City Council - Regular Meeting

Okay. We will call this meeting to order. This is the city of council, city of Buckeye council meeting for Tuesday, 02/03/2026. We'll begin the meeting with the invocation led by Rhonda Everett from the Verrado Community Prayer Group, followed by the pledge led by council member Hagestad.

Will you bow with me? Father God, creator of heaven and earth, what an honor it is and a privilege, Lord, to come before you. You are always working for your glory and our good, and we praise you that this city council, Lord, is looking to you for wisdom. We pray that you fill this room with your presence with, fill each one of them with a sound mind and the ability to make the hard courageous decisions for the long haul. And Lord that this be a community that thrives, Lord help us to be good stewards of the amazing resources that you've provided.

We ask for your presence in our schools over law and order and all of those enforcing that Lord over our medical facilities, over our farms, Lord over our businesses and Father God the decisions that make all of those come together and thrive are being made here. And so we ask for your wisdom, your guidance that these individuals operate with integrity and strength of mind and courage. Lord, I pray that you protect them, protect their families, Lord, protect this community. I pray that it'd be a community of peace, of productive students looking to not just students, productive citizens, Lord, that look to see how they can better the whole. Look to your guidance.

We trust you for your way. In your name we pray. Amen.

Join us in the pledge.

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.

Okay. Thank you both. Can we have the roll call please?

Council Member Yonker is absent. Council Member Barry?

Here.

Council Member Hagestead?

Here.

Council Member Beard? Council member Hustis? Here. Vice mayor Goodman?

Present. Mayor Oresborn?

Present. Thank you very much. Item number two is comments from the public. Members of the audience may comment on any non agenda item of interest. Do we have any speaker request cards?

There are no speaker requests.

No speaker requests. I will move on to item number three, awards presentations and proclamations. We have none for tonight. Item number four is consent agenda items and new business. Approval of items on the consent agenda, all items with an asterisk are considered to be routine matters and be enacted by one motion and vote of the city of the city council. There'll be no separate discussion of these items unless a council member requests. This section may include the approval of minutes from previous meetings. And council, I need to declare a conflict on item number 4i. And I've provided the proper documentation to the clerk's office. So I will not be voting on four ayes. Is that what we had decided? Okay.

Thank you.

Okay. Good. And not that that's what we decided, but there are some there is a couple different ways to handle that. And I think what we're doing is I'll declare the conflict on this, won't vote on that in the overall consent agenda items.

Yes. Thank you, Mayor.

Voted through. Okay. I could not have made that more clunky. So counsel, what is your pleasure on agenda accounts on the agenda items?

Mister mayor, I'd like to make a motion that we approve consent agenda items for a as in Adam, through four l as in Lincoln.

Second. Have a motion and approval for the consent agenda items. All in favor say aye.

Aye.

And opposed? And consent agenda passes. Now as public hearings, item number five a, council to hold a public hearing only to receive input on housing and community development challenges and needs in the city of Buckeye to help inform on how the city administer the community development block grant CDBG program, which is funded through the US Department of Housing and Urban Development under title one of the Housing and Community Development Act of 1974 as amended. Rob?

Good evening. How are we doing

tonight? Doing great.

Okay. There we go. I had to figure out how to work this thing. So tonight, we're going to be talking about the housing and urban development grant program called Community Development Block Grants. And what I thought I'd start off with was to give you a little history behind the grants, tell you what they're about, how they've affected Buckeye up to this point, and how we are looking to use that in the future.

HUD So produces various types of grants. One is called community development block grant, commonly CDBG, and we have been a participant in that program for several years. Tonight, we're gonna talk about how we've done that and then also talk about some citizen participation and the topic of our hearing for this evening. So over the past several years, Buckeye has belonged to a county urban the Maricopa County urban group, which usually is cities that do not qualify to get direct funding from HUD on the CDB projects. So over that, course of several years, we have been awarded about $1,200,000 that averages out to about $250,000 a year.

However, we are big enough now to become an entitlement city and that means we can get funds directly awarded to, the city of Buckeye. And when I talked to the HUD representative, they figured that'd be about half $1,000,000 a year. So you can see that we have an opportunity here to double the amount of money we've been averaging up to this point in time. So before 2025, as I mentioned, we were part of this urban area group. We were notified that we have become available and eligible for the HUD direct funding.

That means that we don't have to compete for the funding. And last year on February 18, council approved Buckeye becoming an entitled grantee. So that means now we have to go through a process of becoming an entitled grantee and there's certain things that we need to do. The major thing is we have to put together a five year consolidated plan. We also have to put together a one year plan.

So the five year maps out what we're gonna do, hopefully, over the next five years. The one year plan talks about what we're gonna do at the first part of that plan for the next twelve months. And then after that twelve months, we tell them what we did the last twelve months, and then we give them another one year projection to see if we need to stay on course, make some changes, and prepare them for where we're headed after that. So we needed to find an expert in this field to help us complete the five year consolidated plan, the one year plan and so forth. So we went out and we looked at different consultants and interviewed very different consultants, and we ended up with a group called Root Policy.

And in the screen, you'll see on the left side consolidated plans, they have produced a lot of consolidated plans over the last five years. Since this is a federal grant, there's nothing specific to each state. So they can do the same thing in different states. We all have the same rules and regulations to follow. So you can see they've got a broad, spectrum of opportunities and experience over the last five years, so we selected Root Policy to help us put together a program.

We also put together a steering committee. The steering committee is going to help guide the process, collect input, and also to help select projects and put together that five year view. And this particular steering committee is made up of two of our council members and representatives of various groups within the city, most specifically grants, public works, police, committee services, and development services. So, what is a consolidated plan? Well, it basically uses a combination of data and community outreach to develop an idea of what the city needs in various areas and what kind of gaps we have in those various areas and how we can fit those areas.

The specific requirements though are that we do this in areas of low and moderate income households. So we can't just do it anywhere we want. We have to do it in areas that are rated as low to moderate income households. So these components include taking a look at housing and infrastructure needs. Infrastructure needs include like water, sewer, roads, and such.

We have a pro or a grant right now that we're doing for improvement of alleys and streets over around the corner down here, 10th Street, and some of the related alleys. So that's the kind of programs. We did one before that for the senior center kitchen. We upgraded that. So we go through that.

We also have to do a housing analysis, a strategic plan, an action plan, and also have community engagement. So, in terms of the strategic plan, we are reaching out to various people within the community and the action plan then shows what we're going to do for the next twelve months. So, who did we reach out to? So, group is the engagement of the stakeholders in the community, which are basically organizations, governmental, non governmental agencies and whatnot that provide services to the community. We also reached out to residents of the community to provide different opportunities for the community to involve itself in the process.

So over the last several months, we have been posting surveys from September through November to query with the community what they think would be interested. We received 158 responses in this survey period. We also have to do two public hearings. Obviously, this is the first of those two. Some of the areas of eligibility, like we mentioned before, is improving streets, improving water systems, providing some certain public services, and programs like that that benefit the community.

So we reached out to the community, and these are some of the areas that we have heard back from the the surveys. Not all the items that they wanted talk about are eligible, but this is kind of a list of items that the community is concerned about based on the surveys that we have conducted. Okay. We also put together a citizen participation plan, which also outlines different things that the survey and the public can weigh in on to help produce a consolidated plan. So, the consolidated plan and the public citizen participation plan can be found at these particular locations and they can contact us in several ways.

Up to this point, we've been doing mostly surveys. We also held a couple of virtual meetings where people could call in and talk to us directly and ask us questions. We'll continue to do engagement through the end of this month for the community. After that point, then we'll be developing our plan and try to continue to do that through March, and then we'll have another public comment period later in the spring. And our goal is to provide a completed plan for HUD to take a look at and accept by mid May.

After that, then we hope to be awarded some type of grant award sometime in the summertime. So are there any questions?

Okay. Any questions from counsel? Vice Mayor.

Yeah, Rob. When the funds come in from the federal government, how is there going to be an internal process as how those will be distributed within this program?

Yes. There's a five year plan that we'll put together and then a one year plan, what we're gonna do over the next twelve months. The steering committee that I referred to before will help guide and produce that plan. And so that next twelve months, one year plan will specify how we will be using that money. So how much will go to this effort and how much would go to with that effort or whatever that committee comes up with.

Thank you.

Rob, thanks for the presentation. This is a this is a really big step forward for the city of Buckeye. We've been for so long involved with the county, fallen under the county jurisdiction for this. And you go through the same process. You have your five year plan. Here's what we intend to spend the money on, but you're competing against a bunch of other entities in the county in in that process. And and having the money come in direct to and you never know what you're gonna get there. Sometimes it's a you're shaking your head. Yes. You have experienced this firsthand.

Sometimes you'll bring in a project that is exactly what the group had intended on funding the previous year or have shown to fund. It's part of what our overall plan is. And then the committee goes completely sideways on you. You have

Just to be clear, that's under the old urban And group we were competing with numerous cities.

That's exactly.

Some years, we obviously didn't get anything.

So Correct.

Very unpredictable.

Very unpredictable. And sometimes they would just lop off a portion of the project and say, here, make do with this. So incredibly unpredictable. It is gonna be a complete game changer having that the funding coming direct to the city, to where we can delineate exactly where we wanna spend it, and and actually double the amount of, on a more consistent basis, double the amount of funds that are coming in. Is there an ability to stack these dollars? So if we have a $1,500,000 project, we wait three years, save up?

Yes, there is. And if you have any questions, have Frankie Louington. He is with Root Policy. So he probably knows he probably forgot more than we know about CDBG grants. But if if I miss anything, just correct me. You can come on up.

But the

answer is yes. We can stack these. So if you had let's say you had a 1,000,001 half project and we're only getting half 1,000,000 a year, you can make that commitment to do 500,000 on that project this year, 500 the next year or 500 the third year. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think you even commit to spend all that money the first year in hopes that you get the $05,000,000 the second year and the $05,000,000 the third year. Just know that you'll risk that the CDBG does not fund us because they didn't get appropriated by the federal government or something changed dramatically.

Okay.

Did I get that right?

Yeah. So a little bit of nuance. So you can and good evening. My name is Frankie Louingson. I'm a senior associate with Root Policy Research.

And as Rob mentioned, we are assisting the city of Buckeye with the consolidated plan. So the funds each year do have to be obligated based on the goals that you created in your consolidated plan. There is a vehicle called a Section 108 loan where you can essentially one example is the City of Boulder, Colorado. This is the one example I have created a modular factory to build modular homes. And so they kind of got a loan on that to help with the construction of it and then use their future CDBG funds to pay back that loan.

So that's one example where you can do it. In general, HUD doesn't love the stacking of of funds, but in that case, you can. But that's a conversation that you have with your HUD rep to see if it is if it's viable.

Okay. And the the I'm assuming we're gonna be pretty flexible with the projects. I think what the county program was very excited about funding was project specific to infrastructure, upgrading pipes, adding sidewalks, redoing streets and such. There it seems like there is so much more flexibility we could put into it. Saw purchasing property, maybe some of the improvements that we're attempting to make in the downtown corridor.

That sort of stuff can be woven into the plan so that we are doing the infrastructure projects, but there's also the opportunity to purchase property and maybe knock down a dilapidated building and encourage some growth on that particular corner. I see both shaking your head, yes. So we're

There's some service groups out there, some nongovernmental service groups that we could try to fund some money to if we needed to do that as well. It's just you just got to figure out what you want to do over time with your money that you have because $500,000 seems a lot, but after a while, it doesn't it goes fast. Okay?

Yeah. One one just note about the public services eligible activities. You can only use 15% of your entitlement every year on direct public services. So if you got $500,000 this upcoming program year, that would be $75,000 that you could spend on direct services.

Okay.

The steering committee that we have will be in the middle of trying to figure out where we need to put the money and how it's deployed and put a five year plan together. And then we'll look at it every year to see is this really makes sense still or do we need to make changes.

Okay, great. Any other questions or comments from counsel? And we'll need to open up a public hearing on this. You're just about to catch me, weren't you Mrs. Attorney? So we'll open a public hearing. Do we have any speaker request cards on Item 5A?

There are no speaker requests.

Okay. Anybody from the public wishing to speak on 5A? Yes, ma'am. Come on up to the podium up here.

Hello, everybody. My name is Kimberly Schwarzenberg. I know some of you and some of you may know me. I am just wanted to make a statement regarding this project. I have been a community liaison for a nonprofit here in Buckeye for the last five years.

Over the last three years, I have opened my own full community needs outreach here within Buckeye, but I go as far as Gila Bend and the California border. And with this project and what the opportunity is to serve our community is huge and the need is fully there. I mean, we are long overdue for Maricopa County to come out this way, especially since we're the big city for everybody west of us. And so I'm not sure how everything is to go and how us as nonprofits can get on a community or be on a speaker panel to put forth what we do and what we've seen in the community. But I just request that this really be explored and looked at and talked with some of the nonprofits just so that we can all get on board and help the city where we can to help our community.

So I just wanted to to let that be known that I see it and since everybody's coming to us, just how we can all come together to make it happen.

Appreciate that. Thanks for coming up and saying so. Rob, just a question on that. Do we have select nonprofits that are part of or groups in

the Part

of the the next meeting that we have with the steering committee.

Okay. Can I connect you two during this meeting?

Okay. Just if she could send me her information. There I am right there.

K.

So you can track me down. But, yes, the steering committee will be taking we wanted to do all the research ahead of time, and let's do some more public feedback. But once we have all that, such as this kind of feedback, then we'll be able to take a look at it and then figure out where we wanna go. So after this, we'll be kinda moving fast because we gotta do all that by the May.

Okay. Okay. Great. Alright. Well, thank you very much. Thanks for the presentation. Exciting times. We will close the public hearing. See, I'm just a little bit slow tonight, but we're getting there. And that'll be it for agenda item five a. Thank you. Item five b, this is for presentation only. No action will be taken counsel to receive the annual comprehensive financial report and audit results from Heinfeld, Meach and Company for fiscal year ending 06/30/2025 as required by the Arizona revised statutes. And Rick Langley.

Mr. Mayor and Councilman, I appreciate being here. I am your Interim CFO at present time. And before I introduce Jill, I would like to extend my thanks to the accounting staff, particularly the accounting manager, Sherry Meredith, for her tireless work putting put working with the audit firm and and putting a lot of work together. So as far as introducing Jill, Jill Shaw is the managing partner and an audit partner from Highfield Beach. So I'll let her take over from here. Thank you.

Thank you.

You, Rick. Let's see. Get to my presentation. Maybe I just I'm not sure which file if I need to open. Maybe this one.

You. As Rick mentioned, my name is Jill Shaw. I'm with Heinfeld Meach, an external audit firm that completes the annual financial statement audit for the city. And before I begin my presentation, I would also like to extend my thanks to the entire finance department primarily Sherry for everything that they do to make the audit a smooth and efficient process. We ask for hundreds of documents throughout the audit process and she's always well prepared her and her entire team.

So we really appreciate that. With that, first we'll start with a little bit about the audit timeline. The audit process is about a nine month process. It starts in May with the engagement letter being issued and then we come out in the summer and we look at do our what we call preliminary field work where we do a lot of compliance work before the books have been closed. And then we come back out in September timeframe and once the books are closed, that's when we look at the final numbers and do the traditional part of the audit.

After that, it takes a couple of months to prepare the final annual comprehensive financial report that you all have seen and so the final audit reports are issued in December. And this is just a reminder that statute does require that governing boards council such as yourself review the audit report annually and this gives you all a chance to ask questions and see those reports. It's a fairly new statute I believe a few years old because not all cities were being provided the opportunity. The city has always done an amazing job with providing reports and having that active participation by council but the city the reports are final and city management has already accepted responsibility for the reports and responsibility for internal controls. So this is just reviewing and accepting those audit reports.

Within the scope of the services that we provide as auditors, we do an audit in accordance with generally accepted auditing standards, government auditing standards being a local government as well as uniform guidance which is the single audit piece that's required because the city spends more than $750,000 in federal awards. We also provide an audit for each of the seven separate community facilities districts. We also provide an opinion on the annual expenditure limitation report which shows that the city is spending within statutorily required amounts. As well as we are required to look at specifically the highway user revenue fund, HERF fund and expenditures from those funds to make sure that they are in compliance with statute as well. So at the end of the audit, we issue what we call a communication to governance letter.

So the presentation includes a lot of the things that are in that letter. And within any of our communications, we do typically talk about fraud because it is a common misconception that our responsibility and our primarily primary role during the audit is to look for fraud and uncover fraud. And while we do conduct some inquiries with management and employees and even a council member about their awareness of fraud to make sure that, you know, there's some not something that we should be aware of. That's not our primary goal of the audit. Our primary goal is to provide reasonable assurance over the financial statements.

So we're setting this some materiality thresholds and we're looking at balances to make sure that the financial statements are prepared in accordance with accounting standards and there are not any material misstatements within those or any material fraud. But ultimately, management does accept responsibility for the financial statements. They sign a letter at the end of the audit stating as such and that is what concludes the audit process. During the year, there was one new accounting standard that was required to be implemented regarding compensated absences. Previously, a liability was only recorded in the financial statements for amounts that were vested and we'd be paid upon termination of an employee's termination with the city.

But the new standard now requires that the liability include not only vested balances but also balances like maybe sick leave that's not going to be paid out at termination but sick leave balances that are likely to be used in the next year. So it involves some estimation and that did result in a restatement of $1,700,000 to the city's financial statement beginning balances. And this was implemented by all governments nationwide and was just something new. Our communications also require that we talk about any significant estimates in the financial statements and the only significant estimate is the assumptions around the pension plan liabilities because those are done by actuaries and they crunch all those numbers based on participants in the pension plans. And so this is a not a new estimate within the financial statements and is similar to all governments that participate in such pensions.

So no particular risks there, it's just something that we're required to notify boards about. We're also required to notify boards if we made any audit adjustments during the audit process. So what we do is we take the underlying general ledger that comes out of Munis, the financial reporting system, and those are the numbers that we audit. So if we have to make audit adjustments, that means that we have typically found an error or a misstatement. So I'm happy to report that we did not have to make any of those audit adjustments or recommend any audit adjustments that met that criteria.

So that's I always tell boards and councils that that is one of the best indicators of how an audit went is if we did not have to make any significant audit adjustments that means those underlying balances were correct. Just a few other required communications if we had had any disagreements with management about application of accounting principles, we would have been required to include those in our communication. So I'm happy to report there was nothing of that nature. Management did provide that letter at the end of the audit taking responsibility for the financial statements as I mentioned. And then we also being independent auditors, we also are continually assessing our independence with this city.

And primarily, one of the things that impairs independence is providing non audit services. And for the city, we do not provide any non audit services. So that's good. In some cases, auditors can get into a situation where they're getting close to auditing their own work if they're doing you know if they're helping quite a bit. So nothing of that nature that happens with the city. The city prepares their own financial statements. The biggest report that's issued is the annual comprehensive financial report. That's the one that includes our independent auditors report on the financial statements. So just to highlight a few pages of that, on page one is our independent auditors report. We did issue an unmodified opinion also known as a clean opinion.

So that's great news. That's the best that the city can do. On page six, there's a management's discussion and analysis which takes some of the numbers from the financial statements and provide some backgrounds about why maybe revenues increased or decreased or expenses changed. So that is a kind of more of a plain English part of the report. On page 17 is are the audited financial statements and then on page 33 are the notes to the financial statements that give a little bit more background to those numbers.

And then lastly, on page one twenty one, this is the statistical section which is actually unaudited, but it provides a lot of good ten year trends of to show how the city has grown over the last ten years, provides information like top tax payers, top employers within the city. So tends to be some of the more interesting information in the report. I mentioned that we did the audit in accordance with uniform guidance. So as a part of that, we also issue a single audit report. And with that report, that is where if we had significant findings, they would be reported in this single audit report.

So I'm happy to say that there were no significant findings. We call those significant deficiencies or material weaknesses in internal controls because not only do we look at whether numbers are accurate, we also look at the process behind those numbers and are there weaknesses in the process that could lead to inaccurate numbers if not corrected. So nothing of that nature was noted because it is a federal audit, we do are required to change which federal programs we're looking at from year to year. Typically, it's the bigger ones. This year, we did look at the airport improvement program and some of the monies that are being spent on capital projects over there and had no findings related to that audit.

And overall, the city is considered low risk, which is a great sign of how the city is doing. That means they've had no material weaknesses noted in the last two years audits, that audits for the last two years have been on time and no question costs. Meaning, we found money that was misspent on things that it shouldn't have been. So those are all great indicators of how the city is doing. But overall, just some final comments.

As I mentioned, management is always very cooperative and open to suggestions that we have and providing the information that we need. All of the audits have met the state and federal regulatory deadlines. The official deadline for most of this is March 31. So well ahead of those deadlines and they even met the deadline of December 31 for GFOA. You can apply for a certificate of achievement for excellence in financial reporting.

So they met that deadline to submit the report and be eligible for that award again this year that they've received in the past. So with that, I'm happy to answer any questions you might have about the audit process or what we do.

Alright. Thank you. Any questions from council? None. Well, thank you for the presentation and to our accounting firm, Cherry, congratulations. Everybody has congratulated you coming up here, so I feel obligated to do the same. But having such a clean bill of health from a financial perspective and I mean I heard nothing but a plus plus plus across the board for accounting department and finance. So congratulations on that and thank you for all the hard work that you all put in and thank you for the hard work that you put in providing the report.

Thank you.

Thank you. All right. On to agenda item five c, council to take action on funding three economic development catalyst program applications for the combined amount of $87,150 plus certain, city fees eligible for reimbursement. Susie Boyles, you're presenting.

Yes. Good evening, mayor, members of the council. Susie Boyles, your economic development director. Am excited to be here tonight to present on the Catalyst program, which we are all very familiar with, but we will walk through a couple of things. Before we jump into that, I do want to formally introduce you to our new downtown project manager, Ashley, on our team, who is here tonight. We're very excited. Ashley actually joined the city. She started with the city as an intern. She was an intern during the 2020 census. And so during the pandemic, she was out making sure that all of our residents were counted and effectively counted towards our population count for federal dollars and things like that.

So she actually started boots on the ground. A lot of that work was actually done in our downtown district specifically. It was in a hard to reach demographic. And so a lot of the work she did when she started with the city as an intern was in downtown. We're really excited that four over four years later, she is now our downtown project manager. And so while you get to hear from me tonight, moving forward, she will actually be leading our Catalyst and in front of you, presenting all of the exciting things. So we're very excited about that.

You're just giving her the night off? Is that what's happening here?

Definitely. We're breaking her in slowly. So it's it's a slow process. I think she's on week four, so in her new role. But as you all know, the Catalyst program was established over twelve years ago.

It's a very successful program, and it is designed to promote exterior rehabilitation of commercial projects. And it does offer grants up to $50,000 for eligible improvements. And then each business is required to provide basically a sliding scale of a match to those funds. And so something we're really proud of is actually the return on investment for this particular project. So the city over the last twelve years has actually paid out $1,100,000 to qualifying businesses since the beginning, which has resulted in private investment of over $3,000,000 into the city of Buckeye.

So over $4,000,000 total has been basically generated through this program with private investment in cities. So for every dollar that the city has invested, we have received almost $4 back in return in development and in rehabilitation of buildings into the city of Buckeye. And so I wanna just pause and say thank you for continuing to fund this program every year. We do see it was $250,000 for applications, and that is through the budget process. And so thank you for continuing to fund it. It's a very successful program. We think it's got a great return on investment. So I want to recap the last time I was in front of you, we made a couple of adjustments to the program. So I just want to create a refresh. We did add signage to the program this year for qualifying businesses as long as they are part of a larger facade project.

You will see some signage. Actually in this, we're very excited that it's working. One of the changes are being taken advantage of right of way. And so we also changed the project completion timelines and extensions. So projects that are awarded now do have twelve months to complete their project and they are allowed to ask for a six month extension. And we do that because we want to make sure that when you authorize these grants that they are done in a timely manner and that we are seeing the fruits of our labor and we want to see the money actually go to work right away. We did change the max reimbursement amount. So over a three year period, one parcel can only receive $50,000 and that's a rolling three years. And so businesses can reapply after it rolls off, after they receive $50,000. And then we just cleaned up the program guide and things like that, removed redundancies.

You can see on the other side, there's a sample of qualifying projects that have always been there and have not changed. So some new things that we were adding that we wanted to share with you this time is we are effectively last month, we are now accepting applications throughout the year. And so instead of Catalyst used to be twice a year, we'd open applications, we'd accept those in, and we bring them forward to council. And through a lot of feedback from the businesses and actually with the Main Street Coalition, we have actually changed that to be a rolling fund. So we think that this actually is gonna be more business friendly.

When the business actually has the funding available in the project that they would like to move forward, they can apply at any time through the year. We will process it through the same process as we always do with Catalyst, and then we will bring it forward to council. So we're hoping that we will actually get more applications because it's gonna be more business friendly. But what you'll see moving forward instead of like tonight, we batch three projects to come forward to you. You may see one or two at a time based on when businesses are actually able to move forward with that application.

So we're really excited about that program change. A couple other program changes is the Catalyst program does mirror the city's procurement policy. So when the city updated our procurement policy, we did update the way that we require businesses to provide bids and things like that for Catalyst. So we updated that. That's just a administrative function.

We clarified eligibility. So city council members or municipal employees and immediate family members are not eligible. But we added that quasi government entities such as school district and utility companies are not eligible. And then this isn't necessarily new, but we wanted to formalize it. That applicants, as they come through this process, there is a whole city team that is dedicated to helping Catalyst pro projects through the process from early on, understanding what are the requirements, what are the permits, what do they need to understand as they move forward.

And so every project you're gonna see tonight understands what the city process is. The team has been working with them behind the scenes well before they are brought to council. But that is something that we always wanna make sure we're doing is that we're working with projects ahead of time, making sure that when we can find a way we do to help them through our processes so they can move forward with their projects. Just a reminder of things not changing, again, it is funded at $250,000 every single year. The award amount does stay the same at $50,000 per qualifying project. And the process is exactly the same. So even though we are no longer taking in applications twice a year, it's a rolling application cycle. When they come in, they'll be the same. And the review committee is the same. So the review committee consists of city staff, members of the chamber, and members of Main Street.

I wanna give a shout out. We do have members of Main Street board here tonight in support of the Catalyst. And so everything that you're seeing has been vetted through that committee, and we do appreciate both of those organizations supporting that as well. Over the twelve years, we had 58 projects completed. And while this is a citywide program, most of the projects that do qualify and come forward are in downtown.

And so when you think about the return on investment of almost $4,000,000 invested into the city, the majority of that is in downtown, and we're really proud of that fact. And so a couple project updates before I get into the new applications is you can see here, we've recently completed and paid out four outstanding projects. So previous awards that were brought forward to council were completed. They submitted all the receipts, and we we did verify that and paid those. And so we're very excited to close that out, which means we have no outstanding projects.

So we want more projects to come in. We want to award more money. And so there's nothing kind of in the queue waiting to be paid. And so the next three that you're about to hear will be fresh into the program. And so kind of going into the new applications for this cycle, we do have three. Each of them, again, like I said, have gone through the review committee. They've met all the Catalyst application requirements. That's why we're bringing them forward, and the committee did recommend that we bring them forward for council consideration. So we're gonna kinda walk through Bucks Car Wash, Old Faith Community Services, and Liquor Corral. So let's just jump into that real quick.

So Bucks Car Wash, the improvements they're looking to do is to clean and paint the exterior trims, the curbing, and the fencing along their property. You can see the total project cost for them is just about $4,200. The business themselves will be responsible just over 1,000 of that, and then Catalyst will reimburse at the end of the project for just over $3,100. So a very exciting project. This if you've driven by there for a while, it's a brand new ownership group that has stepped in.

Our team did go out and introduce ourselves to the new ownership group, and they are excited to kind of apply for the catalyst to get this reinvigorated at this particular location. The next is All Faith Community Services. And so you can kinda see here, they're gonna be installing a series of new windows, actually 14 to be exact, and doors, new siding, and actually adding some security exterior lighting to the building. This particular project is more costly, so they are anticipating the total project being 75,000. They will be contributing 25,000 of that.

And then at the end of the program, the Catalyst, should you award it, will reimburse them for up to the 50,000. So they are taking advantage of the entirety of Catalyst, which is what we want. We want projects to make substantial improvements such as this. We think that this is a great candidate for that, and they are maxing out the particular contribution. And then the last one is Liquor Corral.

And so you can see here, they are actually gonna be replacing three of their different signs. They are gonna be replacing their metal cladding and the beams at the entry as well as a new drive through window. So again, they're estimating that their cost will be about $53,000 The business will be responsible for just over 18,000 And then at the end of the project, Catalyst will reimburse them for a not to exceed $34,000 And with that, again, staff does recommend moving these forward. They've met all of the catalyst application requirements. They've gone through the review committee, and they are recommending that these move forward.

So tonight, staff recommends approving the just over 87,000 for these three projects. If you were to approve that tonight, we do have the other 162 still available for this fiscal year. So we are out working with additional businesses. Ashley is continuing to work with them to bring in new applications. We would love to see that additional 162 given out this fiscal year. So we're hopeful that we'll be back in front of you with more applications. But with that, I am happy to take any questions that you may have.

Okay, council, any questions? We'll start with Councilman Eustis.

When we promote this, do we put this out to the entire city and ask any of the businesses in the entire city if there's any of them that are wishing to apply for this?

Mayor, members of the council, yes, we do. So, we actually work with the marketing department. We put out a press release. So, previously, when we would open the applications, we would actually open the applications, put out a press release, post on social. We work with the chamber and Main Street to post on their socials. So it is a citywide campaign that we push out. So we do create that awareness. Now that it is a revolving fund, we will be looking at different ways to create that awareness continually instead of at the application cycles. But, we do work with marketing. We put out press releases in the past, and we make sure that citywide, everyone is known that it is a citywide program.

And, as far as the review committee, you say that consists of what or who?

Yes. So the review committee consists of city staff, members of the chamber, and members of Main Street.

Okay. Thank you.

Absolutely.

Hey. Councilman Heckelstad.

You go back a slide.

Yeah. We just take this one as an example. Sure. So I think you said at the beginning that the city put in about $1,100,000 And we've had about $4,100,000 of investment. But the examples that we have tonight, the CALS program is actually putting in more money than private entities. So how does it turn out that we end up putting in less than the total?

Yes. So, mayor, members of the council, the way that that works is you have to look at the complete history. So in the history, we have had other projects more than contribute what the city has been able to contribute. And so that's why the delta is different. And so when you look at the whole history, so yes, tonight, there is a different perspective on that. But over the twelve years, we have the breakdown of certain projects are actually maxing out more than what the city can actually pay. And so the delta on the business side is actually larger than what the city's contribution is. So it's an aggregate of everything.

So over time, it works out It does. That way, but these particular projects That

is correct.

Okay. Any other questions from council? Okay. Council on agenda item five c. What is your pleasure?

Mr. Mayor, I make a motion. We approve agenda item 5C as in Charles.

Second. I have a motion and a second for approval of 5C. All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? I see passes unanimous. Thank you. Thank you, Susie. Thank you, Ashley. Good work. Item 5D, Council take action adopting by motion and notice of intent to adopt new or increased water and wastewater rates, rate components, fees, or service charges, and setting a public hearing date of 04/07/2026. Terry Lowe, you'll be presenting.

Good evening, mayor, members of council. Terry Lowell, water resources director, deputy city manager Askelson, and myself will be tag teaming this one similar to the the workshop session we had. I'll start off, give a little bit of history of of the journey that we've been on, and then we'll seek your approval on the next step, which is the issuance of a notice of intent to raise rates. So starting off, getting a little bit of a history and timeline. We started this six, eight months ago, this process six, eight months ago with counsel, establishing a water and wastewater rates committee.

We shortened it to WRC. And in that process, the committee made up of residents of every district as well as someone at large went through all the steps that you see before you. The biggest one was taking a really deep dive into what it meant to run a utility. We talked about the flow of water at the workshop session, and we looked at every facet of the utility and essentially what drives costs and what are where the rates what drives those rates, what the costs go into really comes down to our assets in the whole grand scheme of things that determines personnel, that determines commodity purchases. But in essence, we took every facet of utility business with the WRC to formulate the recommendations that are up here tonight with some modifications along the way.

As you'll see, we had top opportunities to meet the public as well as yourselves. And our recommendations will be an updated structure, certainly updated rates and then the adoption of a multiyear rate cycle. On the October 9, the WRC voted our approach, and we took the show on the road in October, November, December, where we ramped up our social media campaign as well as met with members of the public at open house sessions, as well as more structured meetings with our HOA partners. Looking a little bit to the future, the next steps with this process are again today would be the notice of intent. And then sixty days from now, which would be a public comment period, would go to counsel for adoption of those rates and then go live in May.

So today, we'll talk about the rates themselves, the impacts of those rates. We do some comparisons with our bills for various users, customer classes, as well as comparison communities in the valley. And then a little bit of a follow-up from a workshop session. We heard some things from council and made some modifications to what we're presenting tonight. So in general, our recommendations, adopted a process or a philosophy of gradualism with respect to our rate meeting.

And what that does is that because of not we went through many years without rate adjustments or significant rate adjustments, And so not to impact, greatly impact our ratepayers, gradualism approach is a way we can stair step our way to where we need to be financially while allowing our ratepayers to come along for the journey without hitting them significantly. Tonight, will recommend a four year rate plan. The WRC voted in five year rate plan as we looked at the numbers. Four year seems to be the better approach and time horizon. And then we'll look at our new rate structure that we're proposing, which is an update of our old structure with some enhancements as well as allows for some fairness to our customers as well.

So with that, I will turn this over to Jared, who can go through all of the numbers.

Thank you, Terry. Good evening, Mayor, Members of Council. As Terry had mentioned, two weeks ago, we met at a work session and talked through the details of the utility rate study. Three major financial guidelines that we were looking at guide the financials surrounding these recommendations. So ensuring that the utilities have an operating surplus, ensuring that their fund balance exceeds the requirements for the reserves that they have.

And the third is to make sure they have a debt service ratio over 1.2x their available revenue. These recommendations, they meet all three of those guidelines. Specifically, you see in front of you the water rate recommendations. Something that has changed since that time is one of the things we looked at in the spirit of gradualism as we looked at the commercial high user that was seeing an increase of about 90% year over year. And we decided to take a closer look at that as had been recommended by many times by the public to Terry during the outreach.

We sharpened our pencil and took another closer look at this. So what you see here is the residential and landscape proposed base rates. Previously we had presented base rates exactly the same as this for all customers including commercial. However, in order to lighten that load in that first year for the commercial high end user, we have split the commercial base rates out from the rest of the residential and landscape. You see those changes here.

So we're increasing the base rates and you're going to see a decrease on the usage rates to kind of balance that out for those high users. Residential usage rates are remaining unchanged for what we discussed from the other night. We'll talk about those impacts here in a few slides. The potable landscape and the non potable landscape also unchanged from our discussion two weeks ago. However, on the commercial usage, as I mentioned, we're increasing the base rate.

However, we're decreasing usage. And if you see in 2026, originally we had four tiers, but to kind of smooth this out a little bit and ramp up in the first year in 2026, we'll be looking at just having two tiers. And then in year two, we'll look at having a third tier and finally in year four, we'll go to that fourth tier. So that will allow us to kind of ramp into that impact instead of hitting it all at one time. So the impacts you see here, we'll focus on the percent change to the current.

You see residential remains unchanged from our discussion two weeks ago at 4%. Previously the commercial low end users that are now at minus 4% reductions of 4% and reductions of 2.1% had seen reductions of 10% and about 20%. So again by shifting that base rate or pushing a little bit more of that burden on the low end user. However, they're still seeing a decrease with this recommendation. But you see down at the bottom, the commercial is at 21.2%.

We had seen over 80% previously. The landscape both portable and non portable remain unchanged from our presentation two weeks ago. Waste water largely remains unchanged from how we presented it two weeks ago. However, you see there at the very bottom, again, to help the high end user ramp into the new structure, we're decreasing well, we're increasing it to four dollars Previously, we had said $5 in year one and then $5.35 in year two. So now ramping it up with a $4 $5 and then $5.72 is what we had recommended previously.

So the wastewater impacts, again residential remains the same as we discussed before at 7%. The commercial, what we'll call low end users previously had seen over 50% increase in that first year. We're decreasing that a little bit for those. The commercial high end user was seeing over 90%, almost 95. So decreasing that quite a bit.

We'll look at the build comparisons. This is a residential user. We use a one inch meter with 6,000 gallons of water usage and 4,000 gallons of wastewater usage. This remains the same as we presented last time five percent six point six two dollars per month increase for the residential user. The commercial low end user one inch meter in this case with 15,000 gallons of usage, we're seeing a 4.3% increase for the commercial two inches meter with 20,000 gallons of usage, you're seeing a 12.8% increase.

And finally, high water user two inches meter 8,000 gallons of usage per month. You're seeing now just under 30% increase previously. This had been at 90%. Some of the questions that came up during the work session that we weren't able to answer. This slide is identical to what we had shown before except we added in the dates of when these rates had last changed.

So Avondale recently well, a year ago in May 2025 had increased theirs. Peoria and Glendale, June 2025, the previous summer, July 2024 surprise had made their last changes. Liberty Water you see is marked as September 2025. That is when their application went to the Arizona Corporation Commission is still under review. EPCOR is January 2022 and finally Goodyear just at the end of last year December 2025.

Another item that we had some discussion about was when have we last had rate changes. And what you're looking at here is a residential utility bill showing the different rate changes over the last eleven years. So this again uses a 6,000 gallon usage and a 4,000 gallon wastewater usage. You see that in September 2013, we took action and set those rates that you see at the very far left of our screen in the red. Those were actually it was originally adopted as a multi year plan.

That multi year plan after the first year was reversed. And in March 2015, a new resolution was put in place that put those two increases that you see in January 2015 and January 2016. There was additional action in November 2016 that shows up as a green dot. You see no change. That change increased the higher tiers of water usage.

So it did not impact this residential, the average residential user. And finally, see the January 2020 action implemented the repair and replacement fee. That was the last action that was taken on our utility fees. There was a couple of questions surrounding the global connection fees. The global connection fees have been included in the rate model for water.

To date, we've paid out $15,500,000 On the other side of that, we've collected about $3,100,000 So we collected about 20% of those connection fees. It's a $45,000,000 total agreement. So there's about $30,000,000 a little less than $30,000,000 remaining on that agreement. It's a twenty year term, we're about halfway through that now. So as Terry had mentioned, we'll take action night on a notice of intent.

We'll look to post that on our website tomorrow. Then we have a sixty day period for public to review the report that is attached to this notice of intent. We will come back on the April 7 and have a public hearing followed by potential action on those rates. The rates technically will be live on May 7. However, the next billing cycle is May 13. Because this is a four year plan, we also have future rate increases program for January '27, January '28 and January '29. And with that, are there any questions?

Okay, Council, any questions on this? Councilor Mahekstad.

I didn't see any comparisons potable water. But they're billed. Give us any indication of what it would be because ultimately, those are HOAs. HOA cost will be given to the

residents of those HOA. So I need to know what the difference is

so that tell my residents how much extra they're gonna be paying. They're gonna get an increase in their residential. Then they're also gonna get HOA fees. So have we done anything on that?

You, Mayor. Council Member Hagestead. The reason why we didn't do the comparison on those other slides with the bills is because those customers usually only have water. They don't have a waste water component. So this water monthly impact slide that I have up on the screen here shows what that impact is going to be for those customers.

So for a low water user two inches meter, 20,000 gallons per month usage, actually going to see a decrease of about 31%. Most of that has to do with the fact that their base fee is going to be lower than it was previously. For a high water user two inch meter, 500,000 gallons per month, you're seeing an increase of about 6.8%. Non potable, you're seeing an increase of 25.5%. However, the dollar amount scale is considerably less than what you're seeing with potable water.

That's 6.8% in year one and then it goes up from there as well.

Correct. So for the residential and for the landscape, the percentages you see there are what happens in year one. In year two, it's a 4.5% increase. Year three, 4.5% and year four, the same. So it's the same increase from there on out. The commercial is a little bit different because of what we just did to kind of ramp them in. So for instance, the commercial high end users seeing a 21% increase, they're going to see a 24% increase the year after that. Then it's going to come down to 16%. And then it's going to come down to the 4.5%. So we're ramping them in. Everyone else after that first year, you're going see the same increase about 4.5% each year.

Okay. So the first year 6.8% for the landscape and then after that it's about 4.5 per year through the four year period?

That is correct.

Thank you.

Okay. Other questions from council? Not seeing any other ones. Just want to make a couple of comments. Thank you for taking a look at the high water commercial high water user.

The amount increase that we had previously was a little bit of sticker shock from. And so I don't know exactly who those high water users are, but I know that they greatly appreciate and I guarantee we will be hearing from them as a city, if you had a basically a doubling of a water bill, especially when the water bills are, in the range that that they are, you know, $88 or so a month, 9,000 in this case. So thank you for taking a look at that and leveling that some. You had mentioned the four year versus the five year. Can you just for the public's benefit, one more time, explain why we're doing four instead of five?

Thank you, Mayor. So when we were looking at those financial milestones, the operating surplus, the operating reserves and the debt service ratio, because both water and wastewater are going to be scheduled to issue some debt in year three. Year four sees a pretty sizable drop in both the operating surplus and in the debt coverage ratio. So we wanted to just go four years and then kind of take a pause and see where we're at. Have we issued that debt?

What was the amount of that debt? And then we can come back and essentially redo the model again and redo it. But it was because in that fourth year, we were seeing the kind of the thresholds we're getting closer to those thresholds. We wanted to pause at that point.

Yes, appreciate that also. Meetings with the HOA partners, can you give a little bit of an idea of who those HOA partners are and what feedback we had from them?

Sure, Mayor. We had a series of of meetings with several HOAs. Everyone was invited to the RSPP. Unfortunately, we didn't get as much of feedback as we'd like, but we did get some positive. Of the HOAs that were in that, as Jared mentioned, smaller or medium area, we did some forecasting now with different numbers.

But in the end, the essence was that we didn't want landscaping to be hit such that, again, it rolls back down to our customers. But when you look at that increase, the 6% increase that Jared had, when you divide that out by the number of homes, it really seemed like a very palatable dollar, and they were appreciative of that. And so we we've had we've got quite a few questions as to just they they were appreciative of the approach we we took. They asked, you know, how we got to certain certain approaches. And all in all, I think it went went fairly well. We wish we had a little more feedback from from them, but we made the they can give them the opportunity, and our information is out there so they can ask more questions if need be.

Is is there do we have more planned public outreach now that we've kind of so what I guess maybe to back up what we're doing tonight is establishing the intent to raise this similar to our budget sets the upper threshold and always dial it back, although I don't know that that's necessarily going to be the case. So we've established now what we think our rates are going to be. We have sixty days to get public input on that. Are are we going out to the public and now that we have this established and and speaking to what these rates are gonna be?

At at the present time, we do not have any planned public hearings specific for for rates themselves. We we we work with your office and and communications department on what are some of the community meetings in advance and those types of things. We usually have a table at a few of those. And so we're out there able to answer answer questions should they come up specifically after this this meeting too.

I think there's a there's a couple key ones maybe we we hit. Some of them are you get a good group of people that go to the the senior center. And so downtown, there's an opportunity, I think, to have a captive audience, and they're feeding them food also. So that brings a lot of people. And and then there are this is our this is Miranda's Super Bowl season right now.

So there's lots of opportunity for public outreach at some of the the events. And your staff does a great job at being out at the public events and sharing conservation ideas and, you know, how to test for leaks and things like that. But I think it's probably really important to push out be ultra proactive in pushing out the message so that we're contacting everybody and making a very good faith effort.

Absolutely. We certainly do that. And this thing, we we will have bill inserts following following tonight's meeting. We'll have bill inserts to everybody, and we'll get with the sixty days. You'll get basically two bills in cycles, and so that that information will be there. Our Facebook page, the the rates we got an email address set up for for rates for people to ask questions. So all of that will be will be out there as well, so in everybody's bill.

And I think just in the the interest of messaging and making sure that we are completely above board on it. We've we've been using the line that we have not raised rates since 2013. And while it's true, we haven't taken a a council action to raise specifically rates since 2013, but we've seen increases since then. Was 2014, it looked like 2015 on that scale. And then there was an increase and we've gone through the same exercise and realized that, you know what, we can live with for a period of time just an increase in the fee.

I thought it was a water resource fee, but it's a an equipment replacement fee. But but if if I'm public, I'm counting that as you're increasing my water bill and that's what we're talking So I think it's really important when we're messaging out while we haven't taken a council action to increase specifically the rates since 2013. There have been increases in the bill, and and I don't I don't want that to blow back on the water department or the city that, well, you guys were not straight up about how long it's been since we've seen an increase in revenues coming into the water department.

Understood.

It's probably small item, but I I think it's a very important item and we need to be straight up with the public on. Other than that, I appreciate. This is such a it's a monumental process and you guys are going through. And I really appreciate the process, and we've seen this many, many times at public meetings that we're in. So the workshops, the council meetings, and there's been a lot of discussion on all this for many, many months.

Going back to the timeline you had, I think it was in October, the water rate committee. We are grateful for all of the work that they put in the water rate committee, the work, right?

We'll go with that.

We were going have marketing look at a name there. But that was an entire process that we went through going back where we had a committee of residents looking at this. They made a recommendation to council. It came to council. There are a couple things that we went back and tweaked, that you all went back and tweaked and found some different ways of doing things.

The rate setting is not a science. It's kind of an art. Think maybe you've said that once before to me and that's why it sticks. And and so there's these little finesse adjustments that you guys are making to the to the rates to make them work for everybody. I greatly appreciate that in in this entire process going through. I think it's just telling the public the good news about it and then sixty days from now hopefully we're beyond it.

Appreciate it. Thank you.

Great. Okay.

I don't know about good news. What we're doing tonight is we're giving notice that we're going to we're going to adopt rates that are different than the rates today to a max of what you've recommended. Correct?

I'll defer to the city attorney, but I believe that we're setting a ceiling depending on what we hear from the public adjustments could be made of course.

Downward but not upward, yes.

So we're not adopting rates tonight. We're just saying that in this next period, we can adopt rates up to this maximum, correct?

It's a notice of intent to raise, but you're not adopting to raise.

I just want to make that clear that we're not adopting rates tonight. Thank you.

What he said, right? Appreciate that. Okay. Any other questions from council? I'm seeing none. Council, we'll need a motion on this item.

To mayor, I'll make a motion that we approve agenda item five d as in David. Second.

I have a motion and a second for approval. This does not require a public hearing. So all in favor of approval for agenda item 5D, say aye. Aye. Opposed? And 5D passes unanimous. Thank you. Thank you both. On to item number six, comments from Mayor and Council. Do we have any comments tonight? Councilmember Eustace.

I'd just like to thank our PR department for the promotional efforts they've been putting in our rodeo a couple of weeks ago and the parade. I believe they interviewed Mr. Mayor. I believe they interviewed you down there at the rodeo.

At 05:30 a. M.

And that's why I had it recorded. I didn't stick it up to watch it. But also like to thank them. We're actually getting reports on the traffic conditions out here, which was a surprise. It's nice to know how long it's going to take me to drive to a doctor's appointment. And, they're giving us actual weather reports, and actually seeing on the air what the temperature is in Buckeye. All of this is new, whether you know it or not. If you watch your news, you probably don't even realize they never mentioned Buckeye. They might get as far West as talking about or maybe Glendale, once in a while as far West as Goodyear, but now they're actually mentioning Buckeye. So, it's nice to see that.

Whoever is putting in the effort, and I know who, John, thank you. And, it's nice to see us recognize once in a while. We do do things out here, whether people realize it or not. So, thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Thank you. Any other comments from council? I'm not seeing any. I just want to give a huge thank you to our public works department, the capital improvement project department, the developer, and the coordination that's going in to finish the improvements of McDowell Road from Verado Way out to Jackrabbit Trail, which is a lift. Some of that is being done by the developers.

Some of that is being done as a CIP project using revenues coming off of the Vestar development. And and then having the forethought is I saw Amy in here. Is she still in here? Yes. Amy, thank you for your team and getting lined up and and executed over the weekend.

The the mill and overlay of the intersection of Verado Way and McDowell all the way down to the freeway right away. That's a it's different than projects are typically done. That was, I think, basically done at night and on weekends outside of typical travel. It was it was a slog getting back home from Costco. We did it purposefully even though MAPS wants to send you to Perryville to get back home up in Verano from Costco.

So a little bit of short term pain, but the project is nearly complete in one weekend. And so thank you to everybody that had a hand in that, making that project go. And that just gets us one step further to having a completed entryway where folks from all over the region will go to buy stuff at Target or watch movies or whatever the case may be at center. So I appreciate all the work that went into that and thank all of the staff, the inspectors that were out there, everybody that had a hand in in putting that on. That that's outstanding work.

Council member Hustis did talk a little bit about the the all of the festivities around Buckeye days, and what an awesome event. And Miranda, thank you for your team putting all that on. I know it's not just, community services. It is all hands on deck for that from every single department, and what a great weekend here in the city of Buckeye. Had nothing but raving reviews of the Wild West show being taken down to next to the museum and the the rodeo and everything else that that went off without a hitch over the the weekend.

And then I there's another little event that's coming up in in about a week and a few days. Really excited about our Buckeye Airfare. I'm probably taking some of your talking points here, aren't I? Okay. Incredibly excited about this also. I would if you if you have not seen the night air show at the Buckeye air show, Buckeye airfare and AOPA fly in, you have to go to that this year. Last year, we had fireworks. We had a plane that shoots fireworks out of its wings. We were shooting fireworks at him. We had a drone show.

It's okay, Miranda. You can admit it. And and it was incredible. And folks asked, what are we gonna do to top that? And, well, I said, we're gonna blow stuff up. Chief is leaving right now. So so the the addition this year is a pyrotechnics team that is coming out that does this wall of fire that is absolutely amazing. So make sure you are there on Saturday night to see that. And actually, if you're like me, you'll hang out there from Friday morning through Sunday evening until it gets dark, being a part of this. But, last year, had 35,000 people.

I expect we'll probably have more than that. This year, we had 2,000 kids on Friday at a field trip learning about aviation careers and opportunities that exist in STEAM, science, technology, engineering, arts, and math. So an incredible time for us to show off. Miranda, we had a economic impact study that was done a couple of years ago by ASU, and that showed about a $5,000,000 impact to the the region, the the West Valley region. We should see we're going to have that same team out this year that are going to do that same economic impact study and it should be a significantly bigger impact because we have many more hotels built, many more restaurants available And and we should see much bigger part of that impact here in in the Buckeye area.

So a lot of opportunity ahead for this, and we can continue to grow this into a that kinda sun and fun or that air venture Oshkosh event on the West Coast. Really excited about that. You want to just continue talking about it? Can We can spend I should stop. Yeah. We can spend the night. I'll stop there and I sure appreciate staff and everything that they do. Item number seven, city manager's report and some of your current events.

I will always defer to you when it comes to talking about the airport, nobody can get as excited about it. So we do have a team that will make sure that you are off-site in after hours and do not spend from Friday morning till Sunday night at the air show. We've learned that lesson last year.

I know that team and I I can run faster than them.

Just a couple of things and it's a little bit repetitive. I do want to restate what you said about the public works team and the development services team and the coordination of that project on Verrado. It's something we try to do all the time but to be able to coordinate that level of construction project with that many different parties is extremely extraordinary. So I do want to thank everybody again for that. Buckeye days, we had 4,200 attendees, 37 parade entries and one of the things we did, we streamed it live on our city's Facebook and YouTube channels.

First time we've done a live stream on a major event like that and we ended up with over 28,000 views. So 4,000 people attending, 28,000 people watched on the live stream. That is something we've been refining and come the airfare coming up, we're going to have some live streams there and we'll see if we can get into the hundreds of thousands of views if not more. That is the extent of what I've got. So thank you very much.

You, sir. Item number eight is proposals for future agenda items. Any from council? Alright. Seeing none, item number nine with nothing else on the agenda, we are adjourned.