City Council - Special Meeting

Thank you, Mayor and Council. Shannon Anderson, your Assistant City Manager. This will be a brief presentation just prior to the call of special election as a reminder of what we're asking for. And then Stacey will touch base on the two resolutions. So for our background, we've updated this slide a bit to reference the few presentations that we've provided to Council. So March 24th, we did a presentation where we identified those public safety needs. May 5th, we focused on those community survey results. And then most recently, May 26th, we presented on the citizen committee recommendation. Also want to continue to point out that all of the work that we did with the citizen committee, all the presentations, The questions and answers, all of those documents are on the Connect Flagstaff site, and we've included a link in the presentation that council or any members of the community can view at any point in time. So as a reminder, the Citizen Committee recommendation includes a half-cent sales tax, a $40 million general obligation bond, and then although this third item isn't necessarily for the upcoming ballots, We didn't want to lose sight of it because it is part of their recommendation, and that's to evaluate the water resource and infrastructure protection fund fee. We call it RIP for short. They're requesting it be bumped up and be evaluated in 2027 to address needs in the wild land fire management program. So when we talk about our ongoing resources, um, the half cent sales tax will provide ongoing resources to hire additional all risk firefighters that respond to wildland fire calls. residential or commercial fires and provide emergency medical services. It provides those staff members with the academy and the ongoing training resource and the specialized supplies and equipment to do the work. It provides them protection through cancer testing and ensures they have the important safety equipment like turnouts. The ongoing funding will provide training for police personnel, maintain all public safety facilities and response vehicles, and emergency planning. It also provides for additional staffing and emergency management, aircraft rescue firefighting, and police, along with the equipment and supplies they need, such as public safety radios, computers, and personal protective equipment. Moving on to the $40 million general obligation bond, this can be supplemented with development impact fees and will provide the one-time resources needed for construction and equipment for new and existing buildings, purchase vehicles, cardiac monitors, radios, computers, and software. The half cent sales tax creates approximately $18.2 million in revenue each year and would provide the revenue needed over the next 15 years. It would increase the city's tax base, excuse me, the city's base tax rate, but benefit of a sales tax instead of a property tax is that 37% of the sales tax is paid by visitors who use these services. And a smaller increase produces a larger amount of ongoing revenue. For example, a 14% property tax generates just over $1 million. and a half cent sales tax produces $18.2 million. Half of the Arizona cities have a rate of 3% or higher, and you can see how Flagstaff compares in the chart to the right. There have been four cities that have used a sales tax to fund public safety needs, and additional communities are considering the opportunity to address unmet public safety needs currently. For the City of Flagstaff, it is a funding source for ongoing staffing, contractual, and commodity expenses. So again, there's been some confusion over time about what sales tax applies to within the city of Flagstaff. And so we shared this with you last time, but one of the things that we talked about during that discussion is a few examples. And so we've added that information to this slide. So to remind everyone that this tax does not apply to food at the grocery store or residential rent as examples. but it does apply if you're going out to eat at a restaurant or if you purchased a refrigerator. The half cent would equate to 50 cents for every $100 spent. So a few examples, if we purchased a $50,000 vehicle, it would cost you $250 more with this half cent sales tax. If you decided you were gonna grab some fast food for lunch while you're on your way to your next meeting, it's gonna cost you 11 cents more. If you buy a gallon of milk and that cost is $4.59, it doesn't cost you anymore because this is considered food at a grocery store. And the same thing with apartment rent. If you're paying $1,575 for your studio apartment, it's not going to cost you anymore because this sales tax does not apply to that residential rent. So hoping that those examples bring forward what we were trying to explain in what a sales tax would mean to those that live in our community. This slide articulates what the ballot language would look like for the sales tax. Basically talks about it's to levy a transaction privilege tax. It's dedicated to enhance public safety services. It's at a rate of that 0.5 or the half cent. It would begin on July 1st of 2027 for a period of 15 years, ending June 30th, 2042. And this is what you would see this proposition number 404 on the ballot should council support putting this on the ballot for November of 2026. Moving on to the general obligation bond, this slide's been updated since we met because you've been working on adopting your budget. And if you will recall, there is a portion of that budget that Heidi talked about earlier today where we're shifting some of our secondary property tax to primary property tax. That has an impact on our general obligation bonds. You'll see at the first bullet point that there's 95 million in capacity. This is slightly less than the 98 million that we presented to you on May 26th. And that's because with that shift, you have a little bit less capacity in your general obligation bonds. Again, it reduces that flat rate policy. You used to see a .8000 there where you now see that .7600. And then in the next few bullets, we talked originally about assuming an assessed value of 4%. We chose to look at 5% because 5% is the maximum that the assessed value can go up each year. So if there was a maximum increase of assessed value, it would cost the average residential customer $14.93 more per year. But that's only if there's an increase in assessed value. Simply giving a bond doesn't necessarily increase it. It's only if the assessed value goes up. For that $1 million property, for commercial property, it would be 11 cents less per year. And Rick actually talked through some of this with council back at your April retreat, so it might sound familiar for that exact reason. We wanted to again remind that this general obligation bond would be supplemented with development impact fees. And it also is a great one-time source for buildings and equipment. The more that we're able to put into a bond, it reduces that amount that we need through a sales tax. So moving on to a similar slide where we talk about ballot language, this ballot language would talk about the issuance of a general obligation bond and a principal amount of $40 million. And this would be to invest in public safety infrastructure and equipment. This would be proposition number 405, and this is what it would look like should a ballot measure be placed on the November 2026 election. So I will turn it over to Stacy and she'll talk about our resolutions.

Thanks, Shannon. Stacey Salzberg. I'm your communication and civic engagement director and also serve as your city clerk. So tonight before you are two separate resolutions. The first will be to call a special election on a bond measure. So that's resolution 202636. And then the second resolution will call the election for a sales tax. question if you choose. Adoption of these two resolutions allow my office to take the next steps in preparing for the November election. This will include opening a call for pro-con statements from our public. That would start to gather those and also for the development of our publicity materials to be created and sent out to our households with registered voters. As Shannon was going through the presentation, I did notice a typo on the sales tax ballot language. So as you can see there where it says a no vote shall have the effect of not of approving, that will be updated to remove that second of. So just note that that will happen should this resolution be adopted. That will be updated when we send the materials to the county for the ballot. And I am here for any questions that you might have.

Thank you. Council Member Matthews.

Thank you. Stacy, I think this question probably can be directed towards you. Math is not a primary talent or skill set in a lot of people's toolbox. And I've seen a lot of calculations out there on social media where there was a post that said, well, 0.5% would be $50 on every hundred or $5. Is there any way we could in parentheses put half cent because at 0.5% just, I mean, I was even starting to doubt myself because it was so prevalent on social media. I was like, I guess I don't understand how to do the math. So if we could just do in parentheses, I don't know if it's allowed, but just say half cent, not I think people read it like 50%, but not 50% of a cent. They're just thinking 50%. That makes sense.

It does, and I will empathize with you. I'm a clerk for a reason. I am grateful that we have Rick to handle all of the math. But I don't see any reason why that couldn't be included. I know that we've got some word limits, and so we can go back and kind of look at that just to make sure that it fits within those particular requirements. But I don't see that there's any concern about adding that in parentheses to the both the question and the two yes-no statements.

I think that would just be really helpful to keep the conversation on factual information and not get confusing. And I also just wanted to comment, and it had to be done, but the truth in taxation statement, people tied that in, which it is tied in to this public safety question, but people were interpreting it that their taxes were going to go up that 6.89% period, not reshifting it. And it just muddied the waters even more. So I think it's just really important. I'm glad that Shannon, thank you for representing this information that we can use to send out, you know, to people that may be confusing all the facts. But this is such an important ballot and tax question. And I think that we need to make sure that do everything we can to make sure that the voters understand and not get misinformation. So thank you.

Thank you. And I'll just add, we've got a good group of folks that have been put together who will be working on that publicity pamphlet material that will go into some really good detail to help with that education and to really make sure that we're distinguishing carefully what this is and what it is not.

All right. I'm going to take public comment. And first up we have Casey Gonzalez and you have a group of people. If everyone who is here with Casey could stand up please. Yeah. Great. So Casey you have 15 minutes.

I can talk slower. I don't think I'm going to need the 15 mayor. Vice mayor, council, city leadership, chiefs, everybody that's hung out till the end, those online. Not much to add overall. To speak to council member Matthew's last comments about the education part. One of the best parts about this whole process has been seeing the collaboration from top to bottom on how this came about. Prior city leadership before a transition that saw a need to fix some processes, funding gaps that have existed for a long time. It doesn't matter where they came from. We've moved on from that and we're looking to fix things now and move into the future, carried into a new leadership within the city council, talking about it, bringing it forward, putting it together in front of a, a large diverse citizens committee that really started to dig into the numbers and not just anecdotal stuff. One of the individuals that I've met through that, had coffee with him a few times, he was on the committee and he really talked about, last time I met with him, it really comes down to math and emotion. And I think we've fully addressed the math portion of what's going on with public safety in the city of Flagstaff. wildfire threat increased, buildings getting taller, population going up, calls increasing, doubled since 10 years ago, staffing numbers stay in the same, equipment needing fixed stations, not having the resources to handle that stuff, more paramedics for response. The math part of it doesn't lie. It's all been put out there. And where it really comes down to at this point is the emotion piece. And with that, the education of nobody wants to pay more for anything. I get it. What's coming with that for the citizens, and that's where it comes from, is the citizens. We can do all the education, and we're going to be out there doing it through November 3rd. But seeing a group of 25 plus influential people in the community sit through seven months of meetings and ask hard questions to city leadership, to the chiefs of the department, and watching everybody work together and grow to a point where in my 11 years with the city, I've never seen this type of collaboration with this big of an outcome. to completely change the direction of public safety for the citizens of Flagstaff and the surrounding region and the visitors. So that's where I stand with it right now. Not a bunch of extra to add, just I appreciate the work done by council being involved as they have up to this point, taking that information to sit where we sit with it. in front of you all to make your decision. City leadership that has continued to push forward in getting the information, clarifying information, answering questions. It's really gonna come down to people getting the correct information and not just making stuff up out of emotion. Get your questions answered and that's what we're here for. Watching our chiefs week after week in front of the committee answer questions. It's been an awesome thing to see and so looking forward to the next several months of getting into that education part and See in November 3rd where we end up, but we feel good about where we're at right now, so thank you Thank You Casey mm-hmm BJ Dempsey Thank you I Personally sat on the Public Safety Committee

Coming into the meetings, I was adamantly against raising taxes and putting additional financial burden on Flagstaff citizens. During almost seven months of weekly meetings, we were given immense amounts of information and presentations ranging from the city budget to extensive presentations from our fire department, police department, water needs, and all of our core safety and emergency services, including our airport personnel. What was unknown at the start of the committee was the depth at which these departments were underfunded. These are core services that are expected by each and every taxpayer within Flagstaff. The need was $500 million. Disgusted as I was that our first responders and the very people we have come to depend on for life and death situation do not have the tools they require to perform their jobs as effectively and efficiently as possible, we buckled down and wanted to hear where the gaps have come from. I learned of department cuts a decade ago that were straight across the board. Upon economic recovery and increases that came back to personnel and other departments, those same increases were not increased at the same rate in our public safety sectors and other departments within Flagstaff City government. This is of great concern. The presentations by each of our public safety departments brought so much attention and light to the growing problem we face in our community. The need is the greatest within our fire and our police departments. These brave men and women put themselves in harm's way daily to save our town and keep it safe. They do this with minimal staff and for individuals that they've never met. They sacrifice their family time and risk their lives daily. We do need another fire station in Flagstaff to account for continued growth that is inevitable. Flagstaff will only continue to grow. We need to retain our current workforce The current firefighters and police officers know that they can get jobs in other locations with higher pay and less of a workload. They stay because they love this town. Unfortunately, we have forced many of them to leave. This causes unneeded turnover, which in turn costs the city more money. The city is at a point that requires us to act as a city council and voters to ensure that our children will have a safe and vibrant community in the future. These are the reasons that we as a public safety committee have recommended the general obligation bond of $40 million and a half cent sales tax increase. These recommendations were not taken lightly and it hurts me to recommend additional financial stress on the already troublesome issue of affordability within Flagstaff. The citizens of Flagstaff need these measures on the ballot and the men and women that serve us so bravely need these measures to ensure that the safe and sustained future for Flagstaff. The need is there and I hope city council sees public safety as their sacred duty and the responsibility to act is now so that we do not fall further behind and have a catastrophic disaster. I ask that you advance these ballot measures. Our amazing law enforcement officers and firefighters deserve this. Thank you.

Thank you, BJ, and thank you so much for your service on the committee. I know it was a lot of work and a lot of meetings. Next up, we have Patty Pastor.

Good evening, Mayor Daggett, Vice Mayor, and City Council members. My name is Patty Pastor, and I am a longstanding member of our community and the education sector in Flagstaff. express my support for the public safety ballot measure. As we look at programs that are in high demand in education, fire science and public safety are high ranking. Our community needs to support our essential workers. They are the heroes of our town. Flagstaff has grown while funding has not grown to keep pace with the needs of our community. Fire and police provide our community with vital services every day, and we need to support them by providing the funds to provide training for additional firefighters, training facilities, and the equipment needed to serve our community as it grows. This is why I support this ballot measure. Thank you.

Thank you, Patty. Michael Oliver.

Good evening, mayor, vice mayor, council, community members. Thank you for allowing us to have a voice here and an opportunity to speak to you. Last I spoke with you, if I was cordial or emotional or direct, I have no intention of not doing that tonight. This is a serious matter. Flagstaff is changing. It has been changing for years and our staffing has not changed with it. And the expectation that is placed upon us has never been higher. The reality is simple. Public safety cannot continue to do more with less. We've heard it too long and too much. And frankly, we won't. We won't do more with less because we can't. We're tired. We're exhausted. We're understaffed, overworked, and frankly, underpaid. But that's another issue. Strong public safety systems do not happen by accident. They happen because communities choose to invest in their public safety before crisis forces do. You are at that moment, community and council, you are at that moment where you have a staffing crisis within all of your public safety sectors. That's facts. We understand what we're asking. 100% that we are asking the community taxpayers to support us. It's not something that we take lightly. We are empathetic to that. We are part of this community as well. We're going to pay the same tax. We get it. But there was another way, and we've looked at other ways. There isn't anything less than what's being presented to you. It's just a Band-Aid, another Band-Aid that will not fix the problem. We need long-term solution here. And finally, this is not about politics. Pox has nothing to do with this. The President of the United States has nothing to do with this. This is about people, your people. It's about the people that keep your people safe and making sure they can do it in the right way, with the right resources, with the right training, with the right equipment. And if for anything else, if you do it for anything else, you push this forward for anything else, Look at the wellness of your officers, your firefighters, and your emergency personnel. We're struggling because we lack support in those areas. We can't fund those. We can't staff those. Each officer or firefighter probably wears five or different hats, and that's not efficient for any department. So I thank you for your time today, and I'm pleased to ask that you push both these ballot measures forward. Thank you.

Thank you. Council Member Garcia.

Oh, thank you, Madam Mayor. And I just want to look at my colleagues for a moment and acknowledge everything that we've been through on this, with this whole thing. From the first budget retreat that I sat in on, where we all kind of came into a consensus that this was a priority, I was elated, because, you know, I didn't know you guys well back then. So I thought, well, maybe this is going to be tough to get through to the council, but to not only hear the support of the council that was there currently, but also to reverberate what they had done, what you all had done before my time getting here to sure up everything that we needed to do with public safety on police and fire to get us to a point to where we could take this next big bold step. I was stoked. And I wanted to also acknowledge the manager's department for when we did mention our desire to make these changes, for acknowledging those changes and then coming up with a creative tool, which is the process that we'll be voting on tonight pretty quickly. This process has been going on for quite some time, but it's been going on steadily. And that's with the speed of government, something that I really, really appreciate. Um, I think it's, it's also, you know, I mentioned past councils, but they have been working diligently on doing what they could to get us to where we're at today. So it's, it all, when you look, you know, five years back and 10 years back, it all kind of comes to this, to the head at this moment, this critical mass. And I will be supporting this tonight. Um, staff that. went through the whole process with the Public Safety Commission. Thank you so much for everything you did, especially vice city manager, gosh, help me, Shannon Anderson. Sorry, I almost called you Stacy Anderson. I got the two confused. So thank you. I watched incessantly those committee meetings up to three times sometimes just because there's, so much details that I had to take away from them. And the staff was always there to bring back all of the questions that the commission had to offer. And Chief Gellert and Chief Connolly, thank you for your patience, first of all. I know that this has been quite some time that you've been talking about making these changes, but as an organization, we had a long way to go to get to where we were today. So you guys were patient enough. And through that patience, you guys took the time to account for everything that was necessary for us to have a community that has a prosperity and is safer for our future. I really appreciate your guys' work on this. Thank you. I guess kind of most importantly, I was very impressed by the Public Safety Commission themselves. BJ, you're here today. I wanted to say thank you for coming through with all the questions. And I watched all those meetings, and it was just great. both fun for myself, somebody who really enjoys the process of city government, to watch the evolution of that committee in itself kind of evolve, learn, and be a true swath of our general community, in my opinion. Each member brought their own side of our community to the table as almost a perfect replica, representation of the 70,000 people. I've been a part of many committees. I've seen plenty of committee meetings, just watching them as a citizen. And this is one where I was really impressed by the coverage and how that committee was formed, the coverage of our general committee and the questions that they were bringing in from their constituencies. Yeah, thank you BJ for being here today and thank you to the committee in general for asking so many questions and helping me learn as a council person what we need to do to help our public safety for the future. I think that we're at a point now, and we'll see how the vote goes tonight, but we're at a point now to where if this passes, the key is public outreach and education. It would be hard for me to believe that anybody who was as educated as I am on this now, after everything, watching all the different committee meetings and researching this, that wouldn't want to go through with this. vote understanding that This is the mechanism that we have to use and it's really the best mechanism according to the committee and I support that mechanism and So that was pretty much just it, just kind of reflecting on the process, putting it into a little bit of a story, and making sure that everybody got thanked along the way. Because this is one of the big issues that I've been through so far on council, and I'm really impressed by the entirety of it and where we have come to. With that, I'll say thank you, Mayor.

Thanks, Mayor. Thank you. Thank you for those comments, Council Member Garcia. And thank you for everyone who spoke tonight to the citizen committee. I definitely watched those and there were so many questions that a lot of work went into that to staff and to the community members who have participated. You know, Flagstaff has consistently identified public safety as one of our main priorities and I can see and I've talked to a lot of our public safety heroes out there and I know you are tired and I think it's time that we give you the resources to do your job, do it well and continue I don't wanna see anyone not be able to be where they're at today. So I am glad that we have this path forward, and I'm very thankful that we took the time to really do this in a thoughtful process. And I know this was a lot of work, but I think that the time has come that we have this as an opportunity for our community to move forward, so thank you.

I just want to, again, thank the committee, thank the staff for the amount of work that went into putting together the presentations and asking the questions. And I want to walk again through the process so that the public hopefully can understand how rigorous this process was. There were outside consultants evaluating the needs national standards that require certain things of our public safety that we need to fund, lots of internal planning to assess the strategic changes we need to make to arrive at critical improvements. We had a representative group of residents meeting several times a month and this included many skeptics and we heard from one earlier. many skeptics. So I want to emphasize to the public that this wasn't any kind of hand-picked group that is going to go along with whatever is presented to them. These were residents of Flagstaff who took their duty very seriously and asked the really tough questions. And that's what gives me confidence that This is the right thing to do. We wanted those skeptics. We needed those skeptics. And yet it was a unanimous vote to move both of these forward. It was a clear and transparent process and deliberation. you can go back and watch every single meeting and access all the materials that this citizens committee used to make their decision. And please, for those of you who want to take the time to listen to the needs, we're looking at plugging in where we need to currently, but we're also planning for the future and we're planning for a strong future where we know that we are well placed to take care of all the hazards, potential and current wildfire, fire in general, law enforcement, And as Michael said, the emotional toll on all of our staff from having to fill multiple roles while doing their primary role, I'm just, I'm very proud of the committee, I'm proud of staff, I'm proud of council, and and I'm hoping that on November 4th, I will be just proud that we rose to the challenge, recognized the need, and said this is important to our community and we're gonna support it. Council Member Matthews.

Thank you, Mayor. I just wanted to echo what my colleagues have been saying about how much we appreciate the hard work. Those committee meetings were pretty intense, and I learned a lot by watching them and reading the transcripts. And there's so much more to it. I spent eight hours yesterday learning about trafficking in our town, sex trafficking, child sex trafficking, labor trafficking. I've said this before, I think we've done too good of a job of making our public think that we don't have any problems up here. We just have a really good law enforcement that keeps it under control. But it was pretty heavy yesterday to hear the cases, hear the stories, hear the victims, and to emphasize that it's happening here. Um, we need it. I mean, this is not just, you know, PD or just fire. We also have airport. We have, you know, airplanes that come in and stuff. It is time. I think we all, and I've said this before too, we all just assumed, um, in our daily lives that all these needs have been, uh, taken care of and, and we just, the revenues haven't kept up with the needs. And I'm so grateful that our city, um, whenever it was decided, um, you know, said, hey, we need to do an assessment on what we need today as well as what we need over the next several years. Because if we don't have a healthy public safety, we don't have a community. So I just want to thank everybody that invested that time. I was very impressed with the Citizens Committee group that met for so many days and so many hours and asked tough questions. And that makes me feel good about them hopefully being the champions out there to answer the questions. And I want to also point out that we started at $500 million-plus needs. And it's not that we identified that, oh, we really don't need that. But there was some tough decisions made on, you know, we just want to make sure we get what we need most urgently. And that's why it was cut down. Somebody decided we really didn't need that first initial ask. We do still need the $500 million. But this will get us to that next level. And we need to make sure that we are successful in communicating that. So just thank you to everybody. Thank you to our fire and our PD. Hold on. Hold on, you know, we're getting close and, you know, it's not like just a nine to five job. You know, I hear the stories about our first responders going after call, after call, after call without a break. You don't get to, you know, design your agenda for the day. You have no idea what's coming across your desk. And I just want you to know we hear that and we see that and we appreciate that. And we're going to do everything we can to help resolve that to take some of the Burden off of that because it is a very emotional Draining job at times and I just want to recognize that so thank you Councilmember Aslan Thank you.

I'll just briefly weigh in here The need is real the request is reasonable and the effort so far has been transparent authentic responsible and heartfelt Um, this matter deserves to have its day in court, so to speak. I support the public having the final say, and so I support adopting both resolutions. I truly hope they pass.

I still had carrot in my mouth. I thought I had time to chew that piece. Any additional comments or questions? All right. Um, Stacy, you wanted to offer a comment.

Thank you, Mayor. I just wanted to circle back around on Council Member Matthews' request on the addition of that parenthetical language of half a cent. While we would be in the word count limit, I think that there's some concerns about referencing half cent as it relates to a rate of 0.5%. And I think we'll be faced with having to kind of completely rework that question. And so I would, my recommendation would be to keep it the way that it is and we can Emphasize that throughout the publicity pamphlet as well as the educational materials that we put out to the public Thank you Yes So we have two separate actions if you would make the motion for the first one Mayor I move that we read resolution number two zero two six dash three six by title only and

I'll second. Any discussion? All those in favor? Aye.

Any opposed? City Clerk. A resolution of the Flagstaff City Council ordering and calling a special bond election of the city for November 3rd, 2026 in conjunction with the city's general election to submit a bond question to the qualified electors of Flagstaff with respect to selling and issuing general obligation bonds in the aggregate principal amount of $40 million to be repaid with secondary property taxes for public safety infrastructure and equipment.

Mayor, I move that we adopt resolution number 2026-36.

I'll second. Any discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? A motion to read resolution 2026-37. I move that we read resolution number 2026-37 by title only.

I'll second.

Any discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed?

City Clerk. A resolution of the Flagstaff City Council ordering and calling a special election of the city for November 3rd, 2026 in conjunction with the city's general election to submit a question to the qualified electors of Flagstaff with respect to an increase in the city's transaction privilege sales tax of an additional 0.5% for the purposes of enhanced public safety services.

And a motion to adopt.

I move that we adopt resolution 2026-37.

I'll second. Any discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries.