Tri-City Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening. We would like to call this meeting to order and of course welcome everybody that is here in chambers. We appreciate your presence and taking this opportunity to share your thoughts and comments and participating in government. This is what it's all about. This is a regular this is a special meeting scheduled of the Kingman City Council held at 5:00 PM on Thursday, March 5th, 2026. Let's turn some time over to our city clerk for roll call. Mayor Watkins present. Vice Mayor Samile here. Council member Dykins here. Council member Savage here. Council member Staley is excused this evening. Council member Walker here. Council member Ward here. We have a quorum.

Thank you. Um if we can all stand for the pledge of allegiance, please. That will lead us. I aliance 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. And as a reminder, of course, this is going to be on our YouTube channel. This is showing right now, but for future comment or if you want to review it again, you can go back to the Kingman U YouTube channel and view this meeting. Also, I do would like to remind everybody because I do it myself, please silence your your cell phones if you would. Thank you. Item number one on our agenda, well, the council may go into executive session for legal counsel in accordance with ARS 38-431.03A3 to discuss any agenda item. The following items may be discussed, considered, and decisions made relating there too. And we have item number two on our agenda. Um, actually before we do that, I did want to share one other thing. Now, up here as council, we do have written copies of the presentations that are going to be given tonight. Um, if you would like a copy, a written copy or or an email, actually, it'll be an email copy because that's the best way to to save money and and share that. um please sign your name over here on a form on the desk and our city clerk will then email you a copy of this for afterwards but it's going to be of course it'll be on right now the presentations that we have. So, moving on to a transaction privilege tax, TPT, and street repairs maintenance and improvements program work session. Staff will present information on the street maintenance program, um, transaction privilege tax rates and options, fund balances, and community comparison data. And of course, as you all know, it's called TPT, but the most common word that everybody knows is called a sales tax. So, moving on then, we'll turn some turn some time to over to Jack from our public works department and our road specialist. Welcome, Jack.

Good evening, mayor, vice mayor, members of the council. Uh, thank you for having me. I'd also like to echo um your uh appreciation for the participation with the the community. So, like to thank them for coming out this evening. So, um I guess I should pull up my presentation so everybody can see it, huh? All right, here we go. All right, so tonight we want to talk about uh the funding mechanism that council set in place, what we've done with those funds, what we've uh accomplished with those, and then also what is needed looking into the future. As you know, uh, the street pavement preservation specifically has historically been underfunded and, uh, that coupled with the 2008 recession and the loss of the highway user revenue funds really really set our network back. And so we've been trying to make up for that for for at least over a decade. So, uh, tonight we'll talk about street department responsibilities, uh, show the return on the $50 million investment that council has put in. We've spent roughly half of that, about 23 million. Uh I had pavement treatment review in here. I'm not going to cover that. Um I do have it if we did have questions from the council or the public and then discuss long-term funding needs. So the first couple slides here, I'm I'm going to move through kind of kind of quickly, but I thought it was important that um the especially the public understand what we're trying to maintain with the dollars we do have. And so I won't go through this uh whole list, but as you can see, our traffic signals, dirt roads, sidewalks, curb, these are all things that are maintained under HERF currently. Uh payment preservation, we have 453 lane miles that are shown in

there. Um the there was a half% bar and restaurant tax that was dedicated to that and that has continually been dedicated to payment preservation. So all of these assets are being maintained uh with those funds that that we have or or as maintained as they can as well as it can be. So just for context, when you're looking at the pavement alone, 453 miles, uh you're looking almost $300 million worth of replacement value on those paved assets and those are a public asset. And so uh it's very important that we take care of those. I'd also like to highlight with HERF in particular, those are highway user re revenue funds and those are specific to transportation. So, as you can see, all these pieces in here are transportation specific. Um, property tax comes up a lot. I'm sure Tina will cover that. We don't receive any property tax from from Mojave County. The primary property tax you receive goes to the county and those are used for county uh services and programs. So none of the money that that uh we use for payment preservation or general maintenance is from is from the uh property tax from Mojave County. Excuse me. The other piece I wanted to talk about is the total calls for service and what the composition of those calls are. And again this is to show what we maintain and then what the expectation of the community is as well. So we track not only the volume and as you can see it it fluctuates here and uh what I can tell you is when you see higher number of calls it's typically because we have calls due to rains. So at that time we get potholes and weeds and uh drainage repairs are the the biggest part of that which is actually represented in this graph right here. I know it's very busy but I just wanted to show year-over-year um the number of

calls. This is not representative of the time spent for each of those calls. So out of that, you know, 400 400 calls, a repair might take 10 minutes for a small crew and it could take a day to get those completed. So this is only showing the volume. This is more so again just to show what the community is desiring for services that that the city and public works and the streets department provides. So, as you can see, uh, curb and sidewalk, sweeping, signs and markings, signal and lighting, all of those, um, those areas of work are covered under HERF and under streets currently, start talking about our network a little bit. And so, um, wanted to show you the composition of how our streets are are broken out. So, we classify them, uh, by how they function. And so as you can see here, residential roads, which is your typical I live on a residential road. You live on a residential road. There's no businesses. Um it's just inside your neighborhood. Um that that makes up over 3/4 of our network of the 400 plus miles of roadway that we carry. Then you have collectors. And so collectors gather traffic and they're more like two-lane roads like say western um southern Louise. Those would be functioning as collectors and those take those neighborhoods and they get those to the bigger roads which are our minor arterials and arterials. So when you're talking arterial, Stockton Hill, Airway, Gordon, those are minor and uh major arterials. So you can kind of see the composition. Although the residential makes up a larger portion of the the network, the more expensive roads to maintain just because of their classification and their construction type are our larger roads.

So, I wanted to talk about the preservation we've completed to date. Uh council had set some funding in place for us and so after the over the last four years, uh we've done a lot of work. Um, a lot of that was trying to reverse the long-term decline that had occurred as a result of uh, you know, historically being underfunded and 2008 and again 2008 um, you guys have seen the graph we went to almost zero funding being able to be dedicated to her funding because all the other services, dirt road, shoulders, u, all those services were eaten up were utilizing the her funds just to keep those programs going. So, uh, some pretty good statistics right here. Uh, over the last, so since 2022, so call it four years, we've treated over 50% of the residential roads, um, we have another program coming up or another phase coming up this spring. And so that'll treat another 30 35 miles, I think it is. Uh, 45% of our arterials and collectors have been treated, and those have been all kinds of treatments from milanfill, cape seals. Um, so that totals over 284 miles of roadway. And again, that that's significant. Uh, 284 miles being half of our network. Um, with the 450 lane miles we have, that would actually pave a two-lane road to Phoenix and back. And so that's just to try and give you and the public an understanding of how much asphalt we're talking and the volume of work that's been completed. Um, this has really helped and and as you guys had seen in this last presentation, it's been successful. Um, it's reduced our future reconstruction liability. As we were seeing our roads decline, we weren't able to to hold those up into a good condition category. And as we've talked about in the past, the further down the condition category scale we get, the more costly it is to

bring those roads back up into a serviceable condition. So, let's talk about the funding. Um, the the council had set aside $50 million in general funds. Um, I want to talk Tina might go into it more, but just so the public understands as well, that was coming from the operating reserve. So, we're actually reducing our operating reserve to cover the cost for pavement preservation. That's that money runs out at some point. point when that operating reserve gets to a threshold that we can't drop below, then we're back to square one. We don't have sufficient funding to maintain the work that we've done already. And so, we've been in a stabilization phase using those those uh reserve funds. And that's to try and stop the deterioration. And then we can start moving into uh you know, more of a rehabilitation phase of our program, which will slowly and incrementally increase our our condition of our network. So to date, we spent over just $23 million of those funds. Um the win, the success in this right now, um we're doing an update to the preservation program and looking at where we are, what we have left to spend, and what that looks like. And um we're actually about 13% ahead of the projections. That's that's about $3 million worth of savings that we've been able to achieve. And that's through making sure we utilize the appropriate treatments. We're optimizing those and uh you know kind of getting crafty with what we're doing in the field as well. Uh council had approved that funding which uh allowed us to hire four pavement preservation specific positions and so we've done work inhouse for crack seal and prepping for chip seal and so that's where a lot of that savings has come into play. um very successful, but we still have a

lot of work left to do. This slide is the one um that council should be the most proud of. Without that funding, this would not be possible. And so the red line, the green line, this is so simplistic. It it doesn't um it doesn't scream how awesome it is. This is short of it. So the red line was actually our poor and very poor roads. And if you look at the the graph starting in 2017 when we had started the pavement preservation plan and taken an inventoried everything uh we had over 60% of our roads were in poor and very poor condition and so the the funding we were always working on trying to to secure a funding source. There was a couple times where uh TPT was enacted and was recalled and then we were were unable to continue those preservation activities. And so in 22 when council set forth that $50 million which again we've used half of uh we started to see a decrease in the poor and very poor roads. So we've actually inverted those numbers and we started at 60 over 60% in poor and very poor condition and right now we're actually at 60% plus that are in good and fair condition which is huge. that that makes a big difference in our network and um you know looking at at funding sources and we continue evaluating what's needed to continue this effort. Um that that's made a big difference for the system. If you guys recall, uh, some of you were here and some of you were, I know, were in the community. Uh, we were having these same conversations, uh, even in 2018, 2019. And at that point, um, our funding need was at $7 million just to to get our system headed in the right way, which is what council had approved. So, uh, again, that's that's a slide without your guys's commitment would be unachievable.

So I just I wanted to focus on this one for a moment. Uh for a number of years we did not do any treatments in residential areas. We were focusing on arterial collectors. Those are the highest traveled, most expensive to repair, most expensive to maintain and really they're the economic lifeline to and from our communities. Those are what brings good and services into our community. Those are what what we brings uh tourists and visitors in that are also spending in our stores and and increasing our tax base through those sales tax revenues. But I wanted to point this out uh with the funding that you guys set in 2022, we actually started working on residential areas. And again, we've treated half of those. I would like to point out my data sets are kind of random because I was going back and pulling old uh reports and and making sure that my my uh my conditions were the same. And so it looks like our PCI increase for those residential started in 2021, but they actually started in 2022 when we started moving into the residential areas. And again, uh you can see pavement condition index is what PCI means. That's that's what we work in in the pavement world. And it's like a report card. The higher the number, the better the condition. And so um when you look, you can see all these roads are are increasing in PCI. Really the the focus that I want to put is on that slide where it shows poor and very poor in good condition. I think that's uh a better better vision for the community. So, I'll talk about fiscal 26 and 27 projects. Um, we rearranged a couple projects um to accommodate other schedules. So, I don't have arterials and collectors shown on here at the moment, but we do have some work coming up uh for arterial collectors this year and then we'll have another cycle next

year. But the remaining half of the residential roads is shown here in the purple, yellow, and green. And um each of these are going to be done. Uh we have one, as I'd mentioned, coming up in the spring and then we'll have one in the fall and another one in the spring of 27. And so by the time we get done in the spring of 27, we will have treated all of the residential roads in about a three-year period. That is a big part of where we had saved money because we expedited the treatments. We were initially when when I presented and you guys had set that funding in place, we had presented doing one residential district per year. And as we optimized our plan, um we realized that if we move in and do residentials faster, it will actually save us money because again 75% of the network is deteriorating and we've been able to slow that so we can actually get our arms around it and start start uh getting it under control. I would like to point out uh for people online and and here the city limits. So the blue line in here is our city limit line. Um we are we the city are responsible for the roads inside that city limit line. There's a few exceptions. AOT has a couple portions of right away within the city limits. I40 is the most notable but as well portions of Andy Divine Bee Street. Um those are all portions of those are A DOT and then the remainder is us. Everything outside of that blue line is either A DOT or Mojave County. So I just want uh the community to understand where our focus is which is in the city limits. All right. So we've talked about the stabilization phase and now we need to get into a maintenance phase. Um Herf can only support general maintenance. So, the general maintenance when we're talking about it, our our division is actually broken into two sides. We have

the general maintenance side, which again, it's going to be dirt road, shoulders, um we're working on water patches, uh weed abatement, taking care of all the drainage basins, those sort of things. All the services that are nonassphalt related. And then we have our street uh repair improvement maintenance group, and they're focused on asphalt. We share resources back and forth because it's only four people. So we are pushing people to help. Like right now we're running a crack seal program and we have two crews working and uh two cracks seal machines takes up more than just four people. So uh herf again can't support pavement preservation. As you know in 2030 the funding mechanism you guys put in place will run out. we will drop the reserve to a point that we don't feel safe going below or Tina would probably point out is required to maintain. Um I would like to point out one other thing. We did have a bar and restaurant I mentioned that before. There was a bar and restaurant tax 1% that was put in place that was dedicated to pavement preservation that has continuously been used for pavement preservation. Again uh it generates around a million dollars plus or minus. that's grown over time as a as uh the community has grown. But when you're talking about a need in multi-millions versus a million dollars, uh we ran multiple scenarios and you could watch the the condition of the network decline and our remaining service life drop. And as as I said, the further down that road we get, the further down the hill, the harder it is to climb back up. And so, uh it's real easy to go downhill, it's real hard to go up. Um, you guys again made a disciplined investment into our roadway, into our network. We need to maintain that. We need to make sure we have a long-term funding source that will maintain these roads and keep them in a condition where

we don't get in this position again. And I would like to point out, we've talked about it, and I know the council has mentioned it, road maintenance isn't a we do it now, and then we don't have to do it forever or for another 10 years. It's continuous. It never goes away. It's an asset that we own as long as that road is there, as long as there's businesses and homes and and community members and visitors that that utilize those assets. So again, they exist probably long after all of us are not here. And so that's why a long-term funding source is so important. So what I'm showing you right here, um, we ran a number of scenarios. As you know, we run a a payment management program that helps us do long range forecasting and budgeting, run budget scenarios, and we we always try to balance. You can run it on restrain and say, "Hey, if Kingman won the lottery and had $10 billion to work with, what would I go do and what would the roads look like?" So, they'd all be brand new and and look great. Unfortunately, that's not where we are. And so, we run scenario after scenario. And what we're looking for is not something that's going to be so aggressive that that it impacts the community heavily, but we need that long-term sustained improvement. And then that once that sustained improvement is met, we always have that need for payment preservation. And so ran a number of scenarios and what you're looking at right here is is $5 million annually. Now, that is an addition. We're still utilizing the bar and restaurant tax in addition to the 5 million to maintain our system. The bar and restaurant tax supports the the pavement side with labor, general materials, all those things are tied into that. So this 5 million would be directly into asphalt spending. And um this doesn't eliminate all the poor streets immediately. As you can see, the last three years we made a lot of lot of ground. But what it does, it takes a a

uh incremental improvement of our system year-over-year. And so what I'm showing you is just what the PCI, the condition of the network was shown out. And I'm sorry I said PCI, it's again back to roadway conditions, very good and good, poor, and very poor. And you can see the green line, we continue to increase. And by 2037, we're dropping below 10% of our roads that are going to be in that poor to very poor condition. And it's actually roads that are going to be in poor. Not that we want any there, but uh by the time we get to that point, we have zero roads that are in very poor condition. And so, um it's real simplistic, but as you can see, we continue to improve on and maintain the investment that council made into our network. Um the last thing I guess I'd want to address is just ADA. Um we've used CDBG funds in the past. We talked about this in the last council meeting where I give you this presentation. This is the payment preservation side of that. So we still have other work that we do and we maintain that through other funds. And so uh this would be payment preservation specific. And with that I would answer any questions you have for me now or I'll sit down and I know I'm sure you guys have uh Tina and a lot of other people that like to speak.

Yes. Council, any questions for Jack right now at this moment? I do have some questions. Vice Mayor, um I couldn't let you leave without asking you a few questions, Jack. Sure. Um HERF, we talk about HERF funding. Um I'm pretty certain how I know HERF is calculated. Um but I'd like you to tell the public how is HERF calculated for our fair share of the pot that's smaller now than it has ever been.

Yeah, that's a great question and I did not cover that. Um, so highway user revenue funds, uh, as you guys know, but for the public are gas tax and when you go down and register your car, there's a fee associated with that. That is collected by the state. That is not the city, that is not the county. The state collects those monies and they use a formula based on population and a handful of other things, but generally population-based roadway. And that then sets the allocations for each of the cities, counties, and towns within the state. And so we all share that revenue. And in 2008, that's what had happened is the revenue shares were down already. The state swept those funds. So uh not having a stable source that that uh we can rely on. That was the problem in that one. The state swept those funds and use those to make up deficits in the budget elsewhere. And so, um, that's part of the reason we are where we are.

So, the city receives her funding based off of the city of Kingman's population. Yes. So, the greater city limits, they're using a a uh population number of around 36,000. Is that correct? Correct. When we have at least 38,000 people that live outside our city limits. Correct. and and we've talked about that a lot, you know, calling the shadow citizens, uh, you know, live outside, but a lot of the resources that are here, parks, if you get an accident in the city, fire department, PD is going to respond. There's no charges for that. Uh, you're using parks that are funded by sales tax revenues, roadways, all those assets that are shared throughout the county, but are within the city limits.

All right. I I just wanted to clarify that for the public um that we are only working on a population of 36,000 when it comes down uh to calculation for our her funding. So my next question is when was the last opportunity uh we were able to pay attention to our residential uh roads?

Uh 200 you got to ask the hard questions, don't you? It was 2017 I believe was the last time that we had gone into residentials and uh that was leading in thinking that we were going to have a funding source in place and uh that was repealed and so we at that time had pulled out of the residentials and had been to focus solely on arterial collectors again. Okay. So the last time we paid attention to our residential roads was 2017 be prior to this program that council has funded for the last

Yeah. I' I'd actually like to point out it wasn't all of our roads. It was a very small portion of town. Um, oh man, it was probably 20 30 miles worth of of roadway that we were able to treat that year and then we didn't have funds to continue in the in the residentials and again focus back to arterial collectors. And just to give give uh uh context to that uh the project we have coming up right now is aboutund over the next two two cycles is about 130 lane miles worth of road that we'll complete. So we did a very very small fraction of town when you're talking 20 of the 454 miles. So in fiscal year 28 we will have touched every residential road.

27 27 excuse me. Thank you. Okay. Um, so had we not funded uh the program so aggressively as council made that decision, that investment to be aggressive about getting into uh pavement preservation, what would the cost to bring our roads up to where they are now? What would that what would we be looking at? I realize that we're at a point right now where we're between five and six million on an annual basis to keep those roads right where we need them and and to slowly improve upon the condition that they are currently. But had we not made that investment and where what would we be looking at right now?

Um with depending on where the network starts, you can just say 8 to9 million is where we're going to be working to bring those roads that are way down in the condition categories back up. and and you can see the the heavier funding you guys have done have pulled some of those up, but as I said, we've got a lot of work to do and that money runs out in 2030. So, in all the scenarios we run, um I drop the funding from the current current structure that council approved and we drop back down to just the bar and restaurant funding and our conditions immediately start to decline and and rapidly as they did in 2008.

Sure. Okay. And then lastly, I know I brought this up the last time you gave this presentation, but I want to bring it up for the benefit of the public again. Development. We all hear that, you know, builders are coming in, they're creating communities. They are initially uh tasked with putting in the investment and and paying for all those roads, but at the end of the day, it those roads get brought into our network and we are the stewards of maintaining those roads throughout the lifespan that they are in our community. So, I want to make sure that your projections have allowed for growth and development past the builders putting in their infrastructure and spending the money to to put the pavement initially down on the ground. I just want to make sure that um we those are in your projections.

It is. So, we actually factor in um so as I said last time mostly is right. We're not, it depends on if we have a lot of residential growth, then you have no business growth. But the residents that come in and shop in our area, you generate sales tax. So that's already factored in because we factor in growth based on historic growth and then also we factor in some inflation based on historic inflation numbers. So our treatment costs are tracking and then our our funding assuming that the economy kept growing is going to show that as well. So um in a roundabout way, yes, we are capturing that but not directly because we know there's going to be eight miles of road brought into the city in the next year.

All right. And my very last question. So, when you go back to uh funding and results, um your slide there, you said um we're approximately 13% ahead of projections totaling about $3 million in savings. At the top of that slide, you have $5 million redirecting redirected to Flying Fortress. For the public's benefit, could you talk about why that was diverted and what's being done with that? And when I do the math, it's still to me after you net it out, it's $2 million redirected to Flying Fortress instead of the full five. So, um, not that there's an error in the slide. It's just I I was doing a little mathing, but can for can you tell us what the it was redirected to do for Flying Fortress. Just bring that to the attention that it is only 2 million.

I apologize. I just skipped over that. I think everybody's staring at my back. I got nervous and was just moving. And so, um, $5 million was taken to help with the construction for Flying Fortress. We went through the scenarios and um and had looked at cost for interest or other things that may occur that would happen to help supplement that. Ran all the scenarios, we could stay on track with our budget and the $3 million, you're correct, the $3 million we're saved, we're actually net two behind at the moment, if you will, that could be made up over between now and 2030. Um, if we go to a steady funding source, which I presented to you, that problem goes away and we just continue our program into the future and we're not behind at all at that point.

All right. Thank you very much and thank you for allowing me the time. Thank you, Mayor Jack. Actually, I got a couple questions. Once again, referring back to highway user um revenue funds or her as we hear that word a lot. Was it 2008 2009 when it when the state was short on capital and and so they swept and we as cities did not get any return on that. Correct.

Correct. 2008. Um if you look and I I didn't bring one with me, but the historic pres preservation or HERF funding levels graph that I've showed you guys in the past, you could watch the numbers just tank. And it wasn't only HERF, it was also we used to get lottery funds, LTAF, and and some other money that uh then never came back. And so, um, from that point, we've already been behind. They're they're approaching and getting closer to to being at their pre, uh, um, recession amounts, but, uh, the downstream impacts of being underfunded are still lingering with us.

Do you remember for how many years that was swept or was it just that one year? And it might be Tina question, too. So, yeah, I I don't recall it off the top of my head. Tina, mayor, thank you so much. Uh, the funds were restored in either 2018 or 2019. So, it was quite some time before they were fully restored. So, eight to nine years basically they were swept. And of course, if we've been paying attention, and I don't always either, but even our current revenue cycle, our current legislature and governor interaction, um, they're saying there might be a deficit, which means our her funds could get swept this year. It's very very possibility which means we would be short that million plus.

Yeah. There there's always a possibility when it's a revenue source that you don't control. Correct. So okay thanks. I just wanted to bring that forward. These her funds from the state most of the time we get them but sometimes they're not there. So absolutely. Thank you. Thank you guys.

I failed to mention our format and excuse sorry I want to apologize to everybody in the room and who might be watching on t on through the internet. our format. We were of course Jack Plante with our roads department and then we're going to have Tina Molen who is our deputy city manager and also our finance department director um give their her presentation and then we will open it up to I know a number of you have signed up to speak and of course I'm if we have time or which we should have some time if there's anybody else that wanted to share a comment we could do that. Um manager Walsh anything else? Okay so that's that'll be our our format. So Tina continue.

Thank you mayor. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Thank you, council members. And I do want to give a shout out to all of the participation today. I really appreciate all of the members of the public attending to hear more about this very important topic. So, as far as TPT, that's what I'm going to cover today. And I want to start with covering some TPT basics. tax is complicated and there are different rules and regulations that cities follow versus what states and counties follow. Now, cities are required to follow much of what is in state statute, but we have our own city tax code. It's called the model city tax code. And within that city tax code, cities have different options than what states and counties do. And so I wanted to point that out because I know that there has been talk about certain options that have been available to the state and to uh I'm sorry to cities versus states and counties. And so I'm going to cover what some of those options are. But I wanted to make it clear that cities and towns do follow a different tax code than what the state and counties do. The cities and towns have about 15 different taxable activities. So, some of those are retail sales, restaurants, construction, hotels, and the list goes on. I'm going to share with you what the city has for taxable uh for taxable activities. So, in the city of Keman, we talk a lot about retail sales, and that's because it is our largest revenue generator, but we actually tax on all of these uh on all of these activities. And you'll notice that the tax rate across most of those categories is two and a half%. I

want to specifically call out the blue highlighted uh activities because there are some taxes that we are not allowed to change or that the council itself has opted to adopt. So severance, metal and mining that is a different tax rate and that is dictated by state statute. We cannot change that. The council does not have the authority to change that. So that will always be at 010%. We have an additional tax on hotels and motel that is 4% and that is something that the council has uh elected in the model city tax code to adopt and that is at a different rate than our regular tax rate of 2 and a.5%. I also want to point out this commercial rental leasing and licensing and I want to talk for just a moment as to why it is 2% and not 2 and a half% and that is because until 2025 cities and towns were not allowed to change this rate without going to the voters. In 2025, the state made some changes to this particular tax category and we now do not have to go to the voters for this particular category. And then restaurants and bars, we have a different tax rate for that as well. So again, just wanted to point out that most of our activities are taxed at 2 and a half%. Some of them are taxed a little differently. So talking about taxes, how do our taxes get spent? So we have our regular tax again that 2 and a half% and that 2% tax. All of those taxes go to the general fund and all of the general funds divisions that it supports as well as helping to fund capital projects. The general fund supports paying for capital projects as well. Then we have the 1% additional tax on restaurant and bars that Jack talked to that covers streets

repair and maintenance. And then we also have that 4% additional hotel tax and that is split evenly between tourism activities and also capital projects. Yes. Wait,

Tina, I have a question on that slide. So just for conversational purposes, um when you look at uh our 4% 4% hotel additional tax rate and you see in the fine print that 2% is going to go to tourism and 2% to capital projects, we do as a council have the opportunity if we wanted to to move 1% over that over into uh streets. Is that correct, Vice Mayor? Yes. And I will cover that in a later slide. Thank you so much. Perfect. And you're going to give us that amount that I am going to. Okay, fantastic. Thank you. Thank you.

So, how much tax overall is collected? Well, you'll see at the very bottom here between all of the different taxable activities and additional tax, we collect about $33 million. But for the general fund, we collect about $30 million. And I want to stop here for just a moment and talk about what that $30 million helps to support in the general fund. And I want to talk specifically about police and fire. So our between our police department and our fire department, we spend almost 20 $25 million. So $14 million for police and almost $11 million for fire. Now that is solely for them to operate their daytoday operations. It does not take into account fire stations, fire trucks, or any of the other equipment, major equipment that these teams need. It also does not take into account the debt that we issued back in 2021 to pay down their retirement system, which is almost $3 million that the general fund pays every single year for that. So, I want to point that out because of that $30 million, the public safety teams spend $26 million of that. Now, we have state shared revenues that help offset all of that and thank goodness and some other fees, but I just wanted to point that out too because they are expensive and I don't know that that is the extent of the cost of them is well known throughout the community. But let's talk about streets because that's what we're here tonight to talk about. So, how are streets funded? Jack already covered this. The vice mayor talked to this. The mayor talked to this. highway user revenues. And yes, city population is the primary c the primary calculation in that overall allocation method. $4 million is what currently we will receive in fiscal year 26 and it goes to fund streets general

operations. We have the 1% restaurant and bar tax. This year it will generate about $1.4 million. And then we have the general fund reserves. On average, we are transferring about $6.5 million from the general fund. And we started doing that in fiscal year 24, and that will last through fiscal year 30. But as it's been alluded to, after fiscal year 30, we will no longer have the supply of reserves in the general fund to support those ongoing transfers. And this is just a a picture of what the general fund reserves will look like and how we know that in fiscal year 31 it will not the general fund will no longer have that sufficient supply of reserves to transfer towards streets because we are year overyear depleting those reserves. And by the time we get to 2030, we will have only 31% of our general fund operating expend expenses in reserves or about $19.9 million. Now in 2031 when we are not transferring any money to streets, we still deplete reserves just for the general funds general operations. So there is no longer that supply of of sufficient reserves. We talk a lot about uh tri the our how we compare to Bullhead City and Lake Havsu City. And so I've got a couple of slides that I want to talk to uh on this. So we talk a lot about their tax rates, their sales tax rates

specifically. And yes, Kingman does have a higher tax rate than Bullhead and Lake Havsu. However, there are different revenue structures that help pay for Lake Havsu's general fund and Bullheads fire department. So, Lake Havsu City does only have a 2% tax rate, but they also have a primary property tax. The city of Kingman does not. Again, you do get a property tax bill in the mail, but if you look at that, not a penny goes to the city of Kingman. Lake Havsu does not have a fire district tax because Lake Havsu does have its own city fire department. Bullhead, on the other hand, also a lower tax rate than the city of Kingman, does not have a primary property tax, but it does have a fire district. So, the bull bullhead city does not pay for a fire department. And then Kingman, we don't have a fire district tax. We pay for our own fire department and we do not have a property and we do not have a property tax. So what does that look like? So as far and I'm not going to dive into these numbers. I really want to look at the very bottom line and what that shows as far as tax rates. So let's say that Lake Havsu City did not have that primary property tax of $7 million right here. What would their tax rate be if they needed to make up that $7.2 million? It's about $2.37%. Bullhead, if they had to pay for a fire department with their tax revenues, their with their sales tax revenues, their tax rate would be about 3.3%. And again, the city is at two and a half percent. So, I think this is an important message that we want to clear up and and I and share that this is more of an applesto apples comparison, not

just our tax rates.

Tina, yes, I I want to stay on this slide for just a moment because I did some research and I appreciate this because in the community I always hear we have the highest tax rate. we, you know, that's why people are leaving town and that's why they're going over the hill to buy, you know, goods and services. But this, this really is a fantastic uh comparison to our sister cities. Doing some research on the Bullhead City Fire Department, the fire district, they're paying $351 per $100 is going into their fire district. and knackfed out in the county they're paying you're paying as a county resident $3.75 per hundred. So I really think that this is important because this is sales tax revenue is one of our only revenue sources to run this entire city maintain all of our infrastructure our streets our our everything. So, I just mainly wanted us to stay on that slide and let that marinate with everybody on how we compare because take your phones out, take a picture of it. I think it's a fantastic thing to put on social media. This is the true altruistic picture of how we compare with our sister city. So, thank you, Tina.

Thank you, Vice Mayor. So, I'm going to take a few slides, probably five or six, to dive into Arizona city comparisons because that's what we do as citizens. It's what we do as city staff. It's what we do as a mayor and council. And so, I want to point out a few things. I'm going to start here because we do provide police and fire services. So, I wanted to compare other Arizona cities and towns who have their own police and fire services and kind of look at their revenue structure. So, there are 36 cities and towns that provide police and fire services that have a primary property tax and also have a food tax. The city of Kingman does not have either of those. And I also want to point out, sorry, let me just go back, that the retail tax rate goes any, it ranges anywhere from 1 and a.5% all the way down to 5%. And those are for cities that have all of these different revenue structures in place.

Tina, one second though, we actually need to remember that this is what this is what the city's sales tax, our TPT, is charging, but the state is at 5.6%. Mayor, you're absolutely right and I'm going to cover that in one of the comparison. I thought you were getting that, but we need to remember right off the bat, we're looking at these numbers. You add that to the 5.6. Yep. Absolutely. Sales tax. Yeah. And also counties have their own taxes. Some counties too. So,

so police and fire again looking at that because they are costly. Necessary and and I want that to be understood necessary but costly. Uh there are eight cities and towns that have police and fire services. They also have a primary property tax, but they do not have a food tax. And you'll see that their retail rate ranges from 2% all the way down to three and a half%. But there is only one city and town in the state of Arizona that has police provides police and fire services and does not have a primary property tax or a food tax. more Arizona city comparisons. So, we actually heard the other evening and I've heard throughout the community over the years that the city of Kingman does have one of the largest tax rates in the state. And I wanted to point out here because I wanted to get the right information to the community that that is not necessarily the case. So we have 91 recently 92 Santam Valley just became incorporated but 91 Arizona cities and towns in the state of Arizona that are incorporated. I have these ranked here or listed here from lowest tax rate to highest rate. So one and a half% to 5%. And you'll see right now the city of Kingman's rate at 2 and a half% is in that lower 50th percentile. It's one of the lowest actually. If the council were to increase the tax rate by a half percent going to 3%, you'll see that it's still not one of the highest tax rates in the state of Arizona. So, I just wanted to point that out and get that information uh correct.

Mayor, yes. Tina, just for g whiz information, Florence is sitting at 2% right now. they are in the process of increasing it uh through their channels another one and a half% and if it does pass which it looks favorable they'll be at 3 and a half% over here thank you Councilman Dykins

so mayor this is your slide that you asked about so I wasn't going to put all 91 cities and towns on here but I thought we would look at the lowest 40 retail tax rate, the cities that have the lowest retail tax rate overall. So, taking into account the state of Arizona's tax and then if a county has a tax, which Mojave County does not, they got rid of their sales tax back in 2021, I believe. So, Mojave County residents, well, city residents in Mojave, well, all of Mojave County residents only pay the the state of 5.6% and then if there is a city tax, the city tax. So you'll see that overall Bullhead and Lake Habsu are the lowest overall rates in the state of Arizona at 7.6%. Kingman is in this range right here at 8.1%. So again, still one of the lowest rates overall in the state of Arizona. If the council were to increase the rate by a half percent, that would put us at 8.6%. So in that lowest category of about 25 or 26 cities. So we do look at that overall tax rate because that's what the consumer ultimately ends up paying is that overall tax rate. Okay, let's get off of the Arizona city comparisons and move on to tax rate increases and some of the different options that we can look at with that. So I have some different rate increase increments here with the additional revenue that would be collected and this would be for just that overall tax rate. So that 2 and a.5% or 2% those taxable activities that I showed you earlier. So we've talked a lot about that half percent. So a half percent would generate about $6 million in revenue for consumers. That would be about five additional

cents in taxes for every $10 that are spent on taxable purchases. I also have the hotel and motel additional tax. If that was to increase by 1% that would generate about just under $400,000. And then of course we already have an additional tax on restaurant and bars. So I just wanted to include that in case that's something that the council is uh would consider or the public is interested in. And that is a $1.4 million additional tax. And then this is how our consumers would be impacted. I did want to talk just for a moment about the commercial leasing tax. So it is currently 2%. Whatever the council decides to do just overall would increase that commercial leasing rate to that to that rate. So if we said a half a percent, commercial leasing would go to two and a half percent. But all of the other categories would be at 3%. So there is that opportunity to increase commercial leasing tax by an additional half percent which would generate about $180,000. Now what are some of the options that council can consider for these for the revenue uh for the rate increases? So there's such a thing as big ticket option. I'm going to talk about that on the next few slides. There is also a sunset date. The council can certainly put a sunset date on any sort of increase that they choose to adopt. I would say that streets is an ongoing expense. So if this is used for streets, I don't know that a sunset date would uh would be recommended, but certainly there is that option. And then I already spoke to the commercial leasing tax and the hotel motel additional tax. So let's talk about big ticket option. What is it? The model city tax code allows for this. It is a tiered rate

structure for single item purchases over a certain dollar amount and it's used primarily to recruit and or retain business. So the tiered rate can be placed on the price of an entire single item or a portion of a single item that's over a certain price. And that is established by the council. This option which is we call it local option B in the city tax code is allowed and I've already shared that. And this option only applies to our retail sales and our use taxable categories. So it doesn't apply to restaurants and bars or hotels or or contracting. It only applies to retail and you to retail sales and use tax. So how does that work? So I am going to use the example of increasing tax by a half percent just for this visual. So if the council were to adopt a half percent increase and there was no big ticket option adopted as part of that half percent increase and someone were to go out and purchase a used car, they would pay the city of Kingman $600 in tax. if they were to purchase a a shed that was $8,500, they would pay $255 in tax. Now, let's say that we we're going to use a $10,000 threshold. Meaning, if there is a single item that is $10,000 or higher, what does this look like for tax for the consumer? So there is the option to adopt an entire single item tax or a single item portion tax. So how does that work? So consumer goes out and buys a used car

that entire because the vehicle is over the $10,000 threshold that entire purchase would be 500. the the consumer would pay 2 and a.5% tax on that entire purchase, which would be $500 in tax. If we did a portion, that would mean that the consumer would pay 3% on that $20,000 purchase up to $10,000. Anything over $10,000, they would pay $2.5% in tax. And that would be $550 for the consumer. In this instance, the shed because it is under that $10,000 threshold, they would pay the $255 no matter what. So, I want to stop there and ask and see if the council has any questions about how this works before I move on.

Council, anything for Tina? And obviously the way we've been doing it, this this is a work session. So I and I've said this in the past really if you have questions from Tina or Jack just please speak up and do it. Anyway, just going back to the her funds

that it's true that electric vehicles do not pay gas tax. Correct. And what majority of vehicles use and pay gas tax? Gas ones. So the state does not charge an exorbitant amount of fee for electric car registrations. So the people that don't have electric cars are paying paying the brunt of that. But the more the electric cars get onto the road, which are also using and tearing up the roads, we get nothing from them. So just keep that in mind on the her funds. Thank you.

Thank you, Councilman Savage. That's a great point. Okay. So, do other cities and towns have a big t option in place? Yes. 28 other cities and towns have that in place at varying rates and at varying thresholds and they use one or the other option. So, it it's a mixed bag across the board, but you'll see here cities down in the valley have it, small cities have it, rural communities have it. It uh it is across the board. We've got Phoenix who is who actually utilizes that big ticket option as well and you know they're the largest community in Arizona. So, all right. So, kind of wrapping up and summarizing the tax increase options and what the city fiscal impact would be a half percent across the board on again a regular what I refer to as a regular rate as our regular rates. A half percent across those across the regular rates would generate about $6 million. There is also the two big ticket options. The one where we charge the lower rate on an entire purchase and then the one where we charge only a portion of a single purchase uh at a lower rate. And you'll see the difference here. 5.34 million versus 5.59 million. Commercial leasing tax. If we were to increase that an additional half percent above the regular rate increase, that'll generate about $180,000. And then the hotel additional tax would generate about $390,000. And that concludes my presentation this evening.

Okay. Any questions for Tina? That that last slide is a little bit confusing, Tina. Yes. So, let's just clarify real quick the items number two and three. So, which one is it? For example, if we paid the if I buy a car and I pay the higher tax, it's $20,000. Which one is that? I pay the and and let's say for the first 10,000 I pay the higher tax and after that I don't. So, which one is that? Mayor, great question. I should have clarified that. Thank you. That is this amount. Okay. Thank you, Tina. Anybody else?

Are we gonna have discussion? I I want to come back to this. Um, but I would like to hear from the public. So, are you okay with that? Of course. Okay.

Okay. Thanks Tina and Jack. Once again, thank you for those presentations. So, how I would like to do how we would like to do this so we have some organization and we appreciate all those who have signed up to either ask questions or have comments. Annie is going to keep that list and she will announce your name in the orders that you sign that up. And of course, I was thinking about this. Why do we ask you to sign up? Because, you know, as she as you notice, our city clerk is taking notes of all this and we have your name. It's public record. We have to have your name for it. So, instead of just coming up and saying your name, which is great. Also, it's important that you sign up. And of course, if somebody else wants to sign up while somebody is still talking, please um go over to Clerk Meredith and and she will take care of you. So, and it's over there. So, Annie, do you want to start off with the first person that would like to share some comments?

Yes, sir. First, we have Ralph McKe. And if I didn't let you know when you signed up, I did want to let you know that each speaker has three minutes and there will be a timer set. So, don't get caught off guard if it starts beeping at you. And the timer is right there on the podium. And oftentimes, I'm a nice we are nice. We're nice and we let you go over anyway. So, okay. Go ahead. Um, I have a question. Um, when a person gets a speeding ticket, where does that money go? Does that go into the general fund? That's a good question, Tina or our attorney. Maybe West to to write those questions down.

Oh, yeah. That's a good idea actually. So, we don't call them up every time. They actually, thank you for Carl for bringing that up. They're going to they're going to write that question down and then they're going to answer. we'll turn some time back over to them and and they'll answer that question. So, that's a great and I was just wondering if a portion of that couldn't go into, you know, the fund for the roads. Okay. So, just saying thank you, Ralph. Okay, next Clint Jones. Okay, Clint.

Thank you, Mayor. Vice Mayor, Council, I really don't have a question. I was taking a lot of notes. I think I'm gonna have questions for sidebars and stuff like that. Uh, first of all, thank you for what you guys do. I couldn't imagine. Um, I I was sitting there trying to think what are the gripes from the citizens of Kingman? Roads, potholes, nothing to do, water leaks, too much traffic, all the business on Stockton Hill, too many dollar stores, not enough highpaying jobs, chip ceiling. But it takes money to run it, right? Some of my questions are, what is the cost of asphalt from 10 years ago to 10 years from now? Essentially, I've talked with people. We're for figuring out how to raise money, whether it's a a tax, a bond, or whatever, but I obviously know people don't want to pay it. So, I'm trying to come up with ideas because I'm not a simple no, we're not going to do it. Um, some of the things I had questions on would have been um, let's see I've I've heard of leasing the rideaways to utilities and and the like the aloe people. I don't know if we're doing any of that. Are we looking at uh a general obligation bond for road repairs? I'm trying to come up with list of things and not just a no. Um, and I'll go back to the whole flying fortress. I was against it until I realized what it was because I had no idea until I looked into it. So, you guys are doing a great job and I'm going to keep taking notes and then I'll probably talk with you guys later on this. Thank you.

Thank you, Clint. David Hawkins. Sorry, Daniel Hawkins.

Good evening, folks. Mayor, thank you for having me. And council members, um, I have a few questions for you. First off, has this decision already been determined before we even got here? Second one is how was this decision come to? How did you come to this decision if you did it? Um, another one is why aren't the developers taxed more as they directly impact our roads? We talk about all the use and everything else people are building. I've watched at city council meetings. I've been to county meetings and talked about taking parcels that were supposed to be one house per 10 acres to now one and a half houses per acre. What are them developers paying us to maintain our roads because they're putting traffic on them? They're eating up our roads. And I've watched like Southern since I've been here be chip sealed and then turn around less than two years later and resealed again. Well, why aren't we doing the repair right the first time? We would save money if we would just spend a little more initially. Buy once, cry once syndrome comes into play here. Um, a tax increase of.5%. Doesn't seem like a lot, right? except I can go to Bullhead City and save that money and I can spend it down there. What's that mean to you? It means we're spending less here. So, you're not making money, you're losing money. This is not a good plan to move us forward. There are better ways to generate money. Now, let's talk about Flying Fortress. We took money out of our general fund, $5 million, $2.5 million, I don't know what it was. It was two different figures. Who's responsible for Flying Fortress after we build it? Is it going to be Kingman, the city of Kingman? Is it

going to be Mojave County? Or is it going to be the state of Arizona? So, with that, thank you for your time. Question. I like to break protocol just because I am who I am. Um, Mr. Hawkins. Hawkins. Hawkins. Yeah. Could you please come back to the podium? Sure. I only got one minute left.

Oh, you got you got all I know. Yeah, I I know the mayor. Um, so you did mention um impact or you'd mentioned developer fees. We we are going to cover that. I I want to talk to you about I want Tina to come and and speak to that. So um so stay tuned. Don't leave.

Um you mentioned that that was one of your solutions. You said there are many solutions. Could you please ex expand upon your many solutions to not doing the half cent in increase? We can't put it all on the developers. I understand they are making an impact on our city. But what else would you recommend? Well, that's where what I was thinking is if we if we generate more business opportunities, get some approvals done through our planning department and get businesses, let's say Costco, Staples, all that stuff here, instead of having us go to Bullhead City, because that's where we're spending our money, folks. We need to bring it back to Kingman. We need to develop our infrastructure here. give us a reason to stay home and spend instead of running down the road an hour because it doesn't bother me. I go down twice a month and I spend a whole buttload of money down there in Bullhead City. I would rather spend it in Kingman because I love this town, but we don't have it here. There's no opportunity. So, we need to bring in competition. We need Lowe's um to offset Home Depot. We need Costco to offset Sam's Club down there. We need better restaurants in town and opportunities. That kind of stuff is what grows our city and makes us money because right now we're senate it all, folks. And you charge us another half percent. Guess where we're going to spend our money.

Well, I appreciate your cander down at the river and and and and I appreciate that and we are going to speak to that. So, I wanted to I wanted to peel back the onion a little bit more because we are going to we are going to address that with our commercial development. So, I thank you for coming back to the podium and I may do that. I may do this all night long. So, I I'm taking good notes.

My biggest thing is, you know, we we really need to look at and I appreciate public works. I worked for public works for the last 25 years. Not here, but for the Navy. And one of the things we learned, buy once, cry once, fix it right the first time. Don't halfway it and then come back and halfway it again and then have to fix it the whole time because we're spend a lot of money. And that red line on there is going to actually reverse and go the other way on us if we don't. Yeah. I appreciate you very much. Thank you. And I appreciate the public. I forgot to say that before I before I said that. I asked for you to come here and you're here and and kudos to all of you. So, um I do appreciate the public.

Actually, Vice Mayor, you touched on it and it's important. If you go online and watch social media, it seems like everybody's just complaining. And so, I appreciate those who come forward. we do with solutions. Don't just complain. Give a valid a way to a solution to solve the problem. Help us out. None of us know it all. We're all learning. So once again, keep up that. Uh Annie, next

uh Rick Patton. Good evening, Mr. Mayor, Mr. Vice Mayor, City Attorney, and uh city manager. I hope I'm standing close enough to the mic here.

My name is Rick Paddton and I represent a group called Discycle Disciples. We're a Christian motorcycle ministry. The important part here is motorcycle. If you're driving around in Kingman and you hit a pothole in your car, that's going to necessitate maybe a trip to the auto shop to have your front end realigned. If I'm cruising around Kingman on my motorcycle and I hit a pothole and I lose control, that could necessitate a trip to the hospital or worse. So, we are very concerned about potholes. And frankly, I am 110% in favor of fixing our roads. And I appreciate the fact that you all are working on that. Uh I do like most of these people that have talked before wonder about uh if raising the sales tax half a percent is really the most efficient and best way to go. Um, in fact, a lot of the uh things I was going to say about that have already been said. Um, if u, for instance, if I go into Walmart and I buy a hat like this, I might spend 20 bucks. Now, with your half a percent sales tax, I might pay an extra dime. I think I have my math correct.

But if I go to Martin Swanty and I buy a brand new pickup truck, I'm spending upwards of 50,000. And with your half a percent raise in sales tax, I'm actually paying an extra $250, I think. I hope somebody's checking my math as I go along here. Anyhow, uh I appreciated also the uh comparison charts and uh all of the slides that were up here because they made made things uh kind of clear to me. But uh at any rate, I don't deal in 50,000. And I see I've got the red light there. So I will just uh end it right now and say thank you for listening to me. Thank you, Rick.

Tom Buckle.

Mr. Mayor, council, my name is Tom Buckle. We've been a me lived here for 22 years. We've owned a house here for 26 years. I am dismayed at some of the people in this town because this was brought up twice for a vote and they defeated it. And so there was an article, a letter to the editor yesterday in the newspaper by a Mr. Hoops about how ridiculous the prices in Kingman were compared to Bullhead City. Anybody that bought a large appliance here had to be an absolute idiot. Well, this morning I went on did did some checking. Yesterday my wife and I were at Walmart and they charged us 8.1% for all the merchandise that was taxable. This morning I talked to the head of the finance department in Bullhead City. Their tax is 7.6%. Which means that you're going to save a whole three or four dollars if you want to drive over there on a small item. On a $1,000 item like a refrigerator or something, you're going to spend an extra $5. You can't drive to Bullhead City and back for $5.

That's right. you know, so I mean, it's just ridiculous that people can't see it. And I spent my entire working life in the automotive industry. And when you get that repair bill for $5 to $800 or $1,000 for chassis parts, you can almost guarantee the reason they failed is because of the potholes you've been hitting. They will kill the suspension on an automobile. Not today, not tomorrow, but where it should last a 100,000, 200,000 miles, 50,000 miles, and you're going to be spending big money on repairs. So, I think we ought to put this through right now. Thank you. Thank you, Tom.

Kevin.

Again, my name's Kevin. Um, I own several businesses here in town. um some car dealerships, some construction companies, um few other things. Appreciate you guys having the workshop. Um I know you guys are taking your own time to come here. So, I I don't want to rehash everything that everybody said, but I I'm sure you already have thought everything through, but it's uh a lot that goes into it. I want to make sure that you guys are really strongly considering the the large p purchase exemption. I think that is an important part of it. Um I don't know that people will drive to Bullhead or Havu to save a few dollars, but you know for $200 or $300 maybe they are. And um obviously in our car business that would make a difference there. So um you know somebody like me we have a car dealership that's in the city limits. We have several that are outside of the city limits. So again I I think other you know dealerships have the same situation. And so anything we can do to not encourage somebody to be pushing that business outside of the city, we want to capture as much of that sales tax revenue as we can. Um, I also think it's important to try to keep a really comprehensive approach to all of this. Um, somebody else mentioned earlier, you know, how do we try to do a better job of encouraging business development and and through the planning and zoning and the building departments and anything we can do to speed those processes along, make it easier for, you know, these companies that are trying to come in and either build or remodel existing buildings and get their businesses established. I think we have to really, you know, look at our approach to that. I know Mr. Walsh has made a lot of improvements um already in the time that he's been here. Um I'm sure you guys have been working hard on that too. And I think it's really important to uh to encourage as much business activity as we can get in the city. That's obviously what's generating the sales tax revenue which is as you pointed out the only thing we rely on. So I think you guys are in a tough pickle because nobody wants to pay extra for anything. I myself am part of that that group. I always try to say, hey, live within your means, but you know, there comes a point as our city expands that, you know,

adding a sales tax may be the only way to do it. Um, again, I think, uh, we have to look at every option. We have to look at our budgets and really try to hold everything down as much as we can. But, um, those some of those carveouts may be the the best option that we can look at for getting that sort. I strongly encourage you to at least look at those options if that's a possibility. So, thanks for your time. Thank you, Kevin. John Seltzer.

Okay. Um members of uh Kingdom City Government, thank you for hearing me. Um I'm John Seltzer. I live over in Butler. Um being in Butler, um we're going to be subjected to the taxes that you're seeing to increase. Um the only benefit we're really going to see out of it is maybe dodging a few potholes. Um, strictly speaking, uh, in our experience, uh, this really amounts to taxation without representation because we can't go down to Bowlhead. A lot of people don't have vehicles that'll make it down there and back up that grade. Um, and you uh, you asked about uh, alternatives. Um, in my 57 years on this planet, I've been all throughout this country. And one immutable fact that I've always run into is every government from local on up to federal, every time you ask them, "How much money do you need?" They will say, "More." And when they're not able to do what they uh what they asked for uh or do with what they were asking for, they say, "Well, we need more." Um, also an immutable fact is that every government, um, there's waste. Let's, let's be honest. Uh, the gentleman back here alluded to, uh, uh, to the the the cheeseball fix of throwing, uh, gravel and oil down on the roads. Um, you know, another way to say what he said was, uh, you're stepping over a dollar to save a dime when you take that process. Um, you know, there are I'm sure I'm not sitting here with a forensic account sitting in front of me uh to tell me, you know,

this is this is uh what you need to do or what not not to do. But really, when it comes down to it, um there there's always a way to sharpen your pencil and, you know, squeak those those pennies out. Um, you know, just in closing, uh, this is something that's existed our entire, uh, uh, history. Uh, Benjamin Franklin once said after observing Congress in session is that a prudent man will keep a tight string, tight hold on his purse strings when Congress is in session. You know, um, these are things we need to pay attention to. And again, you know, like I said, the only benefit I'm going to see out of you raising your taxes and maybe get, you know, filling in some of the potholes is I don't have as many to dodge, but that does nothing for me over on the east end of Northern. Thank you.

Thank you, John. Janet Steinley.

Howdy. Thank you for having me here.

Janet Stingley. I live in the Butler area. I work in the Bullhead city limits. So, I have to drive all the way to Bullhead on a regular basis um on our highway or highways and our main roads. And it's eating up my vehicles. I finally just put a dime in the bucket and uh consolidated all my vehicles into a 4x4. because I'm tired of fixing suspensions. So, um what I would propose is maybe do some more traffic control uh for some more revenue for the city and you know for the county as well. Um I know this is about the city um as far as um infrastructure here in town. Hey, bring in that new business. You know, I'll be happy to pay a little more tax if we got more business and we got more places to go, more things to do, and more opportunity to buy things at lower prices. Uh, even with the additional taxes, you know, um, let us build. Stop putting Dollar Generals into everywhere. You know, Dollar General's great, but how many of them do we have now? So, I know the demographics for the population is off, but if you bring it, they will come. Field of Dreams,

I appreciate you. Thank you. Thank you, Janet.

Mike Lipkin. Thank you, resident here, and I'm impressed with the uh professionalism and the dedication of you people. And I put down sales tax and federal uh contribution. I'm old enough to remember when federal contributions to state and cities were probably much higher than they are. I don't know whether you folks can uh back me up on that. and you can't answer now whether it's possible to start getting more. And so that's a comment. The other thing which is important is that sales tax hurts the lower income people more than people with lots of money. So that's why I really like the big ticket uh item that you put in there because it's it's sort of it doesn't completely level the playing field, but it does a little bit of that. Uh because if you can if you can buy a used car or a Toyota instead of a Jeep or some you're being sensible. Um so basically uh I want to thank you again. I don't want to leave like three minutes to somebody. The one thing because I joke too much. What about red light district? Thank you, Mike, for bringing some brevity into this situation. We appreciate that.

Dr. Rob Christensen,

uh, Mr. Mayor, uh, Miss Vice Mayor and Council members, um, I submitted a proposal to you previously. Um, I just want to go over a couple things. So, just to start off, as a libertarian uh minded Republican, I generally oppose tax increases uh by the government. Uh so, I'm sympathetic to individuals uh that oppose tax increases, especially this current one that the city's considering. But if there's insufficient revenue to for local government to provide essential services, including road maintenance, taxation might be the only alternative because it may cost too much money to borrow money, i.e. issue bonds. Um, and obviously local governments can't print money. Um, if it's necessary to raise taxes to fund essential services, I pre uh I would prefer to have taxes raised by the government closest to the people because that way the people can hold local government uh accountable for abuse uh misuse and other spending irreg irregularities. And then I would prefer a consumptionbased tax because those that consume more pay more. Uh and that generally correlates with the use of roadways and services. Um and plus a consumption tax. Uh everyone pays and it's not put just on the property owners here in Kingman, which I'm one of. Um and there's a couple ways I guess the city could go about raising funds. It could be, you know, a property tax, could be a gas tax, and or a T, you know, raising the TPT, and I get all that. And there are some pros and cons to each of those, which I put in my uh presentation to the uh council. Um I'm personally in favor uh in favor of raising the uh TPT. And in my presentation that I provided to you, I provided kind of an idea how I

would like to see it distributed between retail. And I define retail a little differently than you all, but that's okay. Um, and then occupancy tax or hotel tax and then commercial leasing. And I'm not going to go over everything in all these slides because it's already been gone over. Uh, let's see here. Just I just want to leave a couple uh points for the council here. Um let's see here. Uh so let me just raise these questions. If we if the city of Kingman does nothing, okay, does inadequate road maintenance lead to public relations issues that lead to citizen mistrust and unhappiness? Does it lead to some type of voter revolt? Um, does inadequate road maintenance lead to business, families, and retirees decide not to relocate or visit Kingman? Uh, does that this lead to a economic recession or depression for Kingman? And then does inadequate road maintenance lead to potential legal liability for Kingman? So, just some questions to consider. Thank you.

Thank you, Rob. CW If

Well, um, good evening. My name's Charles If I live in Kingman, Arizona. I I just have a couple things here. one, I'm looking I'm sitting back and listening to all this and I understand what's precipitating all this and that there is a plan to transfer $20 million I believe out of the out of the road fund to pay for a to pay for the connector road for flying fortress. Is that correct? That's what I understand. And so uh that is what that's the issue at hand is how we're using our money. We're you know are we using it appropriately? I have a question about uh about um uh the uh uh impact fees. I saw a number that said that we're paying basically 100% of fire and and police but only 32 32% impact fees for everything else. I don't know if that's correct or not.

You know, Charles Tina's I I've been watching. They're writing all this stuff down, so I think they'll get to it. Well, I know. I'm not expecting the answer, but but uh so, you know, I other things, improvement districts and all that. I understand uh from what I see of the interchange itself, it's been on the books for 40 years or so, and we finally got to a point where it's now built or in the process of being completed. Now, we need the connector road. So, we're taking that money that we have. And so I have a question about reserve funding and uh she can answer that question. But we we seem to carry a high reserve and uh I've I've heard 25% I can find nothing in state law that says it's mandated we have to have 25% reserve. I've heard a figure tonight over 30 which is even higher. So I'm wondering are we are we are we using the money appropriately? And that's my question and that's it.

Thank you Charles. Tony Campbell,

Mr. Mayor, Mr. Vice Mayor, Council, Staff, thank you. Um, thanks for having this. I just have more or less some questions. Uh, I think everybody knows where I stand on the arbitrary raising of sales tax that was voted on by the public. Not to do, but Tina, you said that fire and police cost $26 million. Is that all funded out of general funds? Do you want? However you wish to proceed, mayor. Okay. Thank you, Tina. Actually, Annie, are there very many more questions? People that are going to speak. A couple more. Two more. Okay. I forgot one. We'll come back to you too, but

I think you just want to try. I mean, if we get too much into the discussion, we'll drag it out a little bit so you could list questions and we can answer them. That's what I think. That's one of my questions is. So Tony, they'll get to that.

And then did Tina, did you also say that all her funds were swept until 2018 or was it just a portion of that? Seem to allude that all of it, and I believe just a portion was, but um tax slide showed $20 million in revenues um services 36,000 people in Kingman. That's $85 per person. $46 million in Havsu services 59,000 people at $779 per person. So Mr. Walsh. I guess that'll task you with how do we make our city more efficient like the other cities? Um, is there a way to guarantee that this funding is going to go to road improvement? Because when we dealt with this back in 2012, 2013, we were assured by the then finance manager that there was no way to guarantee that money was going to go to roads. It would go to general fund, which would then allow future councils like is happening now to spend that money on whatever they want. That's one of our concerns is is this money actually going to go where you're saying it's going to go long term or is that just this council's promise for the future councils? Um the other question I had was according to the slides, we're we've spent $23 million of the 50 million that we have for roads and we're over 50% towards our goal. So that $50 million is already in place. Why do we need this additional 6 or 7 million and plus growth in the future? Where is that money where's that money going to be spent 10 years from now? Is that $20 million transfer to build the road accurate? Is the FAA released the the land that we're building a road to? Are we continuing the 25 years we've heard? It's it's close. We're really close. For 25 years, we've heard that and it still hasn't happened. So, if you guys can get

that done, I commend you for that. But for 25 years, people in those chairs have said the same thing. So, our faith is a little shaken on that. Um, then my last question is the home rule rule option that we vote on every four years to exempt the enterprise funds, what is that for? Isn't that so that we can continue to overspend our budget? So now we're asking to do that even more. Doesn't seem to make a lot of sense. So we can answer those after. Tony, thanks for the comments and questions. Vicki Zamalt.

Good evening, council. Mayor, Vice Mayor, City Manager, and City Council, I believe, or attorney. I have a few comments and um uh I would like to start by saying I've lived here for 10 years. I'm a property owner in Rancho, Rancho Santa Fe. And since I've been here, I've noticed an increase in traffic, a lot of traffic. My husband and I always laugh because we have the evening traffic now to contend with and we have the lunch traffic to contend with. So, um I'm worried that we have only really one road, main road in to one section of town, Stockton Hill Road, and now we have Flying Fortress. And we have one road coming on the le from Flying Fortress. This is going to cause a bottleneck throughout town when you have only one road, Stockton Hill and and Flying Fortress. So, I think those are the minor feeder roads that you talked about, Jack. Um or the major feeder roads. So, I'm concerned about what we can do to mitigate those. And when I've brought it up in other places, uh, when AOT was there or others were there, I get a well, we we're talking about it. We're thinking about it. So, I really would encourage you to really look at that. Uh, I think it's very serious issue that needs to be addressed. Uh, number two, this gentleman, very nice gentleman here, talked about going to Bullhead City. I go to Bullhead City once a month and I do a major shopping there because there is no Sam's Club or Costco and I think he has the right idea

that we need to have more businesses here and that would also increase our tax base in the interim. How about seeking more grants for roads? I know I've talked with Jack before about getting a blinking stoplight uh at the school by Louise and I think it's Eastern uh because it's a very dangerous area and kids are walking there all the time and no flashing stoplight and people blow that light all the time. So, how about looking at more grants and also seeing if there's something you can do to partner with AOT a little more. And the last thing I wanted to say is I think from my perspective adding more tax for bar and restaurant would be a good idea. We have a lot of visitors that use our bars and restaurants and not so many of our our uh residents. So consider that. Thank you.

Thank you, Vicki. Mayor, that was the last speaker I have signed up at this time. Okay,

let's turn some time over then to Tina and Jack to answer some of those questions. And I'm sure there will be more. So, let's take care of that thing right now. And uh and of course, council, if you have anything comes up that comes to mind, please jump in also. So, Tina, do you want to go first or since you're the money person? So, Mayor, thank you so much and thank you for all of the comments and the questions. Uh, Jack, I'm going to ask you if we just maybe go through each of the each of the member of the public that that got up and if there's something you want to address, we can kind of just tag team. Does that work for for you? Sure. I wrote down specific talking points. So, Okay. may not have the the individual that had addressed it. So, okay.

Um, if you want to run through, then I can that works. Close back mine.

Okay. So, Mr. McKe mentioned uh what do we do and with our citation revenue specifically speeding, but I'm going to say citation revenue and maybe a portion of those monies could be dedicated towards streets. So, we do receive a portion of those revenues. Some of that goes to the state, some of that goes to the general fund. In total though, every year between all of the citations, not just speeding, we collect less than $400,000 in citation revenue. So, um, so I appreciate I appreciate bringing that to the table, but it doesn't generate a a significant amount of money, uh, at all. Um, and then I will, let's see, as far as the questions, and there were several of the members of the public that got up to speak a little bit about developers, and Vice Mayor, you talked a little bit about that. I didn't know if there was something you wanted to speak to specifically or if you'd like me to just uh speak to it, and then you can chime in if you if you'd like to. I just I have some specifics um that I wrote down. and I was going to go over um if the com comment came up. So, as far as our impact fees or development fees that are uh imposed on our builders and developers that come in, I'm just curious. I know we're going through a study right now and we're we're looking at those fees, but there was a comment at council on Tuesday at call to the public and the mention was to maybe uh pause those or um do something to reduce those to hopefully spur some new development in our community. So, I was um more curious uh if that's possible. Um would

what kind of revenues that that could potentially bring in and would we be further ahead if we just did a pause? Do you you know and and manager Walsh may need to chime in on this as far as the econ economic development. Um you know, would we be further ahead if we did put a pause on those? So that was something that um I had written down and and also wanted to address. I don't see that uh Mr. Markx is here today, but I did want to address uh his comment. I call to the public along with the others. I I could go on. We we want to talk about taxing the builders um and and all the commercial development, but I I want to talk about that specifically.

Actually, Tim, let me jump in. Vice Mayor, you brought up a good point, but then there are some some here in the audience right now that brought up the fact that maybe we need to charge the developers more for development tax services. So, see which way do we go? Well, I think until we have all the information from MSOLEN, we can't make a real informed decision as far as you know what what does that look like? What are what kind of com uh commercial development uh impact fees are we collecting? At what rate? Is it really uh moving the needle in as far as our funding? Is it something that we could consider in addition to this or in place of this? That kind of thing.

So, I I'll start and then I'll I'll uh pass it off to to Miss Molen to to help me with the uh the details. Um it's definitely a it's really a philosophical question for council to consider and a policy decision to make. Um I I think as was as the mayor said um the question is do you do does growth pay for growth and if so how do you make how does growth pay for growth? Um the city of Kingman does have development fees. Those development fees are assessed when uh builders pull permits. um depending on the size of the structure, depending on the this the type of construction, uh those development fees are assessed, those fees are brought in project specific. We we have a list and and as you know, we're we're going through that process to identify those projects that are are going to be needed. Um and generally those projects are based on growth. You know, what what type as a city grows, what projects are needed. Um, so we look at those projects, what those projects cost, and then back that into, okay, as development comes in, these are the fees that we'll charge for that. Um, it is a it's a it's a really a policy decision on is that something if if we wave those or if we pause those development fees for a time, will that increase growth, which then brings in possibly brings in more commercial and and do you pause it on certain aspects? Can we pause it on cert certain aspect or certain businesses that would generate more revenue? Um if we paused it on those would more businesses come are businesses going to come based on our demographics and based on the demand here anyway and and the impact that they're bringing with it you know those development fees help help address those. So um as you mentioned I didn't well I didn't give you a straight answer on that and and as you mentioned

we are working on a on a study right now that that is looking at that you know looking at our um what our projects are going to be needed as we grow and then what those costs look like um towards developers and and really it's it's finding that fine balance of of having growth pay for growth but not overt taxing growth to where it it stymies it and they start looking at other places. So, so we'll just ask a final question before we turn over to Tina, but have we lost to your knowledge, have we lost any businesses that intended to come into Kingman because of our the cost of our development fees? Not that I'm aware of. No. Okay. I've been here two years, so I I I've not ever been told by a business I'm not coming to Kingman because of the development fees.

Okay. Thank you, Dina.

Okay. Thank you so much, U Mayor. And I will try to address the development fee question. So yes, we charge development fees for on builders or developments for new homes as well as commercial buildings, industrial buildings, hotels. Uh we collect it ranges right depending on the growth through out the community each year, but it ranges anywhere from about $600,000 in total to upwards to almost a million dollars a year in total. So, we've had them in place since uh late 2021, and we've collected, I want to say, anywhere between 2.5 million to $3 million. Now, it's important to point out that those monies are split and not evenly. It's all based on a calculation by someone that's much smarter than I am, but that is split between parks, split between police improvements. So, as we add new officers, it helps pay for new vehicles for those officers. As our community grows, it helps pay for if a new fire station is needed, and not just a new one to replace an old one, but a new fire station is needed. And it does not pay for that entire station. It only pays for a very small piece of that station. Um, it looks at streets, so uh uh new streets because of growth that developers are not paying for. And then it also looks at park uh park amenities. So if we're adding a new park, Sunb Belt Park is one of those and that particular park is very expensive. The development fees do not cover the cost of that entire park. Again, just a small piece of that. Um, so hopefully that answers some of the questions from the public on the development fees.

Very good. And mayor, if I Yeah, and I appreciate Tina's response and and I think just to kind of close that one out or to kind of um close the loop on that as Tina mentioned, we do receive um some significant funding through those development fees. Take that away. That that's a reduction in our in our general fund that we have. So now now we we're forced with finding another revenue source in order to cover that gap. So

thank you manager Walsh. And I think you bring up some important things too. One one other thing to mention. I think it was about four years ago we had a study done that our fees our development fees were actually lagging. Our impact fees were lagging that what we charge builders. And of course we didn't want to sty our builders either. So, we only kept it like at 40% of what the suggested rate increase would have been. Am I correct? Actually, councelor Walker, do you remember that? I believe you're close. Probably give us the Okay, but better number.

So, we kept those rates low to begin with to help encourage things. Of course, we could have raised them at that time the full percent, but we did we wanted to make it easier for our builders to to encourage them to build. So, we're at a reduced rate to begin with. I just wanted to remind everybody about that. Thank you.

So, mayor, if I can just clarify. So, not all cities and towns have development fees or impact fees. So, I want to make make that clear. And then, uh, as far as the reduced rate, you are correct. There is a reduced rate for the streets and for the parks. So, a recommended rate that was about three times higher than what our builders are currently paying is again what was recommended and the council adopted a lower rate for those two particular services. Thanks, Tina.

You're welcome. Thank you, mayor. So, just moving uh moving through the list of questions that would be related to me. There was a question about federal contributions and grant monies and we definitely look for grant opportunities. Uh we utilize them on street signals. Uh every year we apply for those types of grants. ADA improvements. So as we improve curbs, gutters, and sidewalks, we look for all of those things. Uh it's highly highly competitive for street type of improvements. And so it's not easy to get those awards, but between state and federal contributions and certainly through our legislature who has given us funding for certain projects uh in the last few years grant related anywhere from about $2 to $6 million a year is what we have received in grants. Now that's not just streets but in general. So uh so we definitely look for those opportunities. There was also just a comment about an opportunity, another option rather to increase revenues through a property tax or a gas tax. Again, a property tax has to go to the voters. The council doesn't have the authority to do that themselves and cities and towns don't have the authority to implement a gas tax. So, sales tax again or TPT is our uh primary the council has the authority for that. There were some questions about our reserves and I'm going to uh specifically talk to our reserves being too high. I believe it was Mr. Ifin that shared that or had that concern or question. So our policy is indeed to maintain anywhere from a 25% to a 50% reserve level and that is of um all of our general funds operating expenditures. It fluctuates yeartoyear, but that is the overall policy. Council reduced that when they put the street program into place and have an informal

policy to maintain that anywhere from 30 to 35%. Now, we did a compare and there is there is no state mandate. That is correct. We have an an organization that we as finance directors are a part of and they make they make a minimum recommendation for the general fund to have two months of reserves very minimum but that depends on what our revenue sources are and what the economy is and how stable our revenue sources. So the council has in place anywhere from a 3 to sixmonth reserve. uh we are very similar to our sister cities as well as Mojave County's fund balance. We did some research and some outreach and found that our policy overall is very similar to those communities. Um and I any major program or any major change, any major recession is going to to certainly deplete those reserves and that is the reason why we we as cities and towns statewide as well as Mojave County have those types of reserves in place. I will always recommend to the council to keep those in place. It allowed us this time to help fund streets and it could help us next time to fund some or some some other sort of program or initiative or deficit. Um and then I would like to Mr. Campbell had quite a few questions so I want to make sure that I respond to him. So yes, all of police and fire's operating budget is funded through the general fund. And as far as things like a fire station or fire trucks, those also are funded primarily through general fund transfers to another fund. So while they may not be paid from that fund, it is supported by the general fund. Um, was all of her swept? I apologize if that's the message that came across cuz absolutely it was not all of HERF swept

HERF was not swept but some of HERF was swept and it was not again restored to that full 100% to cities and towns and I don't mean 100% of highway user revenues just the amount that the state allocates to cities and towns was not restored until 2018 or 2019 as far as guaranteeing that the monies would not be used for a different purpose uh we have been asked that question before and it is part of an ordinance the council adopts. It will be dedicated to streets, but absolutely another council could come in and make that change if they if they chose to do so. Councils have that authority. As far as uh let's see, flying fortress Parkway, sorry about that. Oh, the home rule. So, home rule, we no longer operate under home rule. it went to the voters and we changed that to permanent base adjustment. So now we have a state limitation that we are required to have uh that we are required to spend. So there is no exemptions as far as us being able to overspend. What is set at as at the state is what we are required to spend. That was back in 2018 or 2020 I believe is when that might have gone to the voters. And I think Mr. Campbell that I I answered your questions. If I missed anything, please let me know. I'm more than happy to respond,

mayor. Mayor. Okay. And and I think that I think I I think I covered everything. Thank you. Okay, Jack.

All right, Mayor. Thank you very much. Uh thank you to the public for the questions. Tina clearly kept better notes, but I wanted to make sure I go and address the items that were brought up. So, the first one is the cost of asphalt. now versus historic prices. Um we quit doing mill and fills prior to '08 and so that's you go in you mill out maybe 2 in of road and then you come back and you put two inches of new road in although your section might be five or six inches and so we did go back and look at historic costs and uh some of those were below $10 a square yard. So square yard is where I live. It's a 3x3 section and I measure everything in in 3x3s. Um, so, uh, the the pre8 cost for a square yard of 2inch milfill was less than $10. Right now, we're seeing 25 $27 for that same 3x3 square of asphalt. That's the all-inclusive price, but as you can see, our that price has almost doubled from what it had was, you know, 15, 20 years ago. So the costs that we see for everything are going up especially um a lot of our products are made from asphalt which is a derivative of crude oil. What has gas prices done? It's all gone up. So most of the products that we use are also driven by oil costs. And so the higher the oil cost, the higher our asphalt cost. The next one is uh a bond for roads. Uh that's a good question. We've actually looked at bonds. The problem with a bond, as I mentioned in the presentation, is we don't we one time money helps us once. And so we spend the money, we still have to pay the bond back, but now our roads continue to age. And it's it's not that we have enough money to maintain them if they were in good condition right now. we still have

a deficit between what's needed for general maintenance purposes to maintain our system at a status quo and uh or to maintain our system at a status quo. So the the problem that we have is is if we were to go for a bond that would fix the roads, but we wouldn't have enough money to maintain them and you'd slowly see them degrade again as we're trying to make the bond payment and now also maintain those roads by completing preventative maintenance. Uh a big one is treatment selection. I I appreciate that question. So Southern was brought up. That was a cape seal. And so I talked about three million in savings and we're optimizing treatments. I really like to use a vehicle as a example. You buy it, you do preventative maintenance. You're going to change the oil, right? You're not going to wait. Oh, thank you, Tina. I didn't I couldn't see Annie staring at me. So, you're not going to buy a vehicle and run it until the motor blows up and then go replace that engine, right? You're going to do preventative maintenance. You're going to do oil changes periodically. And so, same way, you know, a component on the engine goes out, you're not going to replace it. you're going to replace that component. And so, right treatment, right road, right time. Council has heard me preach on that for years, as long as they've been here, and even before if they were watching council meetings. And so, Southern is a good example. We came in and we did a uh rubberized chip seal, which was to hold the surface together, fill in cracks and imperfections, and then we came back over that with a micro surface. And so, what that did is it softens up the surface. It closes a lot of the gaps that are left from the chip and it provides a quieter, smoother ride, improves ride ability and the aesthetic. We would love to come in and mill out the roads and place them back. But that that cape seal that we completed that'll extend the the road life probably 8 to 10 years at a minimum uh with some minimum minimal continuing

maintenance as we go on, crack seal and things like that. um we were about $7 a square yard and so for me again to come back and mill that out and repave that you're talking 30. So I generally wouldn't pull my phone out but I can't count on my toes sitting in front of you guys. And so I needed a calculator and so uh just residentials I mentioned that in our residentials it makes up about uh 75% of our network we have 4.4 million square yards of asphalt. And so in that 4.4 4 million square yards. If you were to times that times$25 $30 a square yard for a milling fill, you're talking we're approaching a hund00 million, right? Our whole program right now, we're looking at 50 million to to try and get us back on track and then that those funds taper off and then we got a long-term funding issue. But you're talking 90 million. Now, let's back up and talk about chip sale. We want to use the right treatment where the right on the right road, but we're also trying to balance what we can afford, what we really want to do. And and so we get to the to selecting treatments again based on the roadway condition, traffic, all these things. And so you're talking what we're doing in the residential specifically in this first round. And we'll be coming back and we'll be assessing again what we're going to do, but you're talking 10 to12 million versus 90 million. So, as much as I would love to go out and repave all the roads and put brand new asphalt everywhere, it's cost prohibitive. And not only that, you're talking about asphalt with a design life that's 15 to 20 years. So, guess what? We we put brand new asphalt in, we still have to maintain it. the treatments will last a little longer. But in good asset management, pavement management specifically, we start at a good PCI, a good condition value that comes down a little bit. We hit a trigger and we want to do preventative maintenance and that will ride for a long time. That's how we extend the life

of our asset. And that's how we give us the lowest life cycle cost. If I just milled the asphalt out and replace it every time, the life cycle cost would be ridiculous. And so that that's how we get there. Um again, buy once, cry once. I I agree. We want to do it right. We want to come in, get it done, but sometimes we're getting getting uh you know, selecting treatments based on not only what we need to achieve from functionality of the roadway and extending the asset life, but also on our budget because 90 million versus 10 million is a is a big big jump in in uh you know value. um kind of covered that with chip seal cost again uh residentials that that would be more than a t-fold increase in cost and somebody mentioned you know the only benefit would be dodging potholes. I would like to point out that is the whole purpose of this conversation is we're trying to prevent potholes and repair roads and and and uh so you don't have to dodge potholes because they happen and and I would also like to point out when we're talking about that we always talk about quality of life and every one of us here myself included my friends my family my kids they drive on these roads and so we're vested in this community as well and the quality of life you knock a wheel off your car you bust your your front end up, you knock it out of alignment and you're spending money that directly impacts your quality of life. And so, you know, just for everybody in the room, we understand, I do at least, you know, and I I would bet everybody at the table because they're all long-term residents, our friends, family, you know, the the people that we care for is our customers are all here. And so, I want to make sure that you guys understand how seriously we take that

code and support. Say again. Code changes. regulate what you have to provide.

Oh yeah. Um so the 50 million and ongoing roadway maintenance. So again I just go back to that point that Mr. Campbell brought up and yes, we had 50 million, but that was knowing that in 2030 that funding went back to a little over a million dollars a year for bar and restaurant and we would see our PCI start rapidly decreasing. And I didn't bring those. I I uh I honestly didn't anticipate covering those topics. But on uh the city website, if you go to public works and streets, there's actually some uh old presentations and things that we've done that cover the presentations which cover historic spending, covers uh what scenario we're working right now. There's a lot of great information. Uh I'm always happy to to provide information as well. So take a look at that. And I I think another big thing that Tina doesn't tout as much as she probably should is if you're wondering where money comes from and where money goes to, you can also go to our website and specifically for asphalt, but Tina covers everything in the city uh as far as uh money being received and money being spent. Uh, but if you go to that website, there's some links you can click on and they'll take you to the revenue that's coming into streets and what we're spending it on. And you can drill down pretty deep and you can see where your tax dollars are being allocated and where they're being utilized to to improve your community.

Preservation, Mr. Campbell, Mr. Campbell, can you please come up to the mic that way that we can capture it for the question for our recording? Thank you. Sorry, just trying to clarify. Is are you saying that the future after 2030 our only source of revenue for street preservation is the 1% bar and revenue tax currently? That is correct.

That is correct. As I'd mentioned, HERF, we do receive HERF funds, but that also covers signs, signals, traffic markings, dirt road grading, shoulder grading, just general maintenance, all the weed abatement and things that we have to do inside of assets that the city has accepted. And so, HERF supports all of those. The the bar and restaurant tax is supporting pavement preservation and is not sufficient if we did not have a a better source. Thank you for that question, by the way. Um, another item was brought up for traffic. Um, this is not necessarily part of this, but we are looking at how we need to improve or um uh what's the word I'm looking for? We're we're monitoring what our network looks like for traffic specifically, not just pavement preservation. So, a couple years ago, we completed a transportation master plan. And so we looked at our network as it is and we actually projected out to 2045 and looked at projects that are needed for growth, projects that are needed to improve current deficiencies. We have as was mentioned Stockton Hill. And so the um the Flying Fortress Parkway will actually help with certain areas of town. And so it does have an improvement on our roadways and the congestion that we see. It's relative. You know, I drive in Keman, I complain about the the congestion. and I go to Phoenix or Vegas and realize I've really I am uh pretty pretty lucky I guess. But again, we are looking at that. This is specific to payment preservation. This is a conversation we're having. So, when you're trying to support ongoing traffic, ongoing payment preservation plus all the other services that are offered and uh that the the citizens have come to expect. That's why we're having this conversation. And so Tina actually covered uh grants and I'll just echo that again. They are very competitive. Um Tina's team helps

us look for grants. We have a number of resources working on grants for pavement preservation. They're very limited. Um so I've been in this role doing this since 2016, so 10 years I guess. And uh we likely have received one grant. were awaiting award that would cover pavement preservation. And that's not because we haven't been trying. That's just because that's not where most the grants are. Most of the grants that we see for roadways purposes for us are are safety specific. And so there's a number of projects that you guys have all seen that probably didn't realize they were grant funded. We did signal improvements on Stockton Hill. Uh there was some on Beverly and Airway. We have another one. We have a signal that's getting ready at bank and and airway to be upgraded with left turn phases. So you'll get a protected left turn on that. And those are grant funded. Those are very competitive. We're competing at the very least against a state if not a national level. And when you look at the criteria we're competing against uh based on our our population and volume and things a lot of times that we just don't meet the thresholds to uh to be awarded those grants. But we are always looking. A big rant that came up and and there was a lot of uh conversation on on social media about it was the Stockton Hill DCR. We talk about traffic. We talk about congestion. We have to plan our way out of those things. Um you know, they're going to be long-term projects. When you're talking millions of dollars, I I I would love to go to Tina and say, "Hey, I need a check." But uh she don't work that way. And so we have to to help plan long range and get cost estimates and and be ready to go for those projects. And so that grant is going to do that for us. That was $900,000. Unfortunately, we can't use that for pavement preservation. We can't use that for roadway improvements. It's a planning specific grant. But what that will do is that takes a couple

hundred,000 that we would we had actually allocated to spend to complete that planning level work that now, you know, is is freed up for the other services that the community wants. And so I I think I addressed all the ones that were roadway and pavement specific, but I'd be happy to to uh cover any more.

Actually, we had talked about um having any more questions um come up, but I want to hold off one thing. Originally, we had planned this meeting from 5 to 7. We are already past the 7 o'clock mark. I know a number of us are willing, more than willing to stay here, but I did want to just throw that out there. Um, I know vice mayor has some questions she wants to ask Carl along these same lines. So, maybe what she wants to ask will also help answer. One quick thing, Jack, I appreciate the comments about grants because that was a big thing. People always bring that up. Why aren't we applying for grants? I receive emails from Senator Kelly's office bringing the attention to federal grants that are available, for example, for these roadways. I of I will always I almost I always forward them to our city manager. He gets back with me and guess what? Our grant department was already aware of it. Always. So I Tina Tina, how many people do we have in our grant department? Two. mayor. We actually only have one and she's absolutely amazing and everybody in the city reaches out to her for grant opportunities.

Yeah. So, we are exhausting whatever grants are available. But once again, as been mentioned, there has been so much competition about it. Want to turn some time over to vice mayor. I know she wanted to ask a couple questions and hopefully or get some answers and hopefully some of her these answers will also answer your questions. I just I I was wanting to make sure there's a couple things on my list that Carl should address and then there's a couple things that uh manager Walsh should address. So Carl, can you talk about Dollar Generals? Can you talk about uh the voter approved initiative and how we are coming to this meeting and being able to discuss about the halfsent? I think that was it for you

uh Dollar General. So, one, we're not the ones that bring the business specifically into town. We're not recruiting dollar generals. Uh, but you can't discriminate against businesses or business types. You see that across the country. There have been a lot of concerns about Dollar Generals coming in everywhere. And they've looked at ways to try and regulate how to do that. But you can't say no more Dollar Generals. Well, then they're going to change their name. a dollar sign or something. So, one of the aspects they looked at is they know what is the general size of these Dollar Generals. We'll say 20,000 square feet. So, they're going to say no more retail stores under, you know, 20,000 square feet, whatever range that they're at. Well, then Dollar General shifts the size, the square footage of their their building. So, that work that's where the problem comes in. You just can't discriminate against those type of businesses. regarding why we're here, why regarding the the the council's actions to repeal the statute or the the city code ordinance that stated this had to go to the ballot. Is that the question you're asking me?

Yeah. I mean, to Mr. Campbell's point, when the voters approve when this went through its whole first process and then what has come of that? I know there's some case law out there and how we are able to do what we are So what happened is I didn't know this question was going to be asked tonight so I don't remember the name of the case specifically but it was about a year ago roughly maybe a little less where uh a city had done something similar with a voter approved initiative uh had moved forward they were sued uh PAC I believe uh so what happened is they got sued by uh some citizens in PAC uh went to the the the local superior court. And basically what they're saying is there's a voter protection act. The state statute or the state constitution says uh when the the voters uh vote on something, it can't be changed or removed unless it's furthering the purpose of what they had done on that ballot initiative or that proposition. Well, eventually got the state supreme court and the Supreme Court says this only applies to the state legislature because that's exactly what the language says. It talks about the state legislature. They said it does not apply to the local municipalities. So with that, that information came down to me. I relayed that information to the city council and said this is an option that we're seeking ways to raise some revenue. We do not have to uh keep that uh language in our city code anymore. That was uh passed in 15 16

18 18. See, my memor is a little slow on dates. So, the council had those discussions and decided to remove that portion of our city code that required a TPT change uh go to the ballot. So, that's where we're at. I think really briefly trying to move it along. Yeah. Thank you. I appreciate that. Um, Manager Walsh, there was a comment about the connector road to Flying Fortress. Um, and and what that's going to do uh in the 20 million moving over and then uh the FAA update. I think that's what I had in my notes for you.

You got it. Um, so the let's see, we'll start with the Flying Fortress. So, um, the Flying Fortress interchange is underway. It's it should be completed about um August of this year. So, we'll have an interchange built there. Um as part of that project, A DOT's going to connect to Louise on the south and then they're going to extend up to Grand Canyon on the north. The city is actually bonding to go from Grand Canyon to Airway and then on airway from Prospector out to Flying Fortress. Um we're borrowing money in order to do that. So, we're we're reaching our our bonding capacity. Um, and then the the whole purpose of of Flying Fortress was to get another route out to the industrial park out at the airport. Um, that was what the city pitched uh to the state and Regina Cobb was able to secure those funds, bring it bring it to Arizona. So, the the premise of that whole thing was to get a connecting road out to the airport. Um, so we're going to have our road as the the interchange is completed, it'll get to airway and then that's where we have funding to stop. Um, and looking at that road and being able to fund that road and then looking at other issues that we have here in town, looking at our pavement preservation right now, our pavement preservation, um, we've got a program set up that takes us through 2030. um that at the end of 2030 and and as Jack and and Tina both mentioned, you know, at the end of 2030 that savings account is depleted. We we've got those reserves in place right now, uh roughly 50 million. Uh we've gone through about half of it. By 2030, those reserves are gone. That funding source for that pavement preservation is gone. And all the hard work that that count or the staff has

done in order to get those roads in a better condition. um basically drops off after that and and we're back to not having sufficient funds in order to keep maintaining those roads. So, in looking at at that problem and trying to find a solution with that problem, um between now and 2030, we've got to find a funding solution to keep our roads in good shape. Um sales tax increase was was one of the possible solutions that were considered. And so so there's there's two issues here, but but timing allows for the completion of Flying Fortress. If we kick the can down the road and say, "Hey, we're good till 2030. We'll let that council figure it out." Then um we go through 25 million and and we don't have anything to show for it and we've got to come up with more money. if we address the issue head on right now, which um staff, you know, is recommending and um by by addressing the issue head-on right now, looking at a sales tax increase, that 25 million that we've got remaining to do that pavement preservation can then be used to complete Flying Fortress. We get we get continued road maintenance, continued improvement to our streets, and we also get this connection road out to the airport. Um the the question on FAA um yeah we we've been hearing that for for quite some time and I I I definitely feel feel that pain. It's been something since I've been on with the city that that has been a top priority. Um we've gone out to DC to meet with our legislators to to push this to get this approved. We've hired a um lobbying firm to help us with the FAA to get that completed. Um it's been a top priority. Uh staff's been down meeting with the FAA at their local office in Phoenix on a a monthly basis. Um and we've been having uh shoot I

think is it every other week that we're meeting with them online or is it Yeah. So so we've we've been pressing that um every every different way that we can. And I will say we're closer than than the city's ever been. Um we initially had word from the FAA uh that in January we'd be on the federal register to make it happen. Um and then we had another hiccup where uh there the controller office had some additional questions uh regarding the appraisals. We've addressed all of those comments. We got that letter back in. So we're we're basically continuing to push it. We've been working with uh Representative Gosar's office. We've been working with Senator Kelly's office and Senator Ggo's office to to put as much pressure on the FAA as as possible to get this thing done. So, I'm hopeful and and I I hope I I don't appear as a polyiana, but um I'm hopeful that that will happen this year. We will have it on the federal register and we will get that complete. And Tim, correct me if I'm wrong, but we have been told by our lobbying firm back back in Washington DC and I think even our um by Representative Gosar and his office that right now with this administration, this is the best time to get this through. We have the best luck of getting it through

and and I do I believe it's going to happen. They share. So,

um if I may just a couple other I had just a couple other notes from from some comments. Um the question was raised about leasing uh space in our rightways for for the utilities. We do have um what's referred to as franchise agreements and license agreements and those utilities do uh pay the city to be able to have those utilities within the rightway. We receive about 1.2 million in revenues from those. Um and then there was another question about um you know council can set this tax in and say it's going to be for roads and streets. future councils can can change that and that that is true. I I would point to our our track record though. Um back in 2012, uh council adopted the bar and restaurant tax as was mentioned here for uh street and road maintenance and that has all gone since 2012 till today that has gone to street and road maintenance. It's not been deviated from that. So I will say the council has a great track record in in honoring what has been decided by previous councils. And that option was available. It could have been changed by any a after council after that and it has not. It's been stayed the same. Correct. Okay.

Thank you. Anything else? That's it for get for now. Okay. I'd just like to ask clarification on that. Tina, I say if you'd like to step up and please state your name. Diana Hakez. Okay. Um I have a question for uh Mr. Walsh. U just to clarify the funding for Flying Fortress as of right now is coming from AOT to create to create the offramps and go on the north side to airway and on the other side to Louise and then the city is responsible from there out is that

so I'm sorry if I if I misled on that. So we actually we we received 20 million from the state not not from ADOT but um our delegation at the state. So so Regina Cobb being the the primary um she was able to secure basically an earmark from the state funding of 20 million to go towards Flying Fortress. Um the total cost for Flying Fortress to the city was 56 million. the city came up with the remaining s 36 million in order to build that that project. And I say AOT because they're administering the project for us. It's their inter interchange. So they administer the project. Um ADOT is administering that project and it extends from Louise to Grand Canyon on the north. The city is administering a local street project from Grand Canyon to airway and airway over. And I just had another thought and I there was another question on that and I I forget where where it was but but yeah I I hope that answers your question there.

Okay. Actually we are it is getting late. I did want to comment on one thing though real quick. Um I ask a question. Penny did you come forward real quick? I just have one question. Are you sure it is something we haven't covered already? No. Okay.

Okay. on the taxes. You say this this increase in taxes is for roads. What's the capital improvement portion of it? Because it says for roads and capital improvements because that was the problem that we had from the beginning. People didn't have a problem increasing the taxes for the road. It was the capital improvements because we couldn't get a list of what the capital improvements were that you guys wanted to do. So, how much of this tax increase goes to the actual roads, just roads, and how much of it's going to go to capital improvements? And what are those capital improvements that you want to do? Good question, Penny Holden. Correct. Yes. Yes.

Thank you. So, Miss Holden, I I'm I'm not sure about um where in my presentation I might have indicated that the monies were going to capital improvements. That is not the case. The t any tax increase that the council is considering this evening is going towards street repairs and maintenance the pavement preservation program. So on your first pres I thought it said capital improvements. Miss Holden if you're going to ask an additional question I need to have you come up to the microphone please. Yeah. So so everybody can hear and that way it's it's recorded too. So it's not anything going Okay.

Okay. So thank you Penny once again. Good question. I did want to comment on one thing because it brought up and it's it's I have see it all the time. Why aren't we getting these other companies here? We can't pay them to come here. They look at our demographics and our population and they choose whether they think a one of their stores will survive here economically. Um, one of the factors we have working against us is of course our population is listed at 36,000 close to 37,000. And with a little bit of wraparound, including the Butler area and that area, it's probably another 14 to 20,000. I Googled it today, it said 14,000. I think that number is wrong. I think it's higher than that. So, we're somewhere probably around 50 to 55,000. We love our county residents because we understand all of us will pay this increased tax. None of us like wanting to have pay increased tax, but county residents, including city residents, use our roads, use the count, use the city parks, all these different services that the city offers. We have to pay for them. We have to figure out a way to pay for them. And this is raising the sales tax uh half a cent is one way. You know, we are running out of time. I know we've lost some already. Yes.

Oh, okay. So, anyway, one other thing though, as far as attracting new businesses, we have a department, our economic development department. We are actively contacting these companies saying, "Hey, look at us." And we try to give them the bigger picture of how many people are actually here so they understand. Um, actually one business we met with one time, they were looking at us, manager Walsh and myself and a couple of others talked to their vice president over development. They liked Kingman, but they weren't sure if they wanted to come here or not. In the meantime, that meeting ended. They were still going to continue. They still kept us in consideration. I offered I was in that their hometown. This is last year sometime. I was more than willing to stop by their place and visit with that vice president just to get an update and see what they're considering. In other words, we are actively trying to get people here and not just myself. I know all of council is. There's our department in the city is trying to do that. But once again, we cannot hit them over the head and say, "Oh, you're coming here." It doesn't work that way. It's all business um generated.

What can we do to sweeten the platform? That's a tough one. What what do we do to change that? Um well, okay, this land release, we're trying to get more companies to manufacturing companies to build out at the airport. That means more jobs. That means more people moving here, which means raises our demographics. We already have. So, excuse me, we already have people moving in here and they are once again, we are running sh tight. I know man, our counselor Savage would like to make a comment real quick.

Yeah, real quick. I I uh spoke with a group of people a few weeks ago and and my background is business development and marketing. So, I'm just going to give you a real quick rundown on how this works. Stockton Hills built out. We all know that. Okay. So, you're getting Dollar Generals and storage units because there's one a demand for them and two they wouldn't come here if they didn't make money. Bottom line, we pushed through Fine Flying Fortress not only for the airport but for the commercial land around it. these big real tailor, Costco, Targets, all that good stuff. They want land and they want prime land. That's what they're waiting for. When when once we get this, we're we're putting the the the work into it. They will come. It just doesn't happen overnight. So, you got to be patient with us. We have a great staff, great economic de development team. They are We did give an incentive to Hobby Lobby to come here. and we are fortunate to have Marshalls and Hobby Lobby take existing places. That was huge. That was a great accomplishment for this city. So, be patient with that. It will come. We can only do it one step at a time, but it's about the roads, but I'm just trying to answer the questions about the growth.

All right. Thank you, Mayor. Councelor Council, any other comments or questions? We do have one person that keeps on holding his hand up. Do we want to move forward with that? Sir, please come back up to the mic cuz I know the rest of us are probably pretty antsy to go. But we appreciate you staying around and being here. And I know those who have left, we appreciate them. And I'm sure they had other things in their life they need to go. I get it. So, but continue.

Mayor, thank you very much for acknowledging me. My question is early on you and Tina both conceded that the builders were given favoritism. You taxed them lower. I don't know what the purpose was, but how do we get that changed? How do we get them to pay more of their share to maintain the roads to help Jack take care of our potholes and protect our motorcyclists and our families? That's my big question.

It's a balance because then they complain and saying, "Well, no one's going to move here because our homes are costing too much." And of course, they use that as just one of those facets. Um, and there is some truth to that, too. Once again, it's a balance and that's why we gave them that option and we reduced some of those rates on certain things where we had some leeway to do that. So,

I have to agree when I came here, I did not expect us to pay $600,000 in Rancho Santa Fe for my home. I I thought I left that when I left California and I found out it didn't happen. I moved to Kingman. I can't even get anything built up there. I a small garage is $80,000 in Rancho. Now if I went to Birdland or something like it'd be about 40,000 but that's difference but it's called greed but we the the developers are making money hands over fists on us and we're not developing our city. That's that's my only thing. But

I we appreciate that comment. Um there was one other thing I wanted to mention and and I did now just escape my mind but you know what it'll come up once again. We have a meeting scheduled on March 27th. Correct, Tim? He's out of town. Isn't the town hall? Oh, the town hall. The town hall that we're going to talk about this. I'm sorry. Thank you. This this this whole thing will come up again. Yes. Um and this will be a part of this. Everybody is invited. I know we are. How are you, Tim? Explain how you're doing that.

So, yeah. So, we do have the town hall on March 27th if you'd like to attend. um we have the ability so so everybody's welcome to attend. We are limiting the the participants in the it's basically it's a workshop and and we're pulling uh as much information as we can out of out of as many people as we can but it's not going to be open to everybody to participate. Everybody's welcome to come and and watch. Um but yeah, if you'd like to attend, there's there's uh 24 openings that we have for public. Um, Annie, remind me where they go to attend or where they go to sign up.

Yeah, if somebody wants to be entered into uh the it's going to be a random poll. So, as many people as enter, we'll do a random poll of 24 participants. They just need to email their name, address, phone number, and email, their contact information. You do need to be a city of Kingman resident. So, within our boundaries to pio cityofkingman.gov. That's on Friday night. It'll be Friday morning. Friday morning actually from 8 to 1 afternoon. Yeah.

And remember, for example, tonight 13 of you were amazing souls, brave souls. I don't know what I mean, it's tough to get up here and speak. I get it. So, actually now 24 slots are available for those who would like to share some thoughts and opinions. So, but everybody is invited um to learn from this. So, that's where we're at. I think it's a great thing. Please, um, if you would like to attend or even ask questions and have questions, please get in contact with, um, Clerk Meredith and she will share all that what you need to do to sign up. Once again, we appreciate you being here and being active in our community. you are participating in government and that's what this is all about is about us you know giving direction to our city and we truly recognize that as a council that you do that you take the sacrifice and time to be here. Uh tonight we are ran a little bit long but we are adjourned. Thank you.