City Council - Regular Meeting

City of Apache Junction Council meeting of July 7th, 2026 to order and ask everyone to put your cell phones on silent. The invocation will be led by Councilmember Heck to pledge by Councilmember Johnson.

Heavenly Father, we thank you for the privilege and freedom we have of being able to gather together this evening to discuss city business. We ask that you give the staff and council wisdom and clarity in their decision making. Keep us mindful that we serve the residents of this city. We ask you to watch over the men and women who serve in our military around the world. Please keep them safe in these very difficult and uncertain times. We ask also for your blessing on our first responders. including our police and fire departments, along with our EMS personnel and our park rangers. Please keep these brave men and women safe in their duties to protect and care for the residents of this city. And thank you for the honor and privilege we have to serve the residents of this city. These things we ask in your name. Amen.

Amen.

Roll call Mayor Wilson here vice mayor Schroeder present councilmember cross Councilmember heck here councilmember Johnson here councilmember Nessar president councilmember seller here you have a quorum your honor Thank you before we begin tonight's agenda.

I want to announce an item number 13 in the wards and presentation proclamation will be presented at a future meeting she was not able to attend. Consent agenda. As a reminder, all items under consent agenda will be approved with one motion. If a council member wishes to remove an item for further discussion, requests will be made prior to approving the consent agenda and will be moved to new business. Do I have a motion? Mayor? Yes. I move that the consent agenda be accepted as presented.

Second.

Moved and seconded. Roll call.

Council Member Cross.

Yes.

Council Member Soller.

Yes.

Council Member Heck. Yes. Council Member Johnson. Yes. Vice Mayor Schroeder. Yes. Council Member Nesser. Yes. Mayor Wilson.

Yes.

Motion passes unanimously.

Thank you. Awards and presentations and proclamations. First one, I have a proclamation here for the National Parks Recreation Month. of July, 2026. Whereas parks and recreation encourages physical activities, providing space for sports, hiking trails, swimming pools, and other activities that promote active lifestyles. And whereas Parks and Recreation is the leading provider of healthy meals, nutrition services, and education. And whereas Parks and Recreation programs are fundamental to the environment and social well-being of our community, and whereas the US House of Representatives has designated July as Parks and Recreation Month, and whereas Apache Junction recognize the benefits derived from parks and recreation resources. So now, therefore, I, Chip Wilson, Mayor of the City of Apache Junction, do hereby proclaim the month of National Parks and Recreation Month. Who's going to do this?

Oops. Who's working tonight?

Very family oriented.

I can't duck. I can't duck these days. Thank you, everyone.

Peeking through the crown.

All right. Thank you, Mayor and Council. Liz Langenbach, I'm the Parks and Recreation Department. I'm very proud of our department and all of the great things we do for the community. This year's theme was the power of parks and recreation. And with the help of our new multimedia specialist, Matthew Bertram, we have a short video to share with you. And you don't have to listen to me speak.

In every community, there is power. Not the kind you see, the kind you feel. Sometimes it lives in the moments we never plan. The smiles, the laughter, the memories we never knew we were making. this is the power of play where confidence grows friendships begin and people of every age discover joy because play never really has an age limit Sometimes the greatest impact isn't found in a program. It's found in a moment, a helping hand, a shared laugh, a connection that lasts. This is the power of nature, a place to explore, to wonder, to discover something new. From desert trails to star-filled skies, adventure is waiting. With these tools, we create the spaces where memories begin, building places today for moments that last tomorrow. This is the power of community, where neighbors become friends, traditions come alive, and every gathering creates something bigger than ourselves. Some moments last only seconds, but their impact can last a lifetime, and bringing those moments to life is what we do. This is the power of connection. The power of belonging. A place where every story matters. Every voice is valued. And everyone has a place. Not only in our programs, but in our team. This is the power of protection. Protecting moments of discovery and learning. Creating places where curiosity grows, experiences are shared, and memories begin. Because meaningful moments deserve to be protected. This is the power of well-being. Supporting healthier lives, stronger minds, and a community that moves forward together. Because the most powerful moments are often the ones we never see coming. Different tools, one purpose. Together, we create the power of every moment. Together, we are the power of parks and recreation. The power is ours.

Thank you. And of course, enjoyed the 4th of July celebration as well. Thank you. Presentation, discussion, and update from Brad Miller from Pima, Pinell County Attorney's Office.

Good evening, Mayor, members of this distinguished council, and of course, residents of Apache Junction. Thank you so much for having me here today. It really is an honor. Today, I want to present some key findings of what my office has been doing and what's happening in your community. This is really a comprehensive analysis between the last three years from 2023 to 2025. And this three-year review of over 2,020 cases provides to us a clear picture and emerging trends of what we see going on in the community. Now what I'm about to present to you, I want to tell you what it is and what it is not. What it is not is a predictor of future crime. These are cases that we've actually prosecuted at my office. So we're talking about felonies and misdemeanor crimes. I can also tell you what it is not. This is not a reflection of what's going on in the police department. what you will find is, and I'm going to tell you, that some of the numbers are up. And I think, and I know, based upon 18 years of experience, that these numbers are up because your police department is so active. In fact, your police department is actually active and proactive and probably one of the most in the entire county. And so we truly appreciate that and love to work with your police department. Now, before I kind of get into my prepared remarks, I just saw this video regarding parks and rec. And I want to talk about a vision of what I have for this county and for Apache Junction a little bit. I grew up in the 1980s. And I grew up in an era where I would come home from school, ride my bike out to the park, and I would be out there all day playing with my friends, playing baseball, wiffle ball, running and playing with bikes. And we never once worried about what's happening in our park. My mother never wondered, is there something going on? Are there needles on the ground? Is it unsafe? The reason why we do what we do here, your law enforcement, both myself and your police department, is to keep this community safe. And we will continue to do that, continue to push the limits, continue to find ways to keep our community safe, continue to be proactive. Now part of what I'm gonna go through tonight is also a reflection on my office. because I will say we're certainly not above reproach. We want to improve our service that we're giving to you and to your police department and to the entire county as a whole. So let's get right into the numbers. Let me start with kind of a big picture on volume. Total criminal cases filed rose from 641 total cases in 2023 to 647 in 2024. and then a big jump to 732 in 2025. You have to remember that's when I took office. A 13, I'll go through them. Yeah, yeah. A 13.1% increase in a single year and a 14.2% rise over that full three-year period. Felonies continue to dominate, making up about 81% of all cases, meaning we're seeing a meaningful shift to higher impact type of criminal activity. Instead of focusing on some of the smaller issues, we're looking at focusing our efforts on violent crime, repeat offenders, people who commit crimes against children. That's really where we're putting our focus. Misdemeanors also grew by about 60% across those three years, climbing from 96 cases in 2023 to 153 cases in 2025. This suggests to me that our justice system is handling these lower level offenses that impact our daily lives. Drug offenses still remain the largest category in all three years, 600 total cases. But their percent of total cases is dropping. Their share of all cases has declined from 32.5% to 25.1% in 2025. While possession of paraphernalia cases continue to fluctuate, This drop really is a positive sign for the overall criminal picture. Because as we know, I've been working in this field for about 18 years, both on the civilian side and currently serving in the Marine Corps, is that we tend to see drugs lead to other types of crimes. Assaults, thefts, burglaries, robberies, and unfortunately sometimes homicides. Violent crime presents a more mixed picture. Assaults, and these are cases we've actually prosecuted, Assault cases have remained relatively stable, hovering to about 91 to 99 per year, and accounting for about 14% of the total cases. Weapons and explosive offenses, however, grew about 77% over the three years, from 13 cases in 2023 to 23 cases in 2025. Robbery cases also increased. On the other hand, homicide prosecutions went from four in 2023 to two in 2024, And of course, we all know the one that happened in 2025, where our hero, Officer Gabriel Fossey, was murdered. And of course, my office is seeking the death penalty in that particular case. Because my belief is if you kill a cop, then you should receive a needle in your arm. Several categories are rising rapidly and deserve focused attention. Driving under the influence, cases have gone up about 76% over the period, reaching 44% in 2025. Family offenses have more than doubled, up 131%, climbing from 13 cases in 2023 to 30 cases in 2025. Sexual offenses increased 57%, and criminal damage cases rose 91%. Of course, most concerning is the emergence of child sex trafficking and related prostitution cases. These appeared for the first time in our data set in 2025, with nine cases concentrated around a few different locations. But here's where the encouraging numbers go. And I think sometimes, you know, I've gone to most of the towns and cities in Pinal County, and I think sometimes these numbers get a little bit twisted. But let me just give you context. These numbers are fantastic, especially those child sex trafficking cases. I don't think you understand what your police chief and what your police department is doing here. They are protecting not only this town and this city, they're protecting Pinal County and Maricopa County as a whole. Because they're setting traps for these people who are willing to pay for sex with children. And they're finding them all over the state. And you are here prosecuting them. You're one of the most proactive police departments in the county, if not the state. And so what you are seeing here are people, really, really bad people. A lot of repeat offenders being caught here in Apache Junction. And you should wear that with a badge of honor. And you can rest assured, we are seeking very, very high punishments for these cases. And in some cases, we are providing no plea offer. It's plead to life or go to trial, where we will convict you and send you to prison for life. Those are your choices. Geographically, I want to talk about geographically, and that's where we're going to get into some of our slides. One address stands out as the most persistent hotspot for crime in the entire City of Apache Junction. And I bet you all can guess where this location is. It's your Walmart. There's 31 cases, right? Council Member Nesser, right? You know this. We all know. So yes, it's your Walmart. It's actually been consistent as the highest crime area in the entire city all three years. It's way above the rest of the areas. It ranked number one all three years. Of course, other recurring problems, stretches include US 60 corridor for trafficking DUI enforcement, and locations around Idaho Road and Royal Palm, and are now showing concentrated issues with family violence and sex crimes. So what does the data tell us? It tells us that while overall case volume is up, we are making progress against some of our most dangerous offenses. You know, when I took office, I'm a career prosecutor, We wanted to focus on violent crime, repeat offenders, and crimes against children. And I think we've successfully done that. As we're seeing the numbers go up, not only in this city, but in almost all cities across Pinal County, because we've changed our plea policies. We're no longer going easy on these types of crimes. Drug offenses are not driving the recent trend. Instead, the increases are coming from DUIs, family violence, theft, traffic violations, and sex offenses. This diversification requires us to change our strategy. Of course, the enemy has a fight. I recently just got back from my annual training with the United States Marine Corps. And you can look around the world and see what's happening in places like Cuba, seeing what's happening in places like Iran. And of course, we have to sometimes shift our strategy. And so I think we've been effective at going after some of these things. But we may have to shift our strategy a little bit. And I think that's where are teaming up with your police department. I think we have a very good relationship with your department. We'll continue to pay dividends. And we will continue to strengthen law enforcement across these key corridors, those locations that I just told you, expanding prevention and intervention programs for families and youth, targeting repeat locations with coordinated multi-agency efforts. Of course, we can't do it alone. We rely on our sheriff's office. We rely on our federal partners also. The data also shows that Apache Junction is not standing still. The declining share of drug cases and improved sex offender registration compliance are big, big wins. So here's how I'd like to close, and we'll go through some of these numbers on the slides. This report is not just a snapshot of the past. It's a roadmap of the future. And I think that's what we're seeing. So of course, I'll provide a couple of recommendations. Of course, we need to prioritize what's happening at Walmart. But same with DUI enforcement. We think there's potentially more out there. And of course, continue to look at the data, where we're seeing trends, where we're seeing the crime, and continue to prosecute those. And I think with the relationship we have with the police department, we'll continue to do those in order to shift our strategy to better protect this city. Public safety is, of course, a shared responsibility with clear data guiding our decisions. And I'm confident we can build on these strengths, address our vulnerabilities, and make Apache Junction an even safer place for every single one of our residents and your residents. So I'd like to go through a couple of these maps. And what I'm going to show you here are just three different maps with a few dots. These are actual offense locations for the crimes we've actually prosecuted. Remember, I'm saying this is not the crime data. This is not every call. your police department goes to. These are just cases that we've actually prosecuted. So I'm going to go through and we're going to start at 2023. And you'll see our locations. And what we're planning on doing is we're going to provide all of this online. So you'll have access to all of this data for all three years. And then, of course, we'll also provide our Excel spreadsheet with the exact numbers. And where you see there, you'll see the big numbers. Of course, the different dots reflect the different types of crimes. But the big dots reflect kind of those concentrated centers of what we're seeing. And most of these, again, many of you have been here for a long, long time. Shouldn't be a surprise. Now we're going to go to 2024. And just like I said, the numbers are going up. And I think that has to do with increased enforcement. 2024. And then we'll end with 2025, and I'll ask for any questions. And if you notice, even those concentrated hotspots stayed pretty similar. So we know where those locations are and where we're actually prosecuting cases. All right, with that, Mr. Mayor, I invite any questions.

Anyone got any questions? Yes.

I have two questions, actually. The first one is, what exactly is the main crimes that you're having at Walmart? Yep.

So, Councilmember Johnson, I can tell you exactly what those are. Drugs, theft, assaults. Those are our top three crimes that we're seeing at Walmart.

Okay. And my second question, it's surprising that it's three years in a row and it's not improving. That's pretty scary in itself. On number two, I'm looking at going out, that's 88, is it not?

On number two? Yes, I believe so.

So on number two, going out to 88, and that's after the city complex and before I believe that's Lost Dutchman. I don't even see that many houses over there, so what is the big issue there? So number eight.

Number two. Oh, number two? Okay, number two is going to be Idaho Road. So the location we have is 1001 North Idaho Road, and what we're seeing at that location over, That's the police department. Is it the police department? So what we're seeing, and this is the interesting part about the data, is what we're seeing is officers putting the location of the police department for some of these child abuse, kidnapping as sexual offenses, some of those locations. So that could be a standard operating procedure issue of that particular location. But yes, that's the actual location that we're seeing.

Yeah, I just kind of wondered based on where it's sitting there.

Absolutely. Any other questions?

Anyone else? Yes. Mr. Miller, what part do illegals play in any of this?

Council Member Heck. We have some data on illegal immigrants, but we have not seen a, as far as the numbers, I don't have a breakdown of how many crimes have been committed by illegal immigrants. But what I can say is that of the crimes that we do see of illegal immigrants, they're very, very violent crimes. We recently had a pretty nasty murder case out of Casa Grande regarding an illegal immigrant. We're seeing illegal immigrants committing a lot of traffic offenses.

Domestic violence offenses, but I did not have a breakdown But what I can do is provide you with a with the breakdown of that if you would like absolutely Absolutely to be an issue that every city particularly larger cities are experiencing in you know in great great event and I Can tell you why

Let me tell you why, just to give a little bit of caveat. A lot of crimes involving illegal immigrants end up going to the federal courts. And so we're seeing the United States Attorney has been very active on a lot of their sting cases, a lot of those types of issues. And a lot of those end up in federal court where they will prosecute those. And so some of those get funneled that way because either the ATF or DEA or FBI are involved in those investigations. It doesn't happen too often that like an FBI arrest ends up in my office. Sometimes it does, depending on different issues, but most of the time those will be funneled to the federal government. And that's why we don't have a lot of that data here. So hopefully that answers your question, sir.

Thank you. Your Honor.

Yes.

What kind of correlation is there between homelessness and a lot of this crime that we have an uptick in?

Yeah, Councilmember Cross, right, I will say with this data, it's one of those things that we can't tell. We can't tell, we don't have an indicator. This is a lack of our data. And I think as the years go on that I'm in office, we'll be able to probably provide you that. But as I stand right here, I can't provide that type of data. I will say we did recently purchase and are implementing this next week a new data analysis system to assist us with getting some of that information like that. But typically there's no indicator of homelessness, theft, Now, I can provide you anecdotal data for some of our police departments and maybe some of our prosecutors. But as far as hard counts, we don't have that, because it's not something that we necessarily indicate. When a police officer, sometimes, say you do have a theft at Walmart, sometimes the police officer will note that the person is homeless or will not note, but that doesn't necessarily end up in our data. So yeah, it's not something that we necessarily track. But great question.

Thank you.

Yes. Mr. Miller, I believe that Apache Junction has been for many years misidentified as the meth capital of Arizona, whatever. In statistics from 20 years ago, even though you weren't here, do you know if... our crime rate associated with drugs is going up, going down, better prosecuting more, I mean is it, where do we sit as far as that's concerned?

I can give you, so council member Nassar, yeah, I can provide you exact information of what we see. So your number one drug charge, these are actual cases we prosecuted, was dangerous drugs. Second was narcotic drugs, and third was drug paraphernalia. And so what we're seeing with each of those categories is going down. That was one of those positive remarks that I say. Sometimes you can tell stuff from data, some information from data, and you can extrapolate it a little bit. Sometimes it's difficult. But in this case, I think the numbers, especially across the board, I think do tell us a story that drug cases are going down. So as far as being the meth capital, The numbers do not show that, especially over the last three years. And so we can disabuse that rumor immediately because it just isn't happening. And they're going down pretty significantly, each of the cases.

Thank you. Mayor. Yes. Juvenile gun crimes.

Yeah.

Have they gone up?

So is it Soller? I apologize.

Yes.

Soller? Council Member Soller. I do not have data on juvenile crimes. I can say I have not seen a lot of gun crimes, juvenile gun crimes here in Apache Junction. Now, I'm just thinking of anecdotally without the data. Because I get briefed on every single juvenile gun crime that happens in the county directly by my team. And the last few that I could think of have happened in Casa Grande and Santan Valley. I can't think of one. I'm sure your police chief probably knows better than I do.

But I can't think of one that... We can get that data for you from our police chief, both for juvenile crime and the other one, yeah.

But I can tell you which ones we actually prosecuted, which ones we went forward with. I can also tell you which ones we charged as adults. Because if you're 16, 17, or 18, and you use a gun in a crime, we're likely, I can't tell you exactly, but we're likely to charge you as an adult.

I work in Mesa. I'm a police lieutenant. I deal with Maricopa County. I want to thank you. You actually do a county attorney's job, and you don't drop stuff and send stuff back all the time. And you're following through, and you're making sure that the crimes are charged appropriately. And I want to thank you for that. I appreciate that. That's big for the community, and that's big for the officers that go out and make those arrests, because you're standing behind them and getting the job done. So thank you.

I appreciate that very much. We're still an organization that wants to do better, and so we're going to continue to improve our service. So if there's anything that any of the members of the community or, of course, any of the council members or the police department has an issue with, bring it up to me, and we'll look to change those things. But we're always looking to improve.

Okay. Well, thank you very much.

Thank you.

Thank you. All right. Excuse me. Presentation, discussion, and update on Sophie Desert from Florence Copper. Brian. Thank you, Your Honor.

We're happy to have you with us, and we've invited through Councilmember Cross, Sophie from Florence Copper.

Good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor, Council. As was mentioned, my name is Sophie Dasar. I'm the Manager of Communications and Public Affairs at Florence Copper. And I really do appreciate Council Member Cross and the entire city of Apache Junction for inviting me here today to share a little bit more about Florence Copper.

Here we go.

So starting out, just have to put on the screen because our parent probably is publicly traded. Please don't take anything I say as stock advice this evening. So what exactly will I be discussing with you this evening? So I'm going to start off talking a little bit about the future of copper and where exactly Florence Copper fits into it. I'm then going to talk about the in situ copper recovery process, which is the process that we use to produce copper at Florence Copper and how exactly that process works. Then I'm going to talk a bit about our production and end out with a discussion of community benefits and time for questions as well. So just starting out to kind of help us centralize where exactly we are in kind of the future of copper, did want to highlight what exactly is driving copper demand. So S&P Global recently put out a study at the beginning of this year looking at major drivers of copper. So first of all, just have to recognize that copper is a crucial part of our everyday lives without Without copper, we would not have the lights on in this building. We wouldn't have the air conditioning that keeps us cool during the hot Arizona summer months. And so core economic demand, especially with the developing world, is a driver of copper demand. But in addition, renewable energy technologies, including, say, electric vehicles, are incredibly copper intensive. But two drivers of copper that I really like to highlight are, first of all, national defense implications. Copper is the second most used material by the US Department of Defense. And in the world that we live today, we can obviously understand why we're seeing increasing demand for copper. And in addition, new technologies like artificial intelligence are also incredibly copper intensive. And so with that, copper demand worldwide is expected to increase about 50% between now and 2040. At the same time, we are not adding new supplies of copper as fast as we should. And so S&P Global is projecting that we could see a supply gap of about 10 million metric tons of copper by 2040. And as the United States, we aren't adding enough domestic sources of copper fast enough, including domestic sources of refined copper that can be directly used by US manufacturers. And other countries like, say, China, which obviously are not as friendly to US interests, they have been very strategic in building up their supplies of copper. And so with all of that in mind, Florence Copper is incredibly proud to be the first major source of US copper that is new in over a decade in the United States. So speaking to Florence Copper as a project, just a little bit of an overview about us. We are located in the town of Florence, Arizona. So right there on the star on the map that you see on the right hand side of your screen. And we are owned by our parent company, Trekker Metals Limited. They are headquartered in Vancouver, Canada, and they run Gibraltar, which is the second largest open pit copper mine in Canada. And they're very excited to see us producing here in the United States. Speaking to our operation type, we are not your traditional mining operation. So we are not an open pit mine. We are not an underground operation. We use a technology called in situ copper recovery to produce copper. And so I'll explain a little bit how that process works later on in this presentation. Speaking, though, to our site, our property outline is in orange on this slide. And you can see where we're located on the lower right-hand side of the screen. That is the town of Florence, historic downtown. We're just minutes from historic downtown. We're also minutes from several master plan communities in Florence. If you've ever driven down Hunt Highway and passed the mountain with the F on it, we're right across the street from that mountain post in Butte Mountain in Florence. Just zooming in on our property, our outline is in green on this slide. We have just over 1,300 acres on the Florence copper site. That is a combination of state and private land. But what I like to highlight is that blue outline on the slide. That is our resource block. So that's where our copper is located. And you can see that we know very well where the copper is located on our site. And that speaks to the fact that we do have an extensive history with this deposit. So the copper deposit was actually discovered in 1969. It took many, many years to bring us to where we are today. I'd like to highlight in our development timeline the fact that we really developed this project in two phases. So phase one, We basically did a smaller scale version of the operation that we're doing currently. We produced over one million pounds of copper, basically highlighted the environmental responsibility, the effectiveness, the safety of the in situ copper recovery process. And then we took a pause to expand our permits, waited on our final major federal permit to expand our operation, did a construction program to expand, and produced our first copper cathode from our commercial facilities in February of this year. And very proud to be the first major source of copper in the United States from a greenfield operation since 2008. Speaking to our project as a whole, we are working on ramping up our production and our average annual production capacity is 85 million pounds of copper per year with a mine life of 22 years. So that will actually expand US refined copper production by about 5% over 2025 levels. And we are reproducing refined copper. So this is ready for US manufacturers. And very, very proud to say that all of our copper is staying here in the United States as well. And this will actually make, this production will make our parent company the third largest copper cathode producer in the United States. So just kind of highlighting, we have a very great opportunity in our local community in Pinal County in Florence because we have very specific hydrogeologic conditions that do not lend themselves well to a traditional mining method like an open pit or an underground mine, but they're perfect for the process that we use at Florence Copper, that in-situ copper recovery process. So speaking to that process, how exactly does it work? What does it look like? So first of all, I'd like everyone to take a moment and envision a copper mine in your head. So we have that picture in our head. Our operation looks very different than your traditional copper operation. Bet this isn't what you were picturing. So this is actually what our site at Florence Copper looks like from the ground up. I promise you it's even less impressive in person. It basically looks like an empty field with a couple pieces of equipment sticking out of our ground. And that brings a lot of benefits in the sense that we have no open pit at Florence Copper. We are not sending workers below ground to haul out millions of pounds of rock. We have no major earth movers. There's no large-scale blasting. There's no hauling millions of pounds of rock. There's no waste rock or tailings. There's no haul trucks. None of that traditional mining activity with our process. And that brings a lot of benefits in the sense that we save a lot of energy. We emit less carbon and less dust. We also use significantly less water compared to a traditional mining operation. We have a very, very small footprint. And when we're done, all of this equipment that you see on this slide can be pretty much pulled up. And with that, the land really looks like how it was when we started. So it can be redeveloped into housing, into agriculture, really whatever the community priorities are at that time. This is also a very low cost process, so we will actually be in the lowest quartile globally for cost per pound produce of copper. So speaking to how this process works, I'm not going to get too much into the science because I know we all want to get home to our families this evening. But speaking at a higher level, we start out in our in situ recovery area or that well field, that picture that I showed with those workers that looks like that empty field with a couple of pieces of equipment sticking out of the ground. And in that well field, we're actually able to dissolve the copper minerals below ground, pull a liquid copper rich solution back above ground for processing through a series of wells. We then send that liquid copper rich solution to a plant on our site, where we ultimately plate it into solid form once again using electricity. creating the final product that we produce at Florence Copper, what we call an LME grade A copper cathode. Basically, a big giant rectangle of copper that weighs about 275 pounds, and that is refined copper that is ready for use by US manufacturers. So speaking a little bit to our commercial production, just to first of all highlight our construction program, So this kind of shows some progress that we've had on our site. And so you can see on the left-hand side, that's March, 2024, and then fast forward to April of this year. And so really there were two major components of our construction program. We basically expanded that well field where we're extracting that liquid copper rich solution from the ground. We also build a larger plant to plate copper on our site. So you can see that photo of the plant on the slide right there. And then these are just a couple photos actually from our first copper cathode harvest in February 2026. And I'm very proud to say that just in the first quarter of this year, so between the end of February when we produced and harvested our first copper cathode and the end of March, we already have produced 1.5 million pounds of copper and we're continuing to expand that production today. And then finally, just ending out, kind of speaking to our socioeconomic impact, the L. William Seidman Research Institute at Arizona State University did an economic impact study on Florence copper, and they found that we'll be contributing about $4.3 billion in economic activity to the state of Arizona over the course of our project, and that includes $2.5 billion concentrated here in Pinal County. I'm also very proud to say that when I started at Florence Copper, we had about 35 employees about four years ago. We're now up to over 200 employees and we're continuing to hire to this day. And the majority of folks that we've hired in our ramp up have been local Pinal County residents, including those from Apache Junction. And then ending out, just kind of speaking to our commitment to the community and some opportunities for additional collaboration here in Apache Junction, we do have a community foundation that has donated over $225,000 in grants to local nonprofits and initiatives since 2013. The photo here I have on the slide is actually a grant award to Good Shepherd Horse Rescue and Learning Center here in Apache Junction. But we've given several grants here, including to your local Salvation Army. And so do you want to put that out there to any local community organizations that might be looking for support? We also do have a scholarship program. And all students, all high school seniors in Apache Junction are automatically eligible for that scholarship program. And we've given over $130,000 in scholarships to local students. And then finally, we do really cherish the opportunity to partner with different community organizations and municipalities. And so we look forward to continuing our collaboration and expanding our collaboration here in Apache Junction. And so to end out, I'd just like to say as a local resident here in Pinal County, who is 11 minutes from the Florence copper site, I'm just incredibly excited to see how we can grow our positive impact in the community as we focus on expanding our production and moving forward in our operations. So thank you so much for the privilege of your time. And if you have any questions, I'd be glad to answer them.

Any questions?

Yes. When you talk about the solution going down to dissolve the copper, What exactly is that solution and how much water is used on this site?

That's a fantastic question. Thank you, Councilmember. So speaking to the process, we basically drill those wells into that copper oxide zone, which is 400 to 1,200 feet below ground. We then use a lightly acidic solution. It's similar in acidity to household vinegar. And that actually dissolves the copper in the rock. And we then pull that liquid copper rich solution back above ground for processing. Speaking to your question about water usage, the amazing thing is once we're actually able to pull those copper molecules from the solution and ultimately plate them into solid form, we're able to recycle that solution back into the process. And because it's mostly water based, we're recycling the majority of the water that we use at Florence Copper. We also have, as an operation, we actually technically produce more water than we need. And so with that, we have a partnership with a local farmer that farms on our land and is actually able to get water from our operation to help irrigate his fields. So thank you so much.

Okay. Can you tell me what the chemical is?

Yes. It's a solution called raffinate.

Okay. And the water that's recycled is going to a farm site where they grow food?

It's an alfalfa farmer on our site, and so we have a reverse osmosis system, and we're able to provide that water to him. Yes. Anyone else?

Yes.

The process you used for extracting the copper, is this proprietary? I mean, you guys are the only ones using this process?

We are the first world's first greenfield in situ copper recovery operation, yes.

Is this a proprietary?

So... There's definitely a lot of interest in this process. And so for instance, on our site, we don't allow photos because there is a lot of proprietary technology associated with it. At the same time, I can say that the in situ process isn't proprietary to us. It has been applied in other mining methods for different minerals and different resources. But for copper, we are the world's first. Yes, we have geologists, hydrogeologists, engineers, a great technical team supporting our site. Thank you, Vice Mayor.

Yes. So regarding that ISCR, so it seems to, from what I saw here in the presentation, seems to have far less environmental impact to the ground and all than other mining operations. Is this the kind of thing that you have to, if you'd be looking to expand, would it have to be an ideal location, or can you create it from wherever it is you want to set up a mining operation?

Yeah, thank you, council member. That's a very good question. So yeah, obviously, a lot of people have asked me, hey, there's this proposed project. We would love to see you apply the in situ copper recovery process here because there's so many benefits to it. And you do need specific hydrogeologic conditions to make the process possible. Basically, when you're looking at a deposit and developing a deposit, you need to align the mining method with the hydrogeological conditions of that deposit. At the same time, we are convinced that there are other opportunities to apply this technology elsewhere and in the United States. And as the world's first Greenfield Institute copper recovery operation, we are very excited in the longer term to have the ability to apply our technical knowledge and expertise to expand. Thank you.

Thank you.

Anyone else? Yes. More or less just a statement. It's amazing the work that you're doing and the benefits you're providing for not only Pinal County, but the state of Arizona and the local community of Florence and Apache Junction. So thank you so much. Appreciate that a bunch. And yeah, if we can find a site for a mining operation somewhere here close by, that'd be good too.

Thank you very much. We just appreciate the opportunity for the partnership and look forward to continuing support however we can and continuing to grow the partnership. So again, thank you so much to all of you for your time this evening.

I want to personally say thank you as well. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Vice Mayor, and thank you, Council.

Okay, regional intergovernment meetings and updates from the Council. Anyone got anything?

Yes? I'm only going to say a little bit about the 4th of July because I'm sure our esteemed mayor will talk on that subject, which I had an absolutely wonderful time. Liz is probably already gone. No, she's still here. Oh, she's still here. I did check with her, and she said that they counted over 7,300 people this year, not counting all the people that were in the parking lots or the cars that I saw. all the way up southern to Idaho. And according to her, they were also all the way down to Meridian. So there was probably closer to 10,000 people that witnessed those fireworks. And I'd like to say a big thank you for the event itself that Parks and Recreation worked so very, very hard on. And I'd like to thank them. My great appreciation. Um, for, uh, mayor Wilson and I were both recognized as veterans during this 250th anniversary and they presented us with the reef and I greatly appreciate it. I thank you very much for that honor.

Anyone else? Okay. Yes. I'm going to get on the bandwagon and the fourth as well. It was a, uh, really a fantastic run. And it was something that was enjoyable. Did not see anyone arguing over shade protection because we had wonderful weather as well. And thank the Lord for that. And it's something that was really, I'm going to say, a fantastic event. I want to say thanks to all the Parks and Rec personnel that had to work and work that day to get ready. And then as well as the cleanup afterwards was something I think was very immense as well. I also wanted to make a quick comment about the, we had a, I'll say, introduction to the library's new addition to the library, and we had the opportunity to kind of go through it and view it, and then wanting to let everybody now No, it is open. And when the library is open, go out and enjoy the gardening area and enjoy the wonderful views that you have from that opportunity. It was really fantastic. I thought we had a picture on that one, so I guess not.

All right. City Manager's report. Thank you, Your Honor. Brian Palace, manager, very, very happy to be celebrating 250 years as a country and freedom with life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. This team and your work in helping us support our democracy and helping folks be able to come in and do what they do is commendable, and I want to say thank you. Our staff are very much appreciated that we get to be in very favorable circumstances, where a group of people can get together with 10,000, now I'm hearing, gathering on a night to celebrate our liberty, to celebrate a community of people that are still striving for the pursuit of happiness, to create a union called the United States that was an experiment like no other one in the world at the time. We sit on shoulders of over 250 years. I'm so grateful for the Parks and Recreation Department that makes it all happen. I'm so grateful for the Apache Junction Police Department who, without their resources, could not make it safe and make it passable and be able to make the night just go so great. We extend our thanks also to the Public Works Department. I just wanted to also share another quick photo. There's everybody getting in. Celebrate our veterans who are the ones who made it happen. And we have two on our city council and wanted to thank our mayor and council member Johnson. So that will conclude my report tonight, your honor, and wanted to just to say happy 250. I wear a tie that was worn by my dad 50 years ago at the bicentennial. He passed a couple years ago. My mother's a home ec teacher. It's a homemade tie. If you want to see the one I wore when I was four, Come to my office. It's a little baby tie, but it matches. It's got the stars. And to me, this country is everything. I think this is the greatest place ever. I've lived outside this country for two years, and it's not the same. And I am grateful eternally for this opportunity to live in a free country where we can come on nights like this and debate and talk. I don't know what else to say other than to be here at 250 when we're still going. I say thank you. Thank you for the opportunity to serve. Our staff are very grateful to serve. this great community in this great country and this great state. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you.

Mayor.

Yes.

I do also want to just say thank you for the just spectacular performance. I had a great time there. Just wonderful seeing the crowd and all the happy faces.

Thank you.

Okay. Excuse me. Presentation, discussion, public hearing on development fee study update. Sydney.

Good evening, Mayor and Council. I'm here to introduce Ben Griffin with Tischer Weiss. If you remember, he was here in April giving us a general overview of development impact fees. We're in the middle of that process. Today is the first public hearing, and he's here with another update.

Mayor, council members, it's gonna be back in Apache Junction. Excuse me. This is the same presentation you saw in April, so I'm going to highlight the parts that are, important for tonight. Essentially with an impact fee update you have sort of two adoption processes. You have the land use assumptions and the infrastructure improvements plan which happened first. Once you've adopted those then you can move on to the development fees. SO TONIGHT I'M JUST GOING TO POINT OUT A FEW THINGS RELATED TO LAND USE ASSUMPTIONS AND THE INFRASTRUCTURE IMPROVEMENTS PLAN BECAUSE THIS IS YOUR FIRST REQUIRED PUBLIC HEARING RELATED TO THAT. WE'LL REMIND EVERYONE THAT DEVELOPMENT FEES ARE ONE-TIME PAYMENTS FOR GROWTH-RELATED CAPITAL IMPROVEMENTS GENERALLY COLLECTED WITH THE BUILDING PERMITS. THIS IS SOMETHING THAT NEW DEVELOPMENT PAYS. IT IS NOT SOMETHING THAT EXISTING DEVELOPMENT PAYS. So as I said, there are three components in Arizona when you want to adopt impact fees. The land use assumptions document is essentially how much development do we think we're going to have over the next 10 years. The infrastructure improvements plan is essentially your level of service analysis, the cost related to that infrastructure. Those two documents, as I said earlier, are adopted first. Then you move on to the actual development fees. You saw these development fees back in April. You'll see them again tonight. But you do adopt those separately after the land use assumptions and the IIP. All right, so we started this process back in September. We had the first stakeholder meeting and a work session back in April. Today we had stakeholder meeting number two. This will serve as the first public hearing as this is related to the land use assumptions and the IIP. On September 1st is planned that you will have a second public hearing and you can adopt the land use assumptions and the IIP at that time. then you'll start your next adoption process. So October 20th, you could have the first public hearing for development fees. December 1st, you could adopt those. And then February 15th is the first day that those fees could go into effect because you have a minimum of 75 days before those can go into effect once you've adopted them. All right, so related to land use assumptions, on the residential side, we use census data for Apache Junction that shows occupancy factors for single family, multi-family, and mobile home units. That's how we vary these fees so they are proportionate to the actual demand by different types of residential development. On the non-residential side, we use data published by the Institute of Transportation Engineers. Basically, it says, hey, different types of development generate different numbers of trips or have different numbers of employees. So we use this data to vary the fees on the non-residential side. As far as service areas go, we have a city-wide service area for library and police fees. In the auction property, there is a development agreement that handles the construction of park improvements and street improvements outside of your development fee program. So the parks and streets fees do not include the auction property but will be assessed in the remainder of the city. All right, so we'll start off with the actual development projections. We'll start with the auction property. So based on the build out of development units one and two within the auction property, over the next 10 years, we think you'll see about 8,900 additional housing units within the auction property and about 443,000 square feet of non-residential development. For the remainder of the city, we talked with staff and based on recent development trends, we're looking at about 5,000 additional housing units, again, outside of the auction property. And then we look to the Maricopa Association of Governments for employment projections on the non-residential side. and then convert that to floor area using those IT density factors. So the MAG projections basically translate into about 450,000 square feet of non-residential development. So when we look at a city-wide basis, we're looking at just shy of 14,000 additional housing units over the next 10 years and about 900,000 square feet of non-residential floor area. So this is the land use assumptions component of the report. We'll move on to the Infrastructure Improvements Plan or IIP. I'll give you the summaries for each of these. If you have specific questions, we can go into the more detailed slides. But we're looking at a citywide service area for libraries. We're looking at one component, and that is a library facilities component. We're using the incremental methodology, so maintaining a level of service. In Arizona, you are limited to 10,000 square feet of library facilities. with development impact fees. So essentially saying you can't use impact fees to fund more than 10,000 square feet of a single library. So you are planning to build a library that is 15,000 square feet. Outlined in the report is the breakdown of, hey, you can fund up to 10,000 square feet. You've already been collecting towards this. And you're going to issue some debt But what it's basically saying is over the next 10 years, we're looking at 12,500 square feet of eligible facilities. You can build more than that, but you just can't build more than 10,000 square feet at one site using impact fees. We do include a debt credit and... I will jump ahead. So this shows the proposed library fees for residential versus non-residential. Your single family home, the proposed fee will increase from $550 today to $714. You have a very similar level of service as you did in your previous study. So really this is just passing that construction cost increase along to new development. So any questions related to the library component?

Don't see any?

Just to make sure everyone knows, this is the big picture where when folks are wondering where we're paying for the new library branch, it's this type of preparation, this type of work that's been done, that when we go to build it here in the coming months and people wonder in the public, how are we paying for it? This is their answer. It's impact fee. New residents are coming in. State law allows for it. Development fees are helping. So, sorry. Thanks, Ben. Thank you.

All right, next up we have Parks and Recreation. So this service area does not include the auction property, because again, there's a development agreement that handles the parks and rec improvements for that area. But we're looking at three components, all using an incremental methodology, so maintaining the existing level of service of developed park land, park amenities, and trails, so based on 10 years of projected growth, you'd need about 31 acres of developed park land, 34 additional park amenities, and about four and a half miles of trails to maintain the existing level of service. Again, this is saying, hey, impact fees are going to cover this. You don't need additional revenues to fund this. Again, making sure we just maintain the existing level of service. So for the proposed park fees, for a single-family unit, your existing fee is about $1,700. The proposed fee is $2,057. Any questions related to parks and rec? Okay.

Don't see any.

All right, next up we have police. So this is a citywide service area. We're looking at three components. So for facilities, we're using a plan-based approach. So you've identified very specific projects and the impact fees. We're looking at over 20 years for this because they're gonna provide more capacity than you initially need. So the idea here is it's plan-based now, but at your next update, when you've built some of this, we actually switched to a cost recovery. We'll know the exact cost at that point, and you can use impact fees to retire any debt related to this. But because this increases the level of service, you've identified some debt financing, to cover existing development share of replacement of some facilities, increasing the level of service. So the growth share of this over 20 years is about 35,000 square feet of the total 66,000 planned. So, you know, we're looking at about $28 million of the $51 million that it'll cost to actually construct this. So, again, impact fees are not covering 100% of this. This does reflect an increased level of service. So, you have identified outside revenue sources to cover that increased level of service. And then we can charge future development based on that planned level of service. Again, making sure that we're always charging future development for the same level of service received by existing development. For police vehicles to maintain the existing level of service, you would need to expand the fleet by about 58 vehicles. And for police equipment, you would need to expand the inventory by about 115 units. All right, and so for a single family unit, your existing fee is about $1,200. The proposed fee is $1,449. So again, it's really, you have a similar level of service as you did in the previous study. So this is really just passing along those construction cost increases and vehicle acquisition cost increases to new development. Any questions related to police? Don't see any.

All right.

Finally, we have the street section. Again, the auction property does not pay street development fees because the development agreement for that area covers their street improvements. So we have one component is a street improvements component. It uses an incremental methodology to maintain the existing level of service. And so based on 10 years of projected growth, you'd need to construct about 8.1 lane miles of street improvements at a cost of about $22.5 million. And the existing street fee for a single family unit is $3,250. The proposed fee is $4,843. I believe your level of service is almost exactly the same as it was in the previous study. So again, this is really just pushing on this construction cost increase. And that's really what's driving the increase in these fees. So this shows the residential fee summary. At the top, you have the proposed fees. In the center, you have the current fees. And at the bottom, you have the difference. So the proposed single family fee is about $9,100. The current single family fee is about $6,700. So we're looking at an increase of about $2,300 per single family unit. We do the same thing for non-residential. So the top shows the proposed fees, the middle has the current fees, and the bottom has the difference. And then finally, if you squint, you can see the comparison to other communities. You'll notice that the gray rows going across for Apache Junction, Apache Junction-AP is the auction property. The other one without the AP is the remainder of the city. But we're not looking at very much of an increase for your single family fees. That is the final slide. So if you have any questions or comments for me, I can answer those. Otherwise, I will move off to the side so you can have the public hearing.

Yes. I don't have a question for you as much as I do for our city manager on this. Being as this was more of a recap for all of us who saw the more detailed in the work session, can the city put this entire thing up on our city website? And no, it doesn't affect our existing residents, but any time that we have to go through a lot of slides, I think it's best if it's put up where everyone can see and take their time with it.

We will definitely make sure it's up front and center, yes.

Thank you, because the presentation was very good tonight for those of us who were at that work session, and the recap was wonderful, so thank you very much.

Anyone else? Yes. On the multifamily development fee for, let's just use Rhodes, if you can go back to that slide. The difference in cost for single-family versus multifamily seems like the burden And this view is put higher on the single family over the multifamily. Is it multifamily fee per unit in that apartment complex, or is it?

Council Member Cross, yes, this is going to be, the multifamily fee would be assessed per unit. So if it has 100 units in that development, it would be the fee times 100.

Correct. Just clarifying that for the audience so that they can appreciate that a single-family home is not paying substantially more than a multi-family development. Multi-family development is going to pay a much higher fee overall.

That's correct.

Okay. All right. Well, thank you. I will now open the public hearing. There is a five-minute Time limit with a one-minute warning indication by a yellow light. Please state your name and address for the record. Anyone like to speak on this? And I don't see any movement. Well, okay. So I will now close the public hearing. Move on to a call to the public. And I have three. Four, excuse me, can't count. Four requests to speak. I would like to remind everyone the call of public is courtesy and not required by law. It's a time for the public to express requests, communication, comments, and suggestions. Requests to speak forms must be completed and handed to the city clerk before the end of the city manager's report. All issues shall be presented in a professional manner without personal attacks. Underneath the open meeting law, the council cannot engage in a discussion on the issue presented, but may respond to criticism, may direct staff to follow up with the speaker directly, and or place the matter on a future agenda for council discussion. There's a three-minute time limit with a 30-second warning indication by a yellow light. And Kathleen Meek.

Good evening, Council and Mayor. Sorry, time's up. That was quick. Catherine Meek, 1327 South Bel Air Road here in Apache Junction. There's a lot of talk tonight about the 250th anniversary of our country.

There's been a lot of talk on social media about that.

And I think it's really notable to stop and think for a minute that 250 years ago, our grandfathers, several of my grandfathers, seventh great grandfather, eighth great grandfather, committed to this concept that we are created equal and we have inherent rights and it's the government's job to secure and protect those rights and then let us live. And we talk all about, these are my rights, I want my rights. The people that did this knew that if they were not successful, they would be hung. They would see their families destroyed, their homes burned. Everything, it was, we are succeeding or we're gone. We proclaim we have all these rights, and then I don't like what the city council did. Well, go to meeting. I don't have time. And we've got a lot of people that really talk about their rights. They forget that rights come with responsibilities. And you need to make sure that exercising your rights do not infringe on other people's rights. It's like you're driving. Your world does not enter your windshield. It needs to go out and see everybody else out there and be aware of themselves. I also feel there's responsibility to make the community a little better, not worse, which means if you have time, volunteer. Smile at your neighbor, wave at the kid next door. Whatever it is, make the day a little bit nicer, make the world a little bit better. And don't just go to social media and complain about everything. I was kind of excited to see how many people were here tonight. Of course, I didn't realize it was all Parks and Rec. There's still quite a few people here, which is exciting.

You see the same people you usually see and then several city employees.

Hopefully, I know that a lot more people watch this on video because I can't go to O'Reilly's or any place else without somebody saying, wait, aren't you a Meek? So thank you very much. You have a great evening.

Nora James.

Aloha Mayor and to the rest of the City Council, my name is Noah James Markham and I'm from the great blue city of Tempe and it's great to be from that city because we're talking about the 250th anniversary of America that President Donald Trump has destroyed our country and it's a disaster. But I would like to talk about, wow, we have a lot of sex trafficking here and that's a concern and it is really weird here. Now I can see. You guys need to keep an eye on the planet and Planning and Commission Committee because they seem like they don't want to pass more building. Especially building for people with disabled people here and we need to keep them accountable. We need more building here and stop talking about, oh, there's no water here. There's too much traffic here. That's all I keep on hearing from these things. Oh, there's too much traffic. Oh, my goodness. How are we going to get through this with the building? Oh, my goodness. How many times do I keep on hearing this? Oh, there's too much traffic. Move it on. And I know the older people, you think you guys are wiser, but not always, honey. And we need to move forward. Also, we need to extend the light rail here in Apache Junction. Mahalo, and thank you so much.

Donna Carr.

Donna Carr, Apache Junction resident. I got to go to Resolution Copper on that tour. It was sort of interesting. I felt a little bit like I was being approached by the media. So where certain questions, if I asked them, Either I got diverted or I had to wait until after the engineer got there to answer the questions and how they were answered. But if you were to take and look at Resolution Copper, the mine shaft is down 1.3 miles. According to them, it's below the aquifers. And the aquifers are a mess of pockets of aquifers. It's not one big aquifer. So the water that's leaking into the mine shaft that they're pumping out, they are cleaning it. They're going to be sending that down to the Queen Valley Wash. But the tailings will be taken into an area called Skunk Camp, also known as Dripping Springs. That's 1.4 billion tons of tailings. When I was talking, I said, well, you know, I said, Resolution Copper. I said, they've never been in trouble for contaminating land or water, but however, they are owned by Rio Tinto and BHP, and they've both been in trouble for contaminating land and water. Matter of fact, BHP contaminated the water so bad when their dam let go in Brazil and the engineer interrupted and said, the dam she's talking about, it killed 19 people. Yes, that was the dam I was talking about. Now, according to them, they said they're going to line the dam. They're going to line the ground where they're dropping this 1.4 million tons. But then you think about it is, according to them, they're not going to contaminate Gila River Wash, but how long is the liner going to hold? So it's not a matter of if it's gonna leak is when it's gonna leak. So it will still end up contaminating land and water. There's gotta be other solutions that can be done. I mean, if they can clean the water to send down, maybe they can set up some type of area up there for them to put water in and then suck it out and filtrate that just to try to get the heavy metals and the arsenic out. Now, I was told that, no, they are not digging for uranium. 30 seconds. Oh, sorry. Time's up.

No, 30 seconds. 30 seconds.

Oh. They're not digging for uranium or uridium. But, however, when I did mention to them that that is naturally found where copper is found. And I know of somebody who went up along both sides of the road up in Superior and it is testing positive for radioactivity So I'm not sure about that, but they did say that we in Apache Junction have no worries about our water problem That thank you.

All right Andre

Andre Meek, 1327 South Bel Air Road here in A.J. Number one, thank you for that beautiful ceremony. Big old party we had there at the campgrounds for Fourth of July and the fireworks. First time I've ever been right under them. Usually I can watch them from my house and compare them to my neighbor behind me blowing his off. So it was great. Wild thing was coming home, driving down southern right after we passed Idaho, heading to Royal Palm there. Looking, what's in the middle of the street there? Well, some of the kids were firing the fireworks right from the turn lane in the middle of Southern. So, America, you know? Let's do it. So, anyway, a couple comments on our esteemed guest from, where is he from? Anyway, maybe I'll just let that one ride. Thank you.

Any comments from the council? Okay, I will adjourn.

Thank you.