Special Meeting

City of Elko ) County of Elko ) State of Nevada ) SS May 17, 2022 The City Council of the City of Elko, State of Nevada met for a regular meeting beginning at 4:00 PM, Tuesday, May 17, 2022. The meeting was held via GoToMeeting and in the council chambers, 1751 College Ave., Elko. This meeting was called to order by Mayor Reece Keener. The public can watch the meeting by phone, tablet, laptop, or computer by going to the link provided on the agenda. Questions can be sent to cityclerk@elkocitynv.gov. I. CALL TO ORDER The Agenda for this meeting of the City of Elko City Council has been properly posted for this date and time in accordance with NRS requirements. II ROLL CALL . Present: Reece Keener, Mayor Mandy Simons, Councilwoman Chip Stone, Councilman Clair Morris, Councilman Giovanni Puccinelli, Councilman City Staff Present: Diann Byington, Recording Secretary Jan Baum, Financial Services Director Curtis Calder, City Manager Jeff Ford, Building Official Cathy Laughlin, City Planner Michele Rambo, Development Manager Jack Snyder, Fire Chief Dave Stanton, City Attorney Dennis Strickland, Public Works Director Bob Thibault, Civil Engineer Ty Trouten, Police Chief Scott Wilkinson, Assistant City Manager Kelly Wooldridge, City Clerk III. PLEDGE OF ALLEGANCE IV. COMMENTS BY THE GENERAL PUBLIC May 17, 2022 City Council | Minutes Page 1 of 12  Pursuant to N.R.S. 241, this time is devoted to comments by the public, if any, and discussion of those comments. No action may be taken upon a matter raised under this item on the agenda until the matter itself has been specifically included on a successive agenda and identified as an item for possible action. ACTION WILL NOT BE TAKEN Mayor Keener read a statement. Dusty Shipp, 959 Montrose Lane, said this meeting is very important. It isn't just builders effected by this. We are here to ask for change. We are not here to fight. We have been asking for years for change but we don't feel like we have been heard. We hope for a step forward to a resolution. His understanding of this meeting was an open dialogue workshop on how to fix the problem. If you look at City Code, it is designed for us to work together as a team and be proactive in finding solutions to problems. There has never been a project he was involved with that was seamless. There is always a problem and things change. We have to be able to come to staff, follow code and make changes. We are here because that is not happening. The process has become so challenging that we are having delays on projects they have never seen before. We are here and speaking up on behalf of everyone that is effected. In the Mayor's opening statement, he read off his reason for having this meeting. He said the word reset. We are all very frustrated. Staff and those in the public have been frustrated. We are asking to stop the fighting and reset. The challenge he sees is, looking at the agenda, we are starting off with the City Attorney. He wonders what we are being faced with and everyone is in a position of defense. It sets a tone for everyone to not have an open discussion or dialogue. We see the writing on the wall of how this meeting is going to go. He wasn't sure why the Fire Marshal is giving a presentation. No one is trying to break the rules or do poor work. Every builder in Elko is trying to do a fine job. We do not fly-by-night, come into town and throw stuff up. He has been attending Council Meetings for the last several months. It is apparant that Council Members show up and they are handed all the prepared items for the meeting. That is all prepared by the staff. If staff wants to direct things, they can write a directive to do just that. We have been asking for change but staff is the challenge. The leadership in place has been sending out the no-can-do no working together attitude that the other departments are adopting. This is a very public matter and this is the first time we have been able to talk about this in public. We want change because we are in a housing crisis. We are trying to deliver more but we are being forced to cut back. Every other jurisdiction we are building in, it is a total different world. If he could build in just the County he would stop building in the City. He challenged Council to change this because it is their control. He asked where they made the mistake asking for change or the political reason we can't have change. Who is in charge; is it staff or elected officials? Are we advisaries or partners? Shouldn't we have the same goal? Mayor Keener responded to Mr. Shipp saying that if we are going to have a productive meeting, everyone will have to get honest. Many of the situations we see today are self-inflicted wounds and that is why staff asked for these presentations. Government has an important roll of ensuring quality. That is for the benefit of the consumer, lender and the developers. He called for more public comment. Mike Stephens, 376 Lookout, Spring Creek, stated he had a meeting with Mayor Keener and Mr. Calder two years ago. He had some concerns about how the departments were violating City Code. Nothing has changed since then. We avoid conflict with the departments. They are super difficult to deal with. You say we need to have this meeting and it needs to be productive but it isn't going to be productive in the way the tone has been set. May 17, 2022 City Council | Minutes Page 2 of 12 Chris Johnson, 123 Woods Court, said today is a real opportunity for the community. He had the opportunity to be an elected official. He felt the City should have meetings like this at least once a year. He understood why the items were on the agenda today. We need to know all of our roles in development. Can we do better, yes. Is there a policy specific to the interpretation of the code, yes. These meetings are to help us find that sweet spot. Government moves slowly and there are reason why. Once you get into government, it starts to make sense. This is a complicated process. Doug Bailey, 780 W. Silver St., said his main concern is that as we talk about policy set, he doesn't understand why that policy can't have adjustments in it, even concerning the master set of plans, the conditions and changes. The builders are trying to build a custom home off a master set of plans are doing it to save time and expedite the construction phase. We get customers asking if they can move a refrigerator over, we will have to tell them no unless they want to wait another 60 days to move in. The department says that WC3 only takes 5-7 days but that is not true. Just a simple thing of moving a refrigerator or creating a linen closet, we have to resubmit. That is what they are given; resubmit a full set of plans and then we will review it and then send it to WC3. WC3 will send it back with comments that have to be addressed and it gets sent to the architect. The architect does their work and then we start all over. This is all because of a refrigerator. You easily burn up 2 months of resubmitting. Why can't the policy about the resubmittals be looked at and addressed. We have great department heads and they all work hard. What constitutes a change on a master set and why does it need to go to WC3? The staff reviews the stand alone plans but why can't they review these small changes? Jim Bailey, 3857 Autumn Colors, said, for most of us, we have had a good long-standing relationship with staff that he has worked with over the years. He felt this was a policy issue mainly. In the past, if they were asked to make a change to a product, they did it. It is important to them to produce a quality product. We have not been given a grace period as they have been given in the past. We get stop work orders and reported to the contractors board without being warned or told what was wrong. Instead of saying we will work on it, we are just shut down. Now we are told we will not work with you and submit to WC3. We resubmit and get a list of more things we need to work on. The City has worked with them in the past and set that precedence but that has all changed now. With this new process we are supposed to follow, we are scrambling to get that process taken care of. The problem is not the cost of the permit fees when submitting for a plan. The problem is the process and policy. John Ellison, 438 S. 5th Street, explained he was trying to build a project. He got a taste of this issue when he submitted plans and got back 9 pages of fixes needed. He felt those 9 pages were going to kill his project. The building department helped him get through the process. He used to sit on the Contractor's Board for several years. The contractors in this town are the best there is. Some of the biggest problems we have in this community is unlicensed people. He felt this was a good start. Mayor Keener asked if there was anyone online that wanted to comment. There was no response. He asked if anyone else wanted to comment. Aaron Martinez, 742 D Street, said one thing he has learned in his career is if you want to be hated, be part of the building department. This started when the City of Elko adopted the 2018 Building Codes. He was not a fan of that adoption. They are thick codes. These plan reviews are ridiculous and staff May 17, 2022 City Council | Minutes Page 3 of 12 is enforcing it. There are two sides to every story. This plan review is extensive and it is the way going forward. The narrative that the staff makes is public record. It is basically interpretation of code and break it down line by line. The liability is on the engineers and contractors. Those engineer and contractor stamps make them responsible. Luke Fitzgerald, 446 Crestview Drive, thanked Council for having this meeting. This market is crazy right now. There are a lot of challenges that we face in our business and life. Some flexibility would be nice if a customer wants something changed. He has worked really well with the building department. Interest rates are climbing by the minute. A 2-month delay may make that house unaffordable. The cost of construction is increasing. He was hoping we would sit down and work together to see what the different triggers are. What triggers a revision to the plans. What triggers us having to redo our plans. What triggers custom plans vs. reuse plans. We need to know expectations. Things have been done a certain way for years and suddenly it stopped. Mayor Keener said this is the start of a process. John Sorensen, 810 Idaho Street, Stewart Title, said 40 percent of their business has been new construction. It has dropped with everything that has happened. He hoped staff works with the local builders. As a title company, if we lose these builders, it is hard to get other builders approved with the underwriting. Jim Winer, 2378 Khoury Lane, thought he had a different perspective. He no longer has a dog in the game because he sold his business. He no longer develops in the City of Elko. There is a reason he doesn't develop in the city anymore. At the time when he filed his formal grevience with the City, most of the development community knew what he was going through. He hopes something that comes out of this is for the betterment of the community. From the grevience he filed, he used the term there was a cancerous situation in the City of Elko. It hasn't gotten any better. He saw there was no change coming and decided he was done. It didn't use to be this way. He is developing in the County right now. He loves working with the County. We only have a fistfull of developers right now. To lose one would put a dent in the housing supply and we can't let that happen. We have a housing problem and with that comes an employment problem. We need to figure this out for the betterment of the community. We aren't asking for shortcuts or the cheek to be turned. They are asking for respect and the ability to work together. Catherine Wines, 421 Railroad Street, Architect, pointed out the people that write building codes write them ambigously. The people that write them understand that situations are different in different parts of the county. They are written to have some flexibility. The City of Elko says they are just following code but there is no flexibility. There are certain things that have to be followed. Local jurisdictions decide where they want to be flexible and what will be the highest and best outcome for the community. The intention of the code is for communities to decide for themselves. Mayor Keener felt it was good to get information like this. Steve Tenny, 678 W. Silver, thought the City needs to focus more on the non-confoming contractors that come in without licenses. Everyone in here pays thousands of dollars a year on their licenses and these guys are sneaking in here and sneaking back out without any problems. He went to California May 17, 2022 City Council | Minutes Page 4 of 12 to do a job and before they set up the project the police came in and checked their licensing. There is a heavy demand for contractors right now. The city has treated him pretty good and can't complain. Jessica Minton, 255 6th Street, said she and her husband supply a trade to the General Contractors in the room. Nevada has the toughest licensing obligations to be met between Nevada, Idaho and Utah. We are vetted and bonded. The amount of work that can be produced in Elko is better than in many other communities. The contractors board makes them jump through a lot of hoops to get licensed. Mayor Keener statement (Attached). V. DEVELOPMENT WORKSHOP A. Presentation by Dave Stanton, City Attorney regarding the Uniform Code and Equal Rights, and matters related thereto. INFORMATION ONLY - NON ACTION ITEM Dave Stanton, City Attorney, said he appreciates what the contractors and the realtors and the others do to contribute to the growth in the community. He wanted to explain the legal landscape of these issues. A lot of the comments he has heard over the last hour were helpful to him and he has not heard anything that he thought was an unsolvable problem. The City of Elko is authorized to enact a building code and regulate the construction in the City. Elko has adopted a number of uniform codes. Cities are able to do things in addition to the uniform codes. The City Codes have to be germane to a legitimate objective of the City. These objectives have to be considered by the City when making decisions. These codes can not be written in a way that creates a system that permits arbitrary discrimination. The Equal Protection Clause was adopted in 1868 and says, "no state shall deny to any person in its jurisdiction, the equal protection of the laws." That clause has been interpreted by courts to include what we are talking about here. That means that if an exception has been made there has to be a reasonable distinction for making that decision. We try to write our codes in such a way that they are tight enough that city officials know how to follow them and the community knows what to expect. City government has the ability to allocate resources. The problem comes up when you have an ordinance that doesn't contain a standard for fairness and certainty on how it is going to be enforced. That applies to waivers and applying them fairly to everyone. City officials cannot play favorites but that doesn't mean that city officials can't make judgment calls. The city official implementing that code cannot say they are not going to enforce it. They cannot deviate on a case by case basis or they violate the equal protection clause. Although City officials can have some discretion, the manner of enforcement has to be evenly applied. There are probably things we can do with our code to address the issues that have come up. There has to be an objective standard so everyone can be on a level playing field. He wants to work with everyone. He would like to see some specific ideas of what we can do with the code. B. Presentation by the Nevada State Contractors Board, and matters related thereto. INFORMATION ONLY - NON ACTION ITEM Presentation to include several sections of the NRS and other requirements for contractors. Michael Phillips and Paul Rozario, Nevada State Contractors Board, gave a presentation. May 17, 2022 City Council | Minutes Page 5 of 12 Mayor Keener asked if they have any employees in the Elko area? Mr. Rozario answered our closest office is in Reno. If there is a complaint they will dispatch an investigator to the respective area. Mayor Keener wondered if they receive a lot of frivolous complaints. Mr. Rozario answered they do receive a number of complaints that are not as serious as others but there are some that are very serious. The law requires they open every complaint and investigate it. C. Presentation by Nevada State Fire Marshal's Office, and matters related thereto. INFORMATION ONLY - NON ACTION ITEM Lt. Rodriguez, State Fire Marshal, introduced Albert Ruiz. Albert Ruiz, State Fire Marshal, gave an introduction on what their office does. The statute that governs what they can enforce is NRS 477.030. They are limited to certain types of facilities. There is an interlocal agreement where the City of Elko Fire Department will handle inspections of the facilities that fall under the State Fire Marshal. D. Presentation of Elko Building Department Statistics (5 Year), and matters related thereto. INFORMATION ONLY - NON ACTION ITEM Mayor Keener asked Jeff Ford if he gets many complaints about unlicensed contractors and how are those complaints handled? Jeff Ford, Building Official, answered if someone files a complaint we go and investigate and usually leave a stop-work order. Curtis Calder, City Manager, gave a presentation. E. Identification of City-Specific Development-related issues, including any Planning, Building, Fire and/or Utility Department challenges and/or obstacles, and matters related thereto. INFORMATION ONLY-NON ACTION ITEM Mayor Keener asked Jeff Ford what he saw as being some of the biggest bottle necks for his department. Jeff Ford, Building Official, answered the biggest problem is building outside of approved plans. There is one builder that is the biggest offender. He thought that was why everyone was present. Councilwoman Simons clarified what he was speaking about people that got plans approved but decided to make changes out in the field without getting approval. If someone is building a house but want to change a sliding door to a different door, what constitutes submitting a whole new set of plans? Mr. Ford had a guideline he handed out. May 17, 2022 City Council | Minutes Page 6 of 12 Scott Wilkinson, Assistant City Manager, said there was a huge difference between locating the refrigerator vs. converting something to a walk-out basement. Councilwoman Simons agreed and hoped that everyone present understood that you could not just do that. She thought people were here for the gray area. Mr. Ford said we may not be following NRS when we make these changes without getting them approved. It is a big deal and it is wrong. Councilwoman Simons agreed these are issues. Some builders have been known to make the changes and hope the City doesn't catch it. She didn't think that was the majority of the builders. Mr. Ford said if you build per plan there will never be an issue. You can come in and apply for a stand-alone plan with a new set of plans if you want to build a house and then make changes during the build. The intent is that the plans match the construction. Councilwoman Simons asked if things are being submitted to WC3 but they are not coming back within 3-5 days. Doug Bailey answered they will submit, the plans will come back with comments and they have to submit again and wait another 3-5 days for review. Councilman Puccinelli wondered if using the master plans would streamline that process. Mr. Ford said Code allows for a 90 day turnaround. WC3 has 5 days with residential plans for a turnaround, and 10 days for commercial. Casey Berry, Building Permit Technician, explained the process of plan review. When using a stand- alone plan and changes are requested, they only need to submit the page for the changes. Councilwoman Simons added it was the master plans that required the entire plan to be submitted for a change. Is that our policy, state statute or what? Mr. Ford answered it was a policy started by the previous Building Official. Some jurisdictions do it and some don't. Dave Stanton, City Attorney, said this is all stuff that could be added to code. Mayor Keener thought WC3 has a lot of professionals. If he had something approved that he sent in for a small change that gets reviewed and sent back with pages of comments to be addressed. Mr. Ford said they try to catch things the first time. Doug Bailey said every time he resubmits they have additional pages (minimum of 5) that come back. He asked if that was the policy? May 17, 2022 City Council | Minutes Page 7 of 12 Mayer Keener answered that came from the previous Building Official. Mr. Ford said this has been abused so many times that he wants to do away with it. Casey Berry wondered if there was something she could do on her end when they take one of their master plans and turn it into a stand-alone. Moving a refrigerator, changing a door, or whatever, let WC3 know this was an approved master plan. Maybe let them know there are just a few changes from this master. WC3 doesn't know what is going on otherwise. Mayor Keener asked if WC3 does all the plan approvals themselves. Mr. Ford answered they do it all themselves. Jim Bailey asked if the plans were for a stand-alone and they submitted a small change such as making a window bigger, could Mr. Ford approve that change himself without giving it to WC3. Mr. Ford answered if nothing changes structrually, then yes. Jim Bailey thought a master plan was pointless unless you could tell the buyers they could not make any changes at all. Mayor Keener stated WC3 wanted to make a statement. Chris Kimball, WC3, said he has worked for the City of Elko since 2013. He understands everyone's concerns. We really do our best to provide the best service possible. We try to turn these around quickly. If there is a change to a set of plans, and we are sent the whole set of plans, you will get several pages of comments. We try to make it as easy as possible to make corrections. We don't make comments to justify any fee that we collect. If we are told early on that they are just moving a refridgerator, then they will look at just that and not the entire project. We are here and people can always call us. Mayor Keener asked if Mr. Kimball has heard similar complaints from clients that are using 2018 building codes. Mr. Kimball answered no. The biggest complaints he hears are from those building in the City of Elko. We try to help and he was not sure why it has been such a burden going from 2012 to 2018. Casey Berry thought the confusion seems to be when a master re-use plan is being converted to a stand-alone. When she gets the new plans, that triggers a new fee and a whole new review. That is why WC3 is doing a whole new review. Doug Bailey wanted to know what really needs to go to WC3. If it is nothing structural and just cosmetic, why does it need to go to WC3? Mr. Ford answered they are sending everything to WC3 because they don't want the customers to wait. May 17, 2022 City Council | Minutes Page 8 of 12 Doug Bailey asked again why Mr. Ford couldn't approve small changes. Mr. Ford answered if they are going to change it they will have to send in a new set of plans. Doug Bailey asked City Council to have a policy that not every little thing has to go to WC3 with a $1,400 fee to save time. Councilwoman Simons pointed out that if all these little changes needed to be approved by Mr. Ford, then they may not get their plans approved as quickly as WC3. The plans are sent to WC3 in order to get the approvals back to them as quicly as possible. Mr. Ford stated that all these plans can be handled as a stand-alone plan and then all the changes needed could be made. Jim Bailey said they would still have to pay the stand-alone fee. The benefit of having a master plan on file, you don't have to pay an additional fee. Mayor Keener thought the master re-use plan would have options that are already approved. Jim Bailey said they don't have all the option available that homeowners want. They all become stand- alone. After listening today, our only option here is to to a stand-alone plan. Scott Wilkinson said the master re-use program is not intended to have changes repeatedly occur. It can become unmanageble. It is intended for spec homes. If you are not in that program then do custom homes. There is a discussion that goes on between builders and buyers where options are presented that are not approved. In the end it becomes an issue and we get calls from the buyers asking why we are the bad guys. We now have unpermitted work going on. From the onset there was an intent to build without approval from the City. Ron Farney, City Building Inspector, said moving a refrigerator can be a problem. Not everything is simple. It is a cause and effect. Dusty Shipp said the issue here is not about avoiding fees. We are fine with the 2018 code adoption. The reason we are here is the attitude of “how do we fix this,” is not the attitude of staff. Together we have a team that would work on bringing this together. When we submit plans at the beginning, it takes 2 - 3 months. WC3 is not the problem. The reason we want the master plan to be an option is because we can get a permit within a couple of weeks. We have things that trigger change but we don't have a way for these changes. The issue is the attitude that breeds in the staff. This is not a productive and helpful environment. He would like to see a hybrid of the master plan that can allow for small changes here and there and not force the builders to start over with new resubmitted plans. Mayor Keener said the building department is implementing city policy and code. That is what government employees do. He asked if Mr. Kimball from WC3 if other communities have the issue we have with re-use master plans? May 17, 2022 City Council | Minutes Page 9 of 12 Mr. Kimball answered there are a lot of jurisdictions that don't have a master program. He had never seen it get to this point in other jurisdictions. If we can clarify what some of these changes are so they can streamline the issue. When we get a new set of plans we think it is a new project and treat it accordingly. Catherine Wines, 421 Railroad Street, appreciates WC3. She felt it was more of an attitude that makes it difficult to work in the City. She implemented a surcharge for work in the City of Elko because it is harder to get work approved. There are attitudes and nasty emails. She used to like working with City staff but now she feels like she is being treated like she is the enemy. Greg Martin, Realtor, said what we heard here tonight gives us cause for lots of challenges and the opportunity to recognize there is a cancer in staff. There is more than one person here that has experienced it. It continues. He doesn't have the same experiences as the developers and architects, but hearing about the price increases and the costs associated with building in the City of Elko. That is not right. As an elected official, we elected you because we expected you to step up and lead. We see a situation where the tail is wagging the dog. Mayor Keener said there is a lot to absorb and he wanted to schedule another meeting possible the 3rd week in June. We have some work to do and it will be difficult work. There are some things we can do to streamline the process. There are some other things to do that will be more delicate dealing with personnel. We need to look at a committee being pulled together that would involve a couple of councilmembers and members from the development community, staff and realtors. We can have another meeting with action items on the agenda. He offered to send out an email to get the process started. F. Direction to Staff regarding City Code and/or policy revisions, to be initiated at a future City Council Meeting(s), and matters related thereto. FOR POSSIBLE ACTION Mayor Keener said he felt bad for the Building Department. They have been beat up and taken some bruises. It is a tough job. There are people within the industry that do appreciate them and the service they provide. He thanked them for all they do. He asked if there was anyone that wanted to make a comment regarding Item F. Dave Stanton said from everything that he heard, he felt he could start to work on some sort of a series of master re-use plans with a series of previously approved options and look into that to create some code that allows for that to happen. We have to have some objective criteria and it has to apply evenly across the board. Does the Building Department want to put something like that into code? He thought he heard that the Building Department may not want to deal with it anymore. Does Council want him to start working on that? Councilman Puccinelli would like to streamline the process for everyone. It is a snowball effect right now. He wasn't sure about the hybrid system but it needs to be something everyone can work with. Councilman Stone said we all need to be partners. He felt the City has fallen down on that a little bit. We need to make sure we keep the can-do attitude to make things happen. He liked the hybrid idea and would like to see it investigated. May 17, 2022 City Council | Minutes Page 10 of 12 Mr. Stanton did not recommend having the master re-use plan as a policy. It needs to be in code. Councilman Morris said with the master plan we would have to have over 200 options. He was leaning towards the stand-alone plans and didn't think anything would be accomplished. He didn't think it would work. Councilman Stone talked to builders about a lot of these things we have talked about. Everyone wants a win situation so they can build buildings and do what they do. Mr. Stanton said he was not envisioning writing something that puts the options in the code. He wanted to create some sort of mechanism that allows that. The code would have a process of getting that approved initially. Councilwoman Simons was thinking of a different direction. She was going to suggest: 1) we look at unlicensed report unlicensed workers and report them; 2) the staffing attitude and that would have to be done internally; 3) maybe form a committee and direct staff to sit down and discuss the quickest possible way of doing things for all sides. We need to put the right people in a room and come back to Council with a possible solution. Councilman Stone commented it is important for the developers and professionals to give them the questions so we can look for a solution. ** A motion was made by Council Member Simons, seconded by Council Member Stone to direct staff, in committee forum, to work on creating a way to permit building that is the quickest possible for all sides involved, that doesn't require re-inspecting things unaffected and that addresses appropriate fees. The committee will consist of 3 City staff, 2 Councilmembers, and 3 members of the building/realtor community and 1 design professional. Mayor Keener called for public comments without a response. Mr. Stanton added some suggestions for the committee. Mr. Calder asked how they would like to decide who would serve on the committee. Greg Martin volunteered to serve on the committee. Dusty Shipp said they don't want to be sitting here in workshop. They were all unified tonight and we have been dealing with these issues for a long time. He agreed to a minimum of 2 or three developers, that would be good. Councilwoman Simons thought the developers could get together and decide who would be in the committee. Mike Lostra said the codes are going to get harder to follow. They will not change but the way we approach them can change. Business is changing. As the code is getting harder, maybe the City needs May 17, 2022 City Council | Minutes Page 11 of 12  more staff to handle it. He heard it was about time and not money. It is a combination of the City working with the Builders and the Builders changing how they do business. It is not all on the City. You can call staff at any time and they will tell you what you need. The motion passed unanimously. (5-0) Mayor Keener wanted to put a date on the calendar for a committee meeting but after some discussion, a date will have to be determined at a later time. VI. COMMENTS BY THE GENERAL PUBLIC Pursuant to N.R.S. 241, this time is devoted to comments by the public, if any, and discussion of those comments. No action may be taken upon a matter raised under this item on the agenda until the matter itself has been specifically included on a successive agenda and identified as an item for possible action. ACTION WILL NOT BE TAKEN Mayor Keener said he will be meeting with fellow Mayors from across the state in early June at the Nevada League of Cities. He will ask them about their process for building and permitting. Dusty Shipp commented a lot was said tonight. The root of the problem is the building plans issue. Councilman Stone said we have not been partners in this and we need to be partners. Most of the staff is great and they help find resolutions to issues. But there is an attitude problem and he challenged Council to find the problem and find a way to fix it. It never needed to come to this level of frustration. Greg Martin wanted to make it clear they were not here as opponents, but as partners. We are here representing citizens of Elko and builders to build homes for the citizens at a fair price. Lisa Turner, 2446 Crestview Drive, present as a Real Estate Agent and a member of the building community and designers. She was also a parent. She was in the business to be in cooperation with the City. For so long the City has been a cooperative partner with their projects. This is an opportunity to zoom back, look at the community and consider the long-term goals for the community. Greg Johnson, 1951 Idaho Street, stated he was representing the buyer. He had lived in Elko his whole life. Mining is not the only industry here. Those people need a place to live and the home is the dream. It isn't the 1960's. We need to think about the future and be innovative. Mayor Keener thanked everyone for participating in the meeting. There being no further business, Mayor Reece Keener adjourned the meeting. Mayor Reece Keener Kelly Wooldridge, City Clerk May 17, 2022 City Council | Minutes Page 12 of 12