City Council - workshop

All right, it was turned off I'd like to call the city of Apache Junction work session for July 6 2026 to order and ask everyone to put their cell phones on silent roll call Mayor Wilson here vice mayor Schroeder present councilmember cross here councilmember heck here councilmember Johnson here councilmember Nessar present councilmember seller give a quorum your honor I

Thank you. Presentation discuss of employment agreement with Ion North Star or N service. Judge McDermott.

Yes, thank you.

Thank you, council members. I appreciate your time today.

Basically, I just wanted to touch on the purpose of this request. It's basically to fill my roster of associate magistrates. Currently, there's five. However, one is just no longer available at all because he's currently employed at full time with the state, I believe with access. And under judicial candidates, it wouldn't be proper for the court to even have him serve. So at this point in time, I will need a replacement just to fill out my roster and just give me the flexibility if I have a family emergency or if I have something that comes up out of the blue, this essentially replacement will will help ensure adequate coverage for the court if something comes up that requires my absence from the court. He's Mr. Service. I know him from my time at the County Attorney's Office. He was a contract public defender. He's been a contract public defender for many years at the Superior Court. I know him well. I've been opposing counsel and worked well with him in the past in several cases. I think he has a good disposition and he would make a fine addition to our roster of associate magistrates. If there's any questions,

Yes. How is his availability right now?

His availability, he is a criminal defense attorney. And so just like Judge Wiegand, he does have cases he has to deal with on a regular basis. But he assures me he can make himself available. He's eager to come in and watch the court. I've told him I'll need him. Usually on the criminal calendar days, which are Tuesdays and Wednesdays, he may fill in for the two main associates who are there those two days if they're not there. And I told him that it could be on a Monday or Thursday. But generally, his availability, although he is a contract defense attorney, he has a full schedule. Except for Judge Roll, all of the associate magistrates are full-time practicing attorneys. So I have to kind of work around their schedule. So that requires me to have about four people that I can rely on if we do have... any emergencies pop up. But we haven't so far, but I do want to plan for the future and make sure the court keeps running smoothly. Thank you. So that's why I'm here. But generally, his availability will be pretty open, I think.

Yes. Thank you for planning for the future.

Yes.

Because, you know, crap happens.

No, I understand. I do.

We definitely want to be protected. Yeah, I do understand that.

I think I got all my answers.

Oh, yeah, I said you need my questions answered this weekend since we have you here Yes, sir.

So me everything's going really well at the cork. I think so. We hear nothing which is always a good night No, I think that's very good real quick on how the courts do

I think the court's doing quite well. Since Ms. Bunker came on, it has been just wonderful. She has gotten the court in shape. We've had a little bit of turnovers in terms of the clerks, but Ms. Bunker has done a tremendous job. I don't know what I would do without her, honestly. And so I owe a lot of the credit to her. But I think things are running pretty smoothly in terms of we're usually, even on our criminal days, sometimes we go past noon, but normally we're We're done by noon or so. And that's because we have the associate judge there taking the pleas. And I'm doing the pleas. I'm doing the arraignments. So it goes in spurts, obviously. Some days you have days when a lot of people come in for orders of protection. And it may be tough to hear them. But they usually tend to come in on a Monday like today, especially after a holiday weekend. But I think overall, things are running quite smoothly. doing a lot of civil traffic hearings, a lot of orders of protection and injunction against harassments, and the criminal calendar seemed to be moving pretty well, so.

Well, thank you.

You're here, so I just thought I'd ask. Oh, sure.

We haven't heard anything, and I'm thinking, that's always good.

That's always good news for me, too, yes. All right.

Okay.

No other questions? All right.

Thank you very much for your time.

Thank you. Okay, presentation, discussion of resolution number 26-30. Spencer.

Good evening, mayor and council members. My name is Spencer Sarger. I'm the public works business manager for the public works department. Today I'm here for presentation discussion on proposed resolution number 26-30, authorizing the city to enter into IGA with Pinal County for the city's participation in Pinal County's hosted annual safety rodeo. So this year, Pinal County will have their 33rd annual safety rodeo event. And during this regional event, so it brings together lots of cities, towns, and counties to promote safety training and professional development for Public Works employees. So we have an opportunity for our Public Works department to attend this safety rodeo event. Some of the things that happen during this safety rodeo event, there's some friendly competitions that go on like backhoe operation, dump truck maneuvering, sign installation, loader operations. So it gives opportunity for employees from different organizations to compete in these friendly competitions to really learn from one another and to grow and network. Some of the benefits for this event, there will be some safety training. So our employees will be able to learn how to operate equipment more safely. There'll be some professional development, as well as networking with other neighboring agencies and sharing the best practices. The financial impact of this event, so registration fee is $45 per participant. That includes a breakfast and lunch and eligibility for event prizes that they'll have. This participation cost will be paid from the Public Works Department. existing operating budget. So staff recommends consideration of approval. So it will come back in two weeks for the consent agenda. Approval proposed resolution number 26-30 authorizing the city to enter in an IGA with Pinal County for the city's participation in the Pinal County hosted annual safety rodeo event.

Any questions? Yes. So

This competition, is it really a competition where cities compete against one another?

Yeah, so they'll have timed events and they'll have different, yeah, they'll have like a backhoe there and you'll have to complete a task and they'll have different competing agencies doing the same event. Does the winning city get anything from it? I think it's more friendly, but I think there are some event prizes, so there's some prizes to be won by participants.

We're a really competitive group. Have we ever won?

We try our best. Now we know how much pressure to put on Mike. Right, exactly. Win or go home. Exactly.

Anyone else? Well, we're going to say good luck in the aspects on it. Are you going to be participating?

I will not be participating, but we will have many employees participate.

Okay. Well, root them on for us.

Will do. Thank you. All right. Thank you.

Okay. Presentation and discussion of P-26-4-PZ. Nick.

Good evening. Thank you, Your Honor. Thank you, City Council. With the Banyan Apartments case P-26-4-PZ, over the weekend we did receive a request to continue the case to these dates. The applicant, following the June 23rd Planning and Zoning Commission hearing, the Planning and Zoning Commission citing concerns regarding parking deviation regarding the provision of amenities and some of the context of the area with the appropriateness of how the project fit into the character of the neighborhood, they recommended the denial of the project on a seven to zero vote. Following that, the applicant has requested time in order to amend their plans in order to address some of these concerns and therefore has requested that they would resubmit plans and we would have an additional work session on Monday, August 3rd, 2026 and then that the actual public hearing would be moved to the Tuesday August 18th City Council public hearing and With that we would still be required to hold the City Council public hearing as publicly noticed on July 21st And that is when we would have the motion to continue.

But as of tonight, we just wanted to bring you notice of this request Okay, I got one comment on this the Tuesday August 18th is when we're going to be at the League of Cities understand

Then we will, the actual motion to continue will have to be in a couple weeks, so we will work with the applicant to make sure that we have an appropriate date. Let's do that.

Yeah, because we will. Think about that. I know I will not be available because. I won't be either. Understood. We're all working out the details.

None of us will be here.

I don't think we're even going to be holding anything that night at all.

They didn't know, yeah. Thank you. And we just got the request with these dates just over the weekend, so working out those details. We'll make sure that we have it organized and established well.

Okay.

Very good.

Thank you. Anyone else have comments? Okay. All right. Wow. We're done.