City Council - Regular Meeting

Here we go. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Hallelujah. Thank you.

Heat. Heat. Welcome to the city of Maricopa's city council meeting. We're glad you're here because your voice matters. If you'd like to speak tonight, please start by filling out a speaker card at the council chambers entrance and turning it in to the city clerk before the meeting begins. On that card, you can let us know if you want to speak on a planned agenda item or during the general call to the public. Please keep in mind that all comments are limited to 3 minutes or less depending on the number of people requesting to speak. Personal attacks and political speeches or threats are inappropriate in this forum and will be grounds for ending a speaker's time at the podium at the discretion of the mayor. We also ask that audience members refrain from applauding or showing disapproval of comments shared by fellow community members. As every person who addresses council has the right to speak and not be intimidated, it's important to note that due to Arizona's open meeting law, council members cannot respond or take action on

topics not listed on the agenda, but your comments will be heard and entered into the public record. Can't stick around for the full meeting? You can always catch the replay on Facebook or YouTube where this meeting is currently being livereamed. Want more details about tonight's agenda items? Scan the QR code on your screen or visit www.mmaricopa-az.gov/aggenda. Thank you for joining us and getting involved. As a final reminder, please silence your cell phones and electronic devices. The city council meeting will begin shortly. Yeah. Thank you.

Hello. I'd like to bring this meeting to order. I would like to say for those that are standing, there are some seats in the front still available. If you'd like to move forward, that would be great. Yep. Front row people, come on forward. So, I'm going to call this meeting on April 21st, regular city council meeting to order. And I'd like to invite up Pastor William Gabriel from Maricopa Springs Family Church for the invocation. And then we will have our pledge of allegiance by Vice Mayor Man Freddy. So, Pastor Gabriel. Yeah. Oh, there you are. I was looking out that way. Very nice to have you, sir. Thank you. Please rise if you're able.

Good evening, folks. Please join me in prayer. Father in heaven, we ask this evening that you give wisdom, courage, and compassion to our city leaders and staff as they make decisions for the welfare of this city. Help us to collaborate in harmony, to listen with empathy, and act with integrity, honoring the trust you place in us according to your sovereign will. And we ask this in the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

Amen. Amen. To the flag of the United States of America and to the stands one nation indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Thank you, Pastor Gabriel. And thank you, Vice Mayor Man Freddy. That'll take us to roll call, please. Vanessa. Council member Gtle, present. Council member No present. Council member Leman here. Council member Marsh here. Council member Wade here. Vice member Freddy here. Mayor Smith here. Madame Mayor we have a quorum.

Thank you very much. All right. That'll take us to our next item is 3.1 proclamations, acknowledgements, awards, and presentations. And this is really a very special proclamation. I'm going to invite all of council down with me and all the volunteers that came, please come forward because this is all about you. And I'm gonna invite Jim Denia of Vandenia up please. De Venia. Yeah. Every the whole

chicken. That's all right. That's all right.

Howdy. Howdy. Look at this. Somebody else. Right there. That's all you.

That's my That's all you. That's my

All right. All right. Wow. This is fantastic. I'm loving it. The city of Maricopa knows how to bring a group together. I would say how fantastic is that? And one thing I notice is we have people from all ages from our young people all the way up to our seniors who are helping and serving in the city of Maricopa on a voluntary basis. It's phenomenal. We have so much to be proud of in the city of Maricopa. So this proclamation whereas National Volunteer Week has been observed each year since 1974. It celebrates the spirit of volunteering, investing in the community, and how working together can make a difference. And whereas this year's theme for National Volunteer Week is your year to volunteer, the nation will gratefully acknowledge those who serve yet locally here in Maricopa. And many volunteers have also heeded the call, not just this year, but since the founding of our great city. That is so true. We have never had a lack of volunteers. And whereas now this paragraph is super important. So whereas in 20125 oops I'm skipping to the important part. Let me read the other par. Whereas the city of Maricopa takes pride in recognizing public safety and community volunteers. They continue to help make it one of the safest and communityup supported cities in Arizona. These champions are volunteers in public service, the VIPs, the fire corpse, community emergency response team, the cert maricopa library and cultural centers, and Maricopa Community Center. So many areas to serve in the city of Maricopa if you'd like to do that. Now, this is the cool part because I'm a numbers person. Whereas in 2025, a total

of 132 volunteers in these five departments combined for a contributed 15,755 hours to promote public safety and to provide supportive services in the city of Maricopa with a workload value of $548,000, half a million dollars. Whereas it is fitting to honor and recognize our volunteers who give so willingly and their time and talents. Our volunteers ask for nothing in return but the support of the city and the communities they serve. And we can do that for them right now. Therefore, I Nancy Smith, the mayor of the city of Maricopa, do hereby proclaim the week of April 19th through the 25th, 2026 is volunteer appreciation week. Our city will proudly shine a light on the people that inspire others to serve and who help make the city of Maricopa a very special place to live. Let's give him another round of applause. Thank you, Mayor uh city council. Thank you all for coming. Uh but most of all, thank you for everyone here who showed up. Everyone, this is our family. There's no other way to say this, but this is our family. And when you think of the volunteers from the police department, fire department, library, community center, cert. But I also said for this year, what we're going to do, we're going to ask for the cadetses to join us. Cadetses are the ones right up here in front. Teenagers that you will probably see as future officers who every Thursday night over at police headquarters at 6:00 are practicing drills, learning about police, learning

about law enforcement, but they also go up and they do competitions in the valley and they've placed very well in those competitions even against some of the bigger cities. But I am so proud of being a part of this. I was Victor 176 back back in 2010 when I volunteered with the police department. I love being able to step back and to look at what it has become and who has volunteered. And I often say that in the workplace that there's two different types of people. The first group, the people that know how to do how to do the job, how to get it done, how to get it done. but they will always be working for the second group of people who know why the job is important in the first place. Every single person over here and those who are not here tonight are a combination of both of them. They know how to do the job and they know why it's being done to the tune of seven full-time positions and one part-time position. And it's heart and soul that they give every year and we love them. So, thank you for the opportunity to be able to celebrate them and for the opportunity to let everyone know that we have a great group of individuals that are serving this city. So, thank you.

Come on, buddy. Come on, buddy. I'm camera shy. Yeah.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Say hi to you. Okay, sounds great.

Okay. Thanks for Thank you, sir. All right, I know we like to party and have fun with our volunteers, but I got to call this meeting to order. That'll take us to the next item on our agenda, which is the report from the mayor.

All right, the report from the mayor. Council members. Yes, Council Member Lurman.

Thank you, Mayor. I'd like to start out tonight just by um honoring the life of one of our longtime third grade teachers, Miss Denise Palmer. Um she's taught at Pimab Elementary School, third grade since 2005. And I had the pleasure of working with Miss Palmer. And she was always trying to make things better. How can I make this better? How can I help this student more? So, I just want to honor her, her legacy. It is deep here in Maricopa. She's taught hundreds and hundreds of our children here in Maricopa. So, thank you, Miss Palmer, for serving our community. I also want to share that my daughter and I went to West Panel Park um on April 15th to recognize Dark Sky Week. Um, dark sky week is to honor the protection of the night sky from light pollution, supporting wildlife, human health, and stargazing. So, we had a really nice, lovely time. The sun was setting, and then the mosquitoes came out, and then we went home. But if you're looking for a beautiful sunset, please visit West Panel Park. It's about 10 minutes from here, and it's a beautiful park, especially at sunset. I also want to share that um I attended and participated in the power of 100 women's club here at the Maricopa chapter. We were able to tip our waitress $1,300 to bless her, a single mom with four kids. It was a beautiful evening and we meet once a quarter. We go around to different restaurants and pick a server in need and we had a beautiful evening. This is our third year of doing that. And that is all. Oh, I do have some upcoming events. Um, this Thursday at 4 PM we're having a budget work session here at city hall. On the 23rd, there's an arts town hall from 5:30 to 700 p.m. at the library. There's a B Awesome Youth Coalition annual tea

party fundraiser Saturday at 1:00 at Global Water. It is um a derby theme, so we'll be wearing very big hats, which I'm looking forward to. There's a bike rodeo on the 24th on Saturday from 5:00 to 7:00 at the library. So, bring your kids and your teens out to learn about bike safety. There's an arts gallery on Saturday at the community center from 7 to 900 p.m. There's a movie in the park 700 p.m. on Saturday. There's a the city arts grants are opening for another round this Monday, the 27th. So, if you'd like to um excuse me, fill out an application for the arts grants, please plan to do that. There's a Lowe's night market on Saturday, May 2nd, and a Hispanic cultural night on May 8th at the Performing Arts Center at 6 PM. And then there's an open arms vocational living center fundraiser from 6:00 to 9:30 at Duke's Roadhouse on June 27th. Thank you very much. Thank you, Council Member Lman. Council member No. Sure.

Thank you, Mayor. I just want to again congratulate all of our amazing volunteers. Thank you for being here. It's so much fun to celebrate you and all of the work you do for our city. And um I want to echo what council member Lairman said about the dear um teacher from Pimabute that passed away, Miss Palmer. She taught all four of my kids and she actually taught one of my kids during COVID, so I felt like she was teaching me, too. And um she she was all about mindset though. That's what I wanted to she's all about mindset. And she taught the kids. It's not I don't know how to do this. It's I don't know how to do this yet. And um she had other great mindset um sayings that she worked with with the kids. But it she really did influence the kids in just the best way. And she will definitely be missed um in MUSD. Um, Councilwoman Lurman also listed off almost every event that I was going to talk about. Uh, however, there is a the Maroba High School has a production of Mean Girls going on this weekend. It's a musical and you can uh see that show on Thursday, Friday or Saturday. And I highly suggest you go check it out. They do a great job with their uh theater group there. And Mean Girls is a fun it's a fun show. It's based off the movie. And then I was able to attend since our last meeting I was able to attend the small business expo that they held out at the uh Octin Multitainment Center and that's an annual event that they put on and it's a really great opportunity to see all of the small businesses here in Maricopa. Um they also have some a car show and a food truck battle and uh it's just a really great time for community and it was a great time. Um it's a long day but you see everybody and it was really uh great to be out there and that's all I have.

Thank you. Council member Nor. Uh, Council Member Marsh,

it's been uh two weeks since our last council meeting and it was a busy two weeks. Um, on the four on April 8th, Wednesday, I got to meet with the Maricopa Leadership Academy class and that's a sharp group. Do we have any of the class members here tonight? Hey, there's one. Okay. Um, on the 9th, uh, the Greater Maricopa Business Alliance Government Affairs Committee met. We're studying all the bills going through the legislature that impact our city's businesses and uh, we can uh, contact our legislators and help them vote the right way. That uh, Greater Maricopa Business Alliance is another sharp group. On the 14th, Panal County Water Augmentation Authority Board met. Uh the good news is their bonding bill passed through the legislature and got signed by the governor. So now they can issue bonds. It's a giant step forward for Piqua. Mitch Bashevski from Central Arizona Project reported that that the Colorado River snowpack this past year was the worst ever in recorded history. So there will be a shortages continuing and it will be it will likely impact the central Arizona project and Arizona agriculture. The farmers will have to either pump more groundwater or let fields go. Lake Powell is likely to go critical. Also in the bad news column, the city of Denver figured out that they have rights to Colorado River water. So they're going to be pipelining it back to Denver. So that takes more out of our supply, our future supply. Um on the 15th, the county supervisors

hosted a lunchon and appreciation ceremony um for all the county volunteers and I think we beat them on numbers. Um they had raffles and a bingo game. Um, and I want to thank District 1 Supervisor Rich Vitiello for appointing me to two county committees, uh, the Board of Adjustments and Appeals and the Water Augmentation Authority. And by the way, I I won the bingo game, brought the trophy home to Maricopa. Um, on the 20th, yesterday, I attended the senior advisory committee meeting where we reviewed the results of the senior needs and wants poll that staff executed in the past month. We also reviewed Brenda Campbell's um May calendar for the senior center. It'll be out later this week, I I think. And um you're going to be impressed. The calendar gets better every month. uh the the senior advisory committee was very impressed by Brenda's performance in her new role running the senior center. So Brenda, thank you. You rock. As has as has been reported coming this Thursday, there's a budget planning meeting in this room at 4 pm and it is open to the public and there are copy you can download copies of the budget. It's about eight pounds of paper um but uh you're welcome to study it and um yeah, there it is. Um and get involved in in our budget review. And coming up this Saturday, April 25th, 8:00 am to 11:00 am,

FO Maricopa is hosting the annual post tax day shredathon and food drive over by Duke's Roadhouse. That's Saturday 8 to 11:00 a.m. by the roadhouse. Bring your shreddables and bring a donation. See you there. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Marsh. Council member Wade.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. just have a couple of the items because everybody took everything else, you know, all the activities that are going to take place. You should be aware of them and we hope to see you at the locations. One of which is going to be the budget meeting on uh on four at 4:00 on the 23rd be held here in chamber and then um what u meet what what will happen then is we'll go over the budget and if there are any other items that need to be addressed they can be addressed at that time so that we can make a make them accord according to the changes. Uh the um there was a meeting I had a meeting last week with uh Senator Kelly. Uh it was a nonpartisan bipartisan meeting. So it was pretty interesting some of the things that he had to say and uh hopefully uh we'll be able to come through what he wants to do. There was a meeting of um also had a had a meeting with the um students at the leadership academy myself. Uh it was u as I said there's some pretty sharp people that are going through the academy this year and one of the things that was interesting is that both myself and Mayor Smith were there to attend that meeting and which is also good because myself and Mayor Smith went through the first leadership class that they had together and one of the one of the proposals was or suggestion was that people get involved in the community. You look at what's out here today certainly involved in the community and it means a lot. Uh, that's all that I have.

Thank you. Thank you very much, Council Member Wade. Vice Mayor Man Freddy. Oh, would you like to Okay.

Bob said shreddables. I thought he said edibles for a minute. I was like, "No, that's across the 347." Oh, come on. That was funny. Um, first thing I want to mention is coming up in a couple weeks, I guess, on the 2nd of May at Maricopa Elementary School is a social pow-wow coming to the Maricopa Elementary School. It's the first one to happen in the city of Maricopa in many years. If you want to learn a little bit about heritage and what happens here in the city of Maricopa, it's probably a great thing to attend. It's located right on Alterero Parkway. It's May 2nd um at I think it's 10 am. I wrote it down. Yeah, 10 am it starts. So, show up. See see what's happening. It's really cool. Um all right. So, just uh last week the mayor and I attended this really cool thing. I'm stealing all your stuff now. That's right. We're going to get to you and she's going to say ditto. Um, we attended this really cool event at Moonlight Ranch, uh, Moonlight Communities, um, community center and got to see what they're doing over there and I did not bring my wife and which I'm happy for because we bought our house very cheap and she'd probably want to move there. It is the greatest community area or center in the city of Maricopa. I used to think that of province, but sorry guys. Um, Moonlight has much more stuff going on, including all the pickle ball and all that stuff. So, it's pretty cool. After that, she invited me to come to the lunch and learn at the senior center. I paid $5 and had a sandwich. It was pretty good sandwich from Sprouts. If you are senior, and I don't know if it's in only seniors can go, but if you want to have a sandwich for $5 and listen to Rudy talk about really cool things happening in the city. It was a really cool event. You got to see what was happening, where waterburger is going. Um, and uh, Black Rifle Coffee, I think it is. What is it? I forgot.

Black Rock. Black Rock coffee. Black rifle is the one you can buy on your own. Right. So, he gave a really cool breakdown of how the process happens coming through it. So, co head over to the lunch and learn and learn a little bit about what's happening in the city. Um, I just read a story recently about the Moose Lodge having their bingo over by um um in Dukes. It was really fun and I've gone in the past. I didn't realize how cool it was until I realized that bingo's fun, but what they do for the community is much more funner, I guess, if that's a word. And they donated $2,000 to the the library reading program from one night of bingo. $2,000. And you win um if you get the bingo, you can win like $5 $800 playing bingo. It's crazy fun stuff. Anyway, back to more serious stuff. I um I attended this really cool program that I do every year. It's with DECA and it's a program within the high schools and right now it's really cool because instead of one high school it's two and DECA is a program which helps kids learn different things that they can do as um in their for work and stuff. So I love DECA. I was a DECA member when I was younger and when I was in high school and what I liked most about DECA is I left school at 1:00 and went to work. Um but these guys do a lot more. They travel all around the country and do programming and it's really cool stuff. They have an advisory committee and reach out to the high school and join it. Join the advisory committee. It basically you're teaching and helping um young young students, not young, they're they're high school students um throughout their high school career. You're teaching them cool important stuff that only comes from people that have done things sometimes. Most important, back on the 15th, I attended the MAG Transportation and Infrastructure Subcommittee meeting. This was a great meeting, and I'm going

to tell you why it was a great meeting. I've sat on this committee for I don't know 10 years, a long time. I've given a lot of stuff to other communities, give them their votes, and said, I yeah, they need this, they need this. I've been stockpiling my credit um to for 347, right? So in Prop 479, right, that was the half cent sales tax in Maricopa County, right? Every time you shop at a store in Maropa County, pay a half cent sales tax. Well, when Prop 400 was expiring and Prop 479, we made sure Christian Price was serving and I was his alternate at that time, long time ago. We made sure we inserted into it that we need $90 million for the 347. So when you hear the 347 is fully funded, that's one of the reasons it's fully funded because $90 million really $89 million something, right? Um $90 million in MAG funding for 2030 for lane expansion from Rigs Road all the way up in Maricopa County. Right. So we had a meeting on the 15th and within that meeting, we made sure it was in consent, but we talked about it. In that meeting, we took that $90 million from 2030 and we moved it forward to 2028. That's a good thing, people. That means that the work we're doing is funded on the 347 and it's funded sooner than later because later is not always a good thing, right? You want to get it sooner. Um, that's about it. I think DECA, I went over Deca, went over Mag. Yeah, that's it. Thank you so much for the time. Yeah, I just want to bounce off of that. It's a good thing. And just to help you understand, if it stayed out in 2030, that's what four more years that we have to wait for that portion of 347 to be done. So, bringing it in lines up with all the other phases that we currently have planned and it makes it

for a more streamline construction. So, that's really good. Thank you very much for doing that. So, in the last two weeks, we had Relay for Life. We talk about volunteers and this group of volunteers endlessly is putting this event on every year. It was a very nice program, a nice success helping to fight cancer. I also attended with um Council Member Wade, the Maricopa Citizen Leadership Academy. And let me tell you that is one phenomenal way to get involved. and the questions. I attended finance night, finance and public works and both of our staff speakers were phenomenal. Um, but I love it because people kind of dig into the budget and like why don't we have this and why don't we have that? But they understand what the budgeting limits are. They also understand how public works is. That's one night of what five or six. And so you learn about every one of the departments. A phenomenal way to get involved. in this group um did not let me down in terms of asking great questions. I also participated on a as a panelist in a women in transportation summit which was really cool. It was a room full of men and women who work in transportation and they had um a conversation on what's important about transportation. So obviously they wanted to know about 347. I gave them the whole rundown of 347. I took up all the time. No, not really. Um, but it was a great conversation. What I really liked is that there were panelists who were serving with me who brought up the city of Maricopa as the model to follow. And so when you are getting that kind of recognition from other panelists who are part of other parts of Arizona, just really a lot of fun. But the whole transportation and the women in transportation was pretty cool too. I, as you guys all know or

maybe don't know, um I graduated with an electronic degree in um engineering and basically I was the first woman to graduate. So I'm a big supporter of women in in basically career fields that you're not used to women being in. So this was a great event. Attended the Moonlight Amenities. I'll come at it from a different angle than vice mayor did. What I enjoyed hearing was when those that put these new amenities in on the developer side spoke about the city of Maricopa. They spoke in ways that just made me beam and made me proud of our city staff. They talked about, hey, I think the big joke of the day was they actually pick up their phone and answer when I call. And so that was really a lot of fun to hear them say, but the fact that it actually happens is really remarkable as well. They answered any question and all questions in regards to the permitting process, anything that they needed to know. So, I love to hear that. Two weeks ago, you heard me talk about the same type of comments from the new RV storage unit, and it's just phenomenal to hear that our staff is doing a really great job. I also attended the senior lunch and learn and one takeaway a slightly different from the vice mayor there is I love that Rudy explained the pre-application process and so to me that's so hugely important because you read something in media or you read something on social media about hey In-N-Out's coming that's not really happening but I'm using that as an example if it's a pre-application I want you to know and to walk away. And I love that these seniors walked away with this. If it's a pre-application, it's like a curiosity document. It says, "Hey, I'm this business and I'm curious what's it going to look like for me to come to the city of Maricopa." It's a

curiosity thing. And it's very common in all cities across the state, across the nation for businesses to say, "Nope, they're not yet ready for me." And so they make the decision after the pre-application process. So, if you read something and you're like, "Oo, they're coming to Maricopa." Ask, "Was that just a pre-application document or have they moved beyond and are ask actually submitting permits?" And so, that's really important. I love that our seniors walked away with that information. And then lastly, I attended the AOT State Transportation. A couple of the board members before the meeting started said, "Hey, we thought we weren't going to see you anymore now that 347 is in the five-year plan." I'm like, "What are you nuts? I'm going to make sure this thing stays on track." And so, of course, I had to talk about 347 at the state transportation board meeting. And that's it for me as well. That'll turn it over to the report from the city manager.

Thank you, Madame Mayor, members of the council. A few slides tonight and largely will pick up on a theme that a few of you hit on State Route 347. Um, if we can go to that first one there. Um really the key here is that progress is already happening. If you look out on this on the the project site near rigs, you can see some of the utility relocation work already occurring. Um we're really starting to get not just to the preparation stage, but really the actual work along with that is the city of Maricopa has made a pledge for $30 million to ADOT um and Panal County a $20 million contribution. And so our local contribution of $50 million per our intergovernmental agreement with ADOT that is due around the start of June. And so we had to work out a plan and say how are we going to get this this funding in place and went to bond and it was an absolutely tremendous success for our community. Ultimately, we're saving about $5 million um just by the way that we've hit the market and because the the bond market is so interested in our community and said, "You're well-run financially, uh you're continuing to grow. You've got a great strategy to to pay this off a little earlier than than we would normally see." And so all of those things added up to to a great uh offering where where we were oversubscribed and and really a successful event. And so you know as coincidentally uh we went to market about the same time as New York City, the city of New York and they got worse rates. So they were actually higher than us and had less people subscribing for their bonds. And so our our bonds were more attractive than the city of New York. I think that's a a great feather in our cap for our community. Uh along those lines again, u just a reminder that that project website got a little clipped there at the bottom, but a a.govsr347.

Uh great website to stay up to date in terms of what the the projects are moving there. So, next slide, please. Uh this morning, our new website launched as we talked about at our last city council meeting. So, uh, a lot is going on with that. And it's great as you scroll through on your mobile phone in particular, a lot more userfriendly. Um, really responsive and and a great website. But wanted to point out specifically at the top of the the website, and this was the same with the old version as well, but one thing that we we often deal with are questions of road work. And as we're getting into this time of year, we see even more. And so as as you'll see here in the coming weeks, we'll have some large projects that will affect our community in a few different ways. And I just wanted to highlight a couple of those. Uh northbound John Wayne Parkway by the South Cobblestone Light. So we've been working on a new driveway there and access to the Starbucks and Freddy's and Chipotle and all those areas over there. We're going to have a a lane restriction for a few days. So, one lane, that far right lane on the northbound will have a restriction so that we can get some curb blown out and and get the uh the roadway in place. And so, just from April 30th through May 3rd, uh just the night of May 2nd really, um that will be in place. And then shortly after that, a big project over kind of on the east side of the image here or the the right side of the image, Reese Drive in Rancho El Dorado. That intersection will actually be closed. There's been some failure underneath the intersection. So, we'll have to close close that and reroute people throughout the Rancho Elorado community so that we can get that um that intersection repaired and safe and and everything moving forward. So, that'll be from tentatively planned right now May 4th to May 22nd. Shortly after that, we'll be working on the light at Desert Greens and Smith, Inc. And there'll be some uh lane adjustments

there. While we're doing that, we're trying to get as much as we can done um as quickly as possible, obviously, and with as little inconvenient as possible, inconvenience as possible. But this is the nature of of a growing community and trying to improve our infrastructure. And so at times there will be those periods of inconvenience, but certainly expect that at the end of all of these projects, we'll have a better transportation system and be uh rocking and rolling. But just wanted to in particular point out that road work map. Uh if you have questions about why there are cones in various locations, we try to keep this as updated as possible as we get new permits or new requests. Sometimes it's the city and sometimes it's general contractors. And so we put those on this map and hopefully can give some insight into how long and where and and all those things and uh hopefully just a a tool for the community to use. So that's all I have.

Thank you, city manager. Appreciate that. That'll take us on to agenda item six is the call to the public this evening. I do have one speaker card and I would like to invite that individual up to share his words. Barry McCain, please approach the podium. Good evening, uh, Mayor Smith, city council, and friends. My name is Barry McCain, born and raised in Panal County. First, I wish to express how proud I am of the senior advisory committee, accomplishments, how talented and professional Maricopa staff is, drafted by the US Army from Channel High. But my father told me to enlist in the United States Navy as he didn't want to bury another son. My naval career began with the USS Kittyhawk was the only race ride on a naval vessel in US history. It ended at Top Gun with Tom Cruz filmed the the movie. I'm responsible for maintenance of 11 different types of aircraft, trained firefighter, a personal on the personal reliability program, aircraft cash crash investigator, and a specialist in aircraft navigation. During my career, I didn't die with the US Olympic boxing team in 1980. So, I did security for many, many people, including the Shaw of Iran vice president Dan Quill. My dad was special force commander with General Patton and ran the McCain family in Arizona. My mother was born in Louisiana and graduated from ASU. Both of my parents taught me to be honest and fair with others. In Louisiana at age five, my mother told me that she was black and said not to tell others because how

society treated my uncle, which I did until her passing in 2011. My college training is in electronic engineering, computer information technology, automotive performance technology since 2005. I have been an activist with the CME church as well as citizens for a better Arizona panel county delegate to the DNC in 2012, resigned as a secretary of panal county democrats because of constant harassment in 2014 on the ballot for Arizona House of Representatives in 2018. a registered lobbyist and a freedom li writer in 2020. Now an officer for their American Federation for State County Municipal Employees. Also in 2020, Florida Democrats found that they could get their unqualified candidates in office by harassing other Democrat candidates. Under Henry Wade, I resigned as a Democrat secretary amid such political bullying. And now, Supervisor Vitelli is using the same tactics of bullying. Mayor Smith, if you want to know my religion, then you ask me, not Council Wade, because Mr. Wade held many meetings, including excluding me, the secretary, on Saturdays, because I go to church on Saturdays, not Sundays. Council Wade should stop sending people such as Mr. Volei to ask me to stop disliking his dirty politics.

Thank you, Mr. McCain. Would Yes. Uh, Council Member Wade would like to address those comments. Madam Mayor, yes. Can we get through call to the public and then he he he can address at the end of call to the public? Absolutely. So, I have no additional speaker cards. Uh, would anyone from the audience like to approach the podium? Okay, seeing none, I will close the call to the public. Um, and Council Member Wade, please take some time.

Ladies and gentlemen, I'm not sure where this accusations comes from in terms of this individual. I have been talk about being harassed. I have been harassed for the last nine years by this person. For what reason? I am not able to understand. Yes, at one time I was the chair of the Democratic Party for Renal County. Yes, this gentleman was my secretary at the time and I had many other officers. I'm not sure when this harassment got its genesis, but I understand that even in the county chambers, the accusations come forward from the individual that are not accurate, not founded. I have never seen anything in writing. I've never received anything to suggest that I've done anything to to this individual at all. And if harassment is what's being considered, I'm the one that's being harassed because I don't even address the individual. I don't make any contact with them. I've made no attempt to send anybody to tell anybody to tell anything about anybody else. I keep it all. If if it's the case, I keep it to myself. I don't have time for nonsense quite honestly and that's nonsense. Now if there is something that you can produce to suggest or I can give valid validity or credibility to the things you stated in public about me. I've done nothing but support the city of Maricopa in my capacity and the other other activities that I was engaged in with panel county. So, if there's anything that you have, any documentation that you can produce that says that shows anything that you said is true and accurate, I'll be more than happy to address it. Be more than

happy to meet you at any time to address it. More more than happy to talk to any other persons that you suggest may have been engaging because there are many people out there, Mr. came who know and heard your story before and they know where that story and they don't know where that story comes from but they have heard your story before and never have I received anything from anyone on your behalf or for you to suggest that any of the accusations that you felt were credible you presented here today. I've never addressed you before. It's the first time in eight years. And I think that to to choose this time and place to make those accusations is in is in irresponsible and hurtful is hurtful because as I said, I've taken the time to do what I think is right for the city of Maricopa. And to have someone come along with a false accusation is uh beyond reproach. Thank you, Madam Mayor. appreciate your opportunity.

Thank you, Council Member Wade. So, that is the end of that agenda item, call to the public. That'll take us to item seven, consent agenda. Council, tonight we have item 7.1 through 7.4. I am going to ask and whoever makes the motion that we um table 7.3 as they would like to come back at a different um meeting. So, any questions? I have zero comment cards. Any questions on item 71, two, or four, council? Seeing none, do I have a motion?

So moved and seconded. Any additional questions, comments that you want to make? Hearing none, please vote. Does that motion need to actually say tableabling 7.3 approve? We had it so moved and yeah I think it was the motion was to approve consent agenda with table oh I did say 712 and four. Okay perfect somebody we are missing one vote

all right there we go that motion passes unanimously. That'll take us on to our regular agenda. First item is 8.1. It is a presentation from the Arizona's Game and Fish Wildlife Manager. This is a first for the city of Maricopa that we've ever had this department from Arizona come and present to us. And this gentleman's name is Travis and he brought his manager. And I forgot your first name, ma'am. Danielle. Thank you very much. Please.

Thank you. Uh good evening, mayor. Uh council members, thank you so much for having us. Um Officer Clarkson kindly asked for me to kick off his presentation and close it out this evening. So um we wanted to thank you for the opportunity to be here and begin what we hope um is a strong and productive relationship with your community at the Arizona Game and Fish Department. Oh, can I um go forward on this or does this do anything? How do I advance my body's coming? Ma'am, you just push the little green button. That one right there. Yes.

Okay, there we go. Oh, is this better? Okay, thank you. Okay, so here at the Arizona Game and Fish Department, our mission is to conserve Arizona's diverse wildlife and habitats while providing sustainable outdoor recreation opportunities for the public. To do that, we function in a few different ways. Uh, we are a science-based agency, meaning our decisions are driven by research data, and long-term sustainability. Our biologists are constantly monitoring wildlife populations, habitat conditions, and environmental trends to ensure Arizona's natural resources remain healthy. We're al also a public service agency. We manage hunting and fishing opportunities, support wildlife viewing and outdoor recreation, and work to ensure that the public can safely and responsibly enjoy Arizona's outdoors. Uh we are also a law enforcement agency. Uh this wildlife manager that's joining me today represents a critical part of our mission. Protecting our wildlife resources, ensuring public safety, and serving as a direct connection between the department and the communities that we serve. But no matter how we function internally, one thing remains constant, and that's that we cannot be successful without strong local partnerships. Today, Officer Clarkson is going to be sharing some of the wildlife stewardship initiatives um that he has built in his district to advance our mission while developing strong local partnerships.

Good evening, city council, mayor, vice mayor. My name is Travis and I'm honored to be here. I've lived in Maricopa for a while. Um, I I moved out to Chandler, but uh I spent a lot of time here. Um, my family loved all the just there's always something going on in this city. uh where we spent a lot of time at the library, but um over the years um what I what I've really appreciated is all the foresight that um was put into these park and recreational centers and the lakes. The lakes is a big deal for me. Um, and we'll we'll go into one of the projects that we worked on for Hila Ben, but um, you guys had the foresight to to build these lakes uh, when when you were building this city. And I I think that's a big a huge it's huge. So, um, I wanted to thank you guys. I when when I did a presentation to my commissioners, I I talked about how this town loves law and order. They love their police department. And I I told my commissioners, look, I don't open doors in this town, you know, and and that's kind of a bold statement, but it's true. Everywhere I go, people open doors for me. And and that's that's very that's just so Maricopa, you know, and and I appreciate that. So, thank you for having me. But I'll get into the initiatives, the projects that we've been working on. So, I'll advance this. So my district is almost two million acres. And if you take a look at that um slide, uh the northern extent is basically the southernmost point of uh the city of Buckeye and it goes almost all the way

down to the border. And so I have um and to the to the uh eastern extent is this city uh Maricopa and to the furthest out is uh to the west is uh past uh Painted Rock Road. I don't know if you guys know where that's at, but um it's two million acres. Um there's three towns um city of Maricopa, Hila Ben, and Aaho that I serve. I've been serving this uh district since 2019, so almost eight years now. And so, um my priorities are the the water catchments for wildlife. I have 93 wildlife waters. I have the largest district with the most water catchments out of any game warden in the state of Arizona. So, it's a huge responsibility. And so, I'm I'm making sure that our wildlife has water all year round. And so, um my other priority too is to create hunting and fishing opportunities for our communities. So in 2020, our landowner relations program, which is another program within our department, uh that program, the LRP program, and myself, we started doing site visits. We started doing uh these town meetings and we we spoke to um ranchers, we we talked to farmers and we discussed their concerns. we've talked about, you know, the issues that they had. And we we had this really great um these meetings, these uh these site visits. And so we we talked a lot about how can we um you know, what kind of projects can we work on that will benefit your cattle, your farm, um and our

wildlife. And and so that's that's how everything kind of snowballed effect. And it it was just an awesome time. And I'm going to move on to the next slide. Now, this here is just a sample of some of the work that we did. This is northwest of Hila Ben. And so the red lines represent the aotments. You have the Gable Ming aotment. You have the Dendora aotment and the Lazy Tea aotment. But on the on those three aotments, we had so many different projects going on with these um ranchers. We had wells, we had dirt tanks, we had a dub plot, and all the wildlife waters that we worked on. And so this is just a sample. There's a lot of other work that we're working on around u my district. But I just wanted to share that with you guys. And so in 2020, we developed we worked with Tyson store and developed an access agreement on the Poca Diero Ranch and we established a sorghum dove plot habitat and it's been very successful. Uh we we put a uh signin box for all the hunters and you can see that uh at the far right corner. We had hunters come in and sign in every time they utilize his fields and uh it it's just so successful. He allows uh quail hunters, dove hunters, um deer hunters, havalina hunters on his property and so we've been working with him and it it's just been amazing. Um the cooperators are Tyson himself, Tyson Stewart, um our LRP program and BLM and myself. We also redeveloped six abandoned wells with wildlife drinkers.

We converted 11 wells to solar with wildlife drinkers and repaired three BLM wells. Now, this is huge. Um, these wells were abandoned back in 1952. So, that's about 71 years or so. they it's a resource that was under our nose the whole time, you know, and so tapping into those wells was huge for wildlife, for for these uh cattle owners. And so we converted um once we got those up and running, fresh coal water pumping at two gallons per minute was amazing. It was cool, you know, it's a cool thing. Um the animals just started coming in. Um the conversions from solar to um from uh the oldfashioned windmill was a big thing too. It they've been amazing. And so with with those with those projects, we had uh the LRP program, the land owners, BLM, Arizona Deer Association, Hila Ben Buckeye Sportsman's Clubs, and private citizens and volunteers. I'm a big believer in volunteers, so I was very um impressed with all the the volunteers that I saw up here earlier. We also improved three dirt tanks uh on the landscape. And um prior to doing these improvements, prior to cleaning them out and lining them with bentonite, these these catchments weren't effective. They weren't catching water, but now they are. They hold tons of water for wildlife and they'll hold them from winter clear into, you know, summertime. And so they're they're um you know they're they're a great addition to our landscape.

We also um redeveloped five wildlife waters in my district. And so if you take a look at the picture on the far right hand, that's a old-fashioned um wildlife guzzler. You guys have probably seen those out in the desert. Those only hold 2500 gallons. And so that means I would myself plus our staff would be hauling water to those throughout these drought times. And so we redeveloped them with these uh newer improved uh higher capacity uh systems. They now hold 14,000 gallons. And so uh that that usually carries us throughout the year. Um so wildlife or you know they they no longer we no longer depend so much on those smaller um catchments. We also uh installed Ranchbot um water monitoring systems at each of these u 93 water catchments. And so I could check my any of these water catchments in real time from home or while I'm on the road with my phone and I'll know exactly how much water I have in each of these um systems. And that's way better than me driving out to each and every one of those, you know. And so that's that's Amazing technology has been, you know, very helpful. Along the way, we developed great relationships with um clubs like the Aaho Sportsman's Club, the Hila Bin, and Buckeye Sportsman's Club. Now, these guys are they can do it all. Um I have welders, fabricators, framers, uh carpenters, you name it. you know, if I need something done, these guys will get it done for me. They help out with our helicopter water halls. They help us with the the redevelopments. Um,

yeah. And and so when I first started talking with them, they said, "What do you need from us?" I said, "Look, I'm I'm trying to keep up with wildlife here. They're drinking me dry. They're drinking these waters. I I need to haul water to keep up with them." And so they said, "Well, you know, we'll start helping you." And so they've been hauling water since I since they asked me um on a so typically uh regular year they'll haul over 85,000 gallons of water for me out in the desert. And that's they're using their own personal vehicles. Uh when they get blowouts with tires, they pay for themselves. They pay for their own gas. So they go above and beyond, you know, and it really helps me out. Now what that means too is I can go patrol. um I can do what I'm supposed to be doing as a game board and then patrol instead of just hauling water, you know, so that helps me out and and I can go look for poachers. I can go look for, you know, do things that I should be doing. And so it it's a tremendous help. Uh in 2023, the Hila Ben um or um the AO sportsman's club received the outstanding club of the year award. We also partnered with Arizona Deer Association, Arizona Analopee Foundation, and the Arizona Big Horn Sheep Society, and they donated three trailers, um, three water trailers. Now, these are vital vi vital tools, critical to the operation. The one on the far right is the one that I I uh use all the time. So, if you you see this trailer, that's me out out here out in Hila Bend. That's going to be me. That's the one I haul water with. The other two uh were donated to the Aaho Sportsman's Club. They're they're always hauling for me as well. Now, this here is is something that's

very special, I think, to the town of Hila Ben and to to our department, the partners. We partner with the town of Hila Ben and Arizona Deer Association. The the backstory of Bender's Pond is it was originally constructed in 2005. It was too small and too shallow. It was only 1/8 of an acre. So Copper Sky is 5 acres. So that puts in perspective how this was a puddle, you know, it's 1/8 of an acre. It it was unacceptable, you know, and and they were trying to do fishing derbies at a a little pond, and I I just I I was like, "No, this is not this is unacceptable." And so, if you take a look at that footprint there on top, that's the original pond. And the red the red is now the new pond where where it currently sits. So limited stocking opportunity. There was no fishing events, no angling opportunity throughout the year. And so you can see the pictures with the uh the city council and the vice mayor and mayor of Hila Ben. So there was such a a need for this pond that a lot of people uh came together, a lot of organizations, groups started donating um for this pond and before we knew it um we had enough funding to to to pay for uh the bent knight uh the the fish habitat. A lot of this was donated too. So we we had our first inaugural meeting in May of 2023 and in June of 2023 was when we started construction

and now it sits over 1 acre and it's 23 feet deep. We used uh 250,000 pounds of sodium bentonite which is basically clay. Uh fish habitat was donated 5.2 2 million gallons of water there, an irration system installed, and 41 new trees were donated by Moon Valley Nursery. And so this was a a group effort. Uh we had um we had everybody from Hila Ben bringing in tractors. We had all kinds of people coming in that the the city council was there. It was it was just a big it was a success story. We had our grand opening in October uh on October 28th, 2023. Over over 250 people showed up. Free one-year licenses for for all kids were given out. Our um the entire town came out, which was which was very nice. Um Arizona Game of Fish, Madame Chair Marsha Petri Sue was there. Our employees, Western Clay and Arizona Deer Association were also in attendance. It this this event was was very special to to the town. Um similar to to this town, there's no vandalism there. People are always calling me when they see somebody taking too much fish or they're breaking the rules. So, they're very protective of their pond, just the same way uh the folks here are for Pakana Pond and Copper Sky. And when um I I first started talking to uh Council Member Leman, I I told her, "Look, you know, I I think you guys are headed head and

shoulders above a lot of other towns, you know, as far as um the facilities you guys have, the ponds you guys have, all the programs you guys have. Every time I I stop by one of these ponds, I hear kids playing. There's programs for for for little ones all the way up to adults. There's just always something going on. The bathrooms are clean. There's always cops there. I I I met um uh the parks. I I believe he's uh council or um sorry copper sky manager uh Mike uh Blasy when I don't know if he's still there but I I've met him and I work with the park rangers quite often as well too. So um but tonight was great. I I I met uh the mayor, you know, and I' I've met the chief um the chief uh of police here for for the town. And I also learned that it's uh uh Smith Inc. Road, not Ani. Uh and so but um it it's been an honor. Uh thank you for having me. And I'll turn this over.

Thank you. And so Travis has talked about some other nearby communities that he's worked with. So what does this have to do with Maricopa? You know, we know that a growing community like Maricopa, um, there's increasing opportunities and challenges when it comes to wildlife and to natural resources, whether that's a human wildlife re related interaction, um, oh, thank you. Um, or, um, open space planning, water use, um, outdoor recreation. Um, these are all areas where our responsibilities and your community priorities may um, intersect. So, we are looking forward to learning more about your guys' needs and prioritize or excuse me, priority priorities and exploring where collaboration could be valuable between us. And that partnership could take many forms whether it's technical expertise um coordination on local issues, public outreach, or just having that reliable line of communication because we know the work that we do um whether as a state agency or as a city is about serving people and protecting the quality of life that makes places like Maricopa so special. So, thank you so much for having us. We appreciate it.

Thank you very much. That was a great presentation. Like I said, it was the first of its kind in 22 years here at Maricopa. So, we appreciate you being here. Council, any questions, comments that you would like to make? Yes. Yes. We'll go here first. Council member Wade, I just had a quick question. Uh, do you support and service the Goldwater Range? The Goldwater Range? Yes. Yes. I I work on the Barry Goldwater Ranch and I work with the biologists there as well. Good. I imagine it's uh it's a thrill to see those jets coming through there sometimes.

Yeah. Yeah. I you know they they have their uh hot range days and so I you know we we're not allowed out there but um majority of the time it's it's nice and peaceful and I used to be the chief of operations and scheduling when I was in the Air Force for the range. Oh, okay. That's why I know about it. That's great. Thank you. I appreciate that. And yeah, and and we do um you know, we work closely with those biologists and uh they do a great job and you know that's I I would have to say that that's one of the more uh pristine habitats that I have in my district just because of how untouched it is, you know, even though it's a milit military establishment. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you,

Council Member Lurman. Travis, thank you for your presentation and I admire your ability to build relationships and develop all those um collaborations that you have and partners that you have to accomplish those projects. Um I would like for you to comment on dove hunting here in Maricopa. When I worked at the high school, the high school boys were either talking about being excited about going dove hunting or talking about how they just went dove hunting. And could you also comment on fisher fishing here in Maricopa and how our fisher people do here? So, so dove hunting is very popular here. Um, you know, it's it's um, so when I first first came on board, um, I wrote a lot of tickets. You know, there was a lot of, um, I think just either miscommunication or they just didn't understand. And um and so what quickly happened was uh the following year all the same folks they got to know me and I was known as the big native guy with no hair, you know, everybody knew me and um and so even the guys that I cited eventually started becoming my friends, you know, and I got to know everybody out there. But it's it's it's a really tight community. A lot of good people out here. And one of the reasons why I do site and I do uh use my it, you know, it's either going to be a verbal uh warning, a written warning or a citation. The reason why I I enforce these rules is so that we can continue to have hunting within or on the outskirts of the city limits. And and people do understand that, you know, because if if people just there was no rules. I mean, if people were just running doing whatever they want, it wouldn't it we'd get a lot of calls. And so, uh sometimes we do get uh quarter mile violations, people hunting too

close to people's homes. And so, you know, I'll come out and just a lot of times nowadays it's more um I do a teachable moment type thing with people. It's not so much, you know, writing tickets, but, you know, um I' I've gotten to know the community really well and uh everybody's everybody's really doing a good job when it comes. It's very popular. Um I think you know uh in one morning I've I've checked over uh 200 hunters and that's in within a you know six hour period and that's that's a lot of hunters I check and so some of the flyways kind of changed when uh some of the some of the grain places started shutting down and you know things got moved around and I noticed that the the flyways shifted a little it, but hunters are still managing and I'm I'm uh part of my job too is to help distribute the hunters and kind of, you know, so they're not all congregating in one area. I'll try to put them in different locations so that they can be successful, but not, you know, in a dangerous way. But, uh, yeah, it's it's a very, uh, popular um, pastime. Uh, fishing now. Fishing is uh, it's it's great, too. I I think that um Pakana pawn um they have their own fan base. the same with uh Copper Sky. And um one of the IT guys was showing me earlier, he goes, "Check out this trout that was caught at um Pakana Pond." And I said, "Look, a lot of people don't understand um some of our fish hatchery broodstock, which are the biggest fish that we have at our at our hatcheries are put into these ponds. And so a lot of the pansiz

fish, the smaller ones are are um are taken out to the uh the high country lakes, you know, the high country streams. But um our our people here get so um it's funny because um they're like I said, "How's the fishing?" They're like, "Oh man, it's it's okay. I I got a small trout. It's 19 and 12 inches." I'm like, "Oh my gosh, that's huge." They're like, "No, one's not." I usually catch like 21 22. I'm like, "Oh my gosh." So, they're spoiled, you know, but it it's it's Yeah, you guys have uh really great um and and we have we do have that partnership with um with the city of Maricopa. And so, um uh fish is stocked uh 10 times a year. um whether it be trout or catfish um bluegill or um sunfish um also um catfish, you know, and so yeah, it's it's great.

Thank you. Thank you. Yes, council member Kettle.

Thank you, Madame Mayor. Officer Clarkson, thank you very much for your report here today. I'm um I'm a I'm a third generation hunter. My grandfather taught me how to hunt deer in in Northland Kaab area up there in northern Arizona. And we've chased mu deer all over the deserts. Um my dad's taught me a little bit how to hunt analopee and and havalina. We've chased dove and quail out here in in the southern both the northern and southern Maricopa mountains. Um and I've taught my sons and my daughters also how to hunt. And uh I don't want to get emotional here today, but I just thank you um for your department's efforts because what you do it goes often unseen. Um most people don't even recognize that there is such a department and your whole goal is to increase the ability and the availability of game in in our areas. and uh without your management, without your your stewardship of taking care of those that wildlife, a lot of those memories I grew up with and a lot of the memories that I've helped create with my children wouldn't have been possible. So, uh I do appreciate Excuse me. Gosh, I do appreciate all that you do and I am so excited, too, about the future partnership that the city of Maricopa can have. If there's anything that we could do to continue to support your department and those projects that are here and around our our city boundaries, we'd be very interested. that I would be very interested in looking at those and and getting some volunteers or or whatever we need to do to help increase and make your job a little bit easier. You have a huge area to cover. I was a shocked to hear how many acres that was. Um but thank you very much again for your presentation, but most importantly, thank you for your efforts in that department.

Thank you.

Yes. So, similar to Council Member Ghetto, I grew up not hunting but fishing. It's another way my nerdy side comes out. Um, and so ever since I've moved to Arizona, I've always had a fishing license. Somewhere along the line, I started getting Arizona Game and Fish newsletters. And so now I become kind of the in my family the quasi, hey, did you know what Game and Fish is doing over here? Do you know what they're doing over here? And they're like, mother, how do you know these things? And I'm like, well, because I get the newsletter somehow someway. and they're like, you know, you can unsubscribe. And I'm like, no, why would I want to do that? So, there is a newsletter out there if you're interested. And you're you do all kinds of things. People would be shocked how much your department does. But I too want to thank you for the job well done and for all that you're doing for the city of Maricopa. Appreciate that. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Um, and I'll I'll put this out there for all of you. I I appreciate all the words that you guys um shared with me. Um, you know, it means a lot to me. Um, I want to thank my supervisor for coming out because she knew how important this was for me, too, you know. Uh, I I I'm glad that we met on good terms and not to to resolve an issue or something like that, you know. Um, and and so, thank you for this time. Um, you know, I I'm gonna invite any of you folks uh, you know, to my truck at any time if you guys want to do a ride along with me. Um, anytime you want and and, um, um, Council uh, member Lierman has my my contact information and you guys are more than welcome to come with me and I'll show you around. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you both. Appreciate it. All right, that'll take us to agenda item 8.2. This is for an appointment to planning and zoning. And this is a position that um I will appoint be as the person that I had originally appointed to PNZ. Um is had to resign because they are running for city council. Um I wanted to take this opportunity to educate the public just a little bit on this topic. Um, as you guys may or may not be aware, so PNZ, I've had some questions about how are PNZ commissioners just chosen. And the answer is each one of us get to choose a PNZ commissioner and we get to interview people and um pick someone who we think is going to do a really really good job. But we only appoint that one person, each one of us. And then when we select that person, each one of us has an opportunity and we will here tonight to ask a question of myself or as I'm the one appointing this position or a question of the person that we have chosen and so any dialogue that happens there and then we will all vote. So it is a decision a full decision by all of council. It is not something that the mayor chooses all seven and um appoints all seven without any input from city council. Very important. So in this particular case, oh and one last thing, they serve for the term of that council member unless they need to resign for a specific reason. Um and they can continue if that council member is also reelected. So, I had the joy of having six applicants and when I sent out or actually my assistant sent out an email

inviting them to participate in an interview with myself, I also invited Rit from our planning uh development services department because I wanted his perspective too because planning and zoning commission is so critical in terms of really picking the right person. That was pure joy to me having Rick join. So, out of these six residents, four applicants responded to the request for an interview, which was wonderful. And they were four really fantastic applicants. I had a hard time deciding which one would do the best job. Um, but I did end up making a decision and I believe he is here tonight, so I chose Robert Row. Robert, will you please stand up? So, Robert and council, I'd like to give you a little bit of background information. His passion is to see our community reach its full potential. So, I love that because he was talking and coming at it from a big picture perspective. Um, he's very educated with real experience in real estate with customer service and system design. a lot of different um experience levels that help him make good choices in other areas of his life and so I believe that he will do a great job on planning and zoning commission and that is why I've selected him. Do you have any questions, comments? All right, given that may I have a motion or I will actually make the motion to appoint Robert row I sorry I almost did it again. Uh, Robert Row to the Planning and Zoning Commission. Seconded by Vice Mayor. An opportunity for additional questions. All right, please vote.

All right, I have six. Who am I missing?

Oh, there it goes. So, Robert, congratulations. A unanimous vote and congratulations for being our next um commissioner on the planning and zoning commission. He will be sworn in at a later date. All right. Agenda item 83 is another appointment. And again, it is my appointment for the same reason. I must pick really good people because when I pick someone to serve on a committee, then they go off and decide they want to run for city council. So this happened as well for the parks and recreation advocacy committee and for this committee there were two applicants and both re uh responded to a request for me to interview them. Again a hugely difficult decision because both of these people were um already serving in many different ways in the city um and you could tell that they really cared about our community. I've ended up choosing Jason Royal. So Jason, if you would please stand. And Jason has a lot of experience in marketing and branding. And he what I love is that he spoke specifically about the big picture view from a parks and recreation perspective. And so it wasn't someone who was coming at it from one perspective. He loves it from all different perspectives um and ensuring a balance of offerings in our city. So when I heard those words, I I knew that this was a good person to help in our um parks and recreation advocacy committee. So I would like to make that

recommendation. Council, do you have any comments or questions? All right. I would like to make the motion that we approve Jason Royal for the parks and recreation advocacy committee. Second. I'd like to second. Okay. I have a first I mean a second. And so please any additional conversation questions please vote.

I think we're all having a problem. Yeah. So all in favor say I. I. Any opposed?

Very good. That passes unanimously. Jason, thank you very much. All right. Excellent. That takes us on to agenda item 8.4, which is an amendment to public places and focuses primarily on pedestrians, ebikes, and um when you like decide when you decide you want to hang out in the middle of the road, that's in there, too. So, Chief Goodman, please. Thank you. Good evening, mayor and council. It's my pleasure to be here tonight to provide an update on the proposed city uh code amendments related to sidewalk use and pedestrian safety, specifically as it relates to bicycles, ebikes, scooters, and similar mobility devices. The items pertaining to the proposed code changes have been separated into two different agenda items. item ORD 26-08 and item ORD 26-09. This shall serve as the presentation for both of those agenda items. The purpose of these proposed amendments is to enhance public safety, address the increasing use of mobility devices in our community, and provide clear operational expectations. Equally important, this gives us a framework that supports consistent and practical enforcement moving forward. As you've probably seen over the past several years, there has been a noticeable increase in the use of bikes, electric scooters, and other mobility devices throughout our city. At the same time, we've seen an increase in vehicular conflicts and concerns from the community regarding both pedestrian and roadway safety. The current code does not fully reflect these evolving

conditions, which is why a modernized approach is necessary. At the March 3rd, 2026 meeting, staff presented the initial proposed amendments and engaged in discussion with council. At that time, council requested that we include a requirement for juveniles to wear helmets while operating these devices. That provision has since been incorporated into the ordinance and reviewed by the city attorney. Following the March 3rd meeting, we conducted some public outreach to gather feedback from the community. A dedicated email account was established and they all came to me. We established I'm sorry we received 56 public comments uh via that email account. An almost equal number of comments were gathered by council member noir and were also forwarded to me. While this was not a formal survey, the feedback was reviewed qualitatively and community members were able to share their experiences and opinions. This information was used to inform the staff report and the recommendations before you this evening. So what were the results? Overall, the feedback reflected a range of perspectives, but there were clear trends. Approximately 65% of respondents were supportive or conditionally supportive of allowing mobility devices on sidewalks, while about 35% expressed concerns. Support was generally tied to safety concerns associated with riding in the roadway, particularly on higher speed corridors. Regarding the use of mobility devices on sidewalks, there were concerns about pedestrian safety and how sidewalks are shared. Rightway issues were important to community members, and it should be noted that the proposed city code changes give the primary right away to pedestrians. For those who supported sidewalk use,

the driving factor was safety. There is a strong perception that high-speed roadways are not safe environments for cyclists or scooter users. We also heard concerns about a perceived lack of dedicated bicycle infrastructure and a desire for safer alternatives, especially for juveniles. The concerns we heard were quite consistent. They centered on pedestrian safety, particularly the the potential for conflicts between pedestrians and device riders. Speed and unpredictability were common themes along with the expectation that sidewalks remain pedestrian priority spaces. There was also a clear desire for rules that are easy to understand and enforce. With respect to the juvenile helmet requirement, there was general support for the safety benefit. However, some concerns were raised regarding enforcement practicality and whether this should be addressed through parental responsibility. We also heard consistently that education and outreach will be important to the success of this provision. Thus, our upcoming bicycle rodeo on Friday. Shameless plug for our event. Please be there Friday between 5 and 7. The approach reflected in the ordinance is what we would describe as behavior-based. Rather than focusing strictly on where devices can be used, we're focusing on how they are operated. This includes requirements for safe speeds based on conditions, which is essentially the same as how we gauge speeds for vehicles on roadways. We also want to make sure that uh we're yielding pedest to pedestrians at all times and ensuring predictable interactions. Sidewalk use is allowed but is conditioned on those safety expectations

with pedestrians always having the right of way. It's also important to note that in some areas of the city, infrastructure already exists to support this approach. The city's design standards manual requires wider sidewalks, typically 10 feet, along principal arterial roadways. Examples include portions of Porter Road, Sonor and Desert Parkway, and Hartman Road. These types of facilities are already functioning as shared use spaces. The photo on this slide depicts the west side of Porter Road between Smith and Honeyut Road. You'll notice there's a sign, although it's not very visible in the slide. You'll notice there's a sign on the right hand side of the sidewalk. And actually that sign depicts one ways one side of the sidewalk is designated for pedestrians and the other is already designated for bicyclists. And we can also assume uh scooters and other mobility devices fall into that category. The benefit of this approach is that it improves safety across multiple fronts. It reduces exposure to high-speed traffic, establishes clear expectations, and provides enforceable standards. Over time, this leads to better compliance and more predictable behavior from all users. With that, mayor and council, I'm happy to answer any questions.

Thank you, Chief Goodman. Council, what questions do you have? Yes, Council Member Ghetto. Thank you very much, Mayor. Thank you, chief, for your hard work in this and and the thoughtfulness that you've gone about this in in soliciting feedback and input. Um, would you mind going back maybe four slides? I'd like to ask just a couple of questions when it comes to the speed. Uh, that one there. Uh, one more. There we go. So, on your second bullet point there, requires safe speed and yielding to pedestrian safe speeds based on prevailing conditions. and you made the comment here tonight about that's basically the same principle of how we judge traffic on our roadways. Um, and even though the speed limit might be posted 45, if the conditions warrant it on a nice good sunny day, you're good to go. But road conditions can drastically change that speed limit. With concerning our our pedestrian pathways, there's not an established speed limit per se on those. And the previous uh presentation conversation we had here in city council was talking about the the size of the motor and the ability for that escooter or ebike to to travel at certain speeds. Um I I couldn't find any of that in the proposed language for the ordinance. Um I'd just like to hear a little bit about why maybe that wasn't included and how are your officers really going to be able to judge what a safe speed is. Some of these motorbikes, just to give you an example, and I I know you know this, they they can travel faster than what the posted speed limit is on the roadway. Often it might be 35 on the roadway and they're going 40 on the sidewalk. And so we need to maybe be cautious here. So if you can address some of those concerns, I'd appreciate that.

Sure. If you'd allow, I'd just like to give some context.

Before I get to uh the answer. So I did some research on ebicycles. So let's start. what it takes to be classified as an actual ebicycle. So to be classified as an ebicycle in the United States, because the Canadian standards are a little bit different, but here in the United States, it must have pedals, it must be limit, it must be limited to a 750 watt motor or below, and it must be limited to a maximum speed of 28 miles per hour. So, if an ebike doesn't meet those three requirements, if it doesn't check all three of those boxes, it is not an ebike. It actually may be a moped or it may be an electric motorcycle, which would be inappropriate for sidewalk use to begin with because it would likely require some type of lensure by the rider. So, just to get those just to get those those things out there for a context. Now, within the ebike family, there are three classes. There's a class one ebicycle, which has only pedals, no throttle. So, if you're able to pedal that thing up to 20 miles per hour, um, you know, good for you. But there's no throttle to assist you whatsoever, you just do it with the pedal power. a class two ebicycle. And by the way, uh a class one ebicycle is limited to a 20 mile per hour max. So assuming you're able to pedal your feet uh fast enough to reach 20 miles per hour, the motor will kick off at 20 miles hour. So you'll just be under your own power. A class two ebic pedals with a throttle. So, you get

going with the pedals, you're able to engage the throttle. Again, 20 mph max. So, they're governed at 20 miles per hour. Uh again, if you're able to pedal it more than 20 miles per hour, feel free, but the in the uh motor is going to kick off. A class 3 ebike is pedal assist, of course, and it may or may not have a throttle. And the difference between a class three and the class one and two is a class three can is limited 28 miles per hour. So there we go. Well, class one, class two, class three. So depends on um depends on the speed essentially and the mode of transportation in reference to the throttle for your consideration. Uh and I'll get to the answer to your question now. Council member Gtle is restricting class 3 ebikes that have the potential capability of going 28 miles per hour from sidewalks. In other words, prohibiting them from being on sidewalks and forcing them to be in the street or the bike lane has some tradeoffs. Yes. Uh it will potentially avoid those conflicts between pedestrians and maybe slower moving uh ebikes or scooters or other mobility devices. However, um it may have pushed those devices into the street and a lot of the concerns that we heard were about bicycles being in the street and not really being protected via the curb and the and the parkway and the sidewalk from vehicles. Um additionally, uh so that would may it may push them into a more dangerous environment. It's just for our consideration and our discussion here this evening. Um, I would argue that potentially

regulating behavior may be our best tool as it's built into the code already um in managing shared environments and safety. Um, this would mean that we're going to enforce a reasonable and standard, a reasonable and prudent standard when it comes to these kinds of things. So, as an example, even a class one ebike, if you're physically fit enough, you could theoretically pedal it at a speed equal to or greater than a class three. Does that mean that we should push class one ebikes that are ridden by very fit individuals into the into the street based solely on speed? Having a speed uh regulation would be a bit challenging uh for our officers in so much as they would have to, you know, we're pretty good at estimating speed, but if you're going to write a citation, you want to have more than just I think you might be going fast. Might have to do a LAR reading. I personally never uh shot a LAR at a bicyclist. Um some of my peers have and um you know at my old city we had this rather large bicycle pelaton that would ride very fast and those guys would get up to 40 45 miles per hour but those guys are professional bicycle riders like tour to France people. We don't have that here. Um, so there are some tradeoffs, you know, when we start talking about speed and enforcement and potentially pushing those those class three bicycles onto the roadway. Um, to me, it's the the uh the the reasonable and prudent speed is a really good way of judging. It's the same thing we do for cars. And it's kind of like that old if a tree falls in the forest, but no one is around to hear it, does it make any noise? If a class three

bicycle is on the is on the sidewalk and there's no pedestrians, does it truly matter? Um, it's behavior based. You know, we want people to be operating in a safe manner and my expectation is that folks who are riding bicycles when they encounter pedestrians, we'll make eye contact, will they will mutually separate. I spoke at length to a member of our community who bicycles uh over 2500 miles uh per year in Maricopa. That's uh impressive to say the least. And he related to me that most of the time when he encounters a pedestrian, they kind of have this unspoken agreement that they both kind of go to the right. It's kind of a natural natural thing to have happen. So, uh with that, I'm happy to uh answer any additional questions. Hopefully, I answered your question. Absolutely.

Kind of the long way around, but I thought it would be important to provide some context. Yeah, super helpful. That context is very helpful. Um the classification of ebikes and and the ability for them to be governed with their speed was very helpful. So, um I'm very comfortable with what's been presented here tonight and I look forward to to voting for this here in a few moments. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Gettle. Council member No.

Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Chief. I appreciate all of the time you've spent on this and of course you and I have had several conversations and read over a hundred comments uh from the community which was much appreciated as well. I love hearing the perspective our of our community members on any of the issues that we're talking about and I do feel like we got a substantial amount of feedback on this. And so to council member Gatle's point about uh do we limit it at a certain speed and that conversation I think the ebike example is part of the equation but the scooter the electric scooter portion of the equation as a mom uh I think is where I see the most impact of having a speed or a uh motor limitation because there are also electric scooters that can get up to 30 miles an hour. And I think that if we put some sort of limit on what type of electric mobility device, what the speed could be on the sidewalks, it will prompt our parents to not purchase the really fast electric scooters. Um, and I think that would create a safer environment on our sidewalks and just for our children in general if they, you know, if they knew that if I only buy the 20 mph electric scooter, then my child can ride on the sidewalk, but if I buy the advanced super duper charged electric scooter that they're begging me for because my kids are begging me for it, too, and I refuse. They have the lower um mileage ones. um then it would give an incentive to not purchase those really fast ones. And I just feel like that would help promote safety within the community. I mean, they could still purchase them, but they would have to ride in the bike lane. Um and I think it would help promote them to say, you know what,

let's stick with the the safer scooter, the not as fast scooter. Um which I think all around is safer for this child, for pedestrians, um for everybody. So that's why I am in favor of doing some sort of a limit to um what the speed an electric mobility device can be on a sidewalk. Um I just feel like it'll it will help. And I also feel like we had a lot of people who were just concerned in general about having these electric um mobility devices on the sidewalks and I think it's a good compromise for that purpose. So, I look forward to finding out what the rest of the council thinks, but I would like to propose like a 20 mile per hour or no CL I know that the city of Mesa isn't allowing class 3 ebikes on sidewalks. Um, and I think there's different classes of scooters that we could also work with. So,

Council Member Wade, thank you, Chief. I appreciate the time. I know that you put time into it. I'd like to go back to the helmet uh conversation. So, could we go back to that slide, please?

I'm not sure that it's there. Helmets. I'm sorry. Oh, helmet. I'm sorry. Not a problem. Uh oh. Ah, recovered. There we go. I'm sorry. That's okay.

So, if speed is a factor when taking into consideration getting a device that goes higher than than the others, would not speed be considered important in the use or lack of use helmets and Would it be that? Could it be that there are young people who have made reach their maturity level 13, 14, 15 years old as opposed to some of the other skilled kids are using where a helmet may not be as restrictive as it probably should be if they're if they're younger than the than say 13 14 years old. I think my feeling on helmets is that it's um I like the idea of juveniles wearing helmets. Uh I think it's safe. Uh the code section the the code can be the code as written now says basically if you're under the age of 18, you need to wear a helmet. Um it might be helpful to parents that can point to the code and say, "Hey, it's, you know, it's not me, it's the the code. You have to abide by it." I think that would be helpful as a parent to promote the safety, but I'm actually I'm in favor of the helmet requirement.

Oh, I am too. I must, you know, full disclosure. So, how do we get there? How do we get the parents to understand what these young people are driving nowadays? I have one that has one as well, and he seems to be doing awful fast when he's using it. For me, uh,

I have some great success stories about helmets being effective. Um, one of which happened just recently where a young man was struck by a car while riding across the street on an ebike and he was wearing a helmet and it left a quite a bit of damage on the windshield of the vehicle. And I'm u I'm pretty convinced that he probably would have suffered a traumatic brain injury had he not been wearing that helmet. Mhm.

Um we have really ramped up our education efforts in reference to all of these uh two- wheeled vehicles uh so to speak to include motorcycles, ebicycles, scooters. You know, recognizing that there was a trend was one of the uh driving factors of our traffic unit just last weekend doing a a motorcycle safety riding course over at Copper Sky and now this Friday doing a a bicycle rodeo. And the more we can get the word out, you know, the better. Uh we've engaged with our our children, our our grade school kids to have a coloring contest. I'm honored to uh be one of the judges for that. So, you know, it's about education and and letting parents know that wearing a helmet could save your child's life. May not be cool. It may not look uh they may not like it, but it could save their lives.

So, we take the burden off of the parents. I'm sorry. I couldn't We take the burden off of the parents either way.

I'm happy to take the burden off the parents. You know, I got broad shoulders and the code can say, you know what, if you're under 18, uh have a chat with the police chief. I'm as my fellow council members that that's where I'm at. I think that they should have helmets. I I I'm not opposed to have being at a certain age requirement. You know, 15. We've tried to put a whole lot of stuff on 15 16 year olds starting in their maturity area. So, I'm I'm good with them having helmets at say 16 years old up to 16 years old. And after 16, they not wouldn't necessarily have to have to have it to wear the helmet.

All right. Uh, Council Member Lurman,

thank you, Chief, for your presentation. Um, I am pro helmet under the age of 18, and I also am really concerned about having unlimited motorcycleizer speed on the sidewalks. I think it's great that we're allowing these riders to use the sidewalks because our streets are not safe for them. But to have an unlimited amount of speed, it really scares me. Today I was on Alterara Parkway. There was about an 11year-old girl with a six-year-old girl in front of her going faster than me in my vehicle down the street. And I don't know how parents allow that. I honestly don't. It is terrifying to me what could happen to these children. And neither of them are wearing helmets. So, I don't understand that. Um, so I am looking forward to voting tonight on protecting our children in our community.

Thank you, Council Member Lairman. Council member Marsh, thank thanks for your hard work on this. This is important. Um, I'm wondering if there's some way we can hook up violations to training so that if if a kid gets a ticket, he has to attend some classes on the rules of the road and uh his role as an elevated pedestrian, a motorized pedestrian, they shouldn't be able to ride their vehicles across an intersection. they should walk them across. Um that's taught in the schools in many cities across the country for bicycles. Um

and yeah, intersections get complicated. Yep. happy to partner with the courts or more ideally I think that probably the the young men and women that we site. We could probably uh do a little education, you know, with the parents, with our with our traffic unit officers or whatever is appropriate, but happy to engage in that that education with young people who may get a citation. You know, an 8-year-old on a scooter doesn't know the rules of the road and couldn't pass a driver's test.

It's one of the issues that we've been facing. Council member Marsh is um you know cars and juveniles riding scooters in the same environment. You know we are trained as drivers to be predictive of driver uh behavior and uh juveniles are not. And so you know that's one of our challenges you know as we move forward with our education efforts. You know especially on right-hand turns the vast majority of our collisions that occur involving these devices are right-hand turns. Um the city manager asked me to do a study about that and that's kind of what we found was that right-hand turn vehicles waiting to proceed with their right-hand turn after stopping at a red light. All we need is a scooter to be coming up in the same direction and to get into that blind spot at the same moment that light turns green. And now we have a scooter traveling even 10 miles per hour on a fresh green across an intersection and a driver who really has no expectation,

right, that that person is even going to be there, right, making a lawful right-hand turn and the two come together and that's fine. And so, you know, part of the education campaign is kind of trying to teach our young people what to look for when they approach an intersection. You're right. They should be walking their devices across, which would help prevent that. But the reality is that I'm hoping that education can can move the needle on that.

I was driving in here this afternoon, young lady, probably 10, on an e scooter in the in the dirt alongside the road because there's no sidewalk. um carrying a backpack from school, hit a rock, flipped over, head over heels, got up and dusted herself off and went on. Um but um I'm worried about the parts of the city that don't have sidewalks and how the kids are going to learn to get through those. They should probably walk their vehicles. All right, Vice Mayor,

as someone who's wrote rode bikes for many years back and forth to work, um, not now. I'm too old for it now, but may I've been looking at the ebikes online and $900. It's a pretty good deal right now. This got a lot of good deals. My wife is like, "No." I'm like, "I'm going to get one." She's like, "No." So, I'll probably have one. Um, because I don't listen very well. But, um, uh, helmets are very important. I was on a in a motorcycle accident on the I 10 went flying down the road. My helmet was the actual foam after it ripped off all of the plastic and the mat and the glass and the and the visor and everything. I actually you saw the actual foam and my face is saved. I know it's not a big deal because it's not a good face anyway, but my face was saved from riding along the pavement and ripping it all off by wearing a helmet. So, it's very important. Helmets are important. Um the a lot of people when they see and they they see these bikes and they're like, "Oh my god, those kids are crazy. Those kids are riding like a Siron or something like that. Those are the ones without the pedals. Um they'll go 60 miles an hour. You see them doing the wheelies. We're not regulating those, but this is not what this is. This is talking about the kids who are riding the bikes with the pedals and they're following the rules, but giving them a safe option outside of the road because council member um um Bob Bob over here said um um he said there's eight-year-olds don't know the rules of the road. I know a lot of 48 year olds that don't know the rules of the road. So, I want these kids off the road and having them on the sidewalk makes sense. Um, but they have to, of course, make sure that they the pedestrian is first. So, we had the motorcycle thing last weekend. You got the bicycle rodeo coming up. We should have a uh electric bike or ebike rodeo of sorts where it's the more of the older kids or something

like that or even the young ones in the scooters and that stuff. But just explaining it. And it could be as simple as a video. It doesn't have to be the rodeo thing, but it could be simply as a video. I'd like to see horse on one of these little tiny scooters. It'll be fun. Um, let him get on there and show us how they're supposed to be ridden rod road um and stuff like that. But 100% approve. I think it's a great um a great ordinance to stick into our systems. Question though, helmets, we don't we don't require them today for regular bikes, do we? No. Does this require them for regular bikes or just ebikes? Just ebikes the way the code is currently written. Okay. And scooters. Yeah. And scooters. Ebikes. Anything electric?

Yes. Yeah. Cool. Electric or gas? Electric. Well, yeah, there are gas bikes, I guess. Yeah. Gas bikes. This will not approach those vehicles are not ebikes. They should not be ridden on the sidewalk. That would remain 100% unlawful. Yeah. Okay. And then the the other crazy thing is if you buy your kids one of the ebikes that only go 20 miles an hour and um kids are smarter than us. Um or a scooter that only goes 20 miles an hour, all you got to do is hook it up to your cell phone and and break it and it will go up to 35. A lot of them. Not all of them though. No, no, a lot of them. A lot of them. The ones I purchased, you cannot do that.

Yeah. You got to get like the really low voltage for that and then you'll keep it down. Exactly. or wattage or whatever.

All right. So, first of all, in the conversations that I've had plus any of the media post or re resident post and reading all the comments, I ended up with just gauging about a 6040. So, I think your data is very very close. And I knew that it was going to be that way because for those that I talked to, there were some that were very adamant that there are mostly scooters trying to run them over as pedestrians. So, it's important to understand that we're going to have to do a lot of education. That's going to be very important and a lot of observation from our police officers to understand what these vehicles are doing. So, I appreciate that. I do have one question in regard getting kind of a little technical in paragraph 12.030.070. It's titled it is unlawful for any person to and it has about seven bullets which I totally understand them all except for the last two. The second to last one basically says must wear a helmet. And I'm like does that is that worded correctly? Can it be refuted? um because it falls under a paragraph that says it is unlawful for any person to and then it talks about must wear a helmet. So just maybe something for legal to look at and if it's fine it's fine. It's just that it caught my eye and I'm like hm that's interesting if we're going to take it seriously. I don't want it to be something

not wear helmet not to wear hel not to wear a safety helmet when operating the bike. I mean, it'd be a double negative, but it shall be unlawful for any person to operators or writers of any listed under of this code who are under 18 of a shall shall wear. I mean, I think the purpose for sure. I mean, I think it because it starts with the neg, you know, it's unlawful for, right? But I think somebody reading it and I think or police interpreting it will if you're under 18, you have to wear a helmet. Okay. All right. as long as we feel comfortable with that wording. I just wanted to bring that up. And then what was the last bullet, Dennis?

The last bullet is violation of the section shall be treated as a civil violation of code. So again, it's not necessarily a must not do, but as long as it's understandable and it works legally, I'm okay with it. Um, so I like the sign. I think we're going to need more of them. I don't know if you have them in your budget, but something to consider since budget discussions coming up, but I really like the sign because people don't understand anything about sharing a sidewalk and so it's important to move that forward. Yeah.

Um then I want to go back. Madam Mayor, just I think if you're if the council's comfortable with it, we could just have A, B, C, and D and E and just have move F over and take out F, take out G, and just let those be part of that code, but it won't fall under the colon part of it. It would be better. Yeah, I think it might be easier to read that way. Council, you all comfortable with that? Yeah, I think it's easier. Should it say under 18? What does it currently say, Dennis? It says under 18. It does say under 18, right? It says under 18.

Okay. Very good. Yeah, I'm definitely in support of under 18. I think it keeps it simple. And then my last comment going back to your um original idea about our officers looking at behavior. I understand the whole concept that's been shared in regards to speed, but this has to be simple for our officers to interpret and understand. And I'm I guess I'm looking to you to say what is going to be the simplest process so that our officers aren't challenged with getting out the radar gun and and checking the speed of So what what is the right process? because we've had

I'm confident that our officers won't have any trouble enforcing the code. Um, you know, before I was the police chief, I actually did police work for a living and uh we write our code sections. You know, with that in mind, uh, simplicity is is important and I don't think our officers will have any issues with interpreting the code. Be it being behavior-based is really the key. If an officer sees a young person or or any person for that matter operating one of these devices in a in an overtly reckless manner, it's it's going to be a reason for a stop. I mean, we we know the difference between two people approaching the same point and kind of yielding to one another as I described earlier and then just wanting viol, you know, just wanting disregard for civility um you know, on our sidewalks or our roadways. You know, we see it every day with vehicles. we see wanting, you know, disregard for the law and or civility on our roadways. And there are far fewer pedestrians and far fewer ebike riders on our sidewalks than there are on our roadways. And our officers do an amazing job interpreting the appropriate ARS sections. And I don't think they'll have any any issue interpreting this code section as as well.

Okay. And then um we do have a couple additional comments. I just want to clarify that the way the code is written based on behavior, it won't be challenging to enforce or site. Well, we're happy to go to court. We'll write not everybody that we write a ticket to is happy about receiving it. Okay? And so that's what that's why court exists. Okay? And so we can go to court and we can explain the circumstances to an to a objective third party and that person can decide whether or not the violation existed. Perfect. and and move forward from there. Perfect. Council member Lman, I'll come back.

Council Lman, I really liked Council Member Marsh's suggestion of further education about maybe taking a class online. I don't know that we can really enforce that, but I'm wondering if a youngster is or anyone is warned or educated or ticketed if we could recommend um a site that they can go to as a parent and have their child watch an online video giving them education about walking their ebike across the street or is there something that we can do about about further education after the um visit with the officer? Well, you gave me a great idea. We've been doing Motor Monday and it's been a big it's been a big hit. It's been a big success. No reason why we can't have a special safety video starring our traffic unit uh personnel. And we can we can make a fun video that's uh educational and entertaining so that we can put it on the police department website and parents can click on it and they can sit with their their kids and watch it. and we'll make it we'll make it fun and entertaining and we'll actually demonstrate those behaviors, you know, much as we did for the walking across the intersection uh video. You know, we can make it fun but also serious at the same time.

Yeah. Council member Wade. So, that that that was kind of my question or these my question is when do we get parents engaged in this process? because right now it's just the process itself. But would there be you after two citations uh now the parent has to pay the fine or attend the class with the young person? At what point in time do we put responsibility on the person who really does have the ultimate responsibility to protect their own child?

If we site a juvenile into court, they're going to have to bring their mom and dad mom or dad or or legal guardian with them. So, uh, it's not a case where we can, you know, cite a juvenile and they just go to court on their own and appear before Judge Macarville and say, "Hey, you know, I want to plead guilty or pay the fine or whatever." Juveniles must appear in court with their parents. So, they'll be involved from the outset. Uh, just as they are when we cite them for curfew or for uh any other ARS violation, we are required to make sure that the parents are involved. Council member Nor.

Thank you, Mayor. I just want to circle back to um I agree with the training and I think that's great. You guys do great videos and so I think that would be fantastic for our uh parents and our students to be able to have that resource. Um I do think though I want to circle back to the speed um having a speed cap on uh the motor entities on the sidewalks. And another reason I think that it's important is, you know, we're talking about this today because this is a new technology, right? This is something that's evolved. This wasn't an issue five years ago. And and we're kind of I mean, it's still a new technology, right? And so it's going to continue to evolve and I'm worried that they're going to get faster. They already have, but faster and faster and faster as technology evolves. And with the code the way it's currently written, they could create a scooter that goes 60 mph and it would be legal on our sidewalks. And so I really do feel like we need to think about some sort of speed cap on electric vehicles on our sidewalks so that we don't run into that situation um in 6 months, in 12 months uh when technology evolves as it always does. And so I don't know if that means that I don't know if we can do that here tonight with the current code in a motion or if it would have to come back to us. Um but I I just and again I really do believe that the slower electric devices should be allowed on the sidewalks because of safety. I do not want kids in a bike lane on a scooter or on a smaller ebike. Um I don't even want regular bic bicyclists on in the bike lane if they don't want to be. I talked to the same man who bikes 2500 miles and he's never run into a pedestrian. So that's good data. He's never hit a pedestrian on the sidewalk. Um but he said if I have to ride in the

bike lane, I'm not riding my bike and we don't want that. Um, so I really do want to enhance our code to allow some of this be um some of these bicycles and lower speed ebikes on our sidewalks. But again, I don't want to see in 12 months a 60 mph scooter on our sidewalk and it's legal, Madame Mayor. Yes,

just a a frame of reference, the Arizona Revised Statutes also has a list of of regulations on ebikes and e- scooters and all that. And the class three under Arizona statute is actually prohibited from sidewalks unless allowed by municipalities. So in this case, we would allow the class three to be operating on the sidewalks that allows up to that 28 miles per hour. But anything above that is already restricted by state statute. And so there is, you know, as as statutes evolve and as these technologies evolve, we'll continue to see some updates to the state statute. But really that that in and of itself prohibits some of that faster speed from occurring even from today or yesterday.

Does the state statute address the e- scooters? Correct. Yeah. Anything that is is a classed vehicle. The scooters aren't classed. Yeah. I don't know. We'd have to look into that one some more. Okay. Council member Marsh. I think this was the easy one. There are several companies in several countries making dronebased flying versions of ebikes. That's coming. Oh Jesus. Well, fortunately, we have a very robust National Airspace System. And those rules are very well established and believe me, they are enforced to the letter by the Federal Aviation Administration. So don't ask me how I know.

So to to clarify everything on it, the class three means 28 or lower, right? And that would account for scooters being 28 or lower. So it technically having a speed limit in there as 28 or lower, right?

Well, I guess the de facto speed limit would be 28. I mean, I think council member No brings up a a a fair point in so much as the scooters. I don't know that they're classed, per se. Yeah, I I think what this ordinance tries to put together is the mix between statute and um I guess common sense approach to that. What the the chief's recommendation is if you're riding any vehicle above a speed that is reasonable and prudent, that can be restricted. And so whether that is an e scooter, whether that is a ebike, if it's if it's above that reasonable imprudent speed, then it can be enforced. So while statute may have one limit and and um that may have another by bringing forth that common sense approach to say hey we're creating a safety activity not necessarily looking at the speed by looking at the safety activity that is the that is what we're we're trying to enforce.

All right healthy conversation yes council member Marsh I think in most of our subdivisions the internal speed limit is 25. Could we make it 25 instead of 28? depends which subdivision you're in. Council member Marsh, uh, at least one is 30. Yeah. So, um, Meadows is 30. Yeah, I'd kind of look to the council for guidance in reference to the speed. I think 30 may be appropriate. Um, although we would need to do a modification of the current code as the proposed code is written and I'll look towards uh Mr. if it's given for uh advice in reference to whether we can do that here or whether uh we need to actually put pen to paper.

All right, council member Lurman. I'd like to propose that we allow class one and class two bikes on the sidewalk, but not class three. I don't think there's any reason why someone needs to be going above 20 miles an hour on our sidewalks. So, I'd like to amend the code to include class one and class two but exclude class three. Is that is that a motion? Yes, I would like to make that a motion. Do I have a second for that motion? Second. Okay. Conversation on that topic. Yes, I have conversation on that topic, too.

Yeah. While I concur, Council Member Lurman, I I worry though about the scooter classification because that would carve out that particular vehicle um and not or not include that particular vehicle because they're not classed similarly. Um so maybe having a hard speed limit might be the easiest solution to that that in the uh the sentence B there at a reasonable and prudent speed and under the speed of 28 miles per hour. just including that phrase in that code consistent with existing conditions might might be sufficient to to solve that additional conversations questions.

Um so I in regards to taking out class 3 I I don't wouldn't support that. I think there are a lot of people who use a class three more than likely the gentleman that you're talking about who wouldn't even write as by He has a regular bike. All right. So, I would not support taking out class three out of this ordinance. I think it's important. I think there are a lot of people that use a class 3 ebike. And then I do have the same question as council member Ghetto in regards to if the scooters are not included in classes, then you're not encompassing that definition as well. Any add? Yes. No, Madame Mayor, I just we were just looking at the state statute how they prohibit class 3 from being on the sidewalk. The state statute does. If I understand the motion in the second is to approve the ordinance uh with the amendment that it be a class one and class two uh be allowed on the sidewalks in the city of Maricopa. That's the motion and a second.

That's correct. All right. Additional conversation. Mayor, one one extra point, mayor, as well. Yes. The electric scooter in statute is defined as having a speed of 20 miles per hour or less. Think 20. 20. So basically a class one or class two if you put the equivalent number. Yeah. So then but they're not classed. Correct. Yeah. So electric scooter is specifically defined in statute as having a speed a maximum well a maximum of speed that does not exceed 20 miles per hour. Okay. So then for purposes of this code, the scooter could not go over 20 miles per hour. Correct.

Okay. Yeah, I think we'll need to make that clear. But that's why I think it's just best if we have a speed limit because people don't know that state statute and a lot of scooters go faster than Can you clarify the state statute that you just read about um class three? What the state statute is about class three? Which aspect? Council member, um I think Dennis just read it. Is it not allowed on the sidewalk per state statute? Class three under state statute says they cannot be on sidewalks unless allowed by a municipality. Oh, thank you very much. Thank you, Council Member Wade.

So, excuse me. I'm still a little concerned and confused about helmets whether or not we are going to propo propose that between a certain age or after a certain age before a certain age helmets are allowed after that age then they would not they would not be or before the age and after the age it would before the age it would not after the age they would be allowed and what age would that be I'm personally in favor of under 18 that's what the ordinance That's what the ordinance currently states. Okay. Below the age of 18, helmets would be required. Vice Mayor, I'm good with that.

According to state ordinance, ARS code, if we're going to say no to class three, we don't need this ordinance. So, we're talking about it for no reason except helmets. Yeah. In reality, I mean, because state statute allows class one, class two, and scooters on sidewalks. What we're sitting here doing is allowing the class three class three. If you want to allow class three on sidewalks and if you don't want to allow class three, we don't even need to pass this. Correct. Okay. But

but we're here because we want to pass or with the discussion was to pass something that allows ebikes to be on the roads. And most ebikes sold today on on the side on the sidewalk. Sorry. Most ebikes sold today are the class 3 bikes. The new ones that you see online, they're all the class three because they go up to 28. They're all advertised as going up to 28 miles an hour. So essentially the the big push that people have getting ebikes right now and the reason for us having this discussion and the reason for us talking about allowing them on the road is because there's so many of them being sold. But the reality is if we pass without class three, we did nothing because they're already not allowed. and one and two are already allowed on roads.

So the whole point of it is to bring safety to the people of Maricopa, right? And safety is, I believe, being able to ride your ebike um and use your ebike even on the sidewalk as long as pedestrians have full right of way. Wear a helmet if you're under 18. Use your brain. Don't go too crazy on the roads. The scooter problem is solved because scooters are technically not allowed to go over 20 miles an hour anyway. Um yeah, I don't see why we have to restrict it to only one and two. Um we should leave it as class one, two, and three on the roads. I I don't know. Just in my opinion, but and if we want to exclude class three, then we just don't even have to have a vote. Um because we already allow everything we are allowing is already allowed under state statute

in my opinion. I don't know. Thank you. I thank you Vice Mayor Man Freddy. I do want to have that clarified for myself in anticipation of the vote. If already existing law I I'm this is a question. Existing law allows class one and class two ebikes and scooters under 20 miles per hour on the sidewalks. That's already legal. Okay, that's good to know. Thank you.

I'm going to make one clarifying point in why I think all classes of ebikes should be allowed. I do believe I wish I had the stat that the majority of ebikes that people are purchasing, especially adults, is probably considered class three. I wish I had that factual information. However, what we keep forgetting is that there are so many roads in the city of Maricopa that do not have bike lanes. And I don't want any of those bicyclists, even if they own a class 3, out on the road, you know, especially if there are no bike lanes um and feeling uncomfortable with their safety. I think that's important to me. I hope it's important to all of you. Um but that's where I stand on this considering what the roads especially the um um principal arterial roads have in regards to offering of bike lanes and the lack thereof. Yes, city manager.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Just a clarification, state statute allows for class one and class 2 bicycles, ebikes, sea scooters, whatever, anywhere we want. Per our city code, which is the code proposed to be amended. It says uh it shall be unlawful for any person to ride or operate a bicycle, a motorized play vehicle, or a non-motorized scooter except on roadways, etc., etc. And so what the the proposal here is really to adjust our city code again perhaps the most significant thing coming out of of this code um adjustment is that we have this component of education and we can all come together as a community and say this is what we've decided this is where we are this is clear and then have the continuing education to make things safe. But as it stands today, our city code prohibits uh motorized vehicles on the sidewalk basically.

Thank you. All right. Any additional conversations, questions? All right. I do have a motion and a second on the table. Repeat the pardon me. Repeat the motion. Would you repeat the motion, council member? It was Oh, I'm sorry. Council L. I motion to pass the code that as written with the exception of class three.

Please vote. I'm still not there. There's no provision for helmets. All right, that results in two yes and five nos. That motion does not carry. Madam May, I'd like to make a motion. Yes, council member Ghetto. I'd like to make a motion to pass the amendment as proposed here today. I'm sorry, one more time. I'd like to make a motion to to pass and accept the ordinance as written. What about the change? Yeah, there's a change.

What about the change that the mayor brought up? about the making sure the helmets are required. Oh yes. Yes. So um they're going to move item F, which is a little change with the movement of item F and G into their own paragraphs. Okay. Do I have a second? Second.

I have a second from Vice Mayor. Any additional conversation questions? Please vote. All right, that motion carries with a 61. Thank you very much. That was item 8.4. Now 8.5 is the same presentation. And is there any additional comments, questions? And do I have a motion?

What what is the difference on this? The uh next uh 26-09 essentially prohibits jaywalking. Oh, that's the section. Okay, very good. Very good. Any comments, questions on that particular item? Move to approve. Okay, I have a motion to approve. Seconded by Council Member Marsh. Any additional conversation? I just want to thank staff and chief for adding this code. Um, I have been concerned about people

being um in unsafe areas of our roadways for both the person and our vehicles. And so I'm really grateful for this. Thank you very much. Yeah, I completely agree. It's so it's an endless conversation like why do we allow that? So I think it's a great modification. Yeah. All right. Please vote. Don't believe me? I think I did already. Who is it?

There we go. That motion carries. 70. Chief Goodman, you probably didn't realize you were going to be such a significant part of tonight's meeting, did you? I'm glad to be here. Thank you. I love it. Thanks for all the discussion and consideration. I appreciate I love it. Thank you. And thank you for all the work that you and your staff did. Appreciate it. All right, that'll take us to item 8.6. Rudy, are you ready for us?

All right, mayor, council members, uh Rudy Lopez, home services director for the city. Um uh the this Gallup ordinance that's presented to you will authorize um the city to improve street infrastructure on vacant properties in advance of development to support transition connectivity rather than delaying needed improvements. Uh the scallop ordinance as presented also establishes a cost recovery system framework through assessments on the on benefiting properties ensuring the growth related infrastructure is delivered while also receiving costs. Uh the or the ordinance also supports the city's objective that le that lands development that land development should pay for its own improvements as well while improving necessary roads then deferring to later dates that typically cost more to the city in itself and even potential future developments as well. The ordinance in front of you that's part of your agenda packet includes general provisions, applicability, notice of assessments, payment collection and appeal process. Um, in general, again, the ordinance supports the city's objective that land development should pay for infrastructure while improving necessary road improvements, then deferring to later date. Again, this is a a scallop ordinance that it's a it's another tool to our development services toolbox. Um, you know, with with small localized um projects. A good example that I can see that's being utilized is speaking of the flip side of not having sidewalks. Uh Porter Road, uh with the recent development of EVR on Bolan and um Porter Road itself, that corner itself um being that the DVR did an improvements, but that corner itself was not properly improved. We're waiting for that private development to take on. If this ordinance was in place back then, we could have put assessment leans on that corner property to build the remaining portion that of of that road improvements, including sidewalk connectivity there, but also put the assessment on that property when the ready to develop itself. So, this is

another good tool to have in our bucket of of or our our kit of tools um to make sure that uh we do have proper improvements being done when developments is occurring as well. Um, mayor, council members be more happy to answer any questions if any. Very good. Vice Mayor

Rudy, correct me if I'm wrong, right? And I'm wrong a lot, but correct me if I'm wrong. This allows for if somebody has a large piece of property and they need an egress, ar a de acceleration lane, say on that piece of property to develop a property, but they're building on it maybe four or five different businesses, right? A developer. Um, but the one business, the first right now, the first one that builds has to do all of those improvements and they bear the cost of all those improvements unless they have an internal development agreement that allows them to then charge the next one coming in. Correct.

Correct. With the adjacent property owners, but this will put the on making sure that the adjacent property also pays a fair share when the rate for development

by statute by statute, but we would be then possibly we would actually make the improvements, right? I mean, obviously, and then we would say all five of those businesses that are going to be in that area or six or 10 or whatever, or six or seven, as the mayor likes to say, um, we'll be able to put a lean basically on the land so that when each one of them develops, they would wind up paying the city back the money we spent on fixing and making those improvements. and it would solve a lot of problems especially with large pieces of land and individual um buildings or investments coming into that land because right now it's first in first pay I mean or pay all actually so you're first to build on a piece of property you're paying everything um a prime example is like um those folks who uh did the Amco right they built a lot of that infrastructure there and now there's going to be Black Rockck Coffee and Waterburger I think is looking at it or whatever it is, but they're not going to pay for any of those infrastructure costs unless they would have had a development agreement in place in the first place or there was a scallop lean on land they're going to buy. So either or. So this right here is just a brilliant to me brilliant way for us to get this done and it happened from a real life example here in the city of Maricopa where the city manager met with the business owner um and you guys all came up with a great idea. This is the great idea and it's going to allow for us to really help foster in an investment within the city by small and medium-sized businesses because in in reality the big one the the Home Depot the Lowe's they don't need this right who needs this are the smaller startup businesses the medium-sized startup businesses that really need the help from the city and I think it's a great idea 100% in support

thank you very much additional comments questions council member no

thank Thank you, mayor. Um, I just want to thank staff for putting this together. Uh, just for the public's um, knowledge, uh, part of this did arise out of the discussion, uh, where Zekees was going to pull out and, um, part of that was because Zeke was going to have to do all of the infrastructure improvements, but there were going to be other businesses that were going to be utilizing those down the road. And so based on all those discussions um we were a staff put together this um code change that is going to help businesses hopefully Zeke's but not if not Zeke's others in the future to avoid that situation and to really spur development. Um, I do believe that there are situations now and in the past where people have waited to build to have their neighbor do it or to have somebody else so that they could then benefit from that public infrastructure and now we won't have that problem um because everyone will get to pay their fair share which is wonderful and there will be no waiting um the improvement can be done. My question is on the I know it's too late now because we're adopting the code, but just for my own personal edification, the infrastructure improvement we're doing at Cobblestone, if we had this code, would we have been able to lean that property?

I think probably yes. Right. That's why this is good.

Yeah. I I think there are different caveats to all of it and really this process is is set forth where it's permiss permissible under state statute. Again, this is really us putting it into our code as it relates to that process that we must follow. And one of those steps involves declaring that it's a a public uh to the public benefit. And so it would have to become a city project. So in the case that you're referencing, obviously that is a city project and we just have to have taken a few extra steps, do the appraisal, do the, you know, some of those things that are required to ensure that that property owner is given due process. Now, in this case, that property owner has signed over that authority to us. And so I I think it probably could have been. It's just a matter of getting some of those technical things lined up as it relates to the statute itself.

Right. Great. Thank you.

Perfect. Yes, Council Member Regettle. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Um, I am very excited to see this come before us tonight. I think it'll be a great tool for our city. I I want to throw a couple of maybe unintended consequences of this and and please help me clarify where I might be misunderstanding. So, I want to make sure we're doing things appropriately. So, two thoughts. Number one, um, by the ordinance that's presented here tonight, the city would be allowed to pick and choose which projects would fall under a scallop provision. Does that run a foul of, let's say, the gift clause? Because invariably, we are going to have to decline this opportunity for other developers that don't quite meet the safety requirements that maybe we would be using to judge. So, is there any concern with applying this provision to certain developers and not being able to apply or choosing not to apply that scallop provision to other developers?

Yeah, I think great great question, council member. I think that's specifically why the state put it into statute to allow it as an option. Um, ultimately because these must be city projects, we will be limited by the amount of funds we have available for said projects. And so if, for example, a project comes forth that may cost $5 million and we only have a million dollars budgeted for all of these in a year, then that's not likely one we'd be able to do. That wouldn't run a foul of the gift clause violation. It's simply a matter of of budget and project capacity. And because that underlying statute allows for this type of project to move forward if the certain requirements are met.

Thank you. That clarifies quite a bit. The the other second or the second unintended consequence I'm thinking of is will this in any way deter development and maybe an underserved or underdeveloped properties that aren't on the major arterial way. If I'm a developer and I'm looking at two locations, one's got maybe more visibility on a major artillery. The other one might be a little cheaper, a little less expensive, but it's in a neighborhood. But if I don't get that scallop vision for the cheaper property, I may be wanting to really build on that major arterial. You see what I'm saying? Is that then going to maybe present an unintended consequence of leaving portions of our city underdeveloped because I can get a better deal if I put it out here on this major arterial?

Yeah, again, another great question. I think in practice what has occurred, we've modeled our ordinance off of multiple other cities across the state and what we've seen from multiple cities is that really these are are few and far between. They're largely for projects where maybe, for example, they can't get the property owner to agree to to develop this property. And ultimately, there's a 10-year uh payback allowance. So if they don't pay that lean back within 10 years, then it actually disappears.

And I think going back to your first question, that's where the gift clause um was satisfied because it serves that purpose uh that public purpose for the the 10 years. But you know, as to where there are winners and losers under these types of agreements, our hope is that we just help and do the best that we can under the the statutes that we we have that allow us to move forward. And so really that, you know, we're going to have to look at these on a case- by case basis where they come in and based off of the budget available. Um it's that's the best that we can do.

And then just also to clarify, currently our city code does allow a developer to come in and place individual leans on those other properties without the scolop scallop ordinance. That would be a private um civil matter. Uh I don't know that a private property owner could place a lean on his neighboring property. Okay.

Um under state statute, but that would be something that uh they'd have to go to court about. Uh really what what we've traditionally the method we've traditionally used on these type of things is development agreements. And so if we can get let's say there are four properties that are seeking to develop or needing to develop in the future uh we would create four individual development agreements and say as you develop this property before you you know pull your building permit or x y or z you would have to pay that fee or pay the amount or the the amount that we've paid you'd have to pay that back before we process that building fee. This provides a little bit simpler process because it's not development agreements that have different different terms and that have to be managed on a on a very heavy administrative level. This is something that is clear and transparent and rides with the land which is often beneficial for those that are developing because they may seek be seeking for entitlements and then selling it to someone that is going to actually develop the property. And so then it would be that property owner that actually develops that would be paying for the for the scallop in this case or the lean. Um and so in in some instances it's it's actually preferred by the property owner. But there are variety of methods that can can be done. This is just providing another tool in the toolkit.

Yeah. And I I only bring up these issues. But I'm a little concerned with the the taxpayer liability in all of this where the previous or the sorry the current standard is to allow that burden to be shared by those developers and the city's not a part of it. U by passing this ordinance the city would step into that position and be using taxpayer funds to ensure that these projects be able to move forward in the benefit of public safety. Um, so that's kind of a a line there that I want to be kind of careful as we cross it here this evening. I I do believe this is a great tool. Um, and I think if we have some safeguards in place of the amount of money in in this particular project's fund uh budget line would be appropriate and those are conversations for another day. But um, thank you very much for the clarification. It's helped me.

Yeah. Yeah. Mayor, council members, if I can add, that's why it comes back to council to make that discretion on a case- by case basis. If if that project is can be justified as to do the scallop program and it we feel that you know staff and support of by by council makes sense to to enact that knowing that there's potential we we'll get that money back within the within the 10 years. So every side's going to be different.

Very good. So I want to applaud staff. Um, this all has happened and transpired in a matter of maybe under two months. I'm not quite sure. I know I originally had a conversation with Ben um speaking on on the topic of one small business developer and sharing the concern and I said, "What tools do we need to add that makes this a little easier for small businesses?" And Ben shared with me immediately the Scallop ordinance. And I'm I know we talked with other council members and we decided to move forward on getting it drafted and really in a short matter of time it's drafted in here in front of us. A very good tool for our council to have. Um going to Council Member Ghetto's concerns, I 100% agree that it's something that you're going to want to have a tight control on. And I think what's nice is that we're not going to have a lot of money to provide this type of a service and it's going to have to meet a community value. To me, that's huge. Whether it's like a small business wants to bring office space and we need office space so bad, but you know, the fact that um this a a particular element is just puts them just right over the edge. this allows us to be able to help them and the adjacent land owners um to be able to get that project moving because there's community value. So, I think we're going to have to look at it very closely, understand why we're approving it, and understand that as we have been saying and sharing through our through all of our budget discussions, our budget is limited. So, um it's not going to be something that we can do for every project. It's going to definitely have to have community value. Um, I was also going to say in regards to the example that was used in terms of

I'm gonna I, you know, I kind of like this internal road, but if I can get a better deal, I'm going to do it on a major thoroughfare. Um, the way I see it and when we talk about the gift clause, it's not a gift. They actually have to pay their share of the road improvement. And so to me it it you know they don't have to pay all of it and get deals with the other land owners um in this particular ordinance but they still have to pay their fair share. So it probably you know will weigh out very nicely. Um I do have one question that I didn't see answered and that is just for education for our public and understanding. It's my understanding that you would not the city would not proceed with an improvement until that first land owner is ready to pay their portion of the fee or how will that work because we don't want to be off doing things that are perceived going to happen um and spending taxpayer money and then not for that project to happen. So in what order does it happen and how do we protect our taxpayers? Yeah, I think the the critical element of that 10year shot clock is is very important. We don't want to start that shot clock before we absolutely have to.

And so really the the goal of it, I think, would be to talk to any of the property owners that are affected once we get that assessment and understand what those amounts would be and what the project would consist of. talking to each of those property owners and understanding what their timelines might look like and certainly if we can get some of those prepayments instead of filing the lean that would be beneficial to both parties and so we'd look to do that as well. So it will depend on every case. Sure. Um I think that those would be part of any presentation that we would make in terms of a recommendation for approving a project. Very good. Additional comments, questions. Do I have a motion? Motion to approve. Motion to approve by council member Nor. Do I have a second?

Second. Second by council member Marsh. Any additional comments, questions? Please vote.

Council member Wade, just vote a yay or a nay, please. Yes, he votes yes. He said I vote yes. Okay. All right. So, that motion approves 70. Thank you very much. That takes us to item 8.7. And this will be Josh Bowman presenting.

Good evening, Mayor and Council. Great to be with you tonight. Um, so the next two agenda items are uh related. Um so some of the discussion uh might cross over between the two. Um so I'll start with the first agenda item the um uh realignment um uh right of first refusal and option agreement. Um so this agreement is related to about 72 acres of land on the southwest corner of 238 and LMER road. Thought you were looking for me. All right. So um this agreement uh so the the 72 acres currently has uh seven different parcels. Um this uh realignment agreement when change the boundaries of those parcels. Um the city currently has uh just over 12 acres of land. This realignment would um redraw those lines with a city retaining uh closer to 15 acres of land. Um, this also grants um one of those parcel property owners an option to purchase um a portion of the remaining city-owned land um within two years and also grants them a right of first refusal within five years. Um so can answer some specific questions about what those parcel lines look like. Those are of course are um as exhibits in the agreement. um and happy to kind of answer any questions as it relates to that.

So Josh, we will vote on them separately, but can you distinguish the difference between the two? Absolutely. Uh sure can, mayor. Um so the as I said, so this first agenda item is that realignment agreement. Um the second uh agreement um is related to a lease of a portion of the remaining land. Um so uh currently the uh land um under this lease condition is that 12 acres. Um the new lease agreement because the realignment um would now be leasing closer to 5 acres.

Any comments, questions from council? Seeing none, do I have a motion? So moved by council member Lairman. Do I have a second? Second. Seconded by council member no. an opportunity for additional comments, questions on item 8.7. Seeing none, please vote.

And um vice mayor has stepped out. So Vanessa, can we go with a six zero? one abstain as he has stepped out. So that motion carries. Thank you very much. That'll take us on to item 8.8 and we have the same information that Josh has presented. Do I have any comments, questions? Seeing none, do I have a motion? So move. So moved by council member Lman. Do I have a second? Second. Seconded by council member Wade. One last opportunity for comments, questions. Seeing none, please vote.

And well, yep. Very good. So, that vote carries and is approved with a six yes and one abstain because of needing to step out for a second. All right, that brings us to the end of our agenda. Thank you all for sticking around and listening to the great conversation. This meeting is a journey.