Library Board - Regular Meeting

Please rise and join me for the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you. Sorry.

Oh, I didn't realize it wasn't on. Okay. We're good. All right. May I have roll call, please? Is that not you, Chrissy, Larry? No? He was saying he was.

Sorry. Thank you. Okay. Good grief. Bear with me. All right. Felicia Madrid. Here. Judy Borey. Here. Manny Vega.

Here.

Frank Shainbeck.

Here.

D.L. Kine. Here. Lamont Klepper.

Here.

Heather Moeller.

Here.

You have a quorum, Your Honor. Thank you.

All right, the Commission may at this time take a single action on any or all items listed as consent agenda items. these includes acceptance of the agenda and acceptance of minutes any member of the commission may remove any item from the consent agenda for discussion and cause a separate vote on the matter later in the agenda may have a motion for the approval and acceptance of the agenda meeting meeting minutes madam chair i move that the parks and recreation commission accept the agenda as presented and approve the minutes from the june 3rd 2026 regular meeting and may i have a second i second and may i have a roll call please

Judy Borey. Yes. Manny Vega. Yes. Frank Schoenbeck. Yes. D.L. Kine. Yes. Lamont Klepper. Yes. Felicia Madrid. Yes. And Heather Muller.

Yes. Thank you. All right. Commissioners, if there is any information for any programs or events or activities that you participated in since last weekend, if you'd like to share anything, now's the time.

Hey, I've done the aerobics, water aerobics class out at the pool, and oh my gosh, the pool's beautiful, but the water is 94.3. So it was pretty warm, but it was nice to get into the pool and get wet and get out again. But it was a lot of fun, and Gloria's a great instructor, so a lot of fun. My wife and daughter have seen you there.

Well, I didn't do a whole lot, but I did go to the gym on a pretty regular basis, and I noticed at least twice that the splash pad was being used. Somebody had called it in and fired it up. And I go by the dog park all the time, too, so keep an eye on those two places. We'll talk about the dog park a little later.

I spent just a little time at the pickleball court. It's really, really hot, but just a little time. More of a tennis player, so I spent more time there. And then it's been a few sunsets at Silly Mountain because it's a great view of the superstitions. So some good picks there.

It seems like a while ago, but my daughter attended the volleyball camp that was at the beginning of summer. And nothing but rave reviews on that. The coaches were great. The instruction was really good. There's definitely a lot of kids out there. And it seemed like everybody had a really good time. And I know my daughter's skill sets got a lot better as well. Shout out to the team that put it together and the instructors were amazing.

That's awesome.

I did a Yelp event and I learned what Paddle or Padel is. And then I got to plug that we have new pickleball courts. So there should be some hopefully people there. Soon, it was an indoor event to that one, and I said, well, we'll have a great place for you in Apache Junction in November or October. Or just early in the morning. But it was neat to see that. And I think it just kind of really showcases the popularity of the sport. I feel like the ribbon cutting, I saw it, but then I was like, maybe it's just our area. It's not. It was in Gilbert, and they were just as crazy. Oh, yeah.

I attended the ribbon cutting for the pickleball courts. That was super fun, and it was my first time playing pickleball with one of my girls, and she's been talking about it ever since, but I'm like, we gotta wait for the weather to cool. I'm just, we're not going out in 100. And let's see, oh, we wrapped up our swim team season, so they got to do that. Got to see Liz over there timing, and that was lots of fun. And yeah, let's see, what else did we do? I think we've done the dog park and I feel like there's something else, but anyway.

We didn't actually, we didn't attend the 4th of July event.

No, we didn't, but we did watch the fireworks from our driveway. So yeah. And they were great as always.

Yes. All right. Well, thank you very much for sharing with us. We're going to have superintendent Dave Butler presentation and update on projects and opportunities in the parks and other service areas.

All right. Good evening, everyone. We have kind of turned our attention from crazy things into normal maintenance again with the pool starting to slow down and regular open swim. It gives our maintenance team time to focus on other tasks that haven't that aren't related to the pool. So this is the time of year you'll really start to see us focusing on turf, more landscape maintenance as we get through monsoon season. Obviously, a big portion of our time goes to storm cleanup, storm damage repairs. And I know it seems a little early, but we're already starting to think about overseeding for fall turf, because that really starts in September and October. And then even the areas that we aren't overseeding, you'll see this is the time of year that we'll come through and do aeration, fertilization, and just getting that turf that's not going to be overseeded as strong as it can to go into the winter. The biggest thing that the crews are focusing on right now is just kind of getting ready for fall event season. I know it's 115 the past week, but Halloween will be here before you know it. As we start a new fiscal year also, this is the time that we start planning our capital projects. And there'll be a little portion later on this evening about our budget for fiscal 2017 or 2027. But I did want to walk through a couple of those projects tonight with you. And the first one is Phase two of our irrigation renovation at Prospector Park. So if you remember in last fall, we did all of the ball field. So all of that has already been converted, all brand new irrigation. Everything in these highlighted boxes is what will be considered phase two for this year. We have already scheduled with our contractor to start September 1st in this green phase down here. We think that'll take about 30 to 45 days to get through that section. And that allows us to finish programming and sports that are already scheduled for the multipurpose fields. Once those are done, we move into the blue section. Again, this we think is probably 30, they're about 30 to 45 days per phase on here. And then once that's done, we'll roll into that red section. And then all of the irrigation at Prospector Park will be brand new over the course of the past two years. At the same time that we do that, irrigation project we have a lighting retrofit project scheduled for Prospector Park. So all of the parking lot lighting will be converted to LED dark sky compliant lighting and those are just existing poles that will take the heads off and put LED lights on. This diagram here it's kind of an odd look but this would be up to the top of the page would be east And these would be the multi-purpose fields, the walkway between the new pickleball courts over to multi-purpose. All of those A's on there are locations that we are going to be installing bollard lighting to light that pathway. One of the comments that we've gotten several times is that unless the ball field lights are on, there's no lighting out there. So it's, you know, it's a little dark to walk around at night. So we'll also be installing lighting.

Those heads are we changing out? Do we do that or do we contract that out?

That will be contracted.

And this is those shorter poles, or is this large?

So these are approximately 40 inches, so just about waist-high. And then this is a small-scale photometric, so you can see that there are two distinct light cast areas. So essentially the entire walkway will be lit, and then you won't have spillover into the wash or the ball field areas. The other large project I wanted to highlight tonight is phase 2A of the rodeo grounds. We are actually in contract negotiations now for this. This first sheet that you're going to see here is just an overall site plan of everything that's included in phase 2A. That includes the check-in first aid building down here on the south side of the bleachers, new site fencing, Let me scroll through some of these. So I wanted to highlight a couple things. The entire site fence around the rodeo grounds will be replaced in this phase. The nice thing is that several of the access points will now be automatic card reader access, so it's no longer just a gate with a chain and a lock on it. They will be access controlled. This is one thing that we're real excited about is an electronic marquee will be located in the center of the facility right off of Lost Dutchman. It will be similar to the one that is downtown at the focal point, except it's about 20 years newer, so it has a lot more capability than that one does. This is just kind of a elevation view of some of the fencing. We're getting a brand new SES to be able to handle all of the electrical upgrades that we will need for all of the new additions. And this is just a decorative gate that goes in front of that to give it sort of a Western feel and just kind of fit the overall theme of the rodeo grounds. And then this is just a view. The fencing is not all chain link. So there are sections where there will be this decorative CMU and precast stone columns, as well as our brand new entry monument right off of Tomahawk and Lost Dutchman with a sign that's real similar to the sign that is the overhead entry as you come in on the north side of the rodeo grounds now.

That's really going to upgrade it.

It really will. And then I just wanted to give you an overview of the actual check-in first aid building itself. Check-in for any organization or group that wants to run an event out there, they now will have a room completely climate-controlled and be able to check in participants, vendors, all of that. There's a separate room for first aid, so if someone is hurt in a rodeo, they have a place to go with privacy if they need to partially undress or have something checked out by EMS. There's also a large storage component in that building as well as restrooms on the exterior of the building. The east end of the building is what we have been referring to as our cowboy kitchen, where there will be just a covered patio with a concrete pad to set up grills or smokers or whatever anyone would like to use to cook for events and participants out there. And then these are just side elevation views of that building to kind of give you just an overall feel of what that building will look like when finished.

Will there be a refrigerator or refrigeration under that kitchen?

It's called out in here. I have to, as we go through the contract process, there are two that are called out in the storage. And that would be part of the FF&E in that contract process with the contractor. All of the exterior of the building is designed to mimic the existing restroom concession on the east side of the facility. So the colors will be real similar. Everything will match as close as we can get it 25-ish years after that one was built. So we're trying to keep it as one theme as possible out there. That is all that I have this evening, unless you have questions for me on anything.

Dave, on the ballpark, on the dog park. Yes. The grass has really, really, you know, been beat up on there. Is there really hope of bringing that back?

In the large?

Yeah, in the large one here.

Yes, there is. But to be honest, it's just a side effect of having a dog park with areas that are that open and that used. It's really hard to maintain a full lush turf area. It has come back quite a bit from where it was just a month or two ago and we're still working on it we do have a fall um i believe it's sometime in october that we will close for some maintenance it will never be a full lush lawn in there there's just no way that we can no way we can do that it's just too hard well i admire your efforts so it must be frustrating sometimes it it is but you know it's just it's a it's a side effect of having something that that many people and that many dogs are in all the time and we're We're doing everything we can, but it's never going to be perfect.

The good news is it's getting used a lot. The bad news is it's getting used a lot. It is. Thank you.

I will definitely mention that I, so we've talked about it a couple times, and it was really rough after the really big rain and once it dried out and all of that. But I am surprised. I was just noticing it today. It has, it's amazing how much grass has filled into those spots. So again, it just depends on right weather temperatures and people. You know, dogs being off of it. There's dogs early in the morning and late at night, but not throughout the rest of the day. So that's giving it a little bit of a chance. So really short of closing it down for a good couple of months to do a sod or some other major replacement. And we just don't have that type of interest, I don't think, from the dog community to be shut down.

I think they'd rather see it open as is. Yeah.

Yeah, it looks, we were there last night actually, and it looks pretty good. There are some areas you can tell from monsoons where the mud, you know, it just made a mud puddle. And then of course, like it's a feature for the dogs now.

So you'll be amazed though, the place where mud got brought in, that's where grass will grow. So like down at painted sky, wherever mud washed in, it brings so many different nutrients and stuff. I'm always amazed at what grows in some of those areas eventually and stuff, but, and it does take a while.

It was nice to see there's two new tables down there too and of course the shape looks great. I had some questions about the marquee. Yes. Is it going to be dark sky compliant and is it going to be used constantly or per event?

So we haven't got to the programming of the marquee itself yet. It is color temperature controllable. There are a ton of options and settings on it that we can. So it can be dark sky compliant. We just haven't gotten the full spec sheet on it yet.

Okay. So something we'll consider, though. Is it going to be constant use once it's installed?

I would assume so. But, again, we haven't fully determined programming and run times and things yet. But as we go through that process, we'll have something.

Bring more information.

I will tell you that council's intent, though, is to have a marquee down on this end of town, a marquee down in the south at one of the parks, similar to what we have downtown, to let people know about all the events throughout our community, all of the news we want to share. So I will just say my, you know, probably assumption is that it will be on. And then for dark sky, things like a marquee, things like there's a lot of things that you do that is not going to, It wouldn't even be affected by dark sky. So we're not a dark sky place or anything like that. Most of the time, these lights are not shining into the air. So think of it a little bit on a much smaller scale of what it's actually producing. But like Dave said, we'll kind of get into the nitty gritty. And it's definitely something we can bring back to give more information.

There's no neighbors nearby to worry about the light, are there?

Not by the marquee itself. It's far enough west.

I ran into one at Mountain View when I worked there. We put up a marquee and turned it into a hornet's nest because of the neighbors.

Yeah, luckily we've got flood control on the other side of our property. On the south side, yeah. So absolutely adjacent to our property across Las Dutchman is all flood district stuff, so there's no housing.

Good.

I think you said SCS for the rodeo. Is that what you said? What does that mean?

Sorry, that's the service entry section. So that's the, think of it as your home electrical panel. It's just called a service entry section for a commercial.

I was just like, ooh. Okay, all right. Thank you. And then one more question. The check-in building is over on which, do you have an overview of where it's located on the property?

So this is the arena itself here. The check-in building is just to the southwest of it.

Oh, okay.

All right. Oh, sorry.

Thank you.

And then I did want to mention that we are, it's not been publicly announced yet, but we do have November 5th scheduled as an open house for the rodeo grounds. We will come back with more details once we know more, but just wanted to get that onto your calendars now.

And so Jamie's team and Riley, as well as our, you know, working with our contractor, we will be doing something similar to kind of what we did at not really a ribbon cutting or anything like that because we've been using it, but really more of an open house, a way to promote the rodeo ground. So that way, as we exit phase 2A construction, We will already have, we really want to be getting the word out about wedding, you know, it being a great wedding venue, all the things we want to see brought there. And then also having all of our stakeholders get to have a day of celebration of, you know, that great pavilion. As usual, things that we finish and wrap up, always wrap up in the summer or in the hottest months. So we're going to postpone that until November time so it can be nice and cool. It'll be a beautiful event. And in the evening, so you'll get more information as we get closer.

Thank you. And then when do we have a date for bookings to begin there or with that phase being completed?

So individuals can book right now for what is available. We will continue to reserve the facility through. And again, it's already pretty well booked with all of our ongoing regular events. But we will really only have those bookings through mid-March, end of March-ish, because construction for Phase 2A will take place as soon as that last event that's scheduled right now wraps up. And then that way we'll have a good six months to nine months for construction before the next year's major event season.

Yeah, lots of planning.

Okay, all right. Well, thank you very much. Presentation, discussion, and update on upcoming events and activities by Jamie Sullivan. I was going to say your soccer.

Good evening. Dave's going to roll some videos or stills for you guys to be able to entertain you while I talk at you. But it has been a couple of months. with us summer is super busy and there's just no way i can share everything with you but i know you guys are all active followers on facebook so hopefully you've been seeing all the cool things that we've been doing um starting with fourth of july one of our biggest events this is a snapshot of what it looked like not even at peak time But for it falling on a weekend, like we had one of the highest number of folks at this event. We had about 7,300 people in the event area itself. And normally we average around 5,000 to 6,000. So we don't know if it was the beautiful weather, if it was America 250, people stayed home. But we had a record turnout. And the event really went very, very smooth. Also, the whole month of July was celebrating Parks and Recreation, so we had lots of videos out there, and we celebrated our staff, and we celebrated our programs, and hopefully you guys were able to check out the video that is online. But if you haven't, just grab some tissues before you watch it. It's a pretty powerful and impactful video. So I'm going to just kind of bounce around, but we also finished up our prehistoric party this month. And as we are getting ready, we literally started to get weather alerts that we were going to get hit with this monster storm at 4 p.m. which was the exact same time as Prehistoric Party. So I braced Jared and I said, you know, Jared, I said, I won't be disappointed if we have at least 50 people come. And he's just like, okay, all right, because I was nervous because I don't think anybody's going to come. 50 turned into 300. So apparently people still just wanted to get out and see those dinosaurs. So it was a great event. 300 is what we normally get. The storm did not keep. Sorry, there's sound.

Well, I think it also reflects just how popular the program is.

It has grown. Prehistoric Party is definitely one of the big ones.

Well, just in general, in general. No matter what the weather, no matter what, they will come to you.

They will come. They will come. I wanted to bring to your guys' attention, we're really excited this summer. Last year we started our sponsored free swim days where we had some organizations that would come in and they would sponsor a Saturday and those Saturdays became free to the public. This year, again, State Farm and Lost Dutchman Marathon stepped up and sponsored a free Saturday. But we also added Great Hearts sponsored a Saturday, and Banner Health is sponsoring a Saturday. So we had four Saturdays this swim season that were completely free to the public, and one of them being the 4th of July, which did hit capacity. But right about the time we hit capacity, we had people leave. So we never had to turn anybody away. Our pool is now only open for open swim through the weekend, so I just want to bring that to your attention, and that will continue through Labor Day. The main reason for that, and I know folks in the public may ask you guys, it's still 118, how come our pool isn't open? Our workforce has gone back to school. So we sometimes even struggle on those weekends filling those lifeguard shifts. We are still continuing to do swim lessons on Saturdays and we have every instructor that is willing to work working. So it just really is about our workforce has gone back to school and those schedules get really tight for them. But we are happy that we are still open Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. And then our last day will be Labor Day. And that is being sponsored by Lost Dutchman Marathon. So you can come out for free. We have, this Friday, we have finished a brand new program called Our Young Artist of AJ, where we put out for the community where kids could come, pick up canvases, take them home, complete their own masterpiece, and bring it back. and we had 60 register we had 40 pick up a camp or if we had 50 about 50 pick up a canvas and we had 40 canvases returned we brought in some volunteers from the Public Art Commission to help judge their art pieces and this Friday from 5 to 7 p.m. we are hosting an open art gala and we are inviting all of you to come it has been posted so More than four of you can show if you want to. But it's 5 to 7. You can come at any point. It will probably be a 20, 30-minute walkthrough. There will be refreshments, and you can check out some of the amazing talent from our kids. Also, that night is a free rock painting night. So if you're interested in painting rocks, you can do that as well. And if you're into things that glow in the dark, we have our scorpion hunt. But you do need to register, and there's very few spots left. So we've got a lot going on on Friday. As you guys saw, which was kind of cool this year, we brought back our boat races where the kids constructed these boats out of construction and our cardboard and duct tape and water bottles. We thought it was going to be a boat race, but it really just turned into a boat float. And if the boat lasted in the water, we gave them something. But it was really cool. The kids really got into it. Parents came down to watch the whole thing unfold, and it was pretty intense. We will definitely be bringing that one back next summer. We have mad science coming up on September 19th. It is inside. It is temperature controlled, and we are looking for volunteers. You don't have to be a scientist smart to volunteer. We will take any warm body. So if you have that evening available, please let Jared or myself know, and we will make you a scientist for that evening to help out. And then as Dave mentioned, Halloween is coming. We are starting the planning of that. And one of the things that we've already put out there is we're looking for candy sponsors. We have all kinds of different sponsorships, but for this event in particular, we really market that if businesses want to donate either candy itself or if they want to donate cash for us to buy candy, we have an actual, like a $250 sponsorship level. It's one of the events where we have a lower sponsorship level and that is just to help support the thousands of dollars that, and the thousands and thousands of pieces of candy that go out at that event and support our Trunk or Treat. I think that is about, I mean, we just, we had so much going on. But I will be bringing Julia back next month to give you a full update on pool numbers. They are going to knock your socks off, so just wear flip-flops because you don't even have to wear socks. But the pool has been so busy this summer, our swim lessons, our swim team. We hosted our own swim meet this year. All of our events, we've got some great stuff to share with you as we wrap up our pool season, but we're still in it. So she'll be back in September to share some information with you guys. If you have any questions, oh, back to the November 5th, so that will be our open house, but I did want to share, this is not our event, but we have been working and Riley's been working really hard to bring in those outside promoters and people who want to use our facilities to do great things, but we don't have to do all the work. So right now we have slated for November 7th a taco festival at the rodeo grounds. So as this is an outside promoter, it will not be our event, but I did want to share, I think it is really cool to be bringing a taco festival right in our own backyard. So as we get closer and once they start promoting that, I'll make sure you guys have that information as well.

Also, the hot air balloon, so that was the other one. Can you share that just briefly? I don't have it. It's okay if we don't have the date.

Yeah, but the same gentleman who is doing the taco festival has also put in an application to do a hot air balloon festival out at the rodeo, like a balloon glow. That is cool. I can't remember.

If I'm not mistaken, it's going to be like January or February or something like that, but it's early.

Yeah.

Early in the new year.

He had put in to do three events at the rodeo grounds, and we have worked with him. He did the barbecue event last March, so must have really liked working with us because he is back. and has in an application to do three different events. So we are really excited.

That's really exciting. That's a big addition.

It is. And we're not even completely fully built out yet. So it's like Liz said, it's managing getting them in when we are not in construction, but then making sure we have enough time to get the next phases done.

I think the department's also done a good job in building up the you know, structure of the department in order to like handle all this influx since the rodeo grounds got brought on and like moving Riley around and it just seems like it's all flowed really well and you guys have made it look easy and I don't thank you I don't think it's easy behind the scenes so that's awesome and exciting and I did remember one thing I did I saw Jamie at fishing Friday yeah I oh Felicia caught like the biggest fish we've ever had out of the lake so and no one believed I caught a fish either yes so she did we need to put that photo in the next

I thought that I did.

Well, we haven't seen each other for a little bit.

Yeah, we haven't seen each other for a while. But yeah, it was the biggest fish I've seen.

But we had so much fun. My nephew came out, thank goodness, because he helped me. And we had a lot of fun. Are they going to continue?

We do them the third Friday of every single month. Unless it falls too close to a holiday, we may move it. But yes, we have another one planned.

Yeah, that was awesome.

Any other questions? I did give you the new citizen came out August 1st, so you have that. Judy, I have a small stack for you. And then I also gave you guys the full, I know we're halfway through the year, but the 2026 event listing. So as you're planning out the rest of the year, you can include us in your plans. and then we'll be working on 2027 here shortly to come out around the same time as our strategic plan but most of the things on there just re they just move the date just a little bit when we get into that next year so except for marathon everybody please remember the lost estimate marathon is not in february this year it has been moved up a month and it will be in january it's the three-day weekend in january

OK, so that's not reflected on here, though.

That is not, because that's just the 26 states.

Got it. OK. Oh, yes.

OK, I was wondering, do you have a list of the different events that you need volunteers for?

So that same list can serve as that purpose, Judy. So if there's something on there that piques your interest, there is a contact on there. On that list is also events outside of what we do. So like Last Dutchman Days is on there. And that's just to help people plan their weekends. But if there is an event that you see on there, you'll see a contact email or phone number there. And you can just let that person know you're interested. But know that I'm going to always share at commission meeting when I know the things we need volunteers for. So like right now, it's mad science. It'll be Halloween. It'll be holiday event. Those are our three biggest ones coming up. All right.

Thank you very much. Next we have some old business update on the Parks and Recreation fee study, council feedback, and next text also from Jamie.

Okay, this one will be a lot shorter. So we did take back the fee study. You guys had gotten to see it. You guys had gotten to weigh in. And so we took our recommendations to the city council. We presented. They had very little questions, and they had no suggested changes or recommendations to what was presented. So now it is being posted for 60 days for the public, which will go through September 21st. Once that is completed, we will go back to council for public hearing. And as long as everything goes the way we think it should, it should be approved probably early October. And those take place starting in January, just as a reminder. But that's kind of the next steps for that. I don't know if you guys have any questions or did I miss anything in that? It's pretty simple. But we do thank all of you guys for your work on that. And again, back to Riley for putting it all together. It'll be done in five years from now. Somebody else other than me will be here.

Well, it was all very reasonable and very well put together.

Thank you.

And my only question is, on the day that you bring it back to council, that is a time that maybe the public could speak out and say something that halts it from being officially approved.

If they have questions or concerns and council agrees or wants us to look into something further, it could then take us back to council. doing whatever it is that they direct us to look into. So it's not a sure thing that it could get adopted, approved that evening. It's just the first opportunity for the public to speak on it.

Well, and I think I would just encourage that they've had about six public meetings that they could have attended. And so we go over that very clearly in every meeting, the ones you guys have had, as well as the council meetings. of the opportunities the public could have either attended or viewed it online. We have posted it every time that we've gone through these final changes. So it's highly unlikely. And hopefully, whatever their questions are, we will have the opportunity to also answer those questions. We so far have not heard from anybody. Every time we do this, usually there's somebody that will kind of call us and ask questions or concerns. We have not heard anything from anybody so far. So just FYI.

OK. Thank you.

I had a quick question just to follow up on that. If you did hear from somebody, what does that process look like? What do you do with that information?

Do you mean like if the public calls us and asks us a question? Really, it mainly depends on what the question is and whether it impacts the study. So oftentimes, they just don't understand why we have a fee or why most of the time it's, why are you charging us? We pay tax dollars or something like that. And so when we have those conversations, If they are happy with our answer, then that's kind of the end of it. It's really just explaining. That's really what has typically been the case. I haven't had somebody come to a council meeting and say they disagree with it, but council still has the final say to say, you know, we appreciate your thoughts, but either we're going to pass it or, you know what, that's a great idea, like Jamie said, and they'd instruct Parks and Rec to go back, and then the process would be not necessarily to start all over again, but We would have to have a meeting. We'd have a meeting to talk about whether we're going to change it. It would have to get reposted again, and then a new public hearing. Okay.

All right. Thank you. Next, we have new business, a discussion and update on a budget for the fiscal year 2026-2027 from Liz Langenbach.

All right. So I did give you guys just a copy of a list of Our budget items for right now. We I am still working with our finance department because we're so early in our budget year They'll send us kind of our final what our personnel numbers things like that look like but as of now according to the budget We are at just under 18 million as a department that we will be responsible for Our personnel budget is a little over seven million dollars Our operating and maintenance budget, this portion is all of the different maintenance at facilities. It's all the supplies and operating expenses. It's our contract instructors. all of just the different non-capital expenses that our department incurs. So that's a big chunk of money. And then the capital fund is at $6.7 million. On the flip side, we'll turn this over here in a second, and we'll go through some of those projects with you. Dave's already talked about a few of them today. And then currently, our senior services fund is at about $195,000. Our grants fund is at $165,000, and that's of known grants, not necessarily other ones that we're putting in for right now. And then the development fund, that is an estimate. So we estimate bringing in $750,000 to start a development project that is in that world. And so we don't know that, and that's really budgeting to see what we're going to be bringing in with development fees, primarily on the north end of town. because on the south end, don't forget that Blossom Rock and Radiance, instead of paying a development fee at the time they pull permits, they fund construction of the parks themselves, which is actually way more money than what we would have brought in development fund money-wise. If you flip that document over, we have listed out for you all of the capital projects that got funded this year. So these are either new parks or expansions to parks or facilities. So I'll just go through this really quickly. Most of these are in our strategic plan, so we've talked about them several times throughout the last year. We will continue with the CAP trail design. That's our portion of Pinal County's whole section of the CAP trail along the Central Arizona Project canal. The other, and so that's just finishing up design this year. We anticipate that next budget year there will be some money in there as we'll start to do construction. Superstition Shadows Park baseball dugouts, those are old, crumbly, masonry spaces, and they're just not, they will soon become unsafe and all of that, but we will be removing those We will just be doing regular fencing around that space, something that people can't hide in or can't climb on and those kinds of things, but still serving those purposes that a regular dugout would do at the baseball fields. So that cost is both demolition as well as install. The aquatic center will get all of the exterior building. Buildings will get exterior paint. And so some of those areas that we want to match up with the rest of the facility, we'll have an opportunity with some of the trim and things like that just to bring that together. But it's been 10, 15 years since our last paint. 10 years, I think. The MGC is getting new strength equipment. So we did cardio equipment a few years ago, and now the strength equipment has never been replaced since we first moved in there. So it's over 20 years old. So these are things like the selectorized weight systems. It is all of our leg press and any of the other items that we have not replaced yet. That might be a good one that as we get closer, we can bring JJ in to share a little bit more and show you examples of what that's going to look like. But that one made it into the budget this year. So everybody is really thrilled at the multi-gen center that we'll get to have new equipment there. The aquatic center, all the water features. So all of those internal water features in the play pool. So the little tulip and the buckets and all of that kind of stuff. Again, those have been the same features since 20-plus years ago. And just some of them, they don't work. We've replaced parts. We've sent them out to get repainted already 10 years ago. It's time to replace them. So Dave will share more about that as we get closer to those projects. Dave already mentioned the Prospector Park lighting retrofits and the pathway lighting. Flatiron Park is one of our strategic plan items that you guys discussed and we've shared with you multiple times. We are moving on, Frank, to phase two. And so that is the central area that is kind of dirt right now, if you're familiar with Flatiron Park, the east end of the park that's closest to North Apache Trail. That is all a dirt pathway right now. It's all DG, but it was designed for a future phase to be all concreted and have a full loop of concrete, as well as kind of a central plaza so that we could have booths and things like that on that surfacing, as well as some type of shade in the Think water section, which is that far northeast corner of the park. We'll kind of work closely with special events and things like that, you know, make sure that it doesn't take away from other needs, but having another place for a little bit of shade over in that area. So that's Flatiron. Rodeo Event Center, obviously, so we have both in there. I've listed the design. These must just be in order of price, I just now realized. Rodeo Vincent are the design and the project manager that we have on that project, as well as you can see down below the $4 million that's for the Phase 2A construction. I just do want to point out that the amount that we have budgeted for design and project management is actually for all of Phase 2, not just what we're doing during 2A construction. So this fiscal year will actually be quite a bit less than that amount. Prospector Park irrigation that Dave already talked about. And then the last one is, again, related to rodeo grounds, what Dave was talking about with the SES, the electrical panel that's coming in. That will help to finish electrifying everything at the rodeo arena that we haven't done so far. So some of the RV hookups as well as the north walkway.

Okay.

And go ahead.

So all of the RV hookups along the north fence line and then all of the 50 amp food truck receptacles that are along the concrete walkway are not currently electrified until we get the SES installed.

But like the pavilion has electric, all the normal electric is all electrified. The light poles are part of the SES?

No, all the light poles work, all of the pavilion works, and everything we had existing works. It's just the 50 amps and the RV outlets.

Any questions as of right now? And then as we get updated personnel numbers and things like that, I'll definitely share that with you guys at a future meeting. So great job to you guys. You know, our strategic plan really does help to lead some of this. And I know we certainly bring to you what we think needs to take place. But some of the things like Flatiron and other things that you guys have brought up that we've talked about throughout the last year, you know, those do make it onto the project list as well. And many of them are on our CIP five-year plan. And it's just as we get that funding that we're able to do it. So, you know, keep asking those questions and bringing up those ideas, you know, Funding is challenging at times, but we definitely try to push as many of those forward as we can.

All right. Thank you. Presentation and discussion on the next steps to update the annual Parks and Recreation Strategic Plan, now welcoming Larry Benyany.

Thank you.

Oh, I got to get closer.

Good evening. It's my turn to play with you guys. All right, so we're going to go over. I'm going to pull up the most recent strategic plan. We'll go over it page by page. Please share some thoughts or ideas. I don't want to dwell on things too much because we have so many things our great leadership of our divisions do. We could be here all night. But I will touch on some things. And like I said, share your thoughts, share your ideas as we work towards building this year's strategic plan. Maybe.

Yeah, that's fine.

All right, so when I come in next meeting, I'll have a handful of different options for the cover for you guys to choose from.

I have a couple thoughts in mind, but I'm not going to share because I don't want to influence your thoughts.

So this next page is the introduction. This is basically the letter from the director. Liz will update this.

Yeah, I want to steal her thunder on that, maybe surprise you next time.

Then we got our team page. Vision and mission obviously don't change, but the team photo we will certainly update. Then moving on to our organizational chart. I don't think we have positions we need to update, but we do have to confirm some of the position numbers. They may have changed just a little bit. And I really like this picture, so if you guys want to keep it, that'd be great too, but I'll come up with something else. It is a cool picture. And then on to our park development. So this page covers our developing a system of parks, trails, open space to meet the recreation and health needs of our residents and visitors. A couple things on this page. I do want to point out, we did talk about the rodeo. We're now on Phase 2A. In here, we talked about completing Phase 1. The pickleball courts, again, were discussed in here. the CAP Trail and Superstition Basin, partnering with BLM for the trailhead along Sheep Drive, and then the process for master plan for FY27-28. Do you guys have any thoughts, questions on this page?

And really, this is your guys' chance, and you don't have to think of it all today, but at the next meeting, we will certainly be sharing our strategies and all of our accomplishments from some of the things that have happened. You know, Larry's definitely mentioned some that have already happened off of this list. Definitely come, and if you have some, for sure, you know, accomplishments or things you want to make sure are included, that's what you'll be looking at this page for over this next month and bringing back.

Mr. All right, and we'll move on to 2.2. A general plan for safety, maintenance, and expansion of existing facilities. Liz went through a lot of that with our CIP budget. I don't think we need to beat that one a little more than we have. Unless you guys have some thoughts, questions. We can go on to the next. So our programs and services page. Obviously, there's a lot of numbers, and I'm excited to see how well the pool did. I know this is one of Jamie's favorite jobs is to pull the data and update the numbers because they grow each and every year. Our events, our programs, and also our collaborations that we've done with outside agencies, this page covers a lot of that.

And this is one page that I know as some of the new commissioners came on board, we had already adopted the last strategic plan. You know, I know we've talked through that there might be some other key numbers that you'd like to see or whatever. So again, this is a great opportunity to think about what do you think are some other numbers that we want to be tracking year over year and looking at.

And then 2.4 is our marketing and promotions page. Again, it's pretty data heavy, so we will make sure we update all of the data in how we outreach, how we get our program registration, our social media milestones, our print media, how many brochures do we get. We've actually updated up the number of brochures we have printed because we run out way too often. So I'm excited to see how quickly we run out of this higher number of distribution. as well as the welcome bags that we're continuing to help out the city manager's office with this year. All right, and moving on to our funding strategies. I think a couple of the numbers Liz talked about with our grants, very good numbers. I also want to talk about the corporate partnerships and sponsorships. Riley's been doing a great job. as Jamie mentioned, bringing in some other agencies. Again, a very data-heavy page, so a lot of these numbers will be updated. And then also towards the end, it talks about the market fee study. We hopefully will have more information to update on that for this, but it's on there as well, knowing that that's something we need to do. Questions on that? All right.

Moving right along.

Now, just in case you didn't think the previous pages were info heavy, we have past, current, and future year plans for each of our facilities, our sites, our programs, program areas, our park rangers. So if you have any thoughts or concerns or questions, something you want to see, make sure it gets captured. Feel free to holler at me. I'll take notes. But there's a lot. I don't want to go through all of this. And even this just scratches his tip.

And I think that's the other thing I just wanted to point out. So when we do this for 2027, we're looking at the current fiscal year. It'll be the one we're in right now. So this column, this first column, It's going to be largely populated by the projects that got funded this year, things that you might have asked for. And if it got also funded, then it ends up in this column. If it's something that we think is going to be, it's in our CIP plan, or it's in our plans to do for next year, or something that you are suggesting, that'll be in that second column. So it'll end up being 2027, 2028. And then everything else goes into future. The third year, the fourth year, the fifth year, it's all future at this point. As Larry said, this is just like scratching the surface. So Dave has to pick one or two things from a facility that he's going to highlight there as the main thing that we want to share. Otherwise, this could be a huge document. And maybe that's what you want. You know, I don't know. So you guys can give us that kind of feedback. Jamie, on program stuff, there's thousands of programs happening. And so we're really just, if you'll scroll to that next page, Larry. When we get to the recreation page, we really try to say, what are we doing this year that is different and new, and what are some of the things that we have ideas for to be different and new in the future? So again, we could put in a ton of, our staff come up with new ideas every single week. We try to hit the ones that we think are the most, that we heard the most from the public, from you guys, or things that might require more money, things like that. just be thinking of the things that you think are missing. We really, this is your document as much as ours. So if there are things that you think are really important that maybe we thought they're important, but they didn't make our final list, this is your opportunity to kind of make sure they get added.

Can I ask a question on the CAP trail? What is our portion or what are we responsible for?

That would be a fabulous thing for us to bring to a meeting because it's always been a theoretical thing because it's been in design for like four years or more um it our portion is from um so somewhere like south of baseline and it's like between baseline and i don't know guadalupe or maybe the next one even the main portion of our stuff is happening around that baseline area it's where the canal kind of crosses over ironwood so if you think of ironwood A lot of our portion is east of Ironwood. And then there's a small portion that is west of Ironwood. So I'll bring a map that'd be much clearer to understand. But ours is like a 13, seven miles, 13 miles. Our section does have a loop that goes away from the canal so that we could have potentially more opportunities for, you know, again, a loop is much nicer to try to walk or hike or bike. Wherever you start, it's either an out and back or you got to go to one of the Florence or other, you know, trailheads that are on the way. So we'll bring that back to a future one. And our portion of design, every year it's just a little bit of money because we only pay for our proportionate share. Pinal County has a much bigger share, and then Florence has another small share as well to do.

All right. And we finish up with just contact information and another staff photo. So today is obviously our first opportunity to take a look at this. This is the next couple months plan. I don't want you to think if you don't speak up now, forever hold your peace. There'll be more opportunities to discuss it. The hope is to have it completely done in November. I have it on here in December in case it takes a little bit longer before we adopt it. But yeah, any comments, any questions?

I saw PAC and I always think of Performing Arts Center for the City Hall campus. Is that what it stands for?

No, let me see what you're talking about.

So under Parks and Facilities Plan, the City Hall campus is this consideration of Veterans Park for Police Memorial, PAC. There it is.

I don't know. Good question. Let me find it. I see it. Police Memorial. I honestly don't, oh, Public Art Commission, sorry. Public Art Commission. Give me a minute. Thank you. That doesn't sound like a facility. So the Public Art Commission, if that ended up being a location, I will tell you the police department is doing, they have chosen to do the police memorial at the new expansion. And so it probably won't be at Veterans Memorial, but there are other things that are being considered for Veterans Memorial Park.

The thing that comes to mind for me is kind of, overarching idea I suppose and we do a great job. I know we updated Superstition Shadows Park walkway to accommodate more be more ADA friendly and I guess I want to consider that kind of thing to be considered you know the diversity and adversity of our population. How can we continue to make sure that

everyone feels included in our parks and It's not saying they don't right, you know I think there's always room to grow and things as we're changing Maybe that can continue to keep up and lots of cities are doing some different things to think about how they can meet the needs of Definitely individuals with different needs as well as a very diverse population. So I think that's a great thing that we could be looking at through this. We are looking at, as we do update new park signage, we're trying to do Spanish on one side and English on the other. So our new lake signage was done that way. So I think those are great things and I don't see any reason why we can't find a way of incorporating that into our strategic plan to look at where we could do more of that.

Yeah, that was one of my thoughts actually, the language as well as like, you know, as we become more aware of certain things like neurodivergence and the sensory needs that our programming does in our programming and facilities, you know, include that and have moments for

yeah that population i think taking a look at where some of that is i know in special events we've definitely added some of that and so again i think it really is just looking at i think what you're saying is looking at it overall and while we are you know assessing what would be our plan for that the other thing that kind of fits into that is we have a new safety and security um our safety and um thank you risk and safety manager, coordinator, and they will be taking on all of our ADA stuff. Our department is very ahead of the times with ADA transition plan and all of that that we have been incorporating since the new standards in 2010. But we will be looking at doing something like that. We will be looking at doing a new ADA audit, looking to update our transition plan over the next year or two, and that is a citywide effort. So I think all of that is going to fit really nicely in here, and we can make sure that we capture that.

Excellent.

Thank you. Under your park ranger program, is there a junior ranger program?

Not at this time. Okay. We could definitely have even just, that might be the thing is to research it in the next cycle, yeah. They do have Junior Park Rangers stickers, but I don't think it's the same thing that you're talking about.

Well, I know I've seen the stickers, but I just wonder, and it might be a good way to draw in some youth into maybe coming Park Rangers.

For sure. We do utilize the cadets a lot from PD, but it is definitely another, and they work very closely with Kelly at every event. So I think it's a great thing for us to consider something of our own. Anything else? And again, don't feel like this is your, you know, you have to, and you're welcome to call me or set up time if there's something you want to talk about before the next meeting. I'm happy to sit down with any of you. And then as Larry said, though, we will be, this will be on the next agenda.

I just feel like it can't be said enough how amazing our department is and how it really is the heart of our city and Kind of the reason, I guess I'm reflecting as my term is coming to an end, but it's, you know, that's how it all started for me of why I wanted to be here. And it's just, you know, compounded over time and just really lucky to be a part of this community.

Yeah, we appreciate everything you guys contribute, both just helping us in an advisory capacity, but, you know, so many of you volunteer and are at a lot of our events supporting us. And if not, they're supporting us in the community. And I think that's just as valuable. So thank you for that.

Thank you very much.

We have a call to the public.

Are you part of calling to the public? Do you need to speak tonight? Okay, then we'll just move right along there. Thank you.

He's a proud guest.

All right. Commissioners, if you have anything to suggest or recommend being added to the next agenda, now's your time. There is no discussion on the topics. These are just suggestions that will take place at this time for future meetings. You want to know an update on something?

I'd like an update on the usage of the splash pad, please.

I would like to know the update. I can't remember what it was called, but it was something about like some kind of data or something about your cell phone from where you are.

OK. Maybe we can demonstrate it with our flat iron splash pad data, and you can see how it goes. We'll have to find out whether we can show that publicly, though, now that I think about it out loud.

So we'll ask.

but I'm sure we can share with you how we get that information.

Of course, I brought up the CAP trail, so that would, and you've got that written down, I think.

All right, anything else? Okay. So then we have, I need a motion for the next meeting, please. Oh, I'm sorry, I'm a liar. No, I did that. I'm sorry, I'm all over the place. I apologize. So we did the call for future. Now we are doing the asking for a motion for the next meeting.

Madam Chair, I move that the Parks and Recreation Commission hold a regular meeting on September 2nd, 2026 at 6 p.m. in the City Council Chambers located at 300 East Superstition Boulevard.

And may I have a second? I'll second that. And may I have a roll call, please?

Manny Vega. Yes. Frank Shanebeck.

Yes.

D.L. Kine. Yes. Lamont Klepper. Yes. Felicia Madrid. Yes. Judy Borey. Yes. Heather Moeller. Yes. Wonderful. Thank you. That passed unanimously.

Perfect. Thank you. All right. Then it looks like we're going to go ahead and adjourn this meeting at 7.05 p.m. Thank you so much. Appreciate it.