City Council - Regular Meeting

work session of May 4th, 2026 to order and ask everyone again to put their cell phones on silent. Roll call. Congratulations. Mayor Wilson. Here. Vice Mayor Schroeder. Councilmember Cross. Here. Councilmember Heck. Here. Councilmember Johnson. Here. Councilmember Nesser. Present. Councilmember Soller. You have a quorum, Your Honor. Thank you. Presentation discussion on first amendment to the community maintenance agreement. Oh, yeah. [snorts]

Liz. Good evening, Mayor Wilson, members of council. Liz Lingelbach, Parks and Recreation Director. Um, tonight I am just sharing an introductory um of this topic that we'll be bringing back in a couple of weeks. Um, just to make sure that everybody understands. Um, So, we have a community maintenance agreement with uh Blossom Rock, the HOA, the alliance, as well as Brookfield. Um, and in your package you received a copy of the executed agreement that we did back in 2023. Um, tonight we're going to talk a little bit about the updated parcels and the updated spaces that have to be added to that agreement. So, every time we add new spaces or a new phase is done, we will have to do an amendment to the current executed agreement because it lists the uh parcels that our maintenance agreement is uh talking about. So, a couple of quick um agreement key takeaways. Community alliance, they are like kind of like the HOA, so think about it that way. Um, they maintain any private streets and sidewalks, any immediate all the median landscaping, and then other specialty features that are adjacent to a lot of the roadways at their own cost. Um, they also maintain private parks and recreational facilities at their own cost. So, for example, the Dutch at at uh Blossom Rock that's near Painted Sky, that's a private um facility. It's only available to their private residents and they pay for the things like that. As well as many other pocket parks throughout the park. And you'll see a couple of examples of that here in a second. Additionally, um they maintain public parks and open space that we share costs with. So, for example, Painted Sky Park, Ironwood Linear Park, we're going to show those. Anything that was a public entity, um currently right now they

maintain it, so we have one common landscaper and one common maintenance crew, and then we pay our proportionate share, which is what the agreement called for in 2023. We pay up to a max per acre and everything is agreed on based on the rates that we would normally have. So, um the nice thing about that is it makes a common look throughout the entire area. It also helped us tremendously as we are growing to not have to purchase trucks and Gators and add additional people in this very first round of uh public parks in that space. We can gradually grow into that as we decide the areas that we're going to take over personally to maintain. Um, additionally, the city maintains the major roadways as well as other all the other um public streets that are within the development. And so again, we'll we'll get to that here in a second. Um, and then this agreement is amended every time there's future areas that are developed. Um, not like every individual little tiny road change. We try to do it as plats are finalized as um different plans are uh approved in the development services department. We would be bringing back like that next phase of things that have to be amended. The only two things that we are looking at amending to this agreement is exhibit B and exhibit C in your packets. It's the list of the amenities or the roadways and and different um parcels. And then the second page is the are the exhibit C is the um is the map of all of the public open and private open spaces. I wanted just to draw your attention really quickly to this um image right here. So, this was our original kind of in general the plan for how um the Blossom Rock side of things would be developed. Each of these little sections here is a phase of that development.

Phase one is this area right here. Um, and this is our first district park so in the south side, so Painted Sky Park is right about here. Um, they've already started on phase two and so this kind of little spine is what we refer to as Ridgeline Linear Park. It follows Blossom Rock um trail, the roadway. And this is also where the So, this is the other side of Painted Sky Park where the dog park exists. Um, they are just now we are now getting ready to add Ironwood Linear Park and like I said, I'll I'll show this to you on a more specific map here in a minute, but I just want to give you a reference point. So, Ironwood Linear Park is along Ironwood Road. Um, you can see that if you drive by, that's all the landscaping and all of the There's all kinds of sidewalks and a great space for people to be able to ride bikes, walk, um walk their dogs, all of that. And that is public. Um, Ridgeline Linear Park is also a public park. So, like I said, it it's where the dog park starts and then all of that greenway that's along this spine road right here. Um, one of the things that we will be adding into here, so this beak that they like to call it, this is one of the uh developed areas for the Blossom Rock uh section. And um we [clears throat] will be adding the roadway that was into this into this next uh section as well. So, I just want to kind of share a quick recap of what's happening in each phase that is new compared to when we first established this agreement. Phase one, so again, that was the very first part that we did. We already had the Ironwood Linear Park in here and a portion of Painted Sky. The um two things that are different on here right now, we added a little bit of green space here that was originally private. It's basically that green space that's on the other side of the um

of the lake. Just because it's easier for all of that that grassy space that is near the Ramada and all that to stay public and so we added that into our space. And then this area down here is actually an easement that is um privately maintained, but it's accessible to the public, but it is not a public park. So, it's That feels a little confusing, but think about it like landscaping and sidewalks that the public can walk through that they have have the ability to be through, it's just a public easement. It is not part of our park um it's not one of our parks though. It's not going to be something that we will uh be uh programming or having amenities at. We did not agree to take that on. And they will continue to maintain it at their cost of the alliance. So, that's phase one. And I'm sorry, it might be a little clearer on your screen um when we blow this up, but the legend will kind of show what is private and that means that the it's only for their private residents and it's maintained by the alliance. That's the really dark, you know, colored-in area. The public space, I know it's a little difficult to tell the difference between two of these here, but um when it's blown up, it's pretty clear. But the public space, all of this right here in phase two is the blo um I'm sorry, Ridgeline Linear Park. This is where the dog park is. This is where that basketball court and some of those other amenities you can see when you're down in that area. This linear park will continue for multiple phases throughout the project. Um, additionally here, there are a few um minor, so again, they take care of the median and all that landscaping that's next to the road. Public Works does not maintain any of those types of things. All they are responsible for is the roadway itself. The alliance handles all of the roadway

um landscape and medians. Here in phase two, in addition to um the roadway expansion and the main roadway expansion on this side is that we added Idaho Road to this side and we continued Ray Road. So, Ray Road originally ended at uh Blossom Rock Trail. It's now been finished all the way to Idaho. So, those are added. Um, and then everything in here that is a all the rest of the streets are also maintained by the city except for and we're going to make this a little clearer on our the next visit I come to share with you. The streets in these um types of housing communities, so these are what's called the green courts and the auto courts, they actually maintain those streets because they are private private. People enter into this little area and they access their homes in these different types of um models and the alliance will be maintaining the streets within those that connect those little homes that are all attached either by a wall or or whatever. So, we're going to try to make that a little more more clear on your next exhibit. For phase three, um they have just completed, we just did our punch walk today for the rest of Ironwood Linear Park from Radiance Road all the way to Warner. And um so, you'll be able to see all of that sidewalk connectivity. We will you'll now be able to walk a mile from um Ray Road all the way to Warner on really nice sidewalks. They'll be It'll be shaded trees. It'll be a great amenity for everybody in our community to be able to utilize. Um additionally here the roadway expansions that were completed are the rest of Ironwood. So this section of Ironwood uh drive

Warner Avenue. So this entire section of Warner Avenue and then um Blossom Rock Trail. So that's again this spine road that comes here through the middle of the development. And then there are some areas that again are public um easements where people can walk. They can be near that landscaping on the sidewalks, but we don't maintain it. We don't pay for it. Um but the public can use it. And so those are all identified on here for you. The other item that I do not have a slide for for you is that phase uh it's considered phase eight. It was that beak that I referred to in the original part. That right now the only thing that is um you know, part of our maintenance agreement is the roadway. So So again Warner has been completed all throughout that beak all the way to the radiant side. Um and so that has to be added to this agreement. So our next steps right now we are working on just updating these exhibits a little bit more trying to clarify them so that everybody understands what has been added into this. So we'll be clarifying those and finalizing the agreement. In your packet all I have shared is the draft of our amendment. So the executed agreement is we are not changing anything about it. We're not changing the dollar amount. We're not changing who's responsible for what. We're simply updating the two exhibits so that way we can incorporate these new newly completed or close to be being complete parcels. Um I will be bringing back those in 2 weeks for discussion and for your consideration and um we'll be able to talk about it then, but if there's anything that I can clarify or that could make it a little bit more clear, I'm happy to do that before that next meeting. And with that I will take any questions.

No. Yes. Liz, um on that walkway along Ironwood and stuff is where's the public parking for say like if I wanted to go down there and uh you know, go for a 2-mile walk. So and back.

I'll tell you exactly what we do is we'll park at the park at Painted Sky Park. So now Oro you can walk all the way from Painted Sky on to Ray Road. Mhm. And then you can turn that corner and walk straight down um all the way down the Iron Linear Park. So ultimately, let me just go back really quickly if I can. Let's see. Ultimately a person could walk this entire section. And so we will have district parks all along the way. So those would be the ideal location for somebody to park. Um because there is not enough parking on any of these sections, but if somebody wanted to walk or to bike, they could easily park at one of these linear parks and then there is plenty of public access that would get them to these links right here. Thank you. Liz

[cough and clears throat]

This is kind of new to Apache Junction like the Community Alliance and Mhm. private and public and everything. Is there's going to be any issues of like those who live up here going down there and then people down there saying you get out of here because this is a private area and you're not allowed in here. Are they marked anyway? How would How would we know? So that's a great question. Um we are already dealing with some of that and we work very closely with Blossom Rock Alliance. So they do a lot of communication out to their residents through a lot of their um avenues. There are areas that will say that this is for residents only. So you know, once you walk it up to the Dutch, if it's not a big public event, there's a sign that tells people this is for residents only. Um the parks are all identified right out of the parking lot with our signage. So our City of Apache Junction common rules and regulations signage um pretty much So I don't know if you've been in other or lived in other communities where there is a master-planned community there's nobody that's going to stop someone from walking any of these roads or walking into these areas. Technically from walking from one parking lot over to another, there's a ton of parks out there. So there's really nobody out there saying you can't do that. Um you're not supposed to. We are going to try We try to make sure that we are having these great public spaces as it is, but we do have issues right now that are you know, minor I would call them of individuals at the dog park thinking that you know, this is our dog park not anybody else's and individuals that either you know, say that they're wrong or they'll have a park park rangers are there very frequently and so park rangers answer questions all the time. Um the residents do bring these issues up at their regular meetings with the alliance and with Brookfield and we really have been working through those

all together to make sure that we can all understand that we're all part of City of Apache Junction. And there are sections that they pay for that are theirs. But all of those public areas are absolutely paid for by city tax dollars. So everybody in our community is paying towards um the maintenance of our public parks and those linear parks. And so they are available to everybody. Does that answer your question? It generally Yeah. it was just kind of things I've been seeing on Facebook and stuff, you know. Mhm. people that that live down there they don't really even know what's theirs or what's not. Yeah.

kind of feeling their way and it's like here I can just see oh well, instead of going to Prospector Park, let's go down there and have a 50 or 100 people go down to one of the ramadas and have a barbecue, you know. They are available for reservations. So if somebody can reserve those. You know. Um we are having those types of things that can happen and we've just been really working hard to educate everybody that that's the way that it's designed and that we're all helping to pay in different ways um to make that amenity available for the whole city. Um we will we do speak at a lot of their different engagements. I will be attending their leadership um class that's coming up here um in May and so it'll be a good opportunity just to continue to educate and help people understand that we're all kind of on the same team and um enjoying these amenities together.

are just one city, but you know, right now it's probably well, that's ours not yours. Right. Right. need that. Right. Any other questions? All right, I'll be bringing this back for discussion in a couple of weeks. Thank you. quick uh clarifying question. Is this coming back to consent in 2 weeks? It's going to actually come to discussion because we don't have the final draft We don't have the final signed agreement today. Okay. And so and we do have to add all of a couple of extra um Okay. items. So I will be bringing it back to work session.

Thank you. Okay. Presentation discussion resolution 26-24. Joel Mr. Mayor and members of the council in 2001 the uh ADOT with some assistance of federal funds started a study and some engineering on a uh optic system in the Phoenix region for transportation services. That was the intent of the money. And it also went down to MAG. So one good thing about being a member of MAG, which the city is, and there's 18 members is that the intent is to connect all members to this system for transportation services. Mesa uh has a system which it in in association with MAG uh that set this up some years ago. And Apache Junction is one of the cities they do want to add one of the members of MAG. And so what you have before you is resolution 26-24 which authorizes the City of Apache Junction to enter into this intergovernmental agreement. Uh and it'd be two strands that we will be using and it's free. I mean it cost money to for Doug Scrut and also contractors to get into it. However, there's no fee from the City of Mesa whatsoever. And that's part of your relationship your association with MAG. So this is a very good deal and it what the type of data that would be um allowed [clears throat] to be crossing on the lines would be live traffic uh camera feeds for traffic management and associated information, traveler information. And

staff has worked very hard on this in the past year or so. And we would ask that you approve or resolution [clears throat] 26-24. Okay. [clears throat] Any questions? No. Not for me. This is super exciting stuff. Doug and his team have been working a long time with City of Mesa to get this going and want to say thanks to him. [clears throat] And we're we're going to be able to do some really neat things with it. [laughter] Yeah. It seems very straightforward.

Mhm. And they you know, if there's future needs they um the language in there allows for future connections. Still free of charge. So Still free. Okay. Thank you. Presentation discussion approval for procurement of OpenGov citywide asset management system. Doug. Good evening Mayor Council members. I'm Doug Borthwick and the IT director of the city of Apache Junction. So I'm going to present to you today asset management system. And what does that system do for us? Well, it's a single map base view of all infrastructure whether that's roads, facilities, or water our assets throughout the city. It tracks assets conditions, maintenance history, and life cycle costs. It prioritizes and repair schedule preventive maintenance, manages work orders, and addresses issues early and avoid unexpected costly repairs. Helps with budgeting and capital planning. An asset management system is about what we own, the condition it's in, what it will cost over time, and when to fix or replace it to spend money in a more proactive versus a reactive. In the current state, we currently manage assets through fragmented department specific systems lacking direct integration with our city enterprise GIS. JC's actually here in the audience today as he was part of the process of a selecting this product as well and can speak if needed. Resulting in redundant data and high maintenance overhead. So that was our current state and staff

recommends purchasing OpenGov which was formerly known as Cartegraph. And this is through their authorized vendor at Carahsoft who provided a multi-year subscription and professional services quote. So term one or phase one as I call it is for that amount of money 62,000 and term two and phase two which is 55,000 and term one does facilities, transportation, parks and recreation, and traffic signals. And term two or phase two does four domains which are walkability, storm water, water distribution, and water treatment. And I'll break that down a little bit in this next screen. So as you can see in term one, transportation pavement signs, bridges, markings, and guardrails. Those are all assets that we need to track. We need to have life cycle maintenance done. And then same with parks and rec facilities and signal lights. And then phase two, we do water distribution, water treatment plant. Their assets there, walkability which includes sidewalks, ADA ramps, and those things. And then storm waters. So we have about five disparate systems right now. We like to bring those into one system. These are the different cities sister cities that have that and we also met with the city of Safford who had Cityworks which we compared to which is now Trimble and because everybody buys everything out in IT. And then also we went to the town of Queen Creek who has OpenGov and we selected it based on mobility and those type of things. So there's any questions? And our our intent is to bring it back in two weeks for your consideration approval on on consent agenda. Or no, do we have to bring it back? We do, right? For approval, right?

yeah, we plan to bring it back on Tuesday the 19th. Matt, can we explain for the public like the different systems we spend money on those, right? And we spend a lot of energy not connecting. And then when we bring this together, why does this help our efficiency and manage risk better for the city and in general reduce our costs and efficiency? I think on the first slide it it helps um explain that a little bit more in detail. You know, when you have disparate systems in place, it takes a lot more man-hours and then you have to come together and explain it to each other and kind of cross-pollinate your system. But if you're all inputting in the same system and it's all the same type of data, it can all be So can it help us avoid issues where we do public works projects and time it better if we ever were to mess up? Yeah. For example, if we had a road project that also needed to have some water lines done underneath at the same time, this this helps that coordination happen faster up front than waiting till till too late. So these are ERP systems, enterprise resource planning systems. We did management document system a couple years ago, did a financial system five years ago, and then utility billing as well. So these large systems that cross over the entire city and not just departments and break them down like that. They they glue them together if you will. And it's more about life cycle maintenance and and knowing when an asset needs to have an air conditioning replace and things like that. Just like you do at your home. Yes. Can we go back a screen or two?

[clears throat] One more. Oops. This one? Yeah. Okay. 62,000 and 55,000 for $117,000 is going to save us how much if we didn't and we stuck with what we've got right now with the [clears throat]

city's enterprise GIS. So it's really about maintaining your assets and knowing that you have to go in there because if you have to rebuild from start instead of maintaining life cycles, whether they be life cycles and like I do in the in IT world, whether it be server life cycles, desktop life cycles, we have building facilities and I can ask Mike Loggins from public works come up and explain a little bit. If he remembers the cost. It Some sometimes we also just use Excel spreadsheets. So so it's not like we have these multiple systems, but we're maintaining these different databases and then we're trying to work together. So let's put it under one. Go ahead, Mike. I'm here in council. Mike Loggins, public works director. What Doug's trying to explain to you is and I'll like a pipeline that's out there. If we have an emergency, we put people out of water, right? Because we don't have a life cycle cycle cost of that pipeline that's in the ground. What this system does is allows us to put it in the system as a water line and say it was installed in 1980 and we know this type of pipe last 30 years. Before it breaks and blows out the road and cost cost us a million dollars to fix that, we can go and be proactive rather than reactive on that. So instead of it is emergency now we're shutting down the road, we can plan ahead of okay, we can put up detour signs and do different things so it costs us less money because it's not an emergency. Or city hall when an air conditioner in the middle of summer, we know they typically last 20 years in Arizona. Hey, we need to plan ahead and put dollars away so that when we know it's going to fail, we actually replace it before it does. Now we don't have people sitting in there where it's 120° outside. We can replace it ahead of the time just in the nick of time before it would expire and now where again it's an emergency cost us more money to get somebody out here to replace that when something happens like that. So this allows us to all of our assets throughout the city. Again, between

water lines, buildings, air conditioners, trees, anything that you can think of that's an asset to the city allows you to put it in one database so you can actually research it and understand the life cycles and replace it before they ultimately fail. Are there any programs we'll be saying goodbye to as a result of purchasing this? Five total separate programs and so I think we can get to council or necessary what the cost of those are. I think we don't know them right off the bat, but we can get those and share with the council how much going to save. is a proactive system and we're not worrying about the $117,000 cost because it's going to save lots more than if we didn't use it. Correct. That's right.

Okay. We also need to gather what all our assets are so we can track them. Yeah, okay. Yes. So this system is only as good as the people that input the data. It's only as smart as what we tell it. And so [clears throat]

I mean we're going to spend how many man-hours uploading all this information into a computer database that chat GPT could you know, do for us as well. I mean, do we have to use this program or is there new AI programs out there that could maintain this for us? It's all about the source data. So if the source data doesn't exist or it's despaired, you need to bring it into one source before AI can do anything with it. AI is a tool and it's only as good as what you put into it. So the implementation plan of phase one and phase two is about gathering that data from when we have these disparate systems, put them into one. Also it gives you an opportunity to look at what is your bad data and good data and be able to clean it up and make sure you verify those things. And we have a plan of six months for phase one and six months for phase two and we'll be able to implement these different programs that way. We have a system right now for facilities which is under public works. They do work order systems too. So this is has a mobile piece to it. So the field techs will be able to do that mobile wise and stuff. OpenGov or Cartegraph was number one or number two and Cityworks was the other one as well. And since we did this on a Mojave contract, we didn't have to compare to other systems, but those are the two systems we did compare it to as well. Okay. Um does this is not going to eventually eliminate somebody's job because they're not out there inspecting the road and and reporting back to staff um on a weekly or monthly basis saying, "Hey, you know, Ironwood Road needs repairs here, here, and here." This program's going to automatically spell out that well at such and such location there's a

pothole fixing to happen and we got to be proactive and get out there and fix it. So, they felt

that nation would see the pothole would be able to mobilely put it into the system for real time. It would then go into the populate the database of the status of it and be able to be able to see that and make that part of your judgment process for that. It's not about um jobs. It's more about your assets and ensuring that your assets can be there for the long term. Okay. Okay. Go ahead. I would imagine that over time one of the biggest benefits of this is the fact that when you're looking at your budgets at year by year and every single department, you have to know any place from 5 to 10 years out where you're going to have to put capital money. Not only that, but taking that and putting it into an actual alert system because somebody is monitoring once we put in fresh data where we've taken a second look at things that probably have not been looked at for a while when you're putting them in for those 6 months on each set. Cuz you're going to be looking at all that and evaluating it. So, it's really more up-to-date information going into the system. Which you'll then be putting in the parameters following OpenGov. I went through their demonstration to see it. Where you're going to be putting in what your parameters are and they're assisting you by telling you you need to be checking this particular item at 6-month intervals and instead of you thinking about, "Well, I thought 6 months was like 6 months ago. Geez, I guess it's here already." You'll already be alert and putting somebody in the truck to go look at those item to verify what really needs that and you can adjust there on. Is that what I'm pretty much looking at? So, yes. So, when we get our O&M manuals, let's say it's a new treatment plant, uh a new air conditioner, one of them your car tells you to change your oil every 5,000 mi. Well, rather than waiting till that light is flashing at you on your dash this will send out a work order saying, "Hey,

you want to go to your nearest mechanic and get it changed before you're at that limit." So, it does this for all different kinds of types of things we have throughout the city. So, yeah, if you can put that in there, it adds to all of your benefits there. This is kind of a great time for the city. We're growing. So, rather than getting further and further behind we're not keeping track of our assets. We can catch up now and continue as we grow add these assets so we truly know what we have out there. I imagine there's a lot of things that we didn't track when we first put them in when way back when and just like Corners of what? Superstition and maybe things like this will avoid in the future because you're going to be looking at what is the dating on a lot of different public facilities because they were put in long before we really started tracking and this will force them into the system. Is that correct? It is and also the work we put in the last 5 years for mobility, ease of use, laptops, um tablets for field workers, um those different types of things. They'll be able to put that data in right on the spot. They have to go back to the office and then get, you know And those work orders will be generated by the system without having to say, "Oh, we should go get a work order to go do this." It's already going to generate it and somebody in that department's going to get that work order and have it scheduled. That is correct. Thank you. Yes. Okay, so who's going to have the glorious responsibility of overseeing this? As the IT director, I get that fortunate uh responsibility. I've done a few of these as well. Uh the Presidio of San Francisco when I was there we put a system in as well. So, um yeah, and then also that's why we have uh Carahsoft and also OpenGov coming in and they're part of that implementation cost in that first 62,000 and the 55,000 for

term two has an implementation cost. And it's a cloud-based application but it's also um going to be a subscription base on years three and four. I'll just add that the responsibility is also lies on each department. Like uh Councilmember Cross's earlier point, you know, the data is only as good as what you put in and who you have put it in. So, the departments have to be really work hard to get in their their data in. They'll all be trained on it. So, we're all doing it the same way, you know, there'll be processes, all that. It'll be really good. So, we had Liz with Parks and Rec part of this process of selection. We had Mike Loggins as far as public works director and and also JC with the GIS system. Um and that's where we evaluated this and then we also met with the two different cities with the two different systems. Your Honor. Yes. So, the company I work for we use what's called building reports for tracking assets of our customers and when we first implemented it, it was a learning curve of, you know, how the more detailed you can make it, the better the system works. So, up front we try to get our technicians to just be as thorough as they can when describing what that valve is, the manufacturer, what size it is, um installation dates, etc., etc. Um the cool thing about it is now as we're going back for our fourth or fifth year inspection, it's telling us what type of inspection is needed, whether it's a 3-year, whether it's a 5-year, whether it just needs an annual, whether the gauges are expired and need to be replaced, whether it needs a 5-year internal inspection. And so, ultimately it saves the customer a good deal of money because they know, you know, up front what's coming up. They can budget for it. And I can see this OpenGov saving our

taxpayers a lot of money because we can stay ahead of it and, you know, know that certain things have a life of shelf life as Mike said and that we, you know, obviously should take care of it before it breaks. So, thank you. Thank you. Whether Okay. Thank you. And I will adjourn this meeting. Thank you.