[0:03] Okay.
>> Good afternoon.
[0:08] Sorry, we we're starting a little late.
We didn't have our name tags and
[0:11] » we don't know who we are.
>> We don't know who we are if we don't
[0:13] have those.
>> So, welcome to the Mesa City Council
[0:16] study session for August 17th, 2026.
M uh Mayor Freeman is out of town and
[0:22] excused and council member Adams is
excused. All other council members are
[0:29] present. Uh item number one is to review
the agenda for tonight's meeting. I know
[0:34] we went through this agenda previously,
but there are there any additional
[0:39] questions or followup.
[0:46] Wow. Seeing none,
item number two is to acknowledge the
[0:51] receipt of board minutes. Do I have a
motion? Motion
[0:55] from council member Heredia, second me
from council member Taylor. All in favor
[1:01] say I.
>> I.
[1:02] » Any opposed? Motion passes unanimously
with the mayor and council member Adams
[1:08] excused.
All right. Well, at our last meeting, I
[1:13] think we were pressed against time, so
we couldn't get through things. But
[1:16] today, we have a little bit of time. So,
con current events and conferences
[1:21] attended. We have a few minutes. Who
would like to start?
[1:26] » Somebody went to a conference.
[1:33] » All right, I'll start then. So on uh
Wednesday, we I attended an annual
[1:39] breakfast at Summit at Sunland Springs.
They do a celebration of the first
[1:43] responders. Police and fire comes in
attendance there. Uh so they they host a
[1:49] breakfast for all the first responders.
the crews rotate through uh and get to
[1:53] meet uh uh with the folks who are at the
summit and better circumstances than
[1:58] they would otherwise have to attend. Uh
today uh there was a big one today. So
[2:05] today we met with the fire department,
members of the police department. We
[2:09] have a young lady in our community that
we celebrated uh 16-year-old
[2:14] Leia Jackson.
She taught herself CPR at the age of 10,
[2:21] watching videos and practicing on a
teddy bear. Uh, unfortunately, there was
[2:28] a member of the Wisconsin National Guard
who was visiting our community who
[2:33] collapsed. Leia went immediately into
action and began CPR. I got to tell you,
[2:40] if you saw this young lady, she's this
tiny framed young lady and the soldier
[2:44] is giant and the fact she did effective
CPR uh just showed a lot of leadership
[2:52] and what it means to be in a community
to to be safe because I'll tell you this
[2:58] touches me in a couple ways. One, I'm a
veteran of the military myself is is a
[3:02] tight-knit community. So, the fact that
she took action like that, my wife is
[3:08] also a veteran of the military. She grew
up in Wisconsin, so we had that
[3:12] connection. By the way, my wife
outranked me. I'm legally obligated to
[3:16] tell you all that. It was in our wedding
vows. [laughter]
[3:20] Um, but you know, in addition, as a
firefighter and a paramedic, uh, you
[3:25] know, I've been on many of calls like
like this where no one takes action.
[3:30] Maybe they called 911, but when you show
up on a call and somebody's doing CPR,
[3:36] you look at that and go, we have a shot
at this one. And so for her to take
[3:40] action like that was absolutely 16 years
old to teach herself CPR was act
[3:46] absolutely incredible. Uh, Brigadier
General um Brian Anderson and his entire
[3:52] command staff uh flew out from Wisconsin
to present her with an award which was
[3:57] absolutely fantastic. So, uh, I see
Chief Camelly out here. Uh, I know that
[4:02] I think your social media has posted
some photos. If you're interested in
[4:05] seeing the story, I do recommend it. Uh,
but it shows that that first chain in
[4:11] the in the link of the link in the chain
of survival is critical because we we
[4:16] and we really appreciate our own
community uh, investing in our public
[4:21] safety and we see some of that today.
We're going to be voting on some
[4:25] communications equipment which ties in
uh Lucas device which performs CPR for
[4:30] our people. All of this is an investment
in our community, but it starts with
[4:35] young ladies like uh Miss Johnson. So,
now that I've gone way beyond my time,
[4:40] who else has something?
>> I'll No. Are are you ready? Okay. Um
[4:47] I'll talk about a few things that
happened last week, the week before
[4:50] last. I attended Arizona Forward Water
Rising to the challenge. Um some and
[4:57] council member Taylor was there. Was
Adams there? I'm not.
[5:02] » Yes. And Adams was there. Um and it was
a discussion about the impending cut
[5:08] cuts um on the Colorado River. Um so it
was a really um good discussion because
[5:14] the information had just been released
that there's going to be cuts to our
[5:18] state and our city. Um um that week also
we many of us attended the 233 grand
[5:26] opening on West Maine. East Maine. East
Maine. I have to get used to things
[5:31] opening up on the east side. So we had a
big celebration for Crust, which is a
[5:37] restaurant, Italian restaurant. Yes,
they have pizza, but all kinds of pastas
[5:41] and salads and yummy food. They have a
speak easy called Night and Gale. um a a
[5:47] little shop that sells uh bombolinos
that sells coffees, gelato, uh bakery
[5:53] items, um Italian bakery items. Very
good. And unscripted by Hyatt. And so
[6:00] all of those we just had the cut the
ribbon for all of those to officially
[6:04] open. They've had us off opening in
July, so they're officially open now. Um
[6:10] the Hyatt shared with me that
reservations for the first year um were
[6:17] 20% off. So they were telling me even
during spring training if there is a
[6:22] spring training [laughter]
that room um will be like under $100 a
[6:28] night. So like they said but once we
fill that quota we'll be done. So, it's
[6:32] a great way to stay in downtown, be
acquainted to these restaurants a short
[6:38] walking distance of the Mace Arts Center
and the rest of downtown. I'm very glad
[6:42] to have um them on board. So, 233 East
Main Street. Um on that Friday, I also
[6:50] attended the 226-1 paramedic graduation.
Trying to remember who was there. Were
[6:56] you there summers? No,
>> no, I was.
[6:59] » Okay. I think Adams was for a little
while. and the mayor was there. So, the
[7:03] paramedic graduation
uh last week on Tuesday, I attended the
[7:09] um there was a a roundt on the road to
housing bill that was passed by Congress
[7:15] and these are incentives um from the
federal government to increase housing
[7:20] um and ways to for cities to obtain
additional CDGB dollars for affordable
[7:25] housing um in in a competitive way. So
there will be information coming out on
[7:33] that. The cities have not been briefed.
I don't think we've received guidelines
[7:37] directly on exactly how this is going to
work. It's just more of an incentive to
[7:43] build more housing
um
[7:48] and ways that we can encourage the the
building of housing. And then, oh, um,
[7:56] over the end of last week, I went to the
ASU summer policy summit. ASU puts on
[8:02] the, um, Morrison Institute puts on an
annual summit and talking about all
[8:09] kinds of critical issues. We talked
about water, housing,
[8:14] Alicia, that you were there. Um,
there was a couple um, data centers. We
[8:19] talked about air quality.
um there might be something else. So, it
[8:25] was a day and a half of in-depth
conversations from experts and
[8:29] professors and industry professionals on
these subjects. And over the weekend,
[8:34] there's the Mesa Film Festival in
downtown at the convention center. Um
[8:39] all kinds [clears throat] of independent
films. This has been coming to our city
[8:43] annually. I really appreciate all the
work that goes into holding this event
[8:48] in in downtown Mesa. That's it.
[8:54] Yeah, that was a great um public policy
summit at uh that the Morrison Institute
[9:00] put on for a couple of days. Good
discussion on Thursday and then panels
[9:02] on Friday. And I also attended on
Thursday, I believe the cones with a
[9:06] cop. Just wanted to give a shout out to
the Chick-fil-A on Power and Mckelps as
[9:10] well as Mesa Police Department for
always showing up for the the community
[9:14] we made and gave away free ice cream
cones. So that was a big hit. So, thank
[9:20] you to all the officers and Don Blake
for organizing that. Amy Sailor. So,
[9:25] » Council Member Taylor.
>> Yeah,
[9:28] » thank you. Uh, I'm going to go back a
little while. Um, at the end of July,
[9:33] Council Member Duff and Mayor and I got
the opportunity to visit the United Food
[9:37] Bank because Niagara Bottling Company
had donated, I think it was like almost
[9:42] a million bottles of water for their um,
million meals for the summer. So, I just
[9:47] wanted to say thank you again publicly
to Niagara Bottling for being so
[9:50] generous and shipping in tons of water
through the United Food Bank. Also, the
[9:54] United Food Bank is a local food bank
operating operating out of um the
[9:59] downtown Mesa area and they feed they
have fed over a million families this
[10:03] summer. So, I think that's a pretty big
deal. They are a big um community
[10:07] outreach entity. It's a not for-p
profofit and I encourage anybody if you
[10:11] have some time you want to volunteer,
they always need volunteer hands to put
[10:14] their um their bags together to send out
into the communities. And then I
[10:20] attended the Arizona Forward Water
Symposium with Council Member Duff and
[10:24] Adams. Yep. I'll just mirror what
Council Member Duff said. It was very
[10:27] educational. We had just learned about
the cap cuts and I think we're going to
[10:31] continue to learn more. We haven't
officially got the results, but they're
[10:35] pretty solidified at this point. just
what's coming down the pipeline, no pun
[10:38] intended. Um, and then lastly, I was
very excited. I attended a ribbon
[10:43] cutting for um, Brookfield in my
district. It's a senior care facility,
[10:48] but I thought this was pretty awesome.
They've been open for a while, but they
[10:52] had all of their staff kind of
regardless of the position that you're
[10:55] in um go through essentially a heart
health certification so that when some
[11:01] of the senior citizens that are there
might feel like they have some chest
[11:04] pains, may exhibit symptoms of having a
heart issue, instead of them immediately
[11:08] rushing them to the emergency room and
potentially, you know, utilizing beds
[11:13] that might otherwise need to be used by
somebody else, they their staff is more
[11:16] qualified to understand what are these
symptoms, what are the conditions
[11:20] they're coming from, and address them
there on site. So, they kind of had like
[11:24] a second grand opening for this very
celebratory moment that everyone had
[11:28] been certified at such a kind of a
prestigious level. So, that was the
[11:31] Brookfield in my district and I was just
really proud of everybody for all the
[11:34] work that they had put in to basically
offer these individuals exceptional
[11:38] care. And then I had the pleasure of
visiting the Boeing facility which I
[11:42] thought was pretty amazing and I got to
see where the Apache helicopters are
[11:45] made and I just
>> I will not take up this entire session
[11:49] but I have to say I think my jaw was on
the floor and the just the sheer process
[11:54] in the in the way that it is um
articulated so perfectly and it all
[12:01] happens here in Mesa. They walked me
through Howard Hughes acquiring the
[12:04] land. I mean you guys it's amazing. So
anyhow, I was very grateful that Boeing
[12:08] gave me the time to, you know, tour the
facility and learn more about the
[12:12] incredible manufacturing that's taking
place there and how special it is. So
[12:16] yeah, thank you.
>> Absolutely.
[12:19] All right. My wife just text me that I'm
in trouble. Okay. Thank you, Sergeant.
[12:26] Uh Mr. Butler, future meetings and
absolutely. Well, it's hard to follow
[12:31] that and and I know the Boeing seeing
the facility is Yeah. pretty amazing.
[12:35] We're so honored to have Boeing.
>> Flight.
[12:37] » Oh, I'm sure I'm sure they'll take you
up on that.
[12:40] » Yeah,
>> I'm here for you.
[12:42] » Well, speaking of things that'll keep
you busy over the next few days, uh we
[12:46] uh are cancelling study session this
coming Thursday morning because several
[12:50] of you will be attending along with a
thousand plus of your favorite elected
[12:54] officials from across the state the
Arizona legacies and uh towns conference
[12:59] at the Arizona Builtmore. So, uh, we
will not be meeting this Thursday so
[13:03] that, uh, council can participate in
that, but we'll be back here a week from
[13:07] that Thursday, Thursday, August 27th for
a study session that morning at 7:30.
[13:13] So, thank you, Vice Mayor.
All right, that's the end of our agenda.
[13:19] Is there a motion to adjurnn? Motion by
council member Taylor, second by council
[13:26] member Goforth. All in favor say I.
>> I. We are adjourned. See you upstairs.