City Council - Regular Meeting

Welcome to the Chandler City Council meeting. To help us conduct tonight's meeting efficiently and respectfully, we ask all attendees to follow these rules and procedures. Please submit a speaker card or comment card to the city clerk before the meeting is called to order. This helps us manage the meeting and ensure everyone has a fair opportunity to be heard. Speakers must be recognized by the mayor before addressing the City Council. Once at the podium, please direct all comments to the City Council as a whole rather than to individual members or to the audience. Courteous and orderly conduct is expected from everyone present in the chambers. Disruptive behavior such as booing, shouting, yelling, or stomping of feet is not permitted. Any person whose conduct disrupts or interferes with the meeting may be warned by the Mayor and, if the disruption continues, may be asked to leave the Council Chambers. This meeting is being recorded and broadcast live on the Chandler Channel and online. Thank you for your participation in maintaining a respectful environment for all.

Good evening and welcome to the July 16, 2026 regular meeting of the Chandler City Council. Clerk, will you please take the role?

Mayor Harkey.

Here.

Vice Mayor Encinas. Here. Council Member Poston.

Here.

Council Member Ellis. Here. Council Member Orlando.

Here.

Council Member Harris. Here. Council Member Hawkins. Here. We have a quorum.

Thank you so much. Our invocation tonight will be brought by Pastor Jim Grimm of Desert Springs Church and our Pledge of Allegiance by Councilmember Ellis. Pastor.

You guys want to bow your heads? Father, we thank you for the opportunity that we have tonight to come before your throne, to come into your presence, and to bring these petitions to you. And I want to first start tonight by acknowledging who we are praying to. We are praying to our Heavenly Father, who is the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords, the Great I Am, the creator of everything seen, the creator of everything unseen. And he didn't just create it. He owns it. He maintains it. He rules over it. So God, we just acknowledge who we're coming before tonight. And I didn't come here tonight to pray an eloquent prayer full of fancy words. I came here tonight to pray our dependence, our understanding of our dependence on you, our dependence on you in our personal lives, our dependence on you in this room here tonight. over the council members who are leading this city and guiding this city. So God, I pray that your wisdom would rest on them, that your understanding would rest on them, that your counsel would rest on them. And Lord, that they would make decisions as they lead this city based on the anointing of God, based on the wisdom of God and not on their own intellect. And as they do that, God, that this city would be blessed, that this city would prosper. In Proverbs 29, it says that when the righteous rule, the people rejoice. And I pray that over this community right now. that again, that your blessing would be on this community and it would be evident to everyone around us. And God, we thank you for that. We praise you for that. I also pray, God, I think we'd be remiss if we didn't pray for our nation as a whole, especially given it's the 250th year of the birth of our nation. So I pray for our president. I pray for our vice president. I pray for all the leadership in our nation. Lord, that they would also be guided and directed by your wisdom and that your anointing would rest on them. So, God, we thank you for these things. We praise you for these things. I pray for this meeting tonight. Lord, that this meeting tonight would bring glory to you and glory to your name. And the last thing I want to pray, I just want to pray a verse over us, and it's Ephesians 3.20, and this is what it says. That God is able to do infinitely more than what we ask or think according to his power that has worked within us. And God, I pray that over the council members and over the mayor, because I know there's a lot of praying members on this council, that what you're praying for, what you're wanting to do in this community, in this city, that God would do exceedingly more, exceedingly abundantly above what you're thinking, because he's able to do that because of who he is. So God, we thank you for these things and we praise you for these things. In Jesus' name, and everybody said, amen.

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, Pastor. Thank you, Councilmember. Just to our audience, as a reminder, which was posted on public notice, the agenda item renewal of fixed camera automated license plate reader solutions has been withdrawn by the department and will be considered by city council at our August 13th regular meeting. Council, we have before us a consent agenda, but I do want to point out that on this agenda, item number one is board and commissioner appointees. I know that we at least have one here. Do we have anyone who is on this docket to be appointed to a board and our commission? Please stand. All right. And if you can, in a very outdoor voice, tell us your name and which commission you'll be serving on.

My name is Susan Ricci, a Chandler resident, of course, and is used for our country

All right. Well, thank you so much for being here. We look forward to your service. Council, how would you like to proceed with the consent agenda tonight? Council Member Orlando. I move to approve the consent agenda July 16, 2026, regular meeting, items 1 through 22. Second.

Second.

So we have a motion by Council Member Orlando, a second by, was that Council Member Ellis?

Yes.

Okay. And to our audience, on Monday we had a study session with the opportunity to, in more in depth if Council needed that, to have a presentation on any and all of these items. So we have a motion and a second on our consent agenda. Is there any recusals? Seeing none, Council please vote.

Motion carries unanimously.

All right. Thank you so much. Next on our agenda is a public hearing for annexation of one parcel totaling 16.87 acres at the southeast corner of Appleby Road and the Union Pacific Railroad, so north of Ocotillo and east of Arizona Avenue. I would like to open this public hearing. Our staff presentation is by Taylor Manaman. And please proceed.

Mayor, before we begin. Yes. I know I have a conflict of interest. So do I need to be a part of it? Or city attorney, do I need to kind of, I have a conflict of interest with this particular item. So should I come off the diet so that way the public hearing can happen without me?

City attorney. Yes.

City attorney, sorry.

Through the mayor, council member Harris, you may stay seated there. Just need to recuse yourself from discussion and vote.

So with respect to council, you guys mind if I just go sit down out there while you guys have this conversation?

If you wish, you can. And again, your main recuse obviously would just be discussion here as well as voting when this comes up. But you are welcome to do either. There's no mandate that says you have to leave the days.

Okay. I'm just going to leave the days just for the appearance of it. Great. So thank you.

All right, Taylor, please proceed.

Good evening, Mayor and Council. Before you today, I have a public hearing for annexation 2504. The property is located at the southeast corner of Appleby Road and the Union Pacific Railroad and consists of about 16.87 acres. The surrounding land uses consist of Appleby Road to the north and then agricultural land within the county. To the south is vacant land, currently zoned I-1 PAD. To the east is outdoor storage, zoned IND-2 in the county. And to the west is the Union Pacific Railroad. The current zoning on the property is Light Industrial Zoning District, IND2, within Maricopa County. And upon annexation, the initial city zoning will be Planned Industrial District, I1. The applicant plans to develop the site in order to accommodate a new pre-manufactured trust manufacturing facility, and it will consist of approximately 200 employees. This proposal will be reviewed administratively by staff upon annexation into the city. The general plan land use designation is employment. The City of Chandler will provide water and wastewater services to the property and staff has circulated the request to city departments and no negative comments have been received. That concludes my presentation. I'm available for any questions.

Council, do you have any questions? Seeing none, very good. Is there any questions from the audience? Seeing none, with that, I would like to close the public hearing. Thank you so much, Taylor. This is a short council meeting tonight. They're not always that way. But next on our agenda is unscheduled public appearances. I do have one card from Amelia, perhaps. I'm just trying to read the name. I'm sorry. Whoever this is from, if you would come to the days and please state your name. And you have up to three minutes to share. This is unscheduled public appearance. And at that point, we cannot engage you, but we can listen to you. So thank you.

Thank you. Mayor, Vice Mayor, members of City Council and City staff. I'm here tonight to talk about a recurring sewer odor impacting area businesses around Santan-Dobson Business Park in the corner of Dobson Road and Pecos Roads. A recurring sewer odor is affecting businesses, commercial properties, medical offices, senior living communities and residents near Santan-Dobson Business Park and in the surrounding area. The submitted responses demonstrate that this is not an isolated plumbing problem affecting one building. The odor has been reported across multiple independently owned and managed properties. Respondents described offensive sewer orders entering occupied buildings, customers, patients, and employee complaints, headaches and nausea, interruptions to normal operations, lost business, leasing difficulties, investigative expenses, tenant retention concerns, and offices becoming temporarily unusable. Property owners and businesses have spent considerable time and money investigating their own plumbing and building systems. Despite these individual efforts, the odor continues across multiple properties, indicating that a broader infrastructure investigation is necessary. Here's the impact at a glance to a recent survey of 22 individual endorsements. 19 of 22 are 86% reported employee complaints. 18 of 22 businesses, 82%, reported customer, client, or patient complaints. 15 of 22, 68% reported disruption to daily operations. Half of them reported expenses incurred investigating the problem. 36% reported lost business, and 27% reported prospective tenant declining to lease space. These totals are based on the selections made by respondents. Several respondents selected more than one type of impact. These represent medical, dental, cardiology, dermatology, eye care, neuropathy offices, senior living and residential communities, commercial property owners and managers, manufacturing and technology companies, printing, financial advisory, retail service businesses, and business park ownership associations. Responses cover separate properties of both Pecos Road and Dobson Road. There's several selected impact statements that I was going to read. I'm going to provide a copy of all of that to you today, so I won't go into that right now. But I'll get right down to what I'm hoping to accomplish here today. Requested city action. Recognize the odor as a shared area of infrastructure or infrastructure problem rather than a series of unrelated private building complaints. Conduct a comprehensive investigation of the public sewer system and associated infrastructure serving the affected Pecos Road and Dobson Road properties. Three, evaluate sewer mains, manholes, lift or pumping conditions, venting system pressure blockages, flow conditions, and nearby developments that could contribute to sewer gas displacement. Four, coordinate the investigation across city departments rather than requiring each affected business to independently repeat the same complaint and investigation process. Five, establish a central city contact for affected property owners and businesses. Six, provide regular written updates describing investigative steps, finding and proposed corrective action. Seven, develop and implement a permanent resolution rather than continuing to recommend temporary order masking measures within individual buildings. Is that it? The submitted endorsements document a recurring problem affecting numerous unrelated businesses' properties. Respondents have reported employee and customer complaints. Patient discovered lost business, disrupted operations, leasing difficulties, and thousands of dollars of investigative expenses. Thank you. My name is Ken Sherman. My business is in Chandler. I live in Gilbert.

Mayor? Mayor? Councilmember Harris. I wanted to ask city manager if he can. You can sit down, sir. Okay. If the city manager can get the information from the gentleman that just finished speaking, get his list of information so that way we can look further into it so staff can work with him.

Mayor, Councilmember Harris, we're happy to do so. Okay, thank you.

Okay. Our next speaker card is Jennifer Buchel. If you please come up, state your name and city of residence. You have up to three minutes. We cannot engage you, but staff will follow up.

So my name is Jennifer Buchel, and we also have a business in Chandler. Ken has done most of the legwork, and I guess I just wanted to come and speak on behalf of a lot of the businesses around us that have been struggling with this for years. It seems that the city has stated that it was just the complex that we're in, and that's not true. So we're just looking for the city to make to put some effort into it, to investigate it, to rectify it. So I guess that's all. I didn't come prepared to speak. It's very important. We're in the semiconductor industry. It's a high-dollar industry. We don't have the type of work where our employees can work from home, so it's affecting us every day that this odor appears. And I don't know if it's from the apartments being built across the street, but there's something that's causing this odor, and we just need attention to it.

Mayor.

Thank you.

I know that we cannot interface.

Did you have anything else to share?

No, that's it.

Okay, thank you.

Okay, thank you.

Council Member Ellis.

Thank you. City Manager, I'm here in years, and I live in that area. But the fact is that I know that we had a problem on McQueen with our water plant there. But now I'm hearing about it in Dobson and Price, or is it that area?

Dobson and Pecos.

Dobson and Pecos area. So is that something that Public Works has been working on, or is this something new? Because I know that we have bought filters and everything. $12 million we invested into that thing.

I'm going to call Brian and ask him.

Thank you.

So I think what would be appropriate, since this is unscheduled, is to get information back to us. Thank you so much. And our last speaker card is by Tracy Markey. Hello, sir. Again, please state your name and city of residence. You have up to three minutes.

uh good evening tracy markey um i've been a resident of chandler since 1988 and a business owner in chandler since 1994. i too live in or have a building i i'm here in multiple hats i own the building that we my business occupies we're a landlord to other tenants as well and i am the president of the owners association at santan dobson I don't need to pile on. I think you heard it and you get the idea of what's going on. And this is, I will say this is a multi-year issue that we've been having. We've all taken extensive measures to mitigate and nothing seems to have resolved it. Just this week, it came back with a vengeance again, and it's gone now deeper into our little community of commercial buildings there. So I just wanted to make sure that everybody heard it and that I confirmed what you heard from Ken. Ken has been doing a lot of the legwork and talked with all of the residents and all of the businesses surrounding that intersection that he could get to, and they've all confirmed that they have the issue as well. It's not a constant thing, it's intermittent, but we cannot seem to get our finger on what the cause of the problem is. some additional investigation, as Ken mentioned, is really warranted to try to have that. I will just say personally, our impact, one of my tenants has said they're moving out and will not renew their lease at the end of this. So that's a 50 to $60,000 impact. And I have several employees who will not come to the office to work when that odor is happening. They show up and if it's there, they turn around and leave. So, and we know, I know as the president, Other owners have lost tenants there as well. So it's a pretty significant financial impact on the businesses there.

Thank you, sir. Yeah. And City Manager, I think you're hearing from us that get to the bottom of this. Let us know. Meet with the group of folks. If you need to do a focus group with them, please capture their names so that it sounds like something solvable, but it sounds like we need to do some research.

Mayor, I can assure you we'll get the information back to you as quickly as possible. I do know staff has been aware of this in the past. And obviously, it's an intermittent problem. But nailing that cause down, I think, is a problem across the board. But we will work on it.

Thank you. All right. And thank you all for coming. I realize there's probably several of you that are here for the same issue. So thank you. Next on our agenda tonight is current events. And I will start. I'd like to give a recap of our 4th of July 250th event that we had. I want to thank all of our city staff and volunteers that made the Chandler All-American Bash a fantastic success. It's estimated that about 5,000 people, one of the largest crowds that the city is for this particular event has hosted. It was fun. It was great. The weather wasn't even that bad. It was highlights, the great staff we have in Chandler, and they really put it out with not just fireworks, but the food and everything else that led up to that. So congratulations. And I also want to thank our residents for their ability to come together and celebrate our nation's 250th anniversary. Secondly, I wanna also do a callback to this last weekend where Council Member Ellis and I were at Operation Back to School, where we provided between two and 3,000 stuffed backpacks and shoes and many other things for Chandler students. This is one of my favorite annual summer events. I think I've missed one out of the last 14 or 15 years. And it was wonderful morning getting thousands of our Chandler students ready for school by providing backpacks and school supplies and shoes and many more. So a big thank you to For Our City Chandler for executing another amazing event. and for the many volunteers who spent their morning and days leading up to this event, making sure that we were ready to go. And of course, to all the sponsors that showed up that will continue to serve our community. Now that our students are well equipped, I would be remiss if I didn't remind our Chandler students, happy day back to school as yesterday was the first day of school. A new school year brings fresh opportunities to learn, grow, and make lasting memories. To our students, stay focused, work hard, support one another, To the rest of us, remember that your traffic patterns are going to be disrupted again, probably around 7 AM and 3 PM. So please be patient. Be thoughtful of where you want to go. To parents dropping off students, please follow the traffic rules. And don't turn our streets into parking lots. And help us help the schools make this a fantastic year. Next Tuesday, we will be holding a primary election in Chandler. Voters will elect a new mayor, three council members, and consider Proposition 415, the proposed general plan update. A reminder is that you can still drop off your voted ballot at any vote center or ballot drop-off location prior to 7 p.m. on Election Day. It's too late to drop your ballot in the mail. Mail, please don't do that. To find a vote center, a ballot drop-off location near you, you can check out locations.maricopa.vote or beballotready.vote. So we hope that each and every one of our community members who are eligible to vote will remember that this is a distinct privilege and that everyone should take advantage of it. And lastly, this Sunday is invite the mayor to your World Cup party at noon on Sunday. Argentinian and Spanish food is preferred. I can't attend them all, so I will send delegates from council. But to our remaining two teams, congratulations. And I don't know what happened. But we still have power. So somebody hit a light switch. Yeah. Councilmember Poston.

That's awesome. Thanks, Mayor. Mayor, Council, you might recall a couple of months ago I had invited and we recognized Ms. Chandler. Her name is Victoria Vredeboog. She's a lifelong Chandler resident. She sent me an email last week saying, gosh, I'm really disappointed to know I won't be able to represent Chandler as Ms. Chandler anymore. because I have gone on to represent Arizona as Miss Arizona. So, congrats, I just wanted to take a moment to say, yeah, that's Baylor Gararama for the prize. She's just quite the amazing young woman. She is going to represent us in this National Miss America competition, and that's gonna be, I believe, in September. I think we need to find a way to do a little watch party here in Chandler. But what I find wonderful about her is she's an Arizona State University law student. And her mission is... She founded the Gender Violence Project. It's a coalition of law students, and they are dedicated to preventing gender-based violence and supporting survivors by giving them pro bono law services. So I think her mission is incredibly important and wonderful. She's an amazing person, and I just wanted to wish her the best and hope that all of Chandler joins her in doing the same. So thank you, Mayor.

Thank you, Councilmember Poston. And Zoe, will you see if we can get her back here before the Miss America contest? That would be kind of fun. Councilmember Ellis.

Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Mayor. Wanted to bring up something that's in the public at all right now. Oh, good. I'm on. I'm on. Yeah. The monsoon season and monsoon safety right now, that's what I would like to talk about. We are currently in monsoon season, and it will officially be monsoon season until September if you didn't know about it. Avoid driving during the monsoon, but if you do find yourself on the road, remember to reduce your speed and turn on your headlights. It's important. In those heavy dust storms, if you cannot see more than 300 feet, It is time to get off the road, very important. If you are outside during a storm, please find shelter inside or go to a low-lying open space away from trees, pools, and metal objects because those things will be flying in the air. Also, if you would like more information about the monsoon season along with things that are happening in the storage, Monday night, we had our light totally blackout downtown while we were in a council meeting. So these things are happening right now. So for more information, please visit ChandlerAZ.gov and then where you will be able to get more and more information about that. If there is any powder storage in your area where you live, please contact your utility company. For us here in downtown is APS, and for the rest of Chandler, most likely it's going to be SRP. So contact them. And every phone in this place started to ring at the same time with all the ads and everything telling us that something was happening outside. And we didn't even realize that there was a huge storm out there. So please take care of yourself in that season right now. Another thing that I would like to bring up, maybe all of us can join. I don't know if you guys are into theater, but Fiddle on the Roof is coming to Chandler. And also right now for the residents and ourselves, if we would like to be part of that, it's like a drama that is being done. CCC is the one doing it and they're currently casting people right now for the play. So if you would like to join, please call or go to CCC. which is the Chandler Center of Art, and get yourself on the list. And who knows? We might end up being one of the stars like the mayor in one of the movies. Thank you, mayor.

I could be trumpet player on the roof.

Yes, there you go. There you go. Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor. I do want to take a moment to highlight a Chandler alum, specifically a Hamilton High School alum. If you haven't seen on the news or in social media, Cody Bellinger is a former Hamilton Husky baseball player who now plays for the New York Yankees. Very exciting. He also represented Chandler in the 2007 U.S. Championship game of Little League. And now he's also been named as the MVP in the Major League Baseball's All-Star Game. So congratulations to him. We're all noting our back to school season and hometown heroes like Cody are a good reminder that hard work and dedication truly do pay off. So congratulations, Cody, and representing Chandler. Chandler Council is ready to give you a city tour when you're in the off season and continue making Chandler proud. Thank you.

Council Member Landau. Go Cody. Thank you. I'm a Yankee fan. Council Member Harris. Vote. Thank you. Wow. Two words, one word.

I'm very caught off guard by the short response tonight. I'm going to take it. No, no, no. You gave up your time. Okay. Thank you, Mayor. Mayor. Okay, so recently I had the chance to host some students at City Hall. The group is called Let's Fill Some Colors. The group is led by Mupta. Let's Fill Some Colors is an art program that provides a nurturing and fun art environment. It allows the kids to learn how to express their ideas through sketches, paintings, drawings, etc. I happened to come across one of their showings, which is how I got familiar with this group, and in turn was able to host them here at City Hall, them and their families. So I was really impressed. This group came in, and they were... Just so kind, so sweet, and so excited to be a part of this day. As you can see in the photo there, I was provided a nice painting that reflected Chandler and all of the roots that make it Chandler. I would love to show you guys. If anyone's interested, I'll bring it down. I'm very proud it's hanging in my office at this point. So I love it that Chandler continues to put thoughtful effort into our arts and entertainment and our next generation. So if you're interested, go check them out. Secondly, I want to highlight community service is having an open house this Saturday, July 25th. It's from 9 to 12 p.m. or excuse me, 12 noon at the Tumbleweed Recreation Center. It's a perfect opportunity to learn about all of the good things that the City of Chandler has to offer, from recreation programs to library cards. So I encourage you all, please go check it out. Get familiar with everything we offer here. And that's it.

All right. Thank you. City Manager. Mayor and Council, the City of Chandler has created a do-it-yourself sandbag station for the residents in need due to rainfall anticipated this weekend. The station is located near Chandler's Streets Division at 975 East Armstrong Way. Sandbags and shovels are positioned along the north side of Armstrong Way and west of McQueen Road. Residents can report street flooding and maintenance issues by contacting Chandler Streets Division during work hours 480-782-3500. On nights and weekends, residents can call or text Chandler Police non-emergency line at 480-782-4130. And echoing what Council Member Ellis said, please drive safely during any of these inclement weather events. Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you. With that, that concludes our meeting. And we will be back here on the days in August.