13:30:22 Welcome back everybody, welcome welcome welcome.
13:30:16 I hope those were good productive conversations I want to thank everyone for your time, your energy or excellent thoughts today, encourage you to come back to other focus groups.
13:30:27 We will certainly be circling back with some of you to continue on with some of these recommendations.
13:30:33 I'd also encourage you to come to other focus groups.
13:30:37 And lastly, another plug to please please please fill out our survey so that we know who we're reaching, and who we are not.
13:30:46 There's always a lot to do I love getting the right people in the right rooms to have these smart conversation so thanks for being a part of it and we'll see you next time.
13:30:54 Bye everybody.
13:30:56 Good afternoon.
13:30:58 Have a good rest of your day.
13:31:20 How to go walking by people like their club anyway.
13:31:27 Did everybody stay in the same room for both sessions, know the.
13:31:32 A couple people switched around I think we only had three the first one and then to the second one. And of course I was like well do introductions they're like we all know each other well I don't know you.
13:31:49 That's hilarious.
13:31:51 They're like, No, we work on, we're like on committees together I'm like okay with me.
13:31:58 Jeff How did yours go. Good.
13:32:03 I think most of the people knew each other I guess it wasn't as tight of a group but it was mostly Tim Brown telling us a little bit about and TMP stuff, you know, some stuff, tie division zero some of their plans, some questions about AR T and left hand
13:32:23 turns.
13:32:26 One question about landscaping, if there was only one little bit about landscaping.
13:32:34 In medians.
13:32:37 But yeah, I mean it was, I tried to, it was pretty thorough I took pretty thorough notes, and I think it was good, if you had the dry, I even yeah there were some, some stuff where people are like oh well, is, is this something I can bring up in this
13:32:52 focus group or should I wait till the next one.
13:32:56 So it was, it was, but it was definitely driver focus I think that even when it came to the Vision Zero stuff.
13:33:10 There was questions about how the Vision Zero initiative is going to try to target drivers so I thought that was, well, not targets.
13:33:13 Are you sure.
13:33:18 Interesting. Yeah. Interesting.
13:33:23 One thing so we haven't.
13:33:26 During this breakout room we didn't get really like workshopping recommendations.
13:33:32 But we are definitely going to end up at something that has like we have all these 34 foot wide neighborhood roads, and everyone hates the sidewalk. So I think our 20 year goal is going to be to install green belts, get an ADA, things like that, in our
13:33:51 five year goal is going to be like clear communication with the neighborhoods about like how much paint that can throw down before they get in trouble.
13:34:01 Like, and you know see where those because like at least where we did the walkout if the solution is so multimillion dollar Lee obvious that it's like, yeah, we're just going to eat into this world there's no reason we don't need it.
13:34:14 I mean, we'll talk to property owners, but like, that's not the concern it's we can just narrow that, um, but I mean we have one person on walk out and say, why bother even doing that will just walk on the sidewalk just makes me know we'll throw some
13:34:27 paint down and like, I'm comfortable walking here anyway.
13:34:30 And, you know, there are some issues to consider with for the city Yeah, but.
13:34:38 So that's we're we're getting there.
13:34:42 I'm recommendations which is nice.
13:34:46 That's good, that's good. I yeah I have found on the one hand that that these are
13:34:57 really pretty productive sessions in in breaking down silos, but I'm, I'm a little nervous that we're, you know, we're going to start working through all those comments and be like what we really need is another focus group with all these people where
13:35:20 I'm wondering if because I I don't know what I said.
13:35:27 I don't think I got the opportunity to say, like, we should all meet in like workshop that particular. Yeah, yeah, yeah. and I'm.
13:35:36 There might be a way we can do that digitally.
13:35:39 Yeah.
13:35:40 Yeah, I was gonna say yeah, it feels to me like, you know, we'll have all this contextual information all this good stuff that I think that can help support something like that but yeah I mean, I feel like, you know, with some of it's just going to involve
13:35:56 working very closely with one of the staff right.
13:36:00 Let's just work through this. Yep.
13:36:02 Yep.
13:36:04 Yeah, I think you're right and and that's what me is for.
13:36:11 Yeah, well in there are, it's going to be interesting because like with within this breakout, it was like oh we have Tara, who re.
13:36:19 Look at all this writing that's done.
13:36:22 Um, but then we also have Perry believes that the city is very proactive.
13:36:30 And he had some like nice projects to back that up. But like wasn't as centered on the near heights, as we would have hoped.
13:36:41 And, you know, he has some good examples of being productive they also said he spends 90% of his time responding to 311 calls like that's not, That's the definition reactive.
13:36:49 Right, right. Um, and like and I don't want to I'm not trying to pick on him, but it's.
13:36:57 I mean, it will be a real learning experience as far as like, what having the right person in the right job can do for these kinds of recommendations.
13:37:06 Yeah. And the thing is that it's like, oh, this would be a five year goal but it's going to be a 10 year goal because this person is going to retire by the time.
13:37:15 And the thing is that it's like, oh, this would be a five year goal but it's going to be a 10 year goal because this person is going to retire by the time. Well, it also brings to mind Jeff counselor burrito at one point was asking, I don't I can't remember the year in this meeting and I also don't really
13:37:24 there you're in this meeting and I also don't really remember what the meeting was, you know, presumably about but she was on, she was on a tear about training of staff and, like, do we get any training and surely we need the right training and this feels
13:37:41 like one of those things that's like when you get someone in these positions in their 20th of 2015 years.
13:37:46 When there's money in the budget and an expectation that you continually get trained on what you really should be doing in your job now not when you started 20 years ago but you know where, where the world has moved on to it seems like that's one of those
13:38:02 bigger picture connections that's kind of needed like you could be doing more you could be.
13:38:10 There are ways to be proactive.
13:38:12 If you're thinking about how to be proactive but it takes energy. Yeah, you know, that brings to mind to kind of this discussion we're having with Councillor Pena in regards to creating a grants office, you know i i don't know why Petra and I keep kind
13:38:29 of trying to do what we can to apply a little bit of pressure to the administration to put in a budget for this but we just keep hearing from you know a lot of different folks that the city is just leaving a lot of money out on the table when it comes
13:38:44 to having having, you know, just be able to apply for so much more funding that I think will support a lot of these departments work. Absolutely.
13:38:54 So, anyway, yeah.
13:38:57 Yeah, and I also thought just occurred to me that I know Family and Community Services for example,
13:39:06 someone just brought up that there's money for homeowners to repair their roofs, not to have a new roof, but just to make Roof Repairs Well, is there a way that they can get money to repair their sidewalks, because that they're supposed to.
13:39:20 They're not going to they don't have the money to but it's, it's huge right and that's a public good so Can, can we offer the same kind of assistance for that, that, you know, when you get a 311 call hey my sidewalk needs to be repaired you're like yeah
13:39:36 and you're on the hook for it and here's a way to get help or a rebate or whatever.
13:39:46 Um,
13:39:48 this is like a little myopic have made. Um, but related to that.
13:39:54 I need to have, well, eventually we're going to need to talk to Vanessa at one see about their grant program for neighborhoods.
13:40:01 It's the kind of thing that it was like two people who might live in the same house responded to the survey and said that that was a difficult.
13:40:08 But like, they wanted to place making projects and I had neighborhood leadership being like I got paint my garage right now and I'm like well I'm not gonna say anything if you spell it like, yeah, I'm
13:40:22 probably not what is the employee should say sorry I didn't say that I did not say that the, the big thing is somebody mentioned in one of these meetings recently that like eta money had dried up.
13:40:35 Like, um, like the Fed federal money for like planning and economic development and like
13:40:44 that stuff was falling from the sky. A year ago I mean like, you couldn't you could. I saw some of the applications that were turned and they were not good.
13:40:54 And they were like yeah, fully funded no problem and so is it that the funding dried up or is it that we don't have a branch office.
13:41:03 Um, yeah, I don't know I.
13:41:08 All I know is that I feel like it. The big part of it is like understanding that there are folks that already work within each department who have the institutional knowledge in memory on all these things right, but they don't have their their, you know
13:41:23 know people that are doing their day to day stuff that they don't have time to apply for this stuff. So, that's right. I think it's about matching their institutional knowledge with like some capacity in a grants office to say, Okay, well we'll, we'll
13:41:37 identify the grants will identify the need, we need you guys to help out with compliance and, and all those other reporting and reporting and
13:41:54 I'm.
13:41:54 That's an exciting prospect.
13:41:56 I did get a question and this is something where like, we're just going to Penny near heights, it's the way it is.
13:42:04 But, there have been a couple things now we're a recommendation about like having a 20 to 40 year sidewalk rehabilitation plan city wide or citywide education about people experiencing homelessness and things that like, We're going to have citywide recommendations
13:42:27 that we could write them, so they were specific to new heights.
13:42:33 But why Yeah.
13:42:36 And so I don't know if we just like hold on to those for four years because that seems a little excessive.
13:42:44 Um, and I'm hoping they'll be matched with near heights specific ideas, you know, um, That's just another thing to kind of keep
13:42:55 on the radar screen.
13:42:57 Yeah, I think it's appropriate to make recommendations that would be citywide. That, to me, sounds like an action that can be added to the comprehensive plan, you know, as something that, that the city should be working toward.
13:43:12 And I think it's illuminate if you know from where I said it's illuminating to see what of these problems are not unique, and need kind of that city wide approach versus the ones that need to be tailored to this area.
13:43:28 So, yeah.
13:43:30 Full stop.
13:43:32 Enough for today thank you thank you I just can't even tell you how appreciative I am of the heavy lifting that you guys did today I
13:43:43 sat here was busy doing other things and it was great, so I'll do one of the next ones.
13:43:52 I was looking ahead a little bit because we don't have one tomorrow thank bucking God.
13:44:03 Preach Crease do.
13:44:03 And it looks like the next one's parks, I've invited Sylvia, to help us because there's going to be for breakout rooms.
13:44:13 I don't know she can do an evening one but I haven't invited her for that.
13:44:19 The public safety I was not going to do breakout rooms because it's just all so inner connected I'm a little nervous about that.
13:44:27 But I just, I don't know. Do you guys have thoughts about that.
13:44:32 Is it going to be like, just too many people in one place and it'll get so boxy or do you think we can manage the conversation just topic by topic.
13:44:42 Is that something, and having never been the person who has to deal with zoom rooms.
13:44:48 This is just an idea, but if it does get to like we have people who like are all heads up about traffic enforcement.
13:44:57 And then we have people who really want to talk about homelessness, or over policing, or you know like the actual something oh yeah traffic. Right.
13:45:09 Yeah. I didn't even. That's so funny I didn't even think about traffic.
13:45:14 It's not even on my list, like it's all about homelessness in the parks alleys crime.
13:45:27 Showers and bathrooms adding those behavioral health meals lighting stray dogs like traffic didn't
13:45:40 fall on my list.
13:45:48 People want speed traps Yeah.
13:45:48 Yeah. So, the point though I mean a public safety issue so nebulous i feel i don't know i mean either we try to parcel that out and approach it ahead of time or we just kind of let it happen organically but I.
13:46:03 It really depends on who shows up, I think. Yeah, well, it might be, um, you know, often like well we've got 15 members of the public, because that's a big number.
13:46:15 And like five of them are just people are speeding down over at our drive, and it's crap. And that's what they want to talk about like, is it possible on the fly to be like Hey, Officer crappy community these people.
13:46:38 Sorry I don't know anyone public safety. Um, but like, all right, I mean, and I don't necessarily I mean, I don't want to throw them under the bus either as far as like hey can you do this on the fly.
13:46:46 But I'm, or I mean in the.
13:46:50 It could happen somewhere else, like homelessness versus.
13:46:59 There's I saw a lot of concern about like break ins and things.
13:47:03 And it's some of it I feel like our Area Command guys like roll with stuff. It didn't roll with stuff.
13:47:13 And say like, what are your top issues out of these and. Alright, we're going to do a 20 minute breakout room and you can show the sky about traffic enforcement or whatever.
13:47:24 Yeah, I think I should send an email to the to our area commander and say can you make sure you've got someone there who can speak to traffic enforcement.
13:47:39 Because I think that's the one that might peel off all of that, like, speeding and
13:47:47 drag racing drag racing all that stuff feels like a little bit off to the side and everything else I think break ins.
13:47:56 I would hope that the conversation about break ins is is also going to be talking about the kinds of root problems which are also poverty and, you know, sometimes mental illness or drug addiction or whatever so I would want that to all kind of be part
13:48:13 and parcel of the other conversation with
13:48:18 Marty Ella.
13:48:22 So, and I guess if we just did to we could do 30 minutes sessions again and just say you guys talk about traffic you guys talk about everything else.
13:48:33 And then swap.
13:48:36 And we do have me you and Carrie down for that, which is technically enough people, even if we do that to breakout rooms.
13:48:44 But the, the area command.
13:48:50 I'm
13:48:50 my also just be able to say like, and we can do it all at once, or, you know, because like they they talked to people out.
13:49:00 I was gonna say I'm happy to. If you have Carrie in there that's, that sounds good, but I'm happy to attend to because I, I do have a little bit of background on the, at least on the homelessness side of things with this one so yeah I think if you're
13:49:15 available, it would be great Jeff and I will always take your note taking skills like hey, I don't know, I, I just take notes I always it takes me another session to go back and clean stuff up but, yeah, try to be.
13:49:32 Yeah, I appreciate it a lot.
13:49:36 Well anyway, so I think we've got enough folks on that and then resilience and sustainability will have another for breakout rooms so I've also asked Sylvia to join us for that.
13:49:47 Okay. Right now there are only three people signed up for resiliency in transit and land use transit I'm keeping all together.
13:50:00 I don't think breakout rooms are going to work for that and then for the idea one.
13:50:06 I'm going back and forth in my head.
13:50:10 I could see two breakout rooms, but I could also see it just being one long conversation advantage of the breakout rooms is, like, let's pretend Gary I still shows up and she's very excited about.
13:50:25 I'm always delighted to see him, but he's very good about about baby.
13:50:30 So we're going to spend 20 minutes talking about how big windows should be on Central, right, we need to put that in a different room. Right. And I think that might be another because I mean like I'm happy to go to the Zoom Room with Gary and be like,
13:50:43 tell me your thoughts about Windows and just write them all down I can do that.
13:50:48 But I think that one's going to be an interesting mix of like business owners and economic development people who can talk generally, and people who are dog on a bone which is Yeah, this is their thing, the, Oh god parking in the ideal might come up.
13:51:07 I'm really hit maybe I mean it totally, we thought people were going to show up to talk about homelessness and no one did. So I mean like there's no, no, who's good at that right, people didn't at the housing one know there to talk about homelessness,
13:51:24 or the gateway center.
13:51:26 No, No, not a lot of talking shop which was nice.
13:51:48 But yeah, we thought that was going to be packed and just fascinating. No.
13:51:40 The Gateway center came up in the idea HTC meeting.
13:51:46 Um, there seems to be some action around it, I feel like I should reach out to some of those people and be like, What's up guys, I'm thinking. Yeah.
13:51:56 But you know, I also don't want to look like a mole for the city or anything but I'm so like people are talking about it just not to us.
13:52:06 Okay.
13:52:08 I was, Jeff, I was telling Rebecca that I started today with a somewhat disgruntled meeting with a PS folks.
13:52:17 They were they felt a little blindsided and put on the spot with things and we're like, now what are you going to recommend that we do and why are you telling us what to do.
13:52:29 So, little bit of reframing there I wanted to just ask this, is there anybody else that we've interact with interacted with whether city department or anybody else who is similarly like, What's all this now.
13:52:42 So anybody been.
13:53:00 You only the only person that comes to mind is way early on when I got involved and it was Robert Nelson, the I don't know if you remember that Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
13:52:54 But beyond, beyond that I everybody else I've interacted with seems pretty, pretty good with things so. Okay.
13:53:14 Yeah. Okay. Senior affairs is on board now I know they missed the meeting but I'm Deb runs a dog rescue, so we're boo. And she's like, well, either me or my directory I'll get back to you and if we create, appreciate it so sometimes that's all it takes
13:53:22 is identifying that common denominator for us all. You know, you know, I just, yeah, I've struggled with that department they don't quite understand why we care about what they're doing and why we're why we keep inviting them to things you know they're
13:53:37 just like, well, what what would we have to contribute, or whatever, like well and I did have a specific ask which was nice, which is the Parkland village meeting.
13:53:48 Oh yeah.
13:53:49 And so that's what they're on board for now. And then when I told her I'm like, and you know there's another one coming up and she's like oh so this is going to continue it's like we're building relationships to last.
13:54:05 And we just want to keep getting the word out about all the good work you do. And I'm.
13:54:12 See that was 45 minutes of bringing them around but they, I think are on board, okay and join us on the six, which I'll send you that information because it's posted on the website but I haven't gotten an actual invitation but they're expecting both of
13:54:23 us. Okay. Oh, okay.
13:54:27 I'll go. That sounds fun.
13:54:31 So one of the things that that APS was like you know if you would send us people's comments, we would prepare responses, and I was like, You mean the comments that I sent and asked you to repeat those comments, they're like, yes, you would send them like
13:54:46 whatever so I think for next month when we do Southwest Mesa, they'll have done it once and they might have thoughts now about hey I would have loved to have this information to give people or.
13:55:02 I know it's going to come up again here's what my actual response would be, and, Hopefully, again, building those relationships to last.
13:55:11 This is they shouldn't be shocked. After a while, about what the public asked for and asked about, and we will build repositories of information and how cool that would be.
13:55:24 The other thing that because Ito was like fired up about is he's like, we have committees to coordinate these things.
13:55:32 Like, why didn't those come up and I'm like, well, because nobody but the people on those committees knows that they're there.
13:55:39 So, I you know anybody who's interacting with us is learning things, and it should get better over time. I do feel like what we're doing is valuable so hopefully people will hang in there with us I know housing is really really anxious family Community
13:55:57 Services it's really really anxious about when we're scheduling Southwest Mesa, cuz they want to be given a little bit more heads up which I would love to give people more heads up.
13:56:10 But yeah, I think I'm talking to you mostly Jeff because if the counselor start asking me like how things are going or whatever I feel like we're
13:56:22 for a first effort we're rocking this. I mean, I really think we're, you know, this is a huge lift and we're doing everything we can given pretty shitty circumstances.
13:56:33 But I think we're setting ourselves up for a good process going forward so I was gonna say that I feel like, you know, we even had our, you know, our check in with Cancer Center today and you know i i think that from the counselors that I've talked to
13:56:50 so far about this I think they understand that this is a capacity building effort that this is not just about what comes out of those action plans. This is very much a process so I'll just, you know, be sure that we communicate that well with the other
13:57:07 counselors as we move forward so.
13:57:11 Yeah, and I think, like I've said I mean if nothing else,
13:57:16 communicating an expectation to the other departments and agencies that these are the kinds of things that they should be responsive to.
13:57:24 And these are the kinds of things that affect others.
13:57:27 and that you might want to coordinate across departments, is that's ultimately going to be helpful.
13:57:36 So, comfort Gibson was our member of the public from for the homelessness focus group which was very sweet, But I'm hoping that means she's on board to.
13:57:49 And I know that some of her more vocal and appreciative constituents like the ones she likes to hear from also like us, so that's nice. That is nice. Um.
13:58:01 Speaking of family and community services, Heidi wanted us to follow up to talk about some recommendations is Sean wanted me to be sure to invite you, Jeff.
13:58:11 If there were other conversations going to have them like with that, like,
13:58:18 I know we're deferring this until the focus groups are done but I was thinking I might just schedule that one with us, for, for the week after they're done, because it was like yes, email me and I'm like, well,
13:58:36 and it seemed like a specific enough conversation that even if we're going to continue. Obviously we're going to continue coordinate with the whole department like is that appropriate Have you heard other things from them that we should try to scoop it
13:58:46 into one.
13:58:48 I haven't heard anything else but I'm yeah I'm happy to attend those.
13:58:56 So feel free to invite me to those awesome. That's great. I had a moment.
13:59:02 So, Rebecca, Jeff you know this well but Rebecca.
13:59:07 The process for the budget goes the department's.
13:59:11 Well, it comes time for the departments to, to ask for next year's budget, and the administration tells them.
13:59:22 You need to cut 10%, or you can ask for the same thing, or if you're going to ask for more. You have to write us issue papers.
13:59:30 And so,
13:59:33 So you know we asked for some money for the, for this process, because it wasn't in last year's budget.
13:59:44 And, and gets cut right at the 11th floor, and then Council has a chance to ask questions, and a certain amount of time to respond to those questions so so Shana strategically asked Hey, kind of noticed that you cut all the funds to the CPA process how
14:00:04 are you going to do a meaningful outreach without, without any money.
14:00:10 So of course, those are sent to me right to answer that question, and I got to answer this question of. So if we don't get money. We will not continue the assessments and instead, all of the long range planners will become mid range planners and we'll
14:00:24 just be purely reactive.
14:00:28 Is that true though.
14:00:31 If we don't have money we don't do this how do you do this without money.
14:00:35 We have staff.
14:00:38 Yeah, but we're not going to feed people, we're not going to have, we can't buy Miro, we can't buy interpretation services we can't translate anything, I refuse, I refuse to do that with no money.
14:00:51 So, so that was hilarious. And then there was a there was another question about.
14:00:59 Do we have a.
14:01:01 a.
14:01:02 Do we have a source for funds, if you know what what's your plan where are you going to get money from and, and, and I was like well we have no plan for funds, so no plan on that.
14:01:17 If we were to need funds here's how much funds we,
14:01:24 We would need this much money
14:01:28 you've had that right.
14:01:31 Oh, 3% contingency. I'm trying to.
14:01:34 I'm trying to build up the first year we've done all this on $57,000.
14:01:41 And so, but that was only two CPA is so I built in a budget that was fairly similar a little bit more to do three CPA next year but
14:01:53 we want to be able to put gas in the plan, bam, it would just sit there, or maintain it. So, yeah.
14:02:00 So really just sit there we can't even like get oil change that some of this stuff could be you know there's no.
14:02:08 It's hard to track like an ROI on this right you know like we could ask for whatever budget and it's just, it's not going to, we can't really articulate the value that we're bringing to the city you know and and it's scary to me because if I were just
14:02:26 a purely financial person this is a money losing proposition, like, we've had, how many staff to public ratio for these calls like it's ridiculous. From a from a purely like government waste perspective we are wasting money but if you consider that those
14:02:45 city people are not just there for the public there to coordinate with each other, and that the work is actually. Oops. The work is actually getting done.
14:02:56 Well, you know that's a pretty efficient meeting to get everybody together for an hour and a half and solve problems. So, Yeah, so
14:03:05 I kind of have my fundraising hat on, not for us. Sorry, but I was thinking because of timing wise and insanity it hasn't worked out for me to send those pre assessment summaries.
14:03:17 Yeah, I was gonna ask if I should send them as like a thank you.
14:03:22 Like the week after I was like, thank you so much for participating. Here's a summary of what we did and by the way we also did this public outreach now you have it all.