. So, I'll just use this time for a
little bit of transparency from what was
said before. One, I was not part of any
meetings about a scope. I would love to
see that scope. Um I also don't
necessarily trust that it'll be any less
biased than the last scope or the last
study was especially because I believe
that people who want to see um progress
like the just current well now former
streets director just kind of get pushed
out. So, um, maybe Bloomberg could do
the study or somebody else, but I don't
think that we as a community have a lot
of trust and faith in this kick the can,
move the goalpost
um, city. But, uh, my council woman
never messaged me and asked to meet with
me uh, about a scope of work for a
study. I wouldn't have been supportive
for another study because we just had a
study. There were people here who were
doing this along with me back in 2010.
Um I also just think it's absolutely
bonkers that uh you you didn't hear one
comment in opposition today. Like if if
your people and your people are are also
like so passionate about this, where
were they? They could have been virtual.
They could have been here. They could
have been on the phone. Like where are
all these people? Um you know, like in
every one of those news uh surveys, it
was like 85% wanted them removed, 50%
no. So, I mean, I wasn't kidding when I
said like I can walk away with grace at
this point. And personally, I I hope
that I don't know that something can
maybe happen, but I do I do not believe
that you're going to have a study that
isn't terribly biased like the last one
was. Um because I don't think you guys
really give a Honestly, I don't.
So that's all.
Thanks. Devon is next, followed by
Jeremy.
Is Devon with
us? Jeremy is next.
I'll say anything else I have to say in
court. Thanks.
We are
adjourned. Our preschool uh Brett Tarver
where many of our students began their
learning journeys. And while their
building may change as we see now, what
remains